Gritty Campaigns. How you play one?

[jgsugden]

Gritty and default 5e are polar opposites. In order to make 5e gritty, you have to change so many things, you aren't playing 5e anymore. Better to simply use a system that is gritty to begin with imo. WFRP 4e might be the ticket.

I strongly disagree. A great gritty game can be achieved with no rule changes. Grit is going to mostly arise from the storytelling... not the mechanics.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Read your post. To be fair, you do way more than just change healing. In fact you seem to make your game a low magic one. Which I heartily approve of. And which (imo) means it aint 5e anymore.

I don't change the magic rules for any of the PCs. Just that magic user NPCs are rare. That's not really a rule change. If you're using all of the 5e rules but change the natural healing rate (which is even mentioned in the 5e DMG), then I am literally following 5e rules. So that would be 5e.

shrug.

Really, TBH, I think rules are only half of what makes something gritty. Narration plays a heavy part. Describing the misery. Make it feel gritty. That's just as important.

 

[jgsugden]

I don't think you need to change the mechanics to make grit, but if you do: 1 Level of exhustion whenever you are magically healed.

 

[KenNYC]

I strongly disagree. A great gritty game can be achieved with no rule changes. Grit is going to mostly arise from the storytelling... not the mechanics.

No amount of narration is going to make any game that has Vicious Mockery gritty. Same for glamor bards and whatever that fire is druids cast that give allies advantage ditto. As I understand that one, failed skill check means the victims glow basically like the guys from Twilight. That is the opposite of gritty and no voice acting will save it.

 

[Umbran]

My go-to for gritty fantasy is not any D&D variant. I have in the past (and probably would in the future) turn to GURPS first for grit.

 

[jgsugden]

No amount of narration is going to make any game that has Vicious Mockery gritty.

On Critical Role they have the mockery be in an abyssal tongue. That is a good first step. This definitely does not need to be something you'd get from a Jester in a cartoon... Lots of options.

Same for glamor bards...

You mean the guys that use magic to trick people and steal free will? The ones that learned their craft from satyrs (the roofie race)? Watch Sin City and tell me if you spot the folks that use beauty as a tool to crush people. Or remember the horrid beauty of Galadriel? That won't fit in grit?

... and whatever that fire is druids cast that give allies advantage ditto. As I understand that one, failed skill check means the victims glow basically like the guys from Twilight. That is the opposite of gritty and no voice acting will save it.

If the idea of the equivalent of a flashlight shining on someone is going to ruin your grit, I point back to my original argument: It is far more about the style of play than the mechanics.

Your three examples can all exist in very gritty games. Imagine the master of a large city's sex trade, extortion and slavery ring. She or he worked her or his way up the chain by using the magics of the Faerie Lords to enslave and seduce ... and blackmail. The people working for him/her fear his/her for oh so any reasons, including the way his/her vile tonue can tear into a mind and leave you shaken... or dead. Last night s/he dealt with some underperforming underlings... harshly. One tried to flee his/her wrath, but s/he lit him up with a unearthly glow and let his/her loyal minions tear him apart. Light flowed from his wounds, fading as the life left his body.

Think of it this way: Batman would be one of comics grittiest heroes? Right? His rogues gallery was created when he was written far sillier. A Clown Prince of Crime? A woman that meows? An Alice in Wonderland rip off? A guy obsessed with riddles? The PENGUIN? If they can make those jokers into gritty villains, everything in D&D is a cakewalk.

Whatever mechanics ou decide to use, the feel of the game is going to come primarily from the role playing.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I don't change the magic rules for any of the PCs. Just that magic user NPCs are rare. That's not really a rule change. If you're using all of the 5e rules but change the natural healing rate (which is even mentioned in the 5e DMG), then I am literally following 5e rules. So that would be 5e.

shrug.

Really, TBH, I think rules are only half of what makes something gritty. Narration plays a heavy part. Describing the misery. Make it feel gritty. That's just as important.

If all you do is change natural healing rates, and leave in place all the usual healing magic, create food/water magic, healer feat, usual death saves, etc, and dont introduce persistent injuries of some kind, it ain't a gritty game, not imo. It's just a slightly harder version of 5e.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I strongly disagree. A great gritty game can be achieved with no rule changes. Grit is going to mostly arise from the storytelling... not the mechanics.

100% disagree. It is mostly mechanics.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I just went and reread Sacrosanct's post, and- no, really, it seems like the only thing he changes rules-wise is the healing. With occasional critical effects added in.



Your opinion is just wrong here. Just because someone plays 5e differently than you doesn't make it not-5e. My game is unmistakably 5e, but absolutely low magic. Saying it can't be 5e because of low magic incidence is expressing your playstyle preference in a "one true way" fashion, not addressing a fundamental aspect of the game.

Dnd has always been intended as a high magic game, you can see that from the magic items list, and pretty much every adventure every written for it. 5e doubled down on this by adding magic to almost every subclass, and making at-will cantrips fundamental to caster balance. Sure, you can have a party of just mundane barbarians, fighters and rogues, but you're not really playing 5e anymore.

 

[Sacrosanct]

If all you do is change natural healing rates, and leave in place all the usual healing magic, create food/water magic, healer feat, usual death saves, etc, and dont introduce persistent injuries of some kind, it ain't a gritty game, not imo. It's just a slightly harder version of 5e.

I guess we agree to disagree then, because I don't think this is the case. In our games, which tend to be more gritty, PCs don't get many opportunities to rest. This is because things keep happening in the game world around them. If they enter a dungeon or castle or whatever and are discovered (because battle is loud), then the rest of the inhabitants will be out looking for them. Finding somewhere to have 8 hours of peace is neigh impossible. Spells are a limited resource, and if you know you may have many encounters over a long period of time between rests, then they are much more rare, assuming in the first place players prepped all the most convenient spells for that adventuring day (which doesn't happen too often because they never know exactly what situations they will be facing). That's all done without changing a single rule.

And again, a lot has to do with narration and how you DM the game world. Focus on the misery, magic wielding NPCs are rare, etc. No rule changes there either. 5e does have rules for encumbrance, exhaustion, disease, madness, etc. It's just that a lot of people largely ignore those parts. So it's not the rule changes you are assuming has to happen, it's how you use the existing rules already there.