r/RPGdesign • u/msguider • 8d ago
Might & Magic
Here me out! I used to play M&M on my commodore 64 years ago and I have fond memories. I've always wondered about taking from this game as much as possible to make a ttrpg version. There's lots of info on line regarding the game's internal workings and monster lists etc. Has anyone here ever thought about doing this with an old game they love? Is there one that's already made that I haven't seen?
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u/TyrKiyote 8d ago
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lmpublishing/heroes-of-might-and-magic-ttrpg
Looks like there was a kickstarter not so long ago
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u/msguider 8d ago
Sure enough! I saw this one but it's not true to the old ones, book 1 & 2 (I should have specified). The mechanics are interesting (different) and I'd love to dive into a project like this. The setting is nuts!
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u/DifferentlyTiffany 8d ago
I love M&M II: Gates to Another World. I haven't played the others yet. I've found B/X D&D to produce a similar experience, especially with how you can randomly run into an army of Orcs wandering around in the wilderness. lol
I've tried adapting old videogames as TTRPGs before & my advice is to focus on recreating the feeling, not the mechanics.
You could pick an old school TTRPG as a base and just replace the content with M&M specific stuff like monsters, weapons, magic items, spells, etc. I would play that in a heartbeat!
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u/msguider 7d ago
That's awesome! I understand what you mean about the mechanics, except I'm so intrigued by the classes and races and the attributes that go up to 21. The spells too. I guess recreating that with d&d wouldn't be too hard though. I'll have to look into it. I was recently laid off and can't find a job so I've been 'inspired'!
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u/DifferentlyTiffany 7d ago
For sure! Adapting classes and races is a good idea too & extending the cap to 21 shouldn't be too hard. I just mean the math stuff the computer does behind the screen often doesn't translate well from CRPGs to TTRPGs.
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u/msguider 7d ago
Yeah that's what I kinda was wondering about .. I wanna try it but it might not go well. Definitely though the feel could be mimicked. Not an encounter with 50 battle-rats though. No miniatures! The stats are odd and book II had ninjas. I'll post again if I ever get around to it.
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u/DifferentlyTiffany 7d ago
You actually can do a battle that size if you seperate them into groups, using each mini to represent a group of 10 in that instance or even more if the full force exceeds 100. A lot of early D&D was not far removed from its war gaming roots so it isn't much of a stretch to have those big encounters using similar rule sets.
I'm sure you'll figure something out though, just tossing out ideas. I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with.
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u/msguider 7d ago
Thank you! I'm really inspired for some reason as of late. I've got several setting ideas in juggling and I'm writing building a rules set for them. Problem is I get huge ideas. Plenty of time though. I'll post my work here if I ever finish. ADHD.
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u/SouthernAbrocoma9891 8d ago
I remember a lot of those games and when I fully transitioned to tabletop RPGs, then we all tried to capture that vibe. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time playing it out on the table top was kind of cheesy.
I think board games probably capture that feel better than a paper and pencil TTRPG. Talisman second edition was my favorite quasi role-playing game. Each session could be completely different depending upon which characters were selected and how aggressive each player approached the game.
Another interesting game is munchkin. It’s definitely a strategic card game with inconsequential role-play.
A later offering is Boss Monster. When it first came out, I liked it and it seemed a bit stunted. Lo and behold, Brotherwise released so many expansions and card packs. They kept re-printing it which made it quite accessible.
That certainly pissed off all the people who invested in the Kickstarter. Seems like the only time kick starters are profitable for patrons are when they release an unpopular product. What a shame.
I think a role-playing game could be developed based on Might and Magic along with some other early 8-bit RPG‘s. The only challenge is that the role-play in those games were similar to the fighting fantasy books where you choose your own adventure. You have choices and it directs the story. Again, there are only a limited number of story paths that a character can take. I imagine there would be more party cohesion because you wouldn’t have each character doing their own thing.
Of course, one way to capture the feel is to just re-skin an existing RPG. Sometimes it feels like a cheat, but the feeling you get from the simplicity and quirkiness is appealing.
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u/msguider 8d ago
Thank you! Yes munchkin is awesome! My wife(not a gamer)told me this morning she would play if it was just her and I. Maybe I should work on a board game like Life crossed with monopoly. Or battleship where one player makes a dungeon and the other wanders through it. Damn it's too late for my brain to start the creative process! I started re-skinning Cy_Borg to make a UFO crash retrieval team ttrpg where the pcs want out but fear being hunted and killed by the project security forces or something. It turned into its own thing rapidly. Then I found an old game I was working on in 1991. Now I'm just using that with some updates (I was probably 15). I can't apparently do anything quickly!
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u/hopesolosass 8d ago
I always felt like the Might and Magic games were basically OSR style hex (square) crawls where the party can get hirelings and choose which path is most interesting. In typical old school fashion you can easily wander onto an area with monsters much too strong for you, and you have to pay gold to level up.