Legends & Lore: Roleplaying in D&D Next

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I think you're too focus on what YOU want specifically. That path is bound to lead to disappointment. I think the better approach is to look at what the game is in general, and how well we can adjust that to suit our specificity.

In general, I like inspiration/GMs friend/Fudge/Fate/luck etc etc but as to the specifics...well, I'll wait to see Inspiration and how it works in this game.

That's just it. There is no "what the game is in general" yet. This is the playtest phase and *gasp* I'm expressing my opinion on what I'd like to see in the game. If you have an issue with me expressing my opinion that path is bound to lead to disappointment.

I'm not entirely sure "exhaustive" is what I'd call Marvel Heroic. I've read through the rules as I was super excited to see how it did things after hearing so many good things about it. I've watched youtube videos of people playing it to see if I was missing something, but in the end all I can figure out about the game is that it's a dice adding game with a story attached.

You are completelty missing a MAJOR part of the game.

Being Wolverine doesn't actually give you any benefits at all. Your claws don't do extra damage to enemies compared to people without them.

His claws do what they do best, turn other's melee attacks against them using his Adamantium Skeleton SFX.

Your regeneration doesn't have any real effect over someone's forcefield.

I don't know what effect his regeneration would have over someone's forcefield in the comics either, but if there was some weird usage I'm not imagining, that would be handled by spending a PP and stunting off his Godlike Stamina. And the fact that he can spend a PP to fully recover physical stress while other heroes and villains cannot makes him very much like the Wolverine I know.

He can also use his Berserk SFX to heighten his fury in combat at the cost of increased tension in the scene via the Doom Pool.

All of them are just dice that get added together in a pool and your individual powers are inconsequential most of the time. If two dice pools get added up to the same amount, the powers that make up those pools don't effect the game more than the DM chooses to make them effect the game. Which is normally a short description about how you hit the enemy with claws or an energy beam.

Not my experience at all. The SFX of each hero makes them what they are. The approach the player's choose makes a difference. The player of Cyclops can use his Russian Farmboy Comrade approach to talk a Russian villain (Titanium Man) out of destroying D.C. in search of Tony Stark (actual gameplay example). You can "damage" opposition in three different ways. And the real crux of feeling like a super hero is placing Complications on your target. There is alot of freedom to the game and it rarely came down to just "I hit with my claws" in any of the games I've run so far.

I'm not advocating for these rules for DDN. I've tried to picture a satisfying hack of the MHRP system to fantasy and didn't come to one that felt like D&D to me. But borrowing a piece like the roleplaying XP awards over a more generic mechanic like Inspiration appeals to me much more.

 

[billd91]

His claws do what they do best, turn other's melee attacks against them using his Adamantium Skeleton SFX.

I don't even understand what this is trying to say to me.

 

[sheadunne]

What I would like to see is something like the Complication Die I introduced in my own game (granted, not D&D game).

Player A can ask Player B to roll a die and add it to his dice pool (it's a success based system). If the die rolled is equal to or higher than the dice rolled by the Player A, then a complication has occurred, in addition to whatever the normal results of the roll would be.

Translated to D&D it might be something like.

Player A doesn't like his chances of jumping over the chasm. He asks another player at the table, Player B, to also roll a d20. Player A can take either die roll and use it to jump over the chasm. If Player B's die roll is equal to or higher than Player A's roll, a complication has occurred, regardless of whether the action was successful or not. Player B chooses the complication that has happened.

Let's say Player A needs an 18 to make it over the chasm. He has a +6 to his roll. He rolls an 8 (14 total, not enough) but Player B rolls a 14 (20 total, is enough). Player A makes it over the chasm, but a complication has occurred. Player B chooses the complication and says that Player A made it over the chasm, but is now hanging onto the edge, instead of standing on his feet. Player A can easy pull himself up on his next turn (a move action). It's not meant to be debilitating, only complicating the results.

If Player B's die roll had been a 9 (total 15, not enough) then Player A would have failed the roll, and a complication would have occurred (since Player B's die roll was still equal to or higher than Player A's roll). Player A would probably fall into the chasm since he failed his roll, but in addition to the falling, something else happened to make things more complicated. Perhaps when he fell down, he also landed in a pool of water at the bottom. This is entirely up to Player B, since he was asked to roll the complication die.

I find it adds a little tension, but without putting any undo work on the DM and let's the players have fun with the narrative. It's also completely up to the players whether to use it and what the results are of using it. It's also not certain that any complication will actually happen. That's up to the dice.

I find it a much more gratifying experience to turn over these types of mechanics to the players. I don't have to play favorites or feel like I need to balance giving out tokens. Players easily have access to a mechanic that gives a potential boost (Bonus) at the cost of a potential complication (RP). Clear Guidelines are needed to let Players know the limitations of the complication, they're not meant to injury or potential kill a character, only make life a little less easy. In D&D I would say a complication shouldn't be any more difficult than it would take a move action to get out of or deal with.

Anyway, that's more of what I'm interested in for RP bonuses in the game. Rather than reward RP with bonuses, let's give bonuses in exchange for creating RP situations. And let's make it player choice.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I don't even understand what this is trying to say to me.

I was replying to Majoru Oakhart and only because he took the time to research the game. You don't understand because you (most likely) haven't looked at the game, like someone who's never looked at D&D wondering what a 'feat' is. Which is fine. I understand not everyone is interested in or will like MHRP. Explaining further would require me to veer even more off topic than I have already.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Anyway, that's more of what I'm interested in for RP bonuses in the game. Rather than reward RP with bonuses, let's give bonuses in exchange for creating RP situations. And let's make it player choice.

I like it. Maybe you've never encountered the issue I think I'd have with my players, but what would you do if the players took the bonus but gamed the system by not imposing a meaningful complication?

 

[sheadunne]

I like it. Maybe you've never encountered the issue I think I'd have with my players, but what would you do if the players took the bonus but gamed the system by not imposing a meaningful complication?

It's always a possibility. I find that the players I tend to game with are usually harder on themselves and each other if given the opportunity, but if I found that players weren't interested in the "complication" part of it, then it's probably not the best mechanic for that group of players (not everyone likes to mix RP with Dice rolling). I don't personally want more work, but if it was a problem, a DM could take over assigning the complication. The complication isn't really suppose to be penalty, so much as an opportunity to Roleplay. You managed to kill the orc since you pulled out all the stops (rolled the complication die) but now your sword is stuck in the orcs skull and needs a second to break free (move action). It's also possible lucky players won't ever end up getting the complication and others will still fail and get complications. That's the nature of adding a random element to the bonus. Heck, the player may roll a critical hit and still get a complication out of it. You sliced the orcs head off, but the blood caused the sword to slip out of your hands. Your performance at the night club was spectacular, so much so that the waitress who was staring at your performance continued pouring the beer into the burly man's glass until it overflowed and now he's blaming you. You made your save against the disintegration ray, but now your hair is an awful shade of green, or your left boot didn't make it.

Anyway, these systems are not for everyone, which is why if the system doesn't need them to function, then they should be optional.

 

[billd91]

I was replying to Majoru Oakhart and only because he took the time to research the game. You don't understand because you (most likely) haven't looked at the game, like someone who's never looked at D&D wondering what a 'feat' is. Which is fine. I understand not everyone is interested in or will like MHRP. Explaining further would require me to veer even more off topic than I have already.

That's good because otherwise it sounded like you were saying something completely ridiculous about what Wolverine's claws do best - which is obviously destroy objects and inflict critical wounds on the people he's fighting.

 

[jasper]

Ok I got here late. So clear it up for me. is it
1. The Inspiration Background is Core mechanic where if I roll, 1 on chart 1, 33 on chart 2, and 01 on chart 3. My Milk drinking ( Chart 1) wizard who father was revenuer so me favorite enemy are rum runners (chart 2) and listens to jazz (chart 3) . And any time Monte Cook publishes another adventure in the "Tea for two "adventure path, I get a fate/inspiration pt and cool magic item. Since Monte Cook likes that build.
Or
2. A optional mechanic where my whiskey drinking hobbit who mother was baker and I hate pop tarts, will get a fate/inspiration pt (good for 1 free reroll) anytime the dm decides to have the king invite to eleveness?

 

[Libramarian]

I'd rather give XP for roleplaying (i.e. portraying a consistent character) than advantage in the current scene. With XP at least the reward is kind of diffuse and delayed, so it actually feels like a "bonus", something that's nice but not necessary. The immediacy of this inspiration bonus will mess with the tactical appeal of the game. When the players get into a tough situation I want them to just be thinking about how best to use their limited use abilities and such, rather than thinking about how to come up with an explanation for why they deserve the inspiration bonus. Mixing the latter in with the former seems distracting and incoherent to me.

I have given an XP bonus for amusing roleplay in the past but I stopped doing it, mostly because it felt kind of tacked-on and didn't accomplish much (I found it to increase the disparity in roleplaying for color between those who like to do it and those who don't, rather than closing the gap--those who already did it gobbled up the opportunities to do it for XP and talked over the other players even more than usual). If they came up with a system that was a bit more thorough and integrated with character creation maybe I would enjoy using it. But I think this inspiration mechanic is going to be too intrusively storygamey for me, and I think anyone who prefers to play some or all of the game in a straightforwardly tactical, fail-backwards sort of way.

 

[JonWake]

This conversation is interesting because to me the entire point of playing a TTRPG with a DM is to adjudicate out of the box ideas. The instant that I have to pick from a list of options is the instant I get bored with the game. The attraction of D&D, back when I started playing, was that I could try anything, provided I played my character. When my Dex 10 paladin fell off the rope he tried to swing from, I didn't complain. He had a Dex of flippin' 10. That's, at best, a 50/50 proposition. And it made a great story as the party tried to hold off the Green Dragon long enough to let me get back to my feet.