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

[Ruin Explorer]

Or maybe you shouldn't take it so seriously.

Everyone gets to choose their own analogies, you get to decide how ridiculous and extreme an analogy you want to go with! I'm pretty sure you picked husband because if you picked car, boyfriend, or apartment, it might have been reasonable to suggest you change, and thus it's not really me taking it too literally or seriously (though I was having fun with it, obviously), it's that you decided on a really extreme analogy to prevent anyone going "But people do dump boyfriends because they won't ever cook..." or "But people do change cars because they don't have 4WD" and so on.

 

[Marc_C]

It certainly seems though that a more generic, flexible, and open-ended baseline (e.g., GURPS, Cypher System, Cortex Prime, Savage Worlds, Hero System, Fate, etc.) would demand less need for system departure than D&D, which has a LOT of particularized genre elements baked into it. I'm honestly surprised that I have not seen someone (that I can at least recall) take the 5e Engine and turn it into a more generic system much like what True20 did for the D&D 3e d20 system or Monte Cook Games did in-house as they went from Numenera to the generalized Cypher System.

Times have changed.

Savage World and Fate pretty much demonstrated there is room in the market for other types of systems. With everyone on FB (other social media) and KS campaigns I don't believe there is a need for yet another variation of a universal d20 "à la D&D" sauce system. Monte Cook, Green Ronin, Modiphius and Free League have showed in the last 5 years unique systems are very viable despite the fact that D&D5e is extremely popular.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Everyone gets to choose their own analogies, you get to decide how ridiculous and extreme an analogy you want to go with! I'm pretty sure you picked husband because if you picked car, boyfriend, or apartment, it might have been reasonable to suggest you change, and thus it's not really me taking it too literally or seriously (though I was having fun with it, obviously), it's that you decided on a really extreme analogy to prevent anyone going "But people do dump boyfriends because they won't ever cook..." or "But people do change cars because they don't have 4WD" and so on.

My take is that anyone starting with "gawd" is applying sarcasm.

 

[Aldarc]

Times have changed.

Savage World and Fate pretty much demonstrated there is room in the market for other types of systems. With everyone on FB (other social media) and KS campaigns I don't believe there is a need for yet another variation of a universal d20 "à la D&D" sauce system. Monte Cook, Green Ronin, Modiphius and Free League have showed in the last 5 years unique systems are very viable despite the fact that D&D5e is extremely popular.

It's less about whether a universal d20 system based on the 5e engine is needed, but, rather, it's more a genuine surprise that it hasn't been designed or approached yet even by a 3pp.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Wow.

I mean wooooooow. So you're metaphorically "married to D&D"? I mean, that's wild. It's like a sea-captain being "married to the sea" or "married to their ship" or something I guess. That is probably the most extreme "I'm into D&D" claim I've ever read in 30+ years so er... respect for that I guess.

Obviously if you're so utterly, deeply, completely committed to a game that you would directly equate it to an inviolable holy union, that you're literally sworn oaths to uphold, then you're not really likely to be interested in any other games, under any circumstances. But that doesn't seem like it's a common or really reasonable position.

Maybe you would have been better off with like a car analogy or something? Just suggesting.

I'd agree.

I'm not sure why people think D&D isn't relatively compatible with heists etc. - as I've pointed out a few times, the BitD flashback/planning stuff was actually in D&D adventure in Dungeon in 2010, loooooooong before BitD existed.

But some other mechanics don't port as well, and what particularly tends to be an issue is if you start trying to port mechanics from multiple different systems. Like with your example, I'd actually say you'd gone too far, like you're taking bits of BitD which aren't really necessary and aren't going to help the vibe, just for the sake of mirroring BitD, which is going to make it harder if you also want to use that D&D campaign to do non-BitD stuff.

You've moved a few peas, here. The claim is that 5e does have any support for heist, so anything done is ad hoc. The suggested porting, to me, looks extremely loose and I can't tell from the explanation how it actually plays, but it's clear it doesn't play the same way. So, to me, it reads as another ad hoc collection held together by that particular GM's conception and application and not any kind of general issue patch to 5e to add support for heists.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Everyone gets to choose their own analogies, you get to decide how ridiculous and extreme an analogy you want to go with! I'm pretty sure you picked husband because if you picked car, boyfriend, or apartment, it might have been reasonable to suggest you change, and thus it's not really me taking it too literally or seriously (though I was having fun with it, obviously), it's that you decided on a really extreme analogy to prevent anyone going "But people do dump boyfriends because they won't ever cook..." or "But people do change cars because they don't have 4WD" and so on.

I chose the analogy because it was the first funny thing that popped into my head. However, feel free to tell me what I am thinking, I am used to that. Now I need to go make my man's breakfast, wash his clothes, and clean his house.

You really know how to take something fun and silly and poop all over it - good for you.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Gawd! I hate when people do that. I'm playing D&D, I don't want advice to play a different game - jeesh. You might as well tell me to divorce my husband and find a new partner because he doesn't cook!*

*I just wanted to clarify my husband can cook, he just isn't very knowledgeable and prefers not to.

Well I almost got coffee all over my phone, so thanks for that!

 

[dave2008]

Time clocks..,

Yes! That is the mechanic that made me interested in BitD - thank you for reminding me. I think that ports to D&D just fine (as a replacement / upgrade to skill challenges).

and flashbacks are easy to port, ...

Maybe, but that is specifically what I don't like about BitD. I would be interested in heist/game mechanics that don't involve flashbacks.

 

[tetrasodium]

You've moved a few peas, here. The claim is that 5e does have any support for heist, so anything done is ad hoc. The suggested porting, to me, looks extremely loose and I can't tell from the explanation how it actually plays, but it's clear it doesn't play the same way. So, to me, it reads as another ad hoc collection held together by that particular GM's conception and application and not any kind of general issue patch to 5e to add support for heists.

All add to this because I mentioned running heist type one offs mid campaign earlier. It only worked because the gm & one player understood security & the bypassing of it enough to tread a path of plausibility. For my part as the GM I pretty much secretly ran a very restrained fate on top of d&d & let the players go wild while I tried to pack in as much lore/worldbuilding/plot development. The result was pretty much entirely fiat with a smidge of problem solving like drunken people at a party trying to involve the disguised waiter PCs in their obviously bad for the goals of the party arguments.

I've run enough fate, even semi-open games at a FLGS to be at a point where I feel comfortable planning for sessions ahead of time in fate (as much as fate allows "planning"). It would be a stretch to say that those sessions were anything other than desperate ad-hock that was largely only kept from flying apart at the seams by everyone involved actively making efforts to avoid noticing the system tearing itself apart & deliberately not going for violence. The fact that the heist type thing was only neeed because of fiat says a lot. The fiat was something like "Boromir is a very powerful political figure in sharn who happens to run the organized crime sector of the economy so going in swords drawn would go very bad for you but there is a party you can probably get in as waiters or something if your careful" dressed up in a bit more fluff

 

[Marc_C]

It's less about whether a universal d20 system based on the 5e engine is needed, but, rather, it's more a genuine surprise that it hasn't been designed or approached yet even by a 3pp.

It's far easier to adapt whatever setting a publisher has to 5e - make $$$ off the D&D locomotive - than design a system from the ground up and risk it not catching on. Probably why no one has done that.

Ultramodern 5 is a weird mix of parts 5e, 4e and 3e d20. I didn't like it. There is a redux version I know nothing about:

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