D&D General If you could put D&D into any other non middle ages genre, what would it be?

Tony Vargas · Jun 18, 2019

CapnZapp said:
Yes, he's essentially Conan throwing rocks.

Hey! That's type-casting!
...poor Arnie...

The point is: when most people mention a modern game with insurgents or drug dealers, Commando is not what they have in mind, and D&D is not an obvious fit.
In other words, the setting suggests different ways to play.

Yeah, I get it. D&D incentivizes certain tactics, strategies, modes of play, whatever you want to call it. 5e give the DM a /lot/ of latitude, though.

The game may incentivize toe-to-toe damage-trading (I'm not so sure it does, but for the sake of argument), and the player may thus declare a simple action in accord with the reality that doing damage is a sloggy sort of thing. The DM, though, gets to narrate the results of that action...

FREX:
Player (with bored resignation*): "I guess I shoot the guy in front of me again." "Hit AC 19 for 15 damage."
DM (with unbridled enthusiasm): "You dash across the dusty street of Tombstone, fanning your six-gun as you go! The bandidos scatter for cover, the one you were aiming at dives behind a water trough your .45 slugs dash fountains out of the water as he cowers behind it. He hasn't got much fight left in him! Bullets whiz by as the others return fire, but your gunfighter's finely honed instincts allow you to all but complete avoid them - you wince as one goes straight through your Stetson, that was too close! Um, take 12 damage." "Next!"
Player 2 (with stunned incredulity): "That was, like, nothing like what he said he was doing."

Jacob Lewis said:
Ok. So firearms don't work in D&D because we can't accurately portray them like we see in the movies??! First, movies aren't very accurate. Second, D&D is even less accurate than movies.

Prettymuch. And making them "realistic" would only deepen the problem. Modeling genre expectations gives you more verisimilitude than modeling reality. (cf "Reality isn't Real" trope... if you dare.)

Third, its a GAME. Games are usually designed to be balanced, challenging, and/or fun.

Games that don't have "D&D" on the cover, sure. D&D, it turns out, to be acceptably familiar enough to its fans to have a shot at commercial success, must be designed to be imbalanced in specific ways. In the case of 5e, it seems to be (im)balanced to err a bit on the side of "too easy" (at least, according to some vocal detractors - I don't see it much, IMX, but I've mostly run it at very low levels, as AL and con organizers seem to always want intro games to be 1st level - and I can see why on a theoretical/technical level) which might, indeed, make combat not seem too much like an action movie.

doctorbadwolf said:
The damage model of dnd, with more damage but not more HP, would encourage shooting your high damage at others from behind cover.
Ya know, like in a shootout.

Nod. The problem is that when you push the d20 towards the edges, you get a lot of missing - which is boring/frustrating - and who finally takes that high-damage hit and goes down gets very random.

Paul Farquhar said:
Which people? Who? Where

Those people, over there :waves vaguely in no particular direction:: - the ones playing Squad Leader.

Satyrn · Jun 18, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
Yeah, I get it. D&D incentivizes certain tactics, strategies, modes of play, whatever you want to call it. 5e give the DM a /lot/ of latitude, though.

The game may incentivize toe-to-toe damage-trading (I'm not so sure it does, but for the sake of argument), and the player may thus declare a simple action in accord with the reality that doing damage is a sloggy sort of thing. The player, though, gets to narrate the results of that action...

FREX:
Player (with bored resignation*): "I guess I shoot the guy in front of me again." "Hit AC 19 for 15 damage."
DM (with unbridled enthusiasm): "You dash across the dusty street of Tombstone, fanning your six-gun as you go! The bandidos scatter for cover, the one you were aiming at dives behind a water trough your .45 slugs dash fountains out of the water as he cowers behind it. He hasn't got much fight left in him! Bullets whiz by as the others return fire, but your gunfighter's finely honed instincts allow you to all but complete avoid them - you wince as one goes straight through your Stetson, that was too close! Um, take 12 damage." "Next!"
Player 2 (with stunned incredulity): "That was, like, nothing like what he said he was doing."

I don't understand what you're trying to say with this, what that example is meant to illustrate.

Tony Vargas · Jun 18, 2019

Satyrn said:
I don't understand what you're trying to say with this, what that example is meant to illustrate.

"DM Narrates Results" gives the 5e DM tremendous latitude to inject genre into his game - any genre.

Not all players may 'get' it, though. ;(

Satyrn · Jun 18, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
"DM Narrates Results" gives the 5e DM tremendous latitude to inject genre into his game - any genre.

Not all players may 'get' it, though. ;(

Okay, that explains it. Although I'll ignore all the terrible bits in your example that would serve as good examples of what I avoid as a DM and leave to the players to narrate for themselves, I understand what you're saying now and even agree.

Tony Vargas · Jun 18, 2019

Satyrn said:
Okay, that explains it. Although I'll ignore all the terrible bits in your example that would serve as good examples of what I avoid as a DM and leave to the players to narrate for themselves, I understand what you're saying now and even agree.

Yeah, it was kinda a tongue-in-cheek example... I should try to be more serious... sometimes...

...not right now.

Sacrosanct · Jun 18, 2019

My post in my OP: I'd really love to hear how you would apply D&D rules to a different genre.
Last 8 pages: That would never work

Should have been expected, really...

Satyrn · Jun 18, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
Yeah, it was kinda a tongue-in-cheek example... I should try to be more serious... sometimes...

...not right now.

Don't be serious on my account! No. Wait. You should be serious. Always. I hate competition.

But it wasn't even the example that hampered my understanding of what you were trying to say. I simply couldn't piece together what you were saying before the example. I think it was mostly because you said "player" but meant "DM:"

The game may incentivize toe-to-toe damage-trading (I'm not so sure it does, but for the sake of argument), and the player may thus declare a simple action in accord with the reality that doing damage is a sloggy sort of thing. The player, though, gets to narrate the results of that action...

CapnZapp · Jun 18, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
The damage model of dnd, with more damage but not more HP, would encourage shooting your high damage at others from behind cover.

Ya know, like in a shootout.

More damage and same hp. Or same damage and less hp.

You're saying that D&D would work, just remove the defining features of D&D. Gotcha

CapnZapp · Jun 18, 2019

Sacrosanct said:
You really don't see the irony in you making this statement, do you? I'm not accusing anyone of badwrong. That's you. You were the one that said people expect/play wild west a certain way. You did it again a few posts below this one I quoted. All I did is say that assumption is wrong. I'm not saying people who play that way are wrong, I'm saying it's wrong to assume that's what everyone wants or does.

Man, this never gets old, does it? You make sweeping generalizations about people and assume what you want is the only true way and everyone else must play like how you want, and every time it gets called out how that's not true, you act like they are making a personal attack on you or people like you. Every. Freaking. Time.

Thank you for making it personal. Makes it easy to skip your posts.