D&D 5E two things about D&D that could be more interesting

[Mark CMG]

Disclaimer: I love D&D, our group loves D&D, D&D is great. (Also I am American. Also this post is long and very system-meta.)

The following should be edited into your disclaimer.

So what's my point? First, if you disagree, I don't care. Sorry - time limited. (Feel free to post how I'm wrong and go on if you need to, but you can just save us all time if you'd like.)

 

[Zeymere]

Ultimately I feel like degrees of success and degrees of failure are just still a Success or a failure. I am not of the era that needs to be stroked and told its OK you did well enough here have a cookie. 5e has tried to simplify the rules in such a way that it makes it easier to play but in the end you can add, delete, and/or remake how you see fit. I know your going to say, "but the rules tend towards that direction." The only answer I can give to that is..if you let it. That goes for any system as well. my 2 cents. In the end having fun is the main objective!!!

 

[77IM]

re: Job-first character creation:

I've found that with of open-ended (classless) character creation people are more likely to define their character in terms of capabilities rather than personality. When a player spends a lot of time picking what special abilities they get they often start to focus on that aspect of the character and expect things like niche protection and ability-centric game play.

One advantage of cookie-cutter class-based character creation is that it kind of forces you to differentiate your characters by personality. It takes about 30 seconds to come up with "I'm a human fighter, soldier background, probably gonna go battlemaster at 3rd level." But what makes one Generic Human Soldier Battlemaster Fighter different from another? It's not mechanics (they are likely pretty similar), it's personality. Maybe one is an old drunk and the other is a young firebrand and a third is a steamy seductress and a fourth is a philosopher and warrior-poet and a fifth is the village idiot.

As an extreme example, imagine an RPG where every PC has the exact same stats. (Maybe you are members of an elite government SpecOps team, so you're all badass in exactly the same way.) The only way to distinguish your character in such a game would be personality. The paucity of mechanical character-creation options moves the focus away from mechanics, to an extent.

I tend to create D&D characters in this order:
Class -> Personality -> Race -> Ability Scores -> Background -> Subclass.

To me, class (what you call job, but I think of as just an archetype) informs game-ish activities, and personality informs role-playing. So I sort those out first and then everything else sort of follows from those two decisions.

 

[Mephista]

We've finally nailed down two issues, which I call D&D's "American" problem.

eh... its not so much American as it is just D&D. There are plenty of American games that avoid these issues. Some of them are even D&D spin offs.

1. D&D defines your character through your job (primarily)

....

1. What do you start with in D&D? Well, technically stats - which is worse - but primarily your job (class). Your job tells you what you can do, and you can do nothing else. 5.0 expands this to your 2nd job (background), which is good, but what we like about some other systems is that you start with your personality, and ...well you never really define your job. You have abilities / powers, but those are means to an end: not the definition of what you do. Your personality defines your character traits, not your power palette or balanced party role.

Mmmm.... a few things to keep in mind about all of this. Vampire, both Masquerade and Requiem, are renowned for their focus on the Social aspect of gaming. So, when you're comparing D&D to the WoD, you have to keep that in mind - the two games are pretty much designed with a different focus between them. Social interaction versus combat.

Secondly, others have stated that clans and classes do have similarities. They're both archetypes that help shape a character's direction. In fact, clan determines your role in vampire society when they come prepackaged with a philosophy you're supposed to follow - its something that many people have griped about the game, but live with it.

Three, the games have vastly different methods of leveling. Would a point system that allows you to take Fighter abilities at an XP penalty despite being a wizard solve part of this issue? This creates a more organic style of progression, as opposed to the railroad track of 1-20 levels that D&D currently use (and is effectively a sacred cow).

From reading your responces here and throughout the thread, I'm coming to the conclusion that what you are asking for isn't quite as clear cut - it feels like there's something missing in D&D that you like elsewhere, but I don't think its merely the point at which you work on a character personality. If it was, then the answer to your question would be "start by figuring out your Flaws, Ideals, and Bonds first, then the rest of your character." And I somehow don't think that's the answer here - moving around the order of character creation somehow seems like it won't solve the issue. Could you go further into depth about what exactly that's bothering you about the class system? Is it immediately at character creation, is it as you grow up, is it merely the archetypes that you have, is it the feeling of being locked into an archetype with no escape?

What vampire clan is a Cleric?

Salubri. Hands down, the Salubri, with a side of Losombra in place of the evil cleric using necrotic energy. I know, I know, Obtenebration really feels more like a Shadow Sorcerer thing, but the whole religious bent of the clan makes me feel that they should get at least an honorable mention here. As for the rogue? Aasimites and Ravnos (well, assassin and arcane trickster, but close enough). Daughters of Cacaphony are the bards.

2. All actions in D&D result in 100% success or 0% failure (no moderation)

2. In combat, you hit or you miss. If you are trying to convince someone or climb a wall, it's the same principle: a static DC - a number that defines whether or not you succeed or fail. Casting spells means they either 100% happen exactly like you thought - or you are out of [spell resource] and they do not happen at all. Everything is binary, which is secretly the least "realistic" thing about D&D. Other systems that we like use degrees of success: you can fail, fail badly, scrape by, succeed a little, succeed, succeed a lot, impressively succeed, or succeed beyond your wildest expectations (to name a few). (D&D has crit successes [and you can add crit fails] but those are only combat rules and still basically binary.)

I'm personally of the opinion that the three pillars of D&D (exploration, social interaction, combat) should actually be four - I call this the Building pillar, with a focus on things like followers, strongholds/lairs/dungeons, creating works of magic, etc. And I feel that this applies to almost any game out there as part of the design of RPGs.

However, when you look through the books? The overwhelming majority of mechanics are strictly based on combat. And, yes, combat has more than just a binary system. Hitting alone is botch, miss, hit, nat-20, which, by definition, is not binary. You miss, you mess up so badly you cause problems, you hit, you strike a vital spot. And then, we have things like amount of damage taken, status effects, initiative, positioning/sneak attack stuff, and the like. Combat is really complex and involved. Outside of combat is entirely defined by the skill system - Exploration/investigation, social interaction, and building things of all sort are handled by that binary pass/fail.

The problem here isn't so much that the game is binary, the problem lies with the skill system. Its too simple. There are a lot of games out there that have more complex systems that are actively engaging. And they have a direct effect upon how players think and act within the game. When D&D treats "beating" a diplomat check in the same way you handle beating someone in a race, it creates a certain mindset. Either I'm good and everyone falls to me, or I miss.

Others have suggested multiple rolls, but that's really just touching on the tip of the problem-iceburg. The fundamental problem here is that exploration and socializing are complex affairs that tend to be handwaved away and over simplified, to the point that you have to determine your character's success through describing actions more than doing anything with dice or what a character should have as an ability as opposed to the player's ability.

 

[evilbob]

...the problem lies with the skill system. Its too simple. There are a lot of games out there that have more complex systems that are actively engaging. And they have a direct effect upon how players think and act within the game. When D&D treats "beating" a diplomat check in the same way you handle beating someone in a race, it creates a certain mindset. Either I'm good and everyone falls to me, or I miss.

This is exactly how I feel.

However, when you look through the books? The overwhelming majority of mechanics are strictly based on combat.
...
Outside of combat is entirely defined by the skill system - Exploration/investigation, social interaction, and building things of all sort are handled by that binary pass/fail.
...
Others have suggested multiple rolls, but that's really just touching on the tip of the problem-iceburg. The fundamental problem here is that exploration and socializing are complex affairs that tend to be handwaved away and over simplified, to the point that you have to determine your character's success through describing actions more than doing anything with dice or what a character should have as an ability as opposed to the player's ability.

You have once again defined the problem pretty well. I'm still not sure how to really fix it, though.

I mean, you could easily transcribe skills into a Vampire-like d10 system: abilities in D&D are secretly (shhh!) just -1 to 5, and skill bonuses are 0 to 6 (well, really 0 to 4 because who honestly gets to level 13+ ever?) so you could directly transpose skill checks as the Vampire skill check.

(Sidebar: for those unfamiliar, in Vampire you have attributes and skills in the exact same way; they are 0-5 for skills and 1-5 for attributes, and just like D&D you add those together for your total - in this case, your total is your dice pool, or number of dice you roll. So the worst you could do is roll 1 die and the best is 10 dice. Then you roll all those dice and count your successes. What is a success is supposed to be set by the difficulty of a task - so an easy task means any die results of 3 or more is a success, and a very hard task means any dice that are 8 or higher are successes. We houseruled this to 6 for everything because otherwise it's annoying and the practical effect is not changed much. Then, the number of successes shows you how well you did: 1 means you barely made it and 3 means you did exactly what you wanted, and 5 successes is basically a "critical success." No successes means you failed, and if you roll a 1 on a die and also get no successes, that means you critically failed. Also, 1s cancel successes on a 1-to-1 basis. We also houseruled in exploding 10s to counter the 1s bit, but that's the gist of it. Also, you can do opposed rolls the exact same way - each opponent's successes cancel the other one's.)

However this introduces a fair amount of complexity, especially since combat would be resolved so differently than everything else. And while the skill / social system transposes easily, the combat system 100% does NOT. Combat in D&D is hinged on the heavily modified d20 roll against the armor DC (or roll) and the whittling away of vast sums of HP. Vampire combat is clunky but it is fast and brutal. Combat is so serious you actually want to avoid it if possible, whereas in D&D it's considered the default action. It's an entirely different set of assumptions. (Sidebar: it works like the skill system: roll for successes, subtracted by opponent's defense - but most things have 7 HP, with a practical limit of 4, and damage types come much more into play. Initiative is insanely important.)

Thinking about it more, we might experiment with a d10-based dice pool for skill / social checks since it's so easy to transpose: it's not complex to us since we're used to it and it does give a better range of outcomes. If someone was a purist, it's pretty easy to transpose D&D DCs to d10 difficulties: DC 5 = 3, 10 = 4, 13 = 5, 15 = 6, 18 = 7, 20 = 8, 23 = 9, 30 = 10. Round down (so a DC 14 is 5). (But "everything is 6" is much easier to remember.)

Edit: Just wanted to add that advantage/disadvantage could be achieved by increasing / decreasing the difficulty (so if the difficulty was 6, advantage could mean it's now 4, and disadvantage would mean it were now 8.)

 

[Mercule]

It's not "job" per se. It's archetype.

(in Jungian psychology) a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches

What kinda of hero do you want to be? That's your class. It started with "Do you want to swing a sword or cast spells?" and has evolved from there. You could make a fair argument that we have more classes than distinct archetypes, but I doubt you'd get consensus on which classes are spare.

The way 5E is set up, your "job" can be thief, but your class Fighter. You could choose a job of soldier, but a class of Rogue (or even Warlock). Heck, your job could even be "royal wizard" but take the class Arcane Trickster. There are certain archetypes that tend to show up in certain jobs, but it's not guaranteed.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Disclaimer: I love D&D, our group loves D&D, D&D is great. (Also I am American. Also this post is long and very system-meta.)

Issue: While we've always loved D&D, as long-time vets there are other games that we just love more.

Good system analysis. They question I have for you is that, since you have these other systems you can enjoy, and you enjoy D&D, what is your intent in attempting to mess around with D&D to make it more like other systems?

I have similar attitudes about what I like in games, but when I play D&D (which is most of the time now, just because of how things have worked out) I enjoy it as D&D. I simply embrace that it is class and level based, that you're rolling a d20 with a crazy amount of randomness involved, and play it with all the standard D&D assumptions.

So I'm curious about why that isn't an appealing option for you. (I like to do RPG design, and hearing different perspectives of what people are going for in their experiences helps my designs.)

 

[evilbob]

(I like to do RPG design, and hearing different perspectives of what people are going for in their experiences helps my designs.)

Because D&D's combat system is top-notch. They have it down to a science, and it's easy to tweak (but difficult to overhaul). And there are excellent products - like CoS - being released in that system. And 3rd party support for D&D - like this forum - is also best-in-class, hands down.

 

[Bigkahuna]

Ultimately I feel like degrees of success and degrees of failure are just still a Success or a failure. I am not of the era that needs to be stroked and told its OK you did well enough here have a cookie. 5e has tried to simplify the rules in such a way that it makes it easier to play but in the end you can add, delete, and/or remake how you see fit. I know your going to say, "but the rules tend towards that direction." The only answer I can give to that is..if you let it. That goes for any system as well. my 2 cents. In the end having fun is the main objective!!!

Well put and I agree. D&D is a game that tries to keep it simple and maintain the focus on bigger picture rather then the mundane details. Sure it might interesting to know wether you struggled climbing that wall, or some finite detail about the architecture of the wall that slowed you down (though you still made it). The reality is however that roleplaying scenes and stories exist in players heads not in the GM's ability to pack in adjectives into every scene or a rule system that outlines every detail of what a die result means.

It's a common misconception by most GM's I mean who believe they have to create vivid descriptive visuals for the players or have realistic explanations for how mechanics handle situations. Just let your players invent it in their heads. What matters to the game is whether you succeed or fail at any given point and what the end result of that success or failure is. The finite details players will conjure up in their imaginations, they don't need to have it explained to them and in most cases when you do explain it to them you actually close down those imaginations. This is because instead of imagining the scene, they are listening to you describe it.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Because D&D's combat system is top-notch. They have it down to a science, and it's easy to tweak (but difficult to overhaul). And there are excellent products - like CoS - being released in that system. And 3rd party support for D&D - like this forum - is also best-in-class, hands down.

Interesting on the combat. I haven't heard that exact reason before, but I can definitely see where you are coming from compared to a messy or 'soft' sort of combat system. Now you've got me thinking of what other 'hard' systems like D&D might have better combat systems.