Interesting option for new Traveller world/culture

[Shadowdancer]

I saw an ad in Dragon magazine issue No. 300 for a d20 product called "XCrawl." It's a campaign setting that basically is our modern world with magic, monsters, demihumans and other D&D trappings -- similiar I guess to "Shadowrun," but not exactly.

Anyway, the driving force of this setting is that adventurers (the PCs and others) are extreme sport stars. They go into designed dungeons to fight monsters and overcome traps as a team sport, which is very popular. It is broadcast via television to the whole planet. The popular teams and players get endorsement deals. It's got elements of "The Running Man," "Gladiator," ESPN's "The X-Games" and the WWF. Certainly an original take on D&D.
You can check out their webpage here: Pandahead Productions

Since this setting is d20, it should be compatable to a great extent to T20. This might make an interesting new planet or culture for travellers to encounter in their journeys through space. I don't know how prevalent magic is in the world, but I'm sure much of that could be eliminated or attributed to high-tech or psionics. The elves and dwarves could be minor races either from the planet where the games take place, or from other nearby systems.

Like T20, the product is currently at the printer. I'm curious enough about it to take a look at it when it reaches the game stores.

 

[hunter]

By coincidence, the guy that is publishing XCrawl also works over at my FLGS, Dr. No's.

Nice guy, looks like a great d20 supplement too! I like everything I've seen and heard so far about the concept of it. I'm not a huge Fantasy fan myself, but XCrawl is something that might bring me to the table for some good old fashion mayhem and hype! Sports Entertainment crossed with the old fashioned dungeon crawl. Gotta love it!

I could see this setting done in Traveller with the modifications you mentioned.

The other setting/rpg I can see done as a Traveller world is Blue Planet. With VERY minor adjustment, you could drop Blue Planet into any Traveller campaign, particularly the OTU.

Hunter

 

[tim_manley]

This is dramatically close to a 2nd Ed D&D campaign I ran as a work lunch-time campaign a long time ago. It was called "Adventure Island".

The difference was that it wasn't set in modern days; but the dungeon crawls were 'broadcasted' via large public scrying pools across the unified world. Players gained XP and gold and Reputation based on the difficulty of the dungeon they crawled through. The longer and more engenious the meant that they gained more notoriety.

Players were doing WWF type stuff (well, before the way it is today) and choosing odd armor and interesting weapon combinations. Actually, the adventures that they ran through were quite enjoyable as they played it up and gained more reputation points the more 'entertaining' it was.