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Has anyone played in a PnP campaign set in Tamriel? I'm wondering how this would be done. I've heard of some Savage Worlds (which I've never played) conversion, but it seemed to be trying to get every little detail exactly as they are in the games, which is admirable, but I definitely prefer a more narrative approach to RPGs rather than trying to get all the minutiae right. I'm wondering if Dungeon World would work, with some changed racial moves (lump in all humans together, which avoids some rather unfortunate implications that have been in the series since Arena), but make some new ones for the different elves and beast races. Just say that the divine classes are actually spellswords or the like.

I've never had the chance to play 13th Age, but that would be interesting, I think. Icons could be (for example, a game set in the Daggerfall era) characters such as Uriel Septim VII, Gortwog, Underking, King of Worms, Tribunal and it's temple, and so on.

Anyone have any thoughts or experiences to share?

I think you can use any system with a little work. I tried something similar but my players weren't interetsed in the detail of the day to day stuff in skyrim just the fights so I was unable to get very far. Im an old skool RPG guy and the checks for random stuff, fixing food or hunting. some lock picking and trap checks with other mundane stuff in gaming was lost on them. But its a well thought out genre with lots of resource so it makes it an easy world to use for RPGs.

Rolemaster (published by Iron Crown Enterprises back in the 20th century) would fit in with TES pretty well as its a d100 system with attributes which increase as you level up - so would aspects of the Call of Cthulhu rules (Chaosium, 'simple RPG' rules they're called now i think) as they allow skills to increase incrementally with use. I think the latest edition may convert the attributes into 1-100 values as well

the mechanics of TES are already a RPG so really you would be tweaking it so the stuff the computer does automatically don't bog the players down.

Savage worlds is a great system but there's detail in TES you would have to invent in order to preserve the TES mechanics. SW would be great in a time travel type universe (eg Doctor Who would be a great campaign setting for savage worlds)

Simply replacing every instance of the word 'mana' with 'magicka' would pretty much do it, would it not?

Dark Spark wrote:Simply replacing every instance of the word 'mana' with 'magicka' would pretty much do it, would it not?

lol yes

you also need to decide which version of TES you want to play on pen n paper

Mattbott wrote:Rolemaster (published by Iron Crown Enterprises back in the 20th century) would fit in with TES pretty well as its a d100 system with attributes which increase as you level up - so would aspects of the Call of Cthulhu rules (Chaosium, 'simple RPG' rules they're called now i think) as they allow skills to increase incrementally with use. I think the latest edition may convert the attributes into 1-100 values as well

My Friday D&D group uses the Rolemaster charts. I can say that they make for an interesting system, very flexible to changing to fit with another system, and I agree that this would be the RPG of choice for an Elder Scrolls based game.

I've already been converting the races to DnD 5th Edition, using the tips from the Dungeon Master's Guide. When I run my campaign, I don't honestly choose to change much else, besides the races and geography (and the religions of course, although the Divines and Daedra will fit right in well enough.). The schools of magic and the particulars of combat change so much from TES title to TES title that I'd hardly call any of that lore to begin with. It helps that my setting is going to be the Iliac Bay, with TES II flavor, so the monsters from DnD will fit right in, Gryphons and all.

As for the Classes, well, the TES classes are based on pen and paper classes to begin with. There's nothing there that glaringly contradicts the established world of Tamriel. Even Paladin has a place in the lore ; it's a rank in the Legion.