Jim Ward on Converting D&D and Met Alpha (The Dragon #18)

So you want to bring your D&D guys to Metamorphosis Alpha, or vice-versa? Jim Ward had some suggestions in The Dragon #18.

Guidelines for Mixing Campaigns:
Androids, Wizards, Several
Mutants, and Liberal Doses of
Imagination, Well Blended
by James M. Ward

I have great respect for James Ward and his works. But man . . . reading this article made me away of a lot of lessons about what not to do when making rulings and conversions. I think looking back, it's easy to see where a different approach to rules application would be a better long-term solution to the problem at hand.

Let's start with something good.

Magic and its effects are immense on the starship. Those MA crea-
tures have no resistance to magic so they take full effect without a sav-
ing throw.

I like this approach, to a degree. It's a good basic idea - those unused to magic can't resist it well. And (you'll see later), D&D characters won't have much resistance to radiation. I think a blanket "no saving throw" leaves out things that should warrant a save - versus a fireball or lightning bolt spell, say, which aren't much different than any other attack form in a mutants-shooting-lasers-from-eyes kind of world.

But it's a good start.

Takeaway: You can make for a clear distinction with a flat ruling, but you can also make it a little more nuanced so the underlying logic adds verisimilitude even if it costs a little simplicity.

I don't feel the same about this next bit.

There are many ways to handle the different D&D character
classes. For every two levels over the tenth a fighter has, allow a plus
one to hit with any weapon. Magic users over the tenth level should
have a plus per level to figure out any type of technical item. Since
clerics get their spells renewed everyday (and I never liked them any-
way) they don’t need any special powers or plusses. Bards over the
tenth level act like Singing Vines. Monks on the other hand are at one-
half their normal level because of the extreme quickness of the MA species.
Thieves don’t have their special attack bonus when attacking
the backs of mutants (everyone is always trying to zap them from be-
hind).

Ouch.

Fighters? Fine, get bonuses at high levels.
Magic-users? Fine, get bonuses at high levels.
Bards? Fine, get bonuses at high levels.
Clerics? Get nothing, out of personal spite.
Monks? Get their level halved for . . . combat, presumably. MA species are so damn quick that Monks have trouble defending against them or attacking them. No one else does.
Thieves? Lose their best offensive ability, because appparantly unlike any species in D&D worlds, MA mutants are wary of back shots. All of them are.

The issue here? It lacks an even-handed approach. Not that all classes need to be treated equally, but rather that the underlying logic must be applied equally. Here, it is not. Clerics get nothing, just because. Thieves lose out on a major ability because of a shaky rationale. You simply cannot gain a bonus to backstab anything in Metamorphosis Alpha, even though creatures that live in a world with characters with the ability to attack from behind do not. In other worlds, thieves are only able to backstab because their targets are suckers. And unlike the logic of specific familiarity breeding resistance, here specific familiarity breeds weakness.

The same logic that cuts monks in half for combat purposes is not applied to other classes. Fighters are unaffected, even though the "extreme quickness of the MA species" should apply right back to them. Monks haven't, for some reason, learned to hit quick targets, but fighters have. So has everyone else - no one else suffers a combat penalty from the "extreme quickness" of the MA creatures.

A consistent ruling would leave Monks alone. Some creatures might ignore backstabs . . . but they should be few and far between and have an in-game logic beyond their familarity with being attacked from behind as if it's less novel on a radiation-warped spaceship than in a world full of magic and invisible foes.

And if some classes get a bonus at high levels, it seems reasonable that others should, too, if only to help preserve their niche protection in a game built on niche protection.

Takeaway for me? Be fair, overall, and enforce logical evenly.

If any of you are wondering what possible harm De-evolu-
tion could do to a non-mutant let me list a few things. In magic users it
could take away all the ability to use spells of any type. Fighters could
lose a level or two of experience for every attack. Clerics could lose one
level of spells forever starting from their lowest level. Normal humans
could be transformed into cro-magnon man or even apes (but a few
have argued that this skips several generations of evolution).

Ooh, that seems fair. Magic-users become unable to use spells, period. Presumably forever - how do you recover from de-evolution? It doesn't say. And even scrolls are "spells of [a] type" so you're basically just a weak fighter, now. Fighters lose a level or two, which sucks, but spectres and vampires do that, too. Clerics lose spells permanently - so even the gods cannot overcome De-evolution. DEVO would be proud.

A better approach would be to allow for a way to fix such things, without just leaving it to "Wish" spells. Also, it's probably better, as above, to make the effect logically flat. If "de-evolution" reduces you to a previous version of yourself, then everyone should lose levels. Or turn into apes. It shouldn't affect classes in such widely different (and differently harsh) ways.

Takeway: Again, applying logic and game effects consistently seems to be the best approach.

Overall, I liked the article - and Jim Ward is just as harsh back (poor Iron Golems get it badly here). Logically, though, different effects for the same situation and explanation on different classes that otherwise should be in similar states seems like a bad idea. It's not a best practice you'd expect to see carried forward.

Still fun reading fodder, though, and a situation I plan to game out with different rules.

Finally, I just need to get this in here:

That covers all the character abilities for both sides except for
Radiation Resistance. The D&D player has had no former generations
to give them immunity so they have a resistance of 3.

Emphasis mine - see, people tell me there was "always" a clear distinction between "player" and "character." Here we see them used one sentence after another to mean "character." Just saying.