Let’s Play D&D With ‘TRON’
Grab your disks and gas up your light-up motorcycles, this week we’re jumping into the Grid and playing D&D in the world of TRON.
TRON 3 is officially on its way, and I think for many of us this is a series that is pretty cool, but almost surprising when more of it shows up. In fact, TRON feels more like an aesthetic than a franchise… And that aesthetic is very much ‘the 80s but ultra high tech.’ For me the aspects of TRON that are more memorable aren’t the characters or even the plot. It’s the setting. Seeing what goes on inside The Grid and what people, vehicles, cities- all of it looks like in a computerized world is by far the most fun. Case in point, when Disney asked ‘what part of this series do people want to experience for themselves?’ they (rightly) landed on a Lightcycle ride as the new attraction. But some of us aren’t on vacation and don’t like rides, so add a little more of The Grid to our D&D campaign and pay D&D with…
Lightcycles
via Disney
Let’s be honest, this is one of the items in TRON. It looks neat, makes for some cool scenes across the franchise. And, it could be useful as an item or as a weapon. On its own, this is a vehicle. It goes a lot faster than most other stuff in D&D and a character with one of these would absolutely just zip around the map.
But it also has that light trail. In TRON these are useful in obliterating whoever you’re Lightcycle racing against. But in a D&D setting walls could separate foes from their allies, force encounters, and give allies enough time to get away. Or, they can obliterate whoever you’re Lightcycle racing against.
60 seconds is a long time in game and practically an eternity in an encounter. A maze of these walls would be a major advantage or handicap in a battle depending on who has access to a Lightcycle at the time.
But these aren’t the only pieces of TRON tech we’d all like to play with. There’s also the…
Identity Disk
What do you remember best about disks in TRON? Because for me it’s characters throwing them as weapons like Xena Warrior Princess at a blacklight rave. They’re also storage for various characters’ and programs’ entire identities, and can be accessed, read, and sometimes reprogramed. Which is a lot of power to attribute to a single item. So I scaled it back a bit.
They’re still sharp-range weapons that will slice, dice, and eventually return. But accessing one and unlocking its secrets won’t give you full access to everything that makes its owner tick. Instead, you’ll get helpful information- which is left to the DM’s discretion- and a few helpful boons for the next time you run into one another. That is, if you can catch it.
How would you add a little more of the TRON aesthetic to your D&D campaign? What is your favorite piece of futuristic 80s TRON tech? What movie, show, book, or game should we make sheets from next time? Let us know in the comments!
Happy adventuring!
