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

[Ovinomancer]

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

Okay, here's a head scratcher for you, try to disentangle this: 5e has stealth rules, but has no rules to tell you how to sneak past someone.

To elaborate, 5e has a smattering of various things related to stealth, but the answer to "how do I sneak past someone" is not found in any of those rules or things, but in the simple, clear statement that it's up to your GM. There's no support for sneaking past someone, because the rules of the game provide nothing about how to do this except to dump it on the GM. The GM can decide to scoop up some of those scattered pieces, and do something with them, or just do something else -- modify them on the fly, change them entirely, do a completely different thing without any of them. All of these are valid responses, including using none of those rules at all. If the answer set to "how do I sneak past someone" includes using nothing else in the system, then it's very hard to suggest that the system has actual support or rules for how to sneak past someone. 5e avoids this by providing the pile of things the GM might choose to use, but then making it entirely on the GM if they need to be used at all.

 

[Manbearcat]

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.

Yeah. Position and Effect is one of the big changes from PBtA to FitD games.

In my opinion it is an improvement on orthodox PBtA because it structures conversation more efficiently and clearly. Not that the PBtA approach is bad at all (its fantastic), but any game tech that better facilitates clear and efficient conversation is an improvement in my opinion (and any tech that does the inverse or any drawback from clarity and efficiency is not helpful to say the least).

 

[tetrasodium]

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

That's not even relevant to the fail forward mechanic or the analogy. Offroading would be a specific subset of what cars can do, it has specific needs. The fail forward mechanic is a specific thing with specific needs.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Okay, here's a head scratcher for you, try to disentangle this: 5e has stealth rules, but has no rules to tell you how to sneak past someone.

To elaborate, 5e has a smattering of various things related to stealth, but the answer to "how do I sneak past someone" is not found in any of those rules or things, but in the simple, clear statement that it's up to your GM. There's no support for sneaking past someone, because the rules of the game provide nothing about how to do this except to dump it on the GM. The GM can decide to scoop up some of those scattered pieces, and do something with them, or just do something else -- modify them on the fly, change them entirely, do a completely different thing without any of them. All of these are valid responses, including using none of those rules at all. If the answer set to "how do I sneak past someone" includes using nothing else in the system, then it's very hard to suggest that the system has actual support or rules for how to sneak past someone. 5e avoids this by providing the pile of things the GM might choose to use, but then making it entirely on the GM if they need to be used at all.

See, I find this a bizarre take. It read, to me, like: "There are three things on the menu, therefore the restaurant hasn't told you what you can eat. It's making you pick what to eat."

Which... I mean I guess that's technically true? I can't point to any sentence there and call it factually incorrect.

I just don't see how any of this creates a problem, since in all the many, many games I've played (dnd or otherwise, including a few PbtA), this has only been an issue with otherwise terrible dm's who don't use any of the offered guidance (or stealth rules, or rules about actions.) So the problem is never the lack of one pre-set-for-everyone way of doing things, just bad faith play and poor communication.

 

[Ovinomancer]

See, I find this a bizarre take. It read, to me, like: "There are three things on the menu, therefore the restaurant hasn't told you what you can eat. It's making you pick what to eat."

It's more like having a menu with a type of chees and some milk but where you're never ordering these but instead béchamel sauce. You have to order the right proportions, bring your own salt, pepper, and flour, and know how to cook it.

Which... I mean I guess that's technically true? I can't point to any sentence there and call it factually incorrect.

I just don't see how any of this creates a problem, since in all the many, many games I've played (dnd or otherwise, including a few PbtA), this has only been an issue with otherwise terrible dm's who don't use any of the offered guidance (or stealth rules, or rules about actions.) So the problem is never the lack of one pre-set-for-everyone way of doing things, just bad faith play and poor communication.

And this is, again, putting the onus on not knowing how to "properly" use the system, which offers nothing but an incomplete menu requiring assembly, and instead saying it's the GM's fault; that they are playing in bad faith if it doesn't work.

 

[Imaro]

This still seems like it's a question of formalized process as opposed to lack of tools.

 

[billd91]

The only version of D&D that ever did anything for you here was 4e, which explicitly provided the Skill Challenge. It would handle a heist a lot like BitD, one failure would increase the chances of things going entirely south, a lot, but wouldn't end the heist. 4e can do heists pretty well, all a GM needs to do is follow the SC rules, it should work (even the original DMG1 SC rules are pretty well-suited to this kind of scenario, though later iterations are much better). The common reaction to the SC was to complain basically that it hamstrung the DM and removed too much flexibility from his hands. I don't really agree, but clearly it seems 'process sim' is a popular way to play D&D and it REALLY DOES NOT do these sorts of scenarios well AT ALL.

But this is effectively just taking the heist and abstracting it one level without process sim details. You fail a stealth check in a skill challenge and it racks up a fail (narrating it how the group chooses) - as long as you end up with the requisite number of successes before fails - it's (some level of) a success. Contrast playing a heist scenario without the skill challenge, and you have a failed stealth check... that could still be redeemed by quickly neutralizing the guard by playing out how that's done. And it could still be a heist with (some level of) a success.

 

[jmartkdr2]

It's more like having a menu with a type of chees and some milk but where you're never ordering these but instead béchamel sauce. You have to order the right proportions, bring your own salt, pepper, and flour, and know how to cook it.

And this is, again, putting the onus on not knowing how to "properly" use the system, which offers nothing but an incomplete menu requiring assembly, and instead saying it's the GM's fault; that they are playing in bad faith if it doesn't work.

Which seems like an odd analogy to me, since I never run into anyone who has a problem with it, unless they try to re-invent béchamel sauce as being motor-oil based.

Also, the analogy fails because none of the elements of a heist aren't present in DnD, even if they are scattered about the rulebooks.

 

[MichaelSomething]

So if DM fait and player attitudes are the biggest factor in how a game plays out, then that means I run an old school game using 4E??

 

[Lanefan]

This is why in 4e, Fail Forward + Success w/ Complications + Skill Challenge Conflict Resolution + the system maths + easy to obtain rerolls/augments for Skill Powers made 4e Heroes hugely broadly competent. The Fighter PCs in my game were fantastic in climbing walls and absolutely capable of rousing speeches to ensure support from a king and they could sneak as well. This is because of the intersection of all of that stuff above.

Which means none of those characters needs to be in a party, as each can do everything well enough on its own and doesn't need much if anything by way of support.

Hardly conducive to party-based play.

But if you remove the stuff that made those things work, then you're left with serious niche protection and heroes lacking broad competence.

Good. Now you need a party; a group of people with different hopefully-complementary specialties who can cover for each other's weaknesses.

How do you get around that?

Build a party to a very specific niche (eg all Stealth archetypes - Rogue, Ranger, Monk, Dex Bard) and deploy that "Score (to use Blades parlance) Strategy" repeatedly. Or you could sub Monk and Dex Bard for Dex Barb and Druid and you can reliably defeat Stealth and Wilderness Exploration and Journeys conflicts.

Exactly. Instead of having everyone be able to do everything, find or recruit people with the specific skills needed for the job(s) at hand.