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

[hawkeyefan]

I'm still not seeing how that is rude or offensive.

It might be rude if someone said something like “Okay, so my group is going to play 5E, but we want to do lower magic. Other games are not an option. What advice do you guys have?”

If you answer with “You really shouldn’t try to get 5E to do that because....” you’re ignoring part of what they’re saying (I mean the general you, here). And that’s a bit rude.

Offensive would probably take a lot more than that, I would think.

Okay.

This is pretty much the only response when someone says that a system that has almost no rules or support for a given sphere is as good as one with significant support.

 

[Bedrockgames]

edit: two posts have pointed toward the title as indicative of conflict, interpreting “vs” as competitive rather than comparative as I intended, so I’ve changed the title.

So, there is a lot of traffic on the internet dedicated to the idea that DnD is a very limited game, and if you want to run a heist or have romantic fantasy narratives, or even just play a game where bonds with other people is very important, then you should play some indie game that is built for that thing, rather than D&D.

I disagree. I play other games sometimes, to tell short stories with my friends, or to explore and learn different ways of running and constructing a game. For my regular game, I'd almost always rather play dnd. Not only am I so familiar with it that I don't need to think about the rules to use them, but it is a game that is very easy to add to.

What I mean by that is, if I want to have mechanics relating to morale and the bonds formed between PCs and their closest NPCs, or with a community, etc, I can just add rules for that to D&D 5e, and D&D 5e absolutely can handle them without any problems. I have used "act now, plan later" mechanics in 5e. Nothing about 5e prevents or even mildly works against doing so.

What's more, I generally don't want to play a campaign of heists, or a campaign of city building, or a campaign of building a revolution. I want to use those elements within a larger campaign that features those things and more. When my Eberron group did a heist to keep a powerful artifact from being purchased by Emerald Claw terrorists, I stole mechanics and ideas from indie RPGs and from movies and tv shows. If it was a broadcast game, I'd have credited them in the show notes, but I certainly wasn't going to tell my group to remake their characters in Blades in The Dark, expect everyone to learn that system in order to participate in the next story arc, and then go back to DnD when we were done with that job.

So, for me, "you'd be better off playing a game that is made for that" usually rings hollow. What about you?

I make genre games and I think you don’t have to play genre games to run genre campaigns. If D&D gives you the range you want, connects you more easily with players and is a system you enjoy, I think it makes sense to run it. Indie genre games can mean so many things as well. And often they can be exceedingly narrow. So there is definitely merit to what you are saying. I make and run genre games but also played D&D for ages and used it for genre campaigns with little problem (you can always customize D&D pretty easily because there is so much material available for it).

 

[Lanefan]

I think it varies by edition and by what you want to try and do. I mean, prior to later AD&D/2E characters didn't even have skills, with the exception of the thief. So the lack of rules in earlier editions may be seen as an opportunity for some hacking.

But considering how interwoven a lot of the components of early D&D were, and how their removal in the 2E era left the game a bit rudderless and forced the GM to really take a strong hand, I don’t know how easily hacked the early stuff really is.

It's easily hacked, and as the subsystems are more discrete there's less concern about knock-on effects and those that do arise tend to be more specific rather than game-wide.

If I can do it, anyone can. It just takes a willingness to put in the thought/effort, acceptance of some in-play trial-and-error, and patient players.

I would say that the same would apply to 5E. Yes, you can bolt things on to the chassis, but very often that will throw other things out of whack.

Also true of 3e and 4e.

And then there’s the fact that D&D mechanics are about 75% to 90% focused on combat. That promotes fighting as the solution to problems.

Same was true of 1e yet there fighting was generally discouraged as being the go-to problem solver. The tone and presentation - and play advice - of the game just ain't the same as it used to be.

If you wanted D&D to do heists well, you’d need more than just Stealth and Deception skills. Class abilities that are designed with this in mind, spells that are more focused on it, feats, magic items, etc. Yes some that exist would be fine, but there would need to be more.

Think of the D&D combat system. All the game components related to combat. Now, picture an equivalent heist system. That’s what would be needed.

Now, is this needed in most D&D games? No. You can do occasionally heisty type things with what’s there, or by adding a bit. But if you were going to run a Thieves Guild campaign where the game would revolve not around killing monsters, but around stealing stuff and similar jobs, then it would require a lot of work.

Ehhhh, maybe. I mean, one could add on all sorts of subsystems and different classes-abilities-skills-etc. if one wanted to, but - much as with social encounters - I suspect the point where diminishing returns outstrip effort spent would arrive very quickly.

So much so that a recommendation of “maybe you should play Blades in the Dark or Dusk City Outlaws” is a very valid recommendation.

Agreed if all you want to run is a heist-based campaign. Disagreed if you're also wanting to do other types of adventures in the same campaign.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It's easily hacked, and as the subsystems are more discrete there's less concern about knock-on effects and those that do arise tend to be more specific rather than game-wide.

If I can do it, anyone can. It just takes a willingness to put in the thought/effort, acceptance of some in-play trial-and-error, and patient players.

Well, I think it may be easier than other editions in the sense that the editions that followed have an increasing number of rules modules that have been added....proficiencies/skills, then feats, and so on.

But I think early D&D was also a delicate system in that any changes were more likely to throw things off.

But again, it also depends on what changes were being made. Some would be more possible than others, I’d guess.

Also true of 3e and 4e.

Well with 3E, the focus wasn’t on adding new elements entirely so much as designing options like classes and feats and prestige classes and so on. There was an abundance of areas to expand by default.

With 4E I’m not sure. I didn’t spend enough time with it to really offer an opinion on it. Honestly, my gut says that it may have “needed” the least hacking, but that’s just a hunch looking at it in retrospect.

Same was true of 1e yet there fighting was generally discouraged as being the go-to problem solver. The tone and presentation - and play advice - of the game just ain't the same as it used to be.

Right, but that’s because it was more about player skill in navigating a dungeon and in puzzle and problem-solving and resource management.

Ehhhh, maybe. I mean, one could add on all sorts of subsystems and different classes-abilities-skills-etc. if one wanted to, but - much as with social encounters - I suspect the point where diminishing returns outstrip effort spent would arrive very quickly.

Only because you prefer for the GM to decide all social outcomes. But if the focus of the game is not about combat, or about navigating dangers in an adventure area, then having rules for other areas is probably a good idea. Because if combat isn’t a huge focus, and delve-style problem solving isn’t, then you’re left with a pretty limp system.

Agreed if all you want to run is a heist-based campaign. Disagreed if you're also wanting to do other types of adventures in the same campaign.

Well I said a Thieves Guild campaign. Which I would expect would likely be better served by focusing on different areas than a typical D&D campaign. But it doesn't mean one thing over and over again.

I think this is part of the problem with the discussion....that D&D, a game that was originally designed to deliver a very specific experience, and which is largely still based on those early elements (though with shifts in focus with each edition) is so flexible, and a game that has a more narrow focus is somehow incapable of doing anything other than the one thing.

 

[dave2008]

Well, that and stripping out 99% of the classes,

It is not 99% of classes, that is exaggeration. You don't have to take out that many, but you asked for a really low magic setting, so that is what I delivered.

the entire magic system,

That is not true. The ritual system is part of the magic system and uses the spells of the general magic system and cantrips and 1st level spells are generally available. Personally, this is what I like about this low-magic system. Again, you don't have to go this far (we don't in our low magic game), but you said 1 spell per encounter, so that is what I was trying to deliver.

still no changes to monsters,

I see no need for those or they can be handled on the fly as needed. There are very few monsters that have mundane weapon immunity and resistance isn't an issue IMO. If you don't want magic casting monsters, don't use them. I didn't think that needed to be said.

no changes to the baseline assumptions of the game - are potions of healing available?

Magic equipment is as provided by the DM, you don't need any special rules for this, it is just whatever is appropriate for the setting / theme you are going for.

How do we handle anything that requires a Restoration spell? Etc. But, yeah, "one change".

Again, it depends on how much magic you want. If there is no one who can cast this spell then the effect is handle as described in the monster or encounter entry. You could always simply avoid situations that would require a restoration spell, that might be the most appropriate for a low magic setting. I mean there are not a lot of monsters that induce such conditions. There are other ways to handle it of course, but these seem appropriate to me.

 

[Campbell]

Programming Note : Blades in the Dark can feature heists, but I would not call it a heist game. Much like D&D it is a unique alchemy of influences that basically presents a pretty novel new experience. Fundamentally Blades is fantasy crime fiction with a lot of its own setting eccentricities. It shares a lot more with Peaky Blinders, John Wick, Goodfellas and Sons of Anarchy with a dash of Dishonored than something like The Italian Job or Ocean's Eleven. I've played and run it with a whole host of different crew types and there's a lot more diversity of play than just being a heist game.

I do think it has more support for running heists than most games, but it is not focused around heists in the same way a game like Leverage is.

 

[dave2008]

The entire concept of Blades in the Dark is that you are criminals in a haunted city clawing your way up the power ladder. Heists are fundamental to the game. The are enabled and supported by the whole ruleset. You can't do a dungeon crawl, or a wilderness exploration with Blades -- it has no support for these things. But just about anything you've seen in Peaky Blinders or Leverage is the gristle the system chews on.

OK, thank you for responding. However, this doesn't really tell me anything other than I need to read Blades in the Dark more closely

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is pretty much the only response when someone says that a system that has almost no rules or support for a given sphere is as good as one with significant support.

Well, no. It’s my response when what you’re saying isn’t something I see any need to argue, and I’m not sure whether you’re just talking about your preferences honestly or playing a rhetorical trick to try and make a point.

If I was sure that you were just speaking to a preference, I’d just say, “cool! What are the consequences of combat? In Monster of The Week everyone in a fight takes Harm, and several harm gets really dicey, for instance.” Or, if I’m not curious about the system, “Fair enough. It’s not to my taste, but it sounds like it does what you want very well.”

 

[dave2008]

But, what is the difference between learning the rules of an RPG and learning the rules from four different supplements? I mean, you've got probably just as many mechanics to learn. And, you'll notice that virtually all suggestions for using a different system almost always is for games with relatively simple (at least compared to D&D) mechanics. As in, no one suggests that Rolemaster is a better option. Heck, even things like GURPS or Paladium are almost never suggested. No, it's games like DitV, or BItD - much lighter games that can be learned in the time it takes to read them.

I'm still confused why it's fine to say, "Here's four 200+ page supplements to buy that will resolve your issue" and "Here's a single game, typically about 50 pages (I realize Blades is much longer than that) long that you can digest pretty quickly." I mean, heck, the work is already done for you most of the time.

I think you are confused about something, this is what I was responding too:

But wouldn't it be better served with a several separate campaigns, set in the same world, where the system would support the genre well and the characters would be tailored for the game?

The suggestion was to run multiple different systems (several, which to me = 3 or more) to get the feel for the game. So if I wanted to run heroic fantasy and then do some cosmic horror followed by a heist and then back to heroic fantasy. So the suggestion is to:

1. Start with D&D (heroic fantasty)
2. Move to CoC (cosmic horror), learning all the rules and convert all monsters, npcs, and characters.
3. Move to Blades in the Dark (heist), learning all the rules and convert all monsters, npcs, and characters again
4. Move back to D&D (heroic fantasy) and convert all npcs and characters back (but leveled up of course)

Does that really seam easier than Running everything in CoC (or D&D or Blades in teh Dark) and modifying it as needed to run the other two genres? It certainly doesn't to me.

Also, I don't necessarily need to buy any supplements to modify a given game to another genre, it might be helpful, but it is not required.

 

[dave2008]

First, I'm really sorry. I was incredibly rude. Thank you for your suggestions. They are actually very good suggestions and they most certainly would work.

No worries, thank you for the response.

EDIT: I do want to point out that a lot of people thought all 4e classes were "magical." I am not one of those. However, the monk and barbarian from 5e similar to 4e martial classes and could be added to the list in a low magic setting

I'm still not seeing how that is rude or offensive.

I don't know how to explain it any better, sorry.