Recently I read a post over on the RPG Corner about using one system for the Dungeon Master and one separate one for the players. This sounded like a fascinating idea to me. Many of the commentators chimed in with good thoughts, like “how do you reconcile the appearance of disparate magic systems?” That last question makes the assumption that your game setting has distinct spells that players need to be able to recognize.
What if the setting assumed magic could produce wondrous effects, and that its practitioners had mysterious powers that no one but them could understand?
The discussion on the RPG Corner post, however, limited itself pretty drastically by sticking only to Dungeons & Dragons or derivatives thereof for its rules material. What if we brought other, completely different, systems into this mix? Say… Savage Worlds? Or Ingenium? Or even jump the setting gap altogether, and use Mutants & Masterminds?
Before you start yelling about this not being in keeping with the Old School philosophy, allow me to explain. This is completely in keeping with the Old School Revival – not because it adheres to rules sets with decades under their belts, but because it relies heavily on a distinctly OSR concept: that the purpose of the game is to explore the unknown, conquer danger, outwit enemies, and develop a story that keeps all of its players and the GM engaged. Newer games like 4E could be played like this, and are, but for the most part they tend towards being tactical games rather than role-playing games.
So here’s my proposal.
At the start of a campaign, before the first session, let the players choose a rules set to play by. They can choose anything, as long as the GM is at least passingly familiar with it, and all of the players must adhere to it.
The GM then chooses a system to use as the behind-the-scenes crunch. The players don’t need to be aware of the system.
The part that you need to think about here is bridging the two in terms of common situations. The players need a solid turn order, and damage and ability usage need to be abstracted enough that they can be converted between the two systems on the fly. This is easier than it sounds, as long as you set this up beforehand. This is why the GM needs to be familiar with the players’ system.
As an example, let’s say the players are using Savage Worlds and the GM is using Labyrinth Lord. Turn order in Savage Worlds is handled via poker cards as initiative, with Jokers being wild. To reconcile this with Labyrinth Lord, where initiative is determined via a roll, the GM might use 3d20 as his initiative roll instead of the usual. Granted, this changes the probability of the NPCs going first rather drastically in their favor, but no one ever said the game had to be fair – just fun, for everyone involved.
Savage Worlds has a concept of “Edges” and “Hindrances” similar to other games’ Advantages and Disadvantages. Labyrinth Lord has no analogue to this. However, the vast majority of these are things that the players themselves have to work out, and this has no bearing on Labyrinth Lord. For example, one Edge is “Quick,” and lets the player redraw initiative cards until he has a 6 or higher.
Combat is the toughest to bridge between Savage and LL. Savage Worlds uses wound levels and has exploding dice – that is, if you roll the highest number on a die, you get to roll it again and add the two together (potentially infinitely). However, there is a way to get the two systems to play nice together. NPCs still roll their usual damage dice, but set a specific amount of damage as equivalent to a Shake or Wound result that makes sense for the PCs’ power level. Status effects like poison or daze have equivalent rules in both systems that are relatively simple.
Whenever the two systems you’re using collide in a way that seems unbridgeable, use whatever resolution is the most fun for everyone.
So what do you think? If you’ve ever combined two systems in this way, how did it work out for you?