DnD Avernum Campaign? (5e)

[linkxsc]

Has anyone ever run a tabletop campaign based off of the world of Avernum?

 

One of the groups I play with has opted to try out DnD5e for the lulz (usually a 3.5/d20 modern group). While wallowing around coming up with a campaign I noticed that a starting portion of the campaign was actually very reminiscent of "the valley of dying things".

 

(more nuclear in origin of why the valley is dying. The world is one where periodically objects and sometimes people from the real world have trickled into it accidentally. Valley of dying things started happening due to a mage experimenting on the school and creating a portal, currently running on he managed to land the portal right in the remains of the Chernobyl reactor underground, and aside from the immediate area, radiation has been trickling out of the school for years and ravaging the area. But the empire won't let the survivors in the area out, because some of them are mutated and such, empire doesn't know how to deal. And it's been getting worse as mutated creatures have been spreading outside of the valley.

 

Players are charged with going in and figuring out why this [censored] is going on. I won't actually tell them anything about the nuclear bit, I'ma just see if they can figure it out as they play.)

 

But then it struck me...

Has anyone run an Avernum themed tabletop game? It would require a few tweaks here and there, and probably be copyright infringement, but as a TT, Avernum/Exile could actually be a pretty legit series of campaigns.

[Randomizer]

Jeff Vogel, the game's creator, took the Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders from his AD&D first edition campaign.

 

Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Please leave your sanity at the door. Now you know why.

[Alorael at Large]

There have been a number of attempts of varying determination and completeness to adapt Avernum to d20 that I know of just from these forums over the years. There was also a campaign website for a game that had an interesting mashup of Avernum and Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved, now long defunct. So the answer is yes, it's been done at least a few times by a few people.

 

I'd say as a campaign setting Avernum has promise. It's intriguingly different from many other settings and has a lot of built in reason for people to be doing the kind of underground dungeoneering that sometimes makes no sense in settings rife with more civilization. I've considered using it myself, but I've never done so.

 

—Alorael, who turned to Google and found the remains of one old attempt from here, some other topics that never really went anywhere. And of course some attempts that rapidly descend into embittered arguments about D&D balance.

[BJ Back From the Beyond]

Has anyone ever run a tabletop campaign based off of the world of Avernum?

Short answer: yes. A few years ago there was a tabletop game run out of this forum set in Avernum during the events of the second game. The name of it was The Abyss, and the tread for it is probably still around here somewhere. That game used a set of homebrew rules, nothing nearly as complicated as DnD, so it's probably not what you're looking for. I'm not sure where you could find those rules, if you're interested. I don't think they made it to the AIMhack wiki, but Lilith might still have a copy.

I've been playing 5e myself recently. If you just mean combining the 5e rules and the Avernum setting, well how difficult it would be would depend on just how many of the rules you want to change. For instance, it would be pretty easy to make additions for the nephil and slith races (possibly a few others too, if you're feeling ambitions), but if you wanted to go so far as to address the discrepancies in the two magic systems, well then you've got your work cut out for you. My (free) advice would be to keep it simple and just focus on getting the flavor of the setting without messing with the rules too much. Now, if you're talking about actually making a whole new set of rules based on the Avernum games, well it could probably be done. Just take it from someone who has tried something similar: it's a whole lot more work than you think it will be.

[keira]

I've had a couple ideas for campaigns based on Exile stuff, but they've mostly been waiting for all my other campaign ideas to die off

 

i've never actually played D&D, which saddens me greatly. I made a 5e character for a campaign like six months ago, but it still hasn't started and i'm moving across the country in a month, so...meh

[Trenton.]

One could be made. DnD 5e is definitely NOT as difficult as everyone who looks from the outside in says it is. The DMing guide is very easy to use, and creating a character is fun when you have someone walk you through it. I've recently been playing DnDe5 with a group of friends and it's fantastic, and actually pretty easy to do. Tabletop Simulator is a great resource when DnDing over the internet.