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Changing the Game
I’ve recently begun working on a new campaign which will be starting this weekend, a d20 Modern game of Dark Matter, a game of paranormal investigation, with the Future, Future Tech, Cyberscape, and Modern Magic supplements.
Aside from the equipment in the various supplements, very little in this new game is new as far as mechanics are concerned. The new directions of the game, the subtleties that proper play demands, such as the low-key nature of magic, and the widespread disbelief of it, these things are more than sufficient to make the campaign, and the game itself, seem completely new.
I’m not the only one who feels this way, either. My players have proved to be just as excited as I am at the prospect of playing this new game, all because the theme of the game has been changed from “Supernatural” to “Paranormal.”
There are a number of other ways to take a setting or situation which is ordinarily normal and change it in minor ways so as to completely change the feel/course of the game. A high-tech or sci-fi game could be altered by a very primitive understanding of the technology used - it was found at some point in the past, and while the secrets of its use, and possibly maintainence, have been discovered, the secrets of is workings have not. This minor change opens up numerous new paths for the campaign, and changes the way players will look at things.
A Star Wars game could be changed by altering some mechanics of the Force such that drawing on its power drains life from other creatures - sort of a slower and more cosmic version of the Dark Sun Defiler. This would make little difference to many Dark Side users, especially Sith, but it would place a new level of moral questions for PCs to deal with.
Have you ever implemented any changes like this to change a game around?
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