D&D 5E D&D compared to Bespoke Genre TTRPGs

[S'mon]

I mean, no group I know has a play pattern like what you describe in their dnd games.

I'm sorry you're all having such Badwrongfun.

Seriously, I love how 5e recognises exploration, combat and social interaction as the three pillars of D&D play. The dungeon is a great setup for at least the first two of those.

 

[dave2008]

That's entirely fair. It can sometimes be easier to make adjustments to something you are familiar with and well adjusted to. It also seems that in the grand scheme of things you are not stretching the game very far from its baseline. That it's already close to your specific vision of play. I'm not arguing that you should be doing something different.

What I am arguing against is the notion that D&D 5e is in anyway a more flexible game from a design perspective than "bespoke genre games". It is no easier to drift away from its baseline than most other games are. It certainly is not a more flexible game than games like Apocalypse World that have sparked entire game hacking subcultures that result in radically different games.

This is also not me making claims about other games being more flexible. Just not less flexible.

I really stopped looking at other games in any detail in the early 90s, so I can speak much to their flexibility, but I imagine your right.

Whether or not you can stretch 5e far is I guess a matter of opinion. I haven't tried them, but their are 5e derived games for just about any genre at this point, so it seems it can stretch far.

Also, I am routinely told that our playstyle is something 5e doesn't handle well (low magic & gritty), but it works great for us. So I have a feeling it can stretch as far as you want it to. However, everyone's desires and time are different.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sooo nothing objectively wrong... "fun" is the reason. Got it.

Given that the purpose of playing a game is to have fun, having rules that are not fun is pretty final.

Where are my barrel rolls? where are my immelmanns? How do I divert power from phasers to shields?

If you think the D&D vehicle rules can get anywhere close to the starship combat rules in other games, then it's because you have never played those other games.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Actually, I prefer space games without spaceships really. I haven't found a game that does vehicle combat particularly well (space or otherwise) IMO. So, D&D in that respect works just fine for me. I would run more of an Expanse or Firefly type setting where the action is mostly in the space ship/station or on a planet and less about ship to ship battles.

Have you seen the vehicle rules in Star Without Number? If I were to run a game with spaceships, those are probably what I would use (or at least base whatever I came up with on).

 

[Imaro]

Given that the purpose of playing a game is to have fun, having rules that are not fun is pretty final.

Where are my barrel rolls? where are my immelmanns? How do I divert power from phasers to shields?

If you think the D&D vehicle rules can get anywhere close to the starship combat rules in other games, then it's because you have never played those other games.

Well I use the D&D rules in Saltmarsh which could easily be reskinned for space and offer a nice amount of options without overwhelming you... and my group finds them pretty fun. So again subjective is subjective.

EDIT: Also are we talking vehcle rules or vehicle combat rules... I thought we were discussing vehicle rules but all of your posts seem to focus on combat.

 

[dave2008]

Have you seen the vehicle rules in Star Without Number? If I were to run a game with spaceships, those are probably what I would use (or at least base whatever I came up with on).

I have not, nor have I seen the Star Trek rules @Paul Farquhar suggested. If we decided to give space a try again I will check those out (or maybe for a spelljamer game)

 

[dave2008]

Given that the purpose of playing a game is to have fun, having rules that are not fun is pretty final.

Where are my barrel rolls? where are my immelmanns? How do I divert power from phasers to shields?

If you think the D&D vehicle rules can get anywhere close to the starship combat rules in other games, then it's because you have never played those other games.

I think that point of this thread is that it would be easy to take those vehicle rules and simply graft them on to D&D. I am not familiar with the rules, so I can say if that is true or not, but that is the premise of this thread. Not whether or not a specific game has a subset of rules that are better than ones in 5e.

The real questions is whether it is easier to:

1. Take the ship rules form Star Trek and graft them onto your D&D game, or...
2. Take the heroic fantasy adventure rules of D&D and graft them onto your Star Trek game.

 

[dave2008]

Where are my barrel rolls? where are my immelmanns? How do I divert power from phasers to shields?

Question: How the hell does a federation starship do barrel rolls? That seems much more like Star Wars than Star Trek to me.

 

[dave2008]

WoTC has not provided that for 4e and 5e like they did for the d20 OGL (3e).

But plenty of 3PP have. Maybe you missed it because you don't play D&D anymore

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think that point of this thread is that it would be easy to take those vehicle rules and simply graft them on to D&D. I am not familiar with the rules, so I can say if that is true or not, but that is the premise of this thread. Not whether or not a specific game has a subset of rules that are better than ones in 5e.

The real questions is whether it is easier to:

1. Take the ship rules form Star Trek and graft them onto your D&D game, or...
2. Take the heroic fantasy adventure rules of D&D and graft them onto your Star Trek game.

Then you are basically playing two separate games. One for in space, the other on the ground. The Star Trek space combat rules would take nothing for from the D&D ground combat rules, and the ground combat rules would take nothing from the Star Trek rules (which use action points and include the Kirk roll). Given that a hit from a phaser either stuns or disintegrates it's target, you wouldn't get any millage out of hit points either.