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[mainiac]

So I'm pondering the idea of running a PBP game of DnD 3.5 but set in the real world with no magic classes or equipment.  Crazy I know but it might just work.  The science fiction behind the setting would be that a plague sweeps through the world in the middle 21st century that induces aphasia in the written language center of the brain.  Because this disease doesn't kill people it spreads to nearly everyone and almost the entire population of the world is rendered illiterate.  Technology is steadily lost with too few literate people able to maintain it.  By the mid 22nd century governments and old social structures are collapsing and the world is getting divided between warlords and petty tyrants.  The campaign would start soon after the dissolution of the US government in a world where people scavange and work to scrape by while still surrounded by the legacy of the past golden age.

While DnD is balanced around the fighter classes using magical weapons and armor to keep up with the difficulty curve, that wont be an issue with this setting.  There wont be spellcasters or magical monsters, just mundane enemies that will face a similar power curve.  That isn't ruling out the possibility of fighting exotic stuff like a tank or mutant beasts but the power of encounters will take into account the lack of magic.

Available equipment will be more crude then in DnD or D20 modern.  While modern weapons like assault rifles exist they are rare and expensive so players should be thinking more in terms of single shot zip guns at the start at least.  While it would be possible to use a Greatsword or a Katana those would be rare compared to easily made weapons like one handed axes or spears.  Cars are expensive relics of the past so expect to walk or use beasts or burden.

In terms of classes the four stabby classes dont need much tweaking to fit in.

Barbarian: Fits the setting and doesn't need to be changed at all.  City brawler barbarian variant might also be neat for someone who grew up in the mean streets.

Fighter: Pretty much good to go out of the box and customizable anyway.  Add personal firearms proficiency to the list of fighter bonus feats.  Fighters are illiterate by default because of the mass illiteracy of the population.  Add knowledge (tactics) to class skills.

Ranger: Non magical setting so doesn't get spells starting at level 4.  Instead gains 2nd favored enemy at level 4, improved combat style at level 5 and +10 movement in medium armor or less at level 6.  If the ranger has an animal companion it has no special qualities beyond what a well trained animal can do.  An animal companion is not free and must be paid to acquire and take care of as normal but the ranger doesn't pay a premium price for it's training.  Rangers are illiterate by default because of the mass illiteracy of the population.  Ranger favored enemies cant be humans in general but should refer to some sort of organization, ideology, nemesis or the like.

Rouge: Non magical setting so Use Magic Device and Decipher Script aren't in the class skills.  Add knowledge (popular culture) and knowledge(streetwise) to class skills.  Rogues are illiterate by default because of the mass illiteracy of the population.

Monks: Having your fists count as magical weapons isn't too useful in this setting so monks receive the Literate feat for free at level 4.

If players are interested in playing a variant class from some other rulebook I'm open to suggestions.  I'm currently playing around with the idea of creating a homebrew class that takes non spell abilities from both Bard and Paladin but I'm still ironing out the details of that.  This class would represent the rare people who aren't affected by the illiteracy.

In this setting it is not possible to buy literacy with skill points.  Instead if a character wants to become literate they need to get a feat for it.

Literate: The forgetting disease doesn't affect you as strongly as most people.  With careful practice and iron will it is possible for you to master basic reading and writing.  You can read at a rate of thirty words a minute and can write at a rate of five words per minute.

So what do people think of this idea?  Could a non-magical game of DnD work?

[mainiac]

So not a lot of interest then.  Is it the setting that's turning people off or is 3.5 just not what the cool kids play anymore?

[Tawa]

You'd probably be better off using modified d20 Modern, TBH. People expect magic swords and wizards and demons when they hear D&D.

[mainiac]

The problem with D20 modern is it's pretty bland.  Fighters, Rogues, Barbarians and Rangers are all very flavorful classes while D20 modern offers very generic choices.

[Draignean]

Well, TBH, the D&D system without magic is pretty bland. I mean, you take out the Dragons of D&D and you've just got D, which isn't particularly thrilling all by its lonesome. Humanity on its own isn't particularly thrilling either, we only get cool when we start hijacking the brains of the dead and injecting their thoughts into our minds so that we can copy away the best facets of their existence. Having contractual illiteracy kinda buggers that ability.

So, I think you took away the coolest aspect of D&D and greatest special ability of the human race in one fell swoop. I'd still be interested in playing IF it was well written, but I'd be interesting in a game titled: "Damp'N'Amorous - Potato Mating Simulator", if it was well written. So that's not exactly saying much.

[mainiac]

Actually all that's left is the "N" because the US doesn't have too many dungeons. :p

What attracts me about the DnD system for this is that it's pretty versatile but offers templates that are already good to go.  I can put challenges in front of the players and have the difficulty calibrated appropriately.  It's easy to take something new like a molotov cocktail or a sailboat and adapt it to DnD.  In fact I can just steal a lot of stuff from modern d20 and create a glorious hodgepodge.

Widespread illiteracy doesn't mean people aren't allowed to copy the past!  It just means they get more creative and inaccurate about it.   They hear a story about the knights of the round table on the radio or hear about Ninja from their grandfather and they take the elements that seem relevant to them.  They dont open up wikipedia and discover the boring truth.  The ability for word of mouth to create and then preserve awesome traditions is pretty impressive.

And yeah only humans, but I think humans are pretty darn interesting.  If I say that neonazis are setting up checkpoints in Philadelphia or that a man claiming to be Jesus reborn is the new ruler of St. Louis it paints a pretty vivid picture pretty quickly.  Maybe that's just me though, I never understood the fascination with obscure races in DnD.  Okay so you are a hybrid grey elf and sea orc... what the heck does that mean beyond a statblock?

[Draignean]

Ah, but widespread illiteracy means there can be no progress. Humanity can copy the past, but, without the written word, the copies are made by rough description and experimentation. Inferior at best, stick figure parodies that corrupt the very memory of the object they ape at worst. A story can be passed from generation to generation, the science necessary to create a marvel like the large hadron collider cannot. Even the pyramids of egypt required calculations done on papyrus. The end of writing is the end of math, the end of math is the end of society. Taking the ability to read away from people... That debases humanity on a level that a nuclear strike never could.  It's a very depressing setting.

Magic in a setting, of any kind, lends a sense of wonder. Neonazis in Philadelphia and Jesus in St. Louis are interesting, but, at the end of the day, you're still just stoving in a guy's head with a pipe. It could be fun, but I couldn't get into it because humanity would be too screwed to recover. The setting kills it for me, because there is no hope for humanity, no room for change.

As for the inhuman races in D&D, they add to a narrative. The fact that a person is grey elf/sea orc isn't that inherently interesting, it's a bunch of random words mangled together, it's about the story of how that union came about. It's about the culture of the gray elves, sea orcs, and whatnot. Fantasy settings are, often, about the examination of very specific aspects of humanity, highlighted and purified. For me, the things aren't the big draw, it's about the stories in things. Regular bolas are cool and effective, but what about bolas made from three severed heads tied together by their ponytails that scream and bite when thrown? Even cooler. Now, better even than that, there's going to be a story behind the severed head bolas that there never will be in a mundane object. Even if I never learn the story, I still know it's there.

In short, I like the story above all else (see damp potato sex analogy on my last post), and I can only see one ending to a story where humanity loses the ability to write. Atavism is just too depressing a way to go.

[My Name is Immaterial]

I would be interested.
Would you allow non-PHB classes that don't cast spells or use magic, like the spell-less variant Rangers and Paladins, the Scout, the Marshall and the Knight.
Also, the 'Rangers must pay for their companion' earns my disapproval.
Why no monks?
As to the non-human races, the apocalypse, likely nuclear weapons, caused mutations and deformities. This could lead to the unmutated, or 'humans', becoming both racists and paranoid about becoming irradiated.

[mainiac]

Ah, but widespread illiteracy means there can be no progress. Humanity can copy the past, but, without the written word, the copies are made by rough description and experimentation.

Ooooooh, I really dropped the ball in saying what the point is.

The point isn't illiteracy forever.  The point is that there is a crisis right now.  Eventually they will cure the virus and the recovery will start.  Maybe the recovery will start before they even cure the virus.  The thing though is that people are struggling to make it through the darkness before the dawn.  They even know that the virus resistant population is trending upwards, it's just going from 1% to 2% isn't enough to stop the problems in the present day.

There are still literate people in the world.  The rich people sitting comfy at the top of the tall towers got there because they are the ones who can still read, the one eyed man in the world of the blind.  There are isolated communities they avoided exposure to the virus entirely and are revered as mystical creatures of the ancient world.  The legacy of the past still lives on very strongly, it's just a rough spot.

My thinking is very much influenced by the historical fall of Rome.  It's not like one day the Goths usurped the emperor and the next day there was France and Italy and Tunisia.  Political orders get overrun but Roman traditions lived on and were an integral part of the new order.  That's why I picked the US instead of say Ukraine or Brazil.  The US influences the world so much that just the legend of the not too distant American glory will still be there.  That's why it's the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the government instead of say, 200 years later.

Would you allow non-PHB classes that don't cast spells or use magic, like the spell-less variant Rangers and Paladins, the Scout, the Marshall and the Knight.

I didn't think those classes were popular but all three would be allowed.  I dont remember the skill lists off the top of my head so you might need to tweak them.

Why no monks?

Because a having your fists count as magical weapons is a useless ability in this setting.  But then that's not the biggest problem in the world so yeah, monks are ok.

As to the non-human races, the apocalypse, likely nuclear weapons, caused mutations and deformities. This could lead to the unmutated, or 'humans', becoming both racists and paranoid about becoming irradiated.

I would be open to mutation rules I guess.  There could be entire villages with a particular characteristic change perhaps.

[Stirk]

Regular bolas are cool and effective, but what about bolas made from three severed heads tied together by their ponytails that scream and bite when thrown?a

Bolas aren't very effective weapons, which is why nobody really used them. They where more of a tool used for hunting, catching run away cows (well after the invention of gunpowder), and generally stopping things from escaping. Why they did have some use by the Inca army, and only the Inca army so far as I can tell, and where not that useful (they could trip someone, basically, or break a bone. Slings where more effective at the bone breaking part which is why they where used worldwide).

*Stirk vanishes in a puff of pointless trivia smoke!*

[Draignean]

Regular bolas are cool and effective, but what about bolas made from three severed heads tied together by their ponytails that scream and bite when thrown?a

Bolas aren't very effective weapons, which is why nobody really used them. They where more of a tool used for hunting, catching run away cows (well after the invention of gunpowder), and generally stopping things from escaping. Why they did have some use by the Inca army, and only the Inca army so far as I can tell, and where not that useful (they could trip someone, basically, or break a bone. Slings where more effective at the bone breaking part which is why they where used worldwide).

*Stirk vanishes in a puff of pointless trivia smoke!*

Let me revise my earlier statement: Regular bolas are cool and effective weapons in D&D. I've never used a bola in real life and I'm nearly certain I'd strangle myself if I tried, so I can't vouch for anything beyond RPG mechanics.

Ah, but widespread illiteracy means there can be no progress. Humanity can copy the past, but, without the written word, the copies are made by rough description and experimentation.

Ooooooh, I really dropped the ball in saying what the point is.

The point isn't illiteracy forever.  The point is that there is a crisis right now.  Eventually they will cure the virus and the recovery will start.  Maybe the recovery will start before they even cure the virus.  The thing though is that people are struggling to make it through the darkness before the dawn.  They even know that the virus resistant population is trending upwards, it's just going from 1% to 2% isn't enough to stop the problems in the present day.

There are still literate people in the world.  The rich people sitting comfy at the top of the tall towers got there because they are the ones who can still read, the one eyed man in the world of the blind.  There are isolated communities they avoided exposure to the virus entirely and are revered as mystical creatures of the ancient world.  The legacy of the past still lives on very strongly, it's just a rough spot.

My thinking is very much influenced by the historical fall of Rome.  It's not like one day the Goths usurped the emperor and the next day there was France and Italy and Tunisia.  Political orders get overrun but Roman traditions lived on and were an integral part of the new order.  That's why I picked the US instead of say Ukraine or Brazil.  The US influences the world so much that just the legend of the not too distant American glory will still be there.  That's why it's the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the government instead of say, 200 years later.

Ah, well this puts a different shine on the landscape. I misunderstood and thought that the only unaffected people would be the naturally immune population <0.1%, which would keep the world pretty screwed. I was thinking that a cure would be impossible, since medical science is pretty damn impossible if you can't read a computer screen, but now...

Would play as Monk.

[mainiac]

Would play as Monk.

Okay.  What would the backstory of a post apocolyptic monk be like I wonder?  Would they literally be a monk?

[Stirk]

Let me revise my earlier statement: Regular bolas are cool and effective weapons in D&D. I've never used a bola in real life and I'm nearly certain I'd strangle myself if I tried, so I can't vouch for anything beyond RPG mechanics.

Pff. Just another reason I am not a fan of DnD. I always like the idea of taking RPG settings into a modern world, so I have been following this thread. I thought about saying anything earlier when he said no one was interested, something like "You just need a bump and some time! Be patient", but didn't because that would kinda draw me into the game  .

To recap, I like what you did with the setting. Interesting world back-story and design. I love the concept. But I won't be playing myself because I don't personally find DnD interesting.

[mainiac]

ack-story and design. I love the concept. But I won't be playing myself because I don't personally find DnD interesting.

Do you have a suggesting of a better system?

[Stirk]

ack-story and design. I love the concept. But I won't be playing myself because I don't personally find DnD interesting.

Do you have a suggesting of a better system?

I thought about suggesting D20 modern like Tawa did, but he beat me to it  . I think the system you chose will get you what you want, if what you want is a modified DnD with an interesting setting. You obviously know a bit about the system yourself, probably making it the best for you. I doubt any other system could accurately keep the classes you want anyway.