PWWO: Calidar

Calidar is out and I reviewed the PDF a couple of days back.  It really is awesome, but I am struck by how well it can be used pretty much anywhere.

Plus look at these awesome maps.

So for this edition of "Plays Well With Others" I want to focus on what you need to do to make Calidar work for your current favorite system.

Calidar and D&D 5
This is kind of a cheat really. One of the implicit design goals of D&D 5 was "D&D your way".  So given that Calidar works well with Pathfinder, working with D&D is not a stretch.  Plus the "default" world of D&D 5 might be the Forgotten Realms, but enough Greyhawk, Dragonlance and even Mystara names are thrown around  it should be obvious that you can play this  on any world.  D&D 5 does a much better job of capturing that high fantasy feel than previous edition's "Points of Light" or "Dungeon-punk" attitudes.  So does Calidar. Plus both D&D 5 and Calidar are new and can "grow up together" in the inventive mind of a DM.

The best thing about this marriage is you don't even the "full" version of D&D 5!  You can use the free D&D 5 Basic edition. The races are the basic four (human, elf, dwarf, halfling) and the basic four classes (cleric, fighter, wizard, thief).  This stripped down version of D&D5 works perfect with Calidar.  The races all have their own respective planets and the classes cover all the bases.

Calidar and Original D&D
Or you could go the other direction and use the original D&D rules. The same reasons apply from D&D 5, but I have something specific here in mind.  I would play Calidar more as a Planetary Romance.  One thing I always to do was play OD&D as a Barsoomian game.  I loved the Edgar Rice Burroughs books and I always felt that OD&D and Barsoom would be a perfect fit.  Calidar would be the glue that holds it all together.
Plus Calidar has a Mars-like planet now, but sadly not a Barsoomian one.  Barsoom would be a nice fit and give the Calidar game something a little bit different.
Here are some links I have been using to get my Mars/Barsoomian fixes.

• Original Edition Fantasy tagged Mars
• Warriors of Mars from Grey-Elf (PDF)

Looking forward to trying this out with my current game.