Cursed World is a Dungeons & Dragons homage, but it is not an old school game. It's an attempt at a less tactical, more narrative approach to the familiar tropes.
The implied setting of D&D has always been a very strange place, mixing elements from different historical periods, mythologies, and genres of fiction with wild abandon. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is only the most extreme example. Fourth edition D&D's Points of Light approach to world building is what inspired me to make Cursed World. I love the implied setting (PoL-land!) more than ever, but the rules are far too much like a tactical miniatures game.
So here is a union of opposites: D&D and Fate. I borrowed bits and pieces from nearly every edition of D&D, polished them off, and put them into a Fate framework.
I set a few guidelines for the game I wanted:
- The world is apocalyptic. Things are so bad that homicidal grave robbers can be the good guys. It's a points of light setting, but the spaces between them is even more dangerous.
- The weirdness meter is turned to eleven. Sci-fi monsters fit alongside creatures from mythology. Anachronism runs rampant. Technology from the Iron Age to the Renaissance are jumbled together. No laser guns, though.
- Adventurers are freakish by definition. Players can play whatever crazy thing they want to play, and it will make perfect sense.
- Moral ambiguity. No more "detect evil" nonsense. No Good or Evil stamp on each Monster Manual entry. Figure out who the bad guys are on your own.
- Smooth over the annoying things in classic D&D. The save-or-loose effects that are so common in old school dungeon fantasy are gone, and replaced by more interesting effects.
