[DitV] Crusaders of Tarscolis - a fantasy adaptation.

[14thWarrior]

Let me first provide a brief introduction to the ideas that spawned this adaptation.

I recently decided to use an idea from a thread at RPG.net about "the city build around the Tarrasque" to build a new D&D campaign.  The concept of the city built around the Tarrasque is that the Tarrasque has been captured and is being kept imobile and being vivisected on an industrial scale.  This city, which I chose to name Tarrascora, maintains the Tarrasque in captivity.  Numerous other factions in the world view this continued captivity as an affront to nature and seek to liberate (or destroy outright) the Tarrasque; the Order of Tarscolis is one such order.

The Order of Tarscolis is a faction that reveres and virtually worships the Tarrasque as a demi-god; they have taken it upon themselves to work towards the beast's liberation.

The current campaign, which is a D&D 4th edition campaign, centers around the a group of PCs who are members of the Order of Tarscolis working towards the Order's goals.  The first couple of sessions have revealed a couple of really important facts.

Although I like much of the D&D 4th Edition rules in concept, it still boils down to a kill things and take their stuff play style - a style from which I have grown away.  Two sessions have occured; and both sessions effectively consisted of a couple of brief non-combat encounters and one really long-winded combat encounter.  We may as well have just been playing a tactical miniatures game.

Another problem I encountered is that as a 37 year old, full-time employed, family man, I just don't have the time to properly prepare scenarios for the D&D system.  It's just too much work.

I yearn for a decent game system that can help me prepare a full session's scenario in a couple of hours or less; I also yearn for a game system that puts equal focus on the social encounters as it does on combat encounters.

Then it came to me; if I could effectively adapt DitV, I'd have the game I really want.

So, to that end, I started researching medieval fantasy variants of DitV and found a couple of good leads to help me accomplish most of what I want to do.

I started developing my adaptation; I first chose a suitable name - "Crusaders of Tarscolis", and developed a new, focused theme that would fit well with the DitV system.  For this adaptation, PCs are not your typical members of the Order of Tarscolis; instead, they are special members that travel from outpost to outpost collecting and delivering operations reports, messages, and presiding over (read witnessing) official Order business and ceremonies.  In addition to all this, the PCs are invested with the authority to fix problems they encounter in the Order - be it from within or without.  This authority is only within the Order, so the PCs may take actions that break local laws of the land.

So far, the theme is really just DitV with a D&D-esque skin; but then, that's rather the point.  The real tricky part was figuring out a suitable 'faith/sin progression' for the campaign; though rather than a sin progression, I morphed it into a more secular "Threat to the Order" progression.

The "Threat to the Order" falls into a standard progression that looks so:

    * Conceit: Someone loses sight of the Order's rules, procedures, or its need for discretion.

    * Negligence: The conceit spirals out into negligent behaviour.

    * Compromise: The negligent behaviour compromises the Order's security.

    * Attack: Someone or something takes advantage of the vulnerability in the Order.

    * Cascading Danger: The faction exploiting the vulnerability in the order causes a ripple effect that begins to dismantle the Order.

This is as far as I've currently gotten in the adaptation; but I think it is the appropriate starting point.

I'm hoping that some will be kind enough to provide feedback on this progression.  Will it work? Are there any potential holes that could be filled with an added step in the hierarchy?

[Daniel B]

I don't know about DitV (yet) and can't comment. Just waned to say that I adore the concept X-)

[Pelgrane]

I had a lot of fun with a D&D/DitV mashup called King's Marshalls. The important thing is that the people that your Order go amongst basically follow the same rules as the order (with a few exceptions), but might differ in their interpretation of the them. Just having an order with a bunch of internal rules doesn't do this on its own. Here are links. Note in particular the magic rules which worked well. We also added one-off magical effects (eg a d10 potion) to use in single conflict.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=23307.0
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=23372.0