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

[Imaro]

Because you can't support your position? I don't understand. It should be a simple request -- what structures exist in 5e to tell me, as a GM, how to run information gathering for a heist? What structures exist in 5e to tell me, as a player, what to expect and how I should expect information gathering to go? This is a simple point -- very narrow, yet critical to a number of types of play. Yet, none of this exists -- by design - because it's entirely left to the GM to detail this for their table however they want -- by design -- to get the kind of play the GM wants -- again, by design. This is a system built to enable the GM to create ad hoc approaches for their individual tables by not providing any support that might get in the way. This isn't support for this kind of play, though, it's the intentional absence of support to allow for GMs to create it themselves.

Can you run a heist in 5e? Abso-xxxxing-lutely. It can be brilliant, too. But, you're doing this entirely on your own and without having the rules tell you how it works. There is no support for it. There's also nothing you have to tear out of the way.

Nope, because it would be a waste of my time.

 

[pemerton]

Here's how a "heist" occurred and resolved in our Classic Traveller game, over about 4 sessions:

* A poor roll by the relevant player when the PCs' vessel jumped out of the Ashar system lead to a misjump and the PCs arriving at an unplanned, unknown world;

* After some activity on that world, the PCs jumped towards home and arrived in the Novus system, where they encountered a strange alien vessel (this was a GM stipulation);

* They entered and explored the vessel - as set up by the GM, this was an Alien-type scenario that took about two sessions;

* Also as per GM stipulation, there was an Imperial Naval cutter that had also noticed the alien vessel and wanted to interdict the PCs' and board and inspect the alien vessel;

* The players, as their PCs, decided that they wanted the alien vessel and did not want the Navy to inspect it, let alone take possession of it;

* The passage of time was basically under GM stipulation, and at an appropriate point pacing-wise the Naval vessel arrived;

* The PCs persuaded (via the reaction system) the Navy Commander to join them in a week-long winery tour on the world's surface while they discussed the finer points of salvage and interdiction laws;

* While the more socially-oriented PCs managed the winery tour, the more technically-oriented ones refuelled the PCs' main vessel, used a (very) heavy duty cable to transfer power from their main vessel to the alien vessel (one of the social PCs made a check to ensure that the Naval authorities did not notice this was going on; I don't think any check was required to succeed in the technical aspect of the plan, given the relevant skills of the technical PCs);

* Then, when all the PCs were back on board the two vessels with the Commander also on board the alien vessel, they jumped to the next system they wanted to head to.​

I think that a BitD-type approach would handle this more tightly than Traveller did. A lot of the outcomes in Traveller depend upon GM decision-making; BitD would have clocks (for the approaching Navy cutter; maybe for the winery tour vis-a-vis refuelling etc), and would have tighter rules for establishing stakes and consequences of the necessary checks.

I'm not planning on shifting my sci-fi game from Traveller to BitD or a sci-fi variant; I really like Classic Traveller and am enjoying the campaign we're playing. But I think it's helpful to be realistic about what various systems do and how they work.

 

[Campbell]

@Imaro

Would you say that Exalted provides support for dungeon crawls? I mean it has skills listed that are useful in dungeon crawls and we could obviously ad hoc the whole thing. It might even be successful if we did it with a lot of preparation and effort.

For my part I would not say that a game like Legend of the Five Rings or Exalted has much support for dungeon crawling. We might do it anyway. The game would not really be helping us though.

 

[prabe]

But unlike both D&D and other PbtA games, in Blades you can resist the consequences (which, depending on where your game is on a sliding scale between Ocean's 11 and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, may be either negating it entirely or reducing it) and have an ability to make a complication into a benefit.

I think you're underselling the limits of the characters in BitD to do this, and ... also possibly underselling the resilience of D&D characters.

Maybe I didn't understand you. Let's start over with reviewing the options:

• We play a game, where at least one of the characters is a super-smart criminal mastermind -- so the fun part is discovering what the perfect plan was during the job itself. So, naturally, the players don't make elaborate plans and then use flashbacks extensively to spin what seemingly is a complication as just one more step in their elaborate plan.
• We play a game, where things will inevitably go south -- so the fun part is seeing the characters react and think on their feet. So, naturally, the players don't make elaborate plans (because what's the point of spending any significant time on a plan that you know will never work?) and deal with the complications as they arise.
• We play a game, where we play to find out, whether the plan actually works -- so the fun part is making this plan, and then see it in action... Which, I'd say, isn't going to work in any TTRPG. It's a cursed problem -- the person who is controlling the opposition knows the plan, after all, and one way or another this knowledge is going to influence their behaviour, which is just plain impossible -- every question, every action during casing and preparation is going to inevitably recontextualize something.

Option 3 is the only one where extensive planning is a good idea, but as I see it, it's either an option 2 or option 1 in disguise, or the actual gameplay happens during planing phase and execution is then irrelevant, or requires an iron will and a crapload of preparation from the GM side.

So, that's pretty clever how you listed three options and kinfa fiated one of them as no-good and the other two leading to the same conclusion, but that's ... not super relevant. I think we disagree on how playable your option 3 is, though I agree it's likely to be a test of GM skill (or experience) and it certainly does seem very prep-heavy.

 

[Neonchameleon]

@Hussar Maybe you can clarify your stance for us??

I can't think of anything @Hussar has said that might lead to you asking for clarification. He said here "What don't we have in a heist movie/story? The protagonists' plan fails five minutes into the heist because that guard rolled a decent spot check and noticed the invisible fighter clanking past in his armor."

That's not at all the same as the heist not ending in failure in the end. If, five minutes into the heist, the guard notices the fighter in plate armour (plate armour being a minor wtf in Blades) then Blades gives you guidance that the situation gets worse. There are actual tools and mechanics in Blades for how much worse things get and what will commence is a plate-spinning exercise as the PCs get into a more dangerous spot and get more stressed as they start to deal with this obnoxiously alert guard.

And it's possible that all these plates will come crashing to the ground and the heist ends in failure because of one obnoxiously alert guard. But the guard being obnoxiously alert at the five minute mark will only provide a complication. Dealing with the complication may bring down the heist at around the half hour mark - but it's not failed by the one single roll.

Meanwhile D&D 5e being a "Rulings not rules"/"Mother may I" system provides precisely none of the tools Blades has to say what failing the stealth check means in practice - which in the context of a heist game is about as helpful as a "combat system" where you've no guidance for what happens when someone succeeds at an attack roll; you've no hit point, wound/injury, or healing mechanics at all.

 

[pemerton]

I agree that if a cooking competition of some sort emerges from play in a 5E game, it would be up to the DM to figure out how to run it. One can either look at it as the game doesn't have specific rules for it, so there's no support; or one can look at it as there's a framework to base adjudication on, so there's plenty of support. It should not surprise you that I lean toward the latter.

I look at the pages in the DMG early in the "Running the Game" chapter--especially the bits about "The Role of the Dice" and "Using Ability Scores" and I see a pretty sturdy open-ended framework for adjudicating stuff.

And I'd expect a cooking competition to be opposed ability checks, with tool proficiency in cook's utensils applicable. Wisdom if based on quality; Dexterity if based on speed; Intelligence if based on remembering or creating a recipe.

As I've already posted - how is 5e any different in this respect from just about any RPG published since 1980? I mean, I can replace "5e" and "DMG" in your post with a reference to RM, or RQ, or GURPS, or whatever, and it still comes out true.

I can do it in Apocalypse World, too: it might be Seduce/Maniuplate (if the pressure point is obtaining a key ingredient) or Act Under Fire (if the pressure is a time limit) or Read A Situation or a Person (if the pressure point is working out what will please the judges).

How is 5e D&D special here?

 

[Imaro]

@Imaro

Would you say that Exalted provides support for dungeon crawls? I mean it has skills listed that are useful in dungeon crawls and we could obviously ad hoc the whole thing. It might even be successful if we did it with a lot of preparation and effort.

For my part I would not say that a game like Legend of the Five Rings or Exalted has much support for dungeon crawling. We might do it anyway. The game would not really be helping us though.

So then we'd be discussing how robust that support is. Exalted...yes ruins of ancient civilizations to explore, Legend of the Five RIngs...a shadowlands based adventure could be a dungeoncrawl and I think you could do it for the most par with L5R rules. Longterm I'd be less apt to use either of those rules sets but that's not what we are talking about. IMO when you say something has NO support for something that means it can't be done in any capacity with the rules present in the game.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I keep seeing this "D&D has support" but never an example of that support. What rules does D&D feature that supports a heist (or other such play)? The only thing D&D has is the skill system, which is absolutely "the GM will tell you how this works." This isn't support.

As one example...the simple fact that it has rules for stealth supports heist stories. Again if you don't see that as support (whether minimal or not is a matter of discussion) there's nothing for us to really talk about concerning this.

If you define a heist as "there is this treasure, in a vault, surrounded by guards, fetch it" then D&D supports that well, it's pretty much standard D&D. If the plan is "kill the guards, blow the bloody doors off, take the treasure" then it has a good chance of success. But any plan that involves cunning and stealth rather than a massacre is very likely to fail.

So sure, you can run a heist in D&D, I'm pretty sure no one is suggesting otherwise. But there are other games that do it better, if only because there are more options that have a reasonable chance of success.

 

[Imaro]

How is 5e D&D special here?

I'm not sure anyone is arguing it is in respect to heists... only that it can get the job done.

Consider me a system matters to a point type of gamer...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My bad. I assumed your response was due to my post referring to you, but it seems you're maintaining a good level of consistency in that you disagreed with me when I said what I said, and you're similarly disagreeing with Magic Sword. Or, am I misunderstanding because I'm having to assume where you stand on this issue?

I think you're correct but god knows my head is spinning slightly at this point