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What about 13th Age Stormbringer?


Scrivener of Doom

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Chaosium did a D20 version called Dragon Lords of Melnibone in 2001. There was also a supplement called Slaves of Fate by @Jason Durall. These could form the basis for 13th Age if needed. There's some info at this excellent site: http://www.stormbringerrpg.com.

I was going to recommend this thread https://forum.rpg.net/archive/index.php/t-709959.html but it seems you are already there.

I looked briefly at running Stormbringer using 13th Age for a group of D20 players. However once I looked back at Elric! I didnt have the heart to do it.

 

Edited by David Scott
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I'm biased towards BRP as being the natural place for Moorcockian adventure, but hypothetically, what would be the focus of a 13th Age Stormbringer adaptation?

Would you make the gods of Law/Chaos/Balance/Elements the Icons? 

What would the classes be? 

 

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Alright, I've already given some thought to an OSR Elric-inspired game before so I have a few ideas for a 13th age one. Most likely the icon system could be used to represent your allegiance to Law, Chaos, or Balance, and possibly you could have a relationship to one or more gods as well. For races, I'd say each culture from the young kingdoms could count as a separate race, and of course Meniboneans would be another, albeit OP, race. The non-magical classes, namely the fighter and rogue, would work just fine as-is as far as I know, and the Wizard or Warlock could be used for a magical class, though some redesigning may be in order to more closely fit how wizards are represented in the world. Possibly some other classes such as Dreamthieves could be added as well.

Edited by Richard S.
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On ‎1‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 4:40 AM, Scrivener of Doom said:

Understood.

I didn't actually mean as an official product but a fan-based conversion.

While my preference is for a BRP derivative for Stormbringer... if some one writes a conversion, I'm more than happy to host it on my SB site!

Marcus

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Stormbringer! - Exploring the worlds of the Eternal Champion at http://www.stormbringerrpg.com

Unbound Publishing - Bringing back the fear - http://www.unboundbook.org

DCtRPG.info - Supporting Dark Conspiracy across the decades - http://www.darkconspiracytherpg.com

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On 01/04/2018 at 7:51 PM, David Scott said:

Chaosium did a D20 version called Dragon Lords of Melnibone in 2001. There was also a supplement called Slaves of Fate by @Jason Durall. These could form the basis for 13th Age if needed. There's some info at this excellent site: http://www.stormbringerrpg.com.

I was going to recommend this thread https://forum.rpg.net/archive/index.php/t-709959.html but it seems you are already there.

I looked briefly at running Stormbringer using 13th Age for a group of D20 players. However once I looked back at Elric! I didnt have the heart to do it.

 

I bought DLoM when it was first released and was rather disappointed. It struck me as a sloppy cash grab during the d20 boom/glut rather than a genuine attempt to convert Stormbringer to d20.

And I've been banned at RPG.net for a while for obscure reasons that I don't recall.

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On 03/04/2018 at 3:27 PM, Jason Durall said:

I'm biased towards BRP as being the natural place for Moorcockian adventure, but hypothetically, what would be the focus of a 13th Age Stormbringer adaptation?

Would you make the gods of Law/Chaos/Balance/Elements the Icons? 

What would the classes be? 

 

Focus? Definitely an epic fantasy take with PCs ultimately being forces for/agents of Law, Chaos, and/or the Cosmic Balance.

Icons would be the Lords of Law and Chaos, possibly the Cosmic Balance, possibly Fate, and also the Elemental Lords.

Classes would be the existing barbarian, commamder, fighter, ranger, and rogue. Custom class would be a sorcerer built on the druid chassis so that the choice of talents would model a range of classes. The animal companion talent serves as an excellent starting point for summoning creatures and even binding them. The Icons would also determine spell access as is the case with the occultist and I think the spells would otherwise be conversions of what exists in MRQII.

Two races: humans and Melnibonéans. The former would be touched by Fate and thus lucky. The latter would have a bonus sorcerer talent. With some work, this should balance them against each other while feeling very different.

I do like the various d100 versions of Elric and Stormbringer but there's a lot of work for the DM when it comes to creating monsters and NPCs which is not the case in 13A. That's my primary reason for wanting to go this route.

Anyway, I'll keep reading the 13th Age version of Glorantha to see what other things might jump out at me.

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On 04/04/2018 at 9:30 AM, Richard S. said:

Alright, I've already given some thought to an OSR Elric-inspired game before so I have a few ideas for a 13th age one. Most likely the icon system could be used to represent your allegiance to Law, Chaos, or Balance, and possibly you could have a relationship to one or more gods as well. For races, I'd say each culture from the young kingdoms could count as a separate race, and of course Meniboneans would be another, albeit OP, race. The non-magical classes, namely the fighter and rogue, would work just fine as-is as far as I know, and the Wizard or Warlock could be used for a magical class, though some redesigning may be in order to more closely fit how wizards are represented in the world. Possibly some other classes such as Dreamthieves could be added as well.

I basically agree with your points other than as explained in the reply above this one.

By the way, which warlock are you referring to?

And, yes, I would give some thought to dreamthieves in due course, although maybe they're better as NPCs. Also, dreamtheft would work as a talent for the way I envisage the sorcerer working (again, see previous reply).

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Considering what a thoughtful and cerebral chap MM is: I cannot think of many* of his main characters who are aren't warriors.

The differentiating bit for them is what ELSE they are as well as warriors.

So I'd be inclined to give everyone warrior (or fighter) and something else

Dreamthief

Sorcerer

Criminal

Scientist

etc.

 

I don't know the rules well enough to suggest how to do that however

 

*Theleb Kaarna (sp) was a coward but I think that even he could fight

Rule Zero: Don't be on fire

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2 hours ago, Al. said:

Considering what a thoughtful and cerebral chap MM is: I cannot think of many* of his main characters who are aren't warriors.

The differentiating bit for them is what ELSE they are as well as warriors.

So I'd be inclined to give everyone warrior (or fighter) and something else

Dreamthief

Sorcerer

Criminal

Scientist

etc.

 

I don't know the rules well enough to suggest how to do that however

 

*Theleb Kaarna (sp) was a coward but I think that even he could fight

That's why the druid is such a good chassis for the sorcerer: Using talents, you can build a druid who is a competent melee combatant while still having some spellcasting ability. That's actually one of the reasons I decided to start with the druid to build my version of the sorcerer.

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3 hours ago, Al. said:

Considering what a thoughtful and cerebral chap MM is: I cannot think of many* of his main characters who are aren't warriors.

The differentiating bit for them is what ELSE they are as well as warriors.

So I'd be inclined to give everyone warrior (or fighter) and something else

Dreamthief

Sorcerer

Criminal

Scientist

etc.

 

I don't know the rules well enough to suggest how to do that however

 

*Theleb Kaarna (sp) was a coward but I think that even he could fight

Multiclassing is always an option

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've been thinking about this some more, particularly after reading 13th Age Glorantha (and that's no small feat).

I'm now thinking that I  would replace the Icons with Pacts & Passions. Pacts is simple enough (see above); Passions are inspired by Lawrence Whitaker's innovative mechanic for Mongoose and require you to Love or Hate something. Otherwise, they work as Icons do in 13A. The Passion should be something that drives you to adventure. Pacts will be particularly important for sorcerers - as already noted - and I'm thinking that certain sorcerer powers might be heightened when the PC has a P&P die result of 5 or 6.

With that out of the way, the next bit to work through is the mechanics for the Sorcerer class. I think once I've got that right then I can work out how everything else works (including the magic items and/or whatever mechanically replaces magic items as per the 13G innovations). Monster stat blocks are easy; getting the Sorcerer right is really the thing I need to make the Young Kingdoms work for RPing.

Finally, I'm really just going to convert Lawrence Whitaker's work for MRQII. He's got a better grasp of MM's lore than I do and he's an infinitely better designer - so good, in fact, that I keep wondering why I don't just use the RQ rules....

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I was also thinking that Dreamthief could be a talent taken by anyone. I don't think there's enough there for a full class in a class-based system like 13A but it would make for a very interesting option for a Sorcerer or even a rogue - the latter may even be more appropriate.

A multiclass-only class might also work, much like the ninja on the AD&D version of Oriental Adventures all those decades ago....

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  • 1 month later...

For a conversion in that direction I would likely use the 5e chassis as opposed to the 3/3.5e chassis.  And I would look backwards to the ole B/X edition and have the Melnibonéans be a Racial Class (like dwarves, elves, and halflings were at one point). That way you can have sub classes of Melnibonéans so there is a variety. If you wanted to bring in any of the other "races" you just do the same thing. Humans would have three classes: Warrior, Thief, and Sorcerer. Again you layer in sub classes to provide variety.  Backgrounds from 5e become cultures with random tables to fill in the details instead of vague role playing concepts. A few other points.

  • 5e has lower AC and Saves; there is not the arms race of the 3/3.5 (I have not played 13th Age so not sure if its a problem there or not)
  • Inspiration can finally be used as a reward system with some bite. Inspiration can come from Law, Balance, or Chaos and using it pushes your character in a certain direction. Making Alignment / Allegiance a sliding scale as opposed to a fixed set of points.
  • Build sorcerers on the 5e Warlock. It actually works pretty well, turning their Invocations into all sorts of nasty abilities. 

Those are just a few thoughts. But only having to construct 4 classes (Warrior, Thief, Sorcerer, Melnibonéan) with 4 to 5 sub classes each is not that bad a deal at all. 

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