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

[Ovinomancer]

Also, this^.

DC 15 tells me how likely the success is, it's not telling me what the success is going to look like, and how badly am I screwed if I fall the check.

Yes, 5e doesn't even have the language to communicate the things that position and effect do in Blades. Not a bad thing, but a clear difference in tools available.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Maybe I'm feeling this need more than other people because I often play and run in English, and English isn't even my third language, though.

I have a feeling this is the real issue here, because all of these issues are just ones of communication, not intrinsic to the rules.

For myself, a rule in German (a language I studies 20 years ago) is dang close to useless to me, but I wouldn't say the rule doesn't exist.

 

[tetrasodium]

It may need those things for you to enjoy using fail forward and success with complications. It doesn't need to mechanize them in order for those tools to work.

Cars don't "need" roads to work or even functionally move people & cargo around. A lack of roads will pretty seriously constrain the capabilities of a car however Likewise with obstacles placed in the road. A fail forward type mechanic has its own road & obstacle clear kinds of analogues that when not present in some form severely restricts how useful that mechanic is capable of being. The fail forward mechanic in the dmg is lacking in supporting structures

I do not know what "get gud" means, but I definitely do not consider it a failure if you can't hack a game. Everyone has different strengths and being able to hacka game is pretty low on the needed GM skills IMO.

git gud

Spoiler

"Git Gud", an intentional misspelling of the phrase "get good," is an expression used to heckle inexperienced players or newbies in online video games, similar to the use of the phrase "lurk more" on forums.

It's pretty applicable summary given the amount of "I can do it easy, problem must be you" & "that's a strength not a problem skilled gm's should have dealing with" type comments

 

[jmartkdr2]

Yes, 5e doesn't even have the language to communicate the things that position and effect do in Blades. Not a bad thing, but a clear difference in tools available.

That's a far cry from "DnD doesn't have stealth rules," though.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Just to help the two of you facilitate conversation, this is an incorrect interpetation.

DC 15 in 5e is the equivalent of DC 4 in Blades in the Dark (or at least it would be if you remove 4/5 from the conversation). A 4 is a hit, you succeed at your task/get what you want. A 3, is a miss, you fail at your task and something adverse happens.

The work Position does in Blades is it puts that something adverse happens in context/proportion/gravity/threat level. The stakes and fallout increase as you go from Controlled > Risky > Desperate.

Desperate Position? Real bad. You're in over your head and in serious trouble (and there are mechanical qualities for Complications attached to this like # of Clock Ticks, # of Harm possible, and you're likely to face 2 Complications eg 2 Harm and 2 Ticks or 2 Harm and Reduced Effect, or 1 Harm and another major complication like Reinforcements, etc etc).

Risky Position? Head to head. Even money (same deal w/ mechanical qualities but reduced from Desperate).

Controlled Position? Everything is in your favor. You're the danger (same deal w/ mechanical qualities but reduced from Risky).

That's an interesting point.

I haven't played BitD itself, so I don't know those rules, but I have played several PbtA games, and I find that these rules codify things that happen in all games. They do not introduce the concept of consequences for failed rolls - they only make them more explicit.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Cars don't "need" roads to work or even functionally move people & cargo around. A lack of roads will pretty seriously constrain the capabilities of a car however Likewise with obstacles placed in the road. A fail forward type mechanic has its own road & obstacle clear kinds of analogues that when not present in some form severely restricts how useful that mechanic is capable of being. The fail forward mechanic in the dmg is lacking in supporting structures


git gud

Spoiler

"Git Gud", an intentional misspelling of the phrase "get good," is an expression used to heckle inexperienced players or newbies in online video games, similar to the use of the phrase "lurk more" on forums.

It's pretty applicable summary given the amount of "I can do it easy, problem must be you" & "that's a strength not a problem skilled gm's should have dealing with" type comments

Good thing the game is designed for off-roading, huh : )

 

[Ovinomancer]

The bolded text is directly false.

This is a bit tangential to the point, though. It is easier in some systems than in others to add new mechanics to do a specific thing, that then do not impact the rest of the game after you've done that thing. We can see this by just looking at 5e combat vs 5e interaction. It is easier to add mechanics and play dynamics to interaction than to combat, because one is more detailed and prescribed than the other.

But more importantly to the OP, none of this creates a scenario wherein it is helpful, if I say, "I would like advice for certain elemtns of my Space Fantasy! setting for an upcoming "Casablanca In Space!" adventure I'm going to run", for you to say, "Don't even try, it won't work."

I'm not talking about specific party makeup at all.

The game doesn't lack functional conflict resolution mechanics.

But you can do all that in 5e, as well. The DMG includes suggestions for combining Ability Score and Skill differently to suit the fiction. ie let the fighter use wisdom rather than Charisma to give a rousing speech. he's not charismatic, but he understands people. Not only can the roll be Wisdom (Persuasion), or even just Wisdom (Insight), it could be Wisdom (Proficiency due to being from this town and knowing the people, or from being a Folk Hero, or from being a Veteran of the war that left this area embittered against the person the fighter is rousing them against, etc. Again, this is another area where the rules allow a thing, but don't highlight it like they should, don't organize it well, and use examples in place of explanation to an excessive degree.

The system math is friendlier to broad competence than 4e's was. I was talking about reducing the math progression (success rate math and HP/Damage math) ten years ago on the wotc forums for this exact reason. Having a decent Wisdom makes you not suck at Wisdom checks. Proficiency makes you good at them. You don't have to do anything to stay good, and you can convince an epic dragon as a level 1 character.

In your experience, perhaps.

It may need those things for you to enjoy using fail forward and success with complications. It doesn't need to mechanize them in order for those tools to work.

Except it does provide several answers. That isn't any less "rules for doing XYZ", it's just a different style of rules than it uses for casting sleep or shooting someone with arrows, because dnd is a game that doesn't try to shoehorn all tasks into the same style of resolution, which in turn is one reason that so many people enjoy it.

yep. glad we agree.

But that isn't what those rules say.

My wife's paladin in our Eberron game says yes. Enthusiastically. While winking at her cute tiny-but-dangerous elf girlfriend, or flirting with the imposing medusa with the Morpheous sunglasses who designed the group's townhouse in Sharn, or thirsting respectfully after a priestess of the Blood of Vol during a ceremony, or carousing with her best friend and playing wingman for eachother. Etc.

But then again the question isn't whether we can do another game in dnd, but if we can do a genre/story type in dnd.

Your entire framework for looking at this stuff is so alien to me that I can't meaningfully interact with it, if the above actually makes sense to you.

You...you know an optional rule is still a rule, right? Like...feats are part of dnd 5e. Feats are optional. Feats can support a given fiction, lets say the fiction of being such an incredible cook that you can lift people's spirits with your food.

What you are doing above is saying, the DM decides if feats are available, therefor DnD does not support the fiction of being an incredible cook. It's completely absurd on every level.

That also ignores the reality of play, which is that the character has skills on their sheet, access to the PHB wherein resides the descriptions of the skills and information on how tasks are meant to be adjudicated, and thus players will asks to make checks, even if simply via implication, by positing their approach to a tasks in a way that supports a given skill or at least Ability Score, based on what their character is good at.

Regardless of whether the DM decides that a roll for that ability score and skill is necessary, or possible, the check is actually "made". The DM just is empowered to skip rolls that can't have or shouldn't have more than one possible outcome, and go straight to narrating the results.

Claiming that rules that don't always have to be used literally don't exist is either so far into illogical thinking that I refuse to follow, or it's a case of being too wound up in winning an argument and/or not being seen to change position.

This is a thing that was bothering me earlier. We are talking about "stealth missions"....and assuming that the Paladin is wearing plate? Why?

Yes, it's clear that you're missing my point rather badly, because you keep coming back with arguments that aren't even wrong -- they're just completely off target.

There is nowhere in 5e that tells me how to bribe a guard -- not as a GM, not as a player. The game, quite literally and very intentionally, says that the GM will make it up. There's some skill checks the GM could use, or the GM could just make up their minds however. The results can be whatever the GM wants them to be -- even removing a success at a later time because the GM changes their mind (the "bribed" guard isn't bribed anymore example). Everything in how a guard is bribed in D&D is entirely up to the GM to first imagine and then operationalize. What you keep mistaking for support, or rules, is that the GM can choose to use the ability check system, but this isn't even optional, it's dependent on the GM deciding. The core mechanic, and only one that matters outside of combat (and even there it intrudes) is GM Decides.

I'm not sure why this is controversial, or that some feel the need to decry this -- it's the biggest strength of 5e as I see it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Good thing the game is designed for off-roading, huh : )

There's nothing but, outside of combat.

 

[dave2008]

It's pretty applicable summary given the amount of "I can do it easy, problem must be you" & "that's a strength not a problem skilled gm's should have dealing with" type comments

I will point out that the flipside of that perspective is: "It can't be done, so you must be playing it wrong." Which is what the other side often sees when they read the detractors.

Both of those interpretations are born from a particular perspective, they are not a truisms.

PS - thank you for the definition of "git gud"

 

[Manbearcat]

The game doesn't lack functional conflict resolution mechanics.

We must be referring to different things when we're talking about conflict resolution mechanics.

5e has robust combat conflict resolution mechanics.

5e has social conflict resolution mechanics (that are operationalized a la Wheel of Fortune...get pieces of the puzzle and then solve the puzzle).

5e, outside of those two, doesn't have any sort of general (or specific) purpose, encoded conflict resolution mechanics that operationalize conflict like 4e Skill Challenges, AW/Blades Clocks, Dungeon World's Perilous Journeys, Dogs in the Vineyard's or Mouse Guard's Conflict mechanics.

For instance.

Journeys are handled via task resolution and GM decides. They aren't operationalized like conflict resolution. For instance, this would be operationalized Conflict Resolution:

* who is the Scout? Who is the Navigator? Who is the Quartermaster?

* Scout, here is the situation. Make your Scout move and lets find out what happens. Ok, you got this result. Pick from this menu of results. Ok, here is how the situation has changed (via Danger or Discovery). What do you do with this Danger or this Discovery?

* Navigator...

* ...rinse, repeat, until you've dealt with all complications, until you turn back, or until you reach your destination.


Conflict Resolution is formal, encoded, structured procedures for resolving a Conflict. Contrast with Task Resolution and GM Decides (where its informal, not encoded, not structured and GM extrapolates based on their personal conception of the situation (a) how things unfold and (b) when Win Con/Loss Con is achieved).

It may need those things for you to enjoy using fail forward and success with complications. It doesn't need to mechanize them in order for those tools to work.

Its not about me . The implications on actual play of various instantiations of Fail Forward are fundamental...objective.

Take the form of Fail Forward that I depicted above.

* You cannot lose.

* You will achieve your story win.

* The GM is basically just keeping the balls in play until they decide enough drama has played out and you get your story win.


You disagree that this particular systemization of Fail Forward is different from an alternative systemization of Fail Forward where:

* You can lose

* There is encoded structure and constraining principles which dictate how Fail Forward complications emerge and propel play

* There is a codified, table-facing Win Condition and Loss Condition.