Fans began trying to turn Destiny into a Dungeons & Dragons-style pen-and-paper RPG two years ago. This week they released the 1.0 version of the Dungeons & Destiny Player’s Guidebook, providing an entirely new way to experience Bungie’s loot shooter alongside the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition ruleset.
For those unfamiliar with Destiny, it’s a sci-fi shooter that takes place in a post-apocalyptic future in which zombie super-humans fight aliens in an ongoing struggle between the forces of light and darkness. For those unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons, it’s a text-based game in which you act out stories IRL as maths and dice rolls decide your fate. It’s a perfect match-up, but the makers of the project stress that they haven’t just swapped out proper nouns.
“D&Destiny isn’t just a re-flavoring of 5th Edition, it’s almost a complete overhaul of the entire system,” creator GoodGameKitty wrote on Reddit. For example, Dungeons & Destiny has nine new classes created from scratch based on existing Destiny subclasses like gunslinger and voidwalker (the new Stasis subclasses recently added to Destiny 2 in Beyond Light will get worked in later).
There are also 14 weapons that let you choose your own perk upgrade path, new mechanics for things like respawning, unique status ailments like tethered, and unique stats for all of the game’s races. The best part is you can even play as Destiny’s hostile alien factions — Cabal, Fallen, Hive, Psions, and Vex-–if you want, something the main game hasn’t gotten around to yet.
Outside of the Player’s Guidebook, which includes the bulk of what players need to get started, there’s also the Architect’s Guide, an overview of all of Destiny’s lore, and the Bestiary of the Wilds, which provides insight into all of the enemies that can crop up in Dungeons & Destiny. Those secondary books remain works in progress, but versions of both are also currently available to download for free to help flesh out early sessions. Taken all together, it’s enough to get started creating your own Guardians and craft a campaign for them to journey through.
If you don’t want the hassle of pen and paper, the makers of Dungeons & Destiny say it’s also compatible with the Roll20 tools for virtual tabletop gaming. There’s a dedicated Discord and subreddit if you’re looking for a group to play online with as well. Even if you don’t think you have the time, energy, or interest to play through a session yourself, the books are worth reading through just for their interesting D&D takes on Destiny lore. Bring on the inevitable LARP.
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