@doctorbadwolf Oh, D&D can be pretty broad...
But it -excels- at the high fantasy morality play centered largely around combat!
Not just because of character alignments, which you can ignore or not, but NPC Alignments being both a narrative and combat function. Outsiders and Undead are often explicitly presented as -fundamentally- good or evil, which is reinforced by spellcasting effects, like the various spells, magic items, and class features that work based on the target's alignment.
I'd quibble that vanishingly few things in 5e put mechanical weight to alignment itself. Detect Evil and Good uses those terms, but what it actually shows is just unnatural creatures from other planes of existence. The point being, no houserules are required at all to play 5e sans any morality play dynamic.
He’s explained how it can do horror, how you can do Aliens with a dragon and an isolated location and a fear effect scale, and so on. Never once has he said something like “wow the stress dice and panic rules for Aliens are much more robust than the rules tweaks I made to D&D to pull off horror; if I wanted a prolonged campaign with those themes that would likely be a better choice.”
It wouldn't be a better choice, unless I wanted to run a prolonged campaign with those themes
in the same kind of world as presented in that game, and without any of the themes that we play dnd for, like having greater agency to change things than we have IRL.
What is the difference between creating a set of completely new, non-suck naval combat rules for your D&D game from scratch, and copy-pasting the rules from a professionally designed non-suck naval combat game into your D&D game?
Considering I've advised both, I'm not sure where this question comes from.
They're not utterly -ignored-, obviously. But the system itself is just weak in those areas compared to many other systems.
That's a matter of preference. If I leave an area of the game rules light and easy to either modify or even ignore, because a lot of groups don't want that part of the play experience gamified, it's pretty strange to say that the game elements in question are weak. They're just not tuned to your preference.
I very strongly do not want to ever see gamified social rules in a DnD PHB. I'd be fine with them presented very clearly as optional rules in the DMG or a supplement, but I will not play a version of DnD that relies on stuff like "social combat mechanics" or the like. All social interaction needs in the average game is action/task resolution, and stats to determine how generally good everyone is at the broad primary aspects of social interaction.
The only weaknesses of the 5e social system are, IMO, lack of advice for stuff like allowing a fighter with the veteran background to leverage their background and knowledge of weaponry and warfare to treat with other veterans in spite of a low charisma or lack of training in social skills, and the lack of a solid pre-written system for 5e for skill challenges, and other ways to create success ladders in non-combat scenes. I can add those things, because I've played several games with such elements and can leverage that knowledge with my knowledge of how 5e works, but it sucks that a newer DM has to seek out advice to add that complexity, when it could have been laid out in the DMG as advice and/or optional rules.
The exploration rules are poorly executed, however. I think most people agree on that. I don't think their premises are that bad, though some are off base, like whatever premise lead to rangers bypassing the need to roll for things. Again, I can add Journey rules from AIME, or with a little more work add the rules from The One Ring, and because I know my group they will suit us really well, and we have made really fun use of them in our Space Fantasy! games, adapting journey roles to ship roles, and adding a dynamic where when a hazard or complication arises that is relevant to a given role, the person filling that role "runs" the scene to resolve it. However, again, it sucks that a new DM would have to go online or to a more experienced DM they know in order to get any idea of how to get more out of exploration.
So if that’s the case, then what are you ever even asking for? Do you start threads like “How do I make my D&D game have a horror vibe?” Because you already seem to have all the answers on that....according to your posts in this thread, you can make D&D do anything, and easily.
The fact that I understand the system pretty well and can modify it pretty easily doesn't mean I can't benefit from other people's experience, what they've tried and whether it worked for them, and being pointed to mechanics in other games that can be borrowed without having to use the entire system they're from. It's...pretty straightforward.
Beyond that, the fact that this is easy for me, and I already know how to do it, doesn't mean that is the case for everyone who is asking for advice. That doesn't mean they should just abandon their plan and play a whole different game instead, and telling them that they are wrong to want to do the thing is a crappy way to engage with the discussion they've initiated.
But...but....forum posts are what he’s complaining about. If they carry no weight, then what’s the problem?
He can just dismiss the ones that aren’t convenient like you’re doing.
Seriously? Forum posts don't prove how common a play issue is. That...literally has nothing at all to do with whether or not a forum behavior is problematic.
For example, to evoke the Alien movies, you can just use a dragon and an isolated location and a race to a vehicle. Terms like “easily accomplished” and “not difficult” and “just as effective” have been used pretty regularly.
Except not. "Just as effective" is not a thing I've said. Making DnD run a story that is similar to Aliens, feature a monster that you cannot win a fight with, in a closed enviroment, and your friends getting killed left and right around you while the situation gets steadily worse and worse for you, all in a scenario where you had no reason to expect this sort of situation, is very doable in DnD 5e. It can benefit from, but does not require, additional mechanics.
If I wanted to play in the actual world of Aliens, and kill PCs on a spaceship with a xenomorph, I'd play the Alien RPG. Since what I want is to play a similar scenario in a fantasy context where the moving parts that can be used to get out alive and/or throw the monster out the proverbial airlock are more likely to be magical than technological, I'm going to use DnD and perhaps add some mechanics from the Alien RPG or other monster horror RPGs.
