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

[Hussar]

That still doesn't mean there aren't rules for skill checks.

What you do as a player is tell the dm what you want your character to do. You have the authority to do that. The dm decides what move, if any, is triggered.

In what way are you disagreeing with what I said? At best, you can tell the DM you want to do X. It is entirely up to the DM whether you actually can or not. Vs a system with actual skill support where the player TELLS the DM that he or she is doing X and the DM must now incorporate that into the game.

Because 5e's skill system is entirely DM dependent, the system doesn't really help you much. All the heavy lifting is done by the DM and whatever the DM wants to have happen in the game. Want to swing across the room on a chandelier? In some systems, you tell the DM that that's what you're doing. In 5e, maybe you can, maybe you can't. Depends on if the stars align and if the DM wants you to be able to do that.

 

[pemerton]

That still doesn't mean there aren't rules for skill checks.

What you do as a player is tell the dm what you want your character to do. You have the authority to do that. The dm decides what move, if any, is triggered.

This seems like a pretty limit case of what it is for a RPG system to have a rule:

(1) Players declare actions for their PCs;
(2) The GM decides how that is to be resolved, including whether or not to call for a roll of the system's default die;
(3) The GM, in doing (2), may or may not invoke one or more "tags" that sit on the PC sheet as a result of the PC build process and apply those to the result of any roll that is made;
(4) Whatever exactly the GM does at (2) and (3), what happens next in the fiction is up to the GM.

Most RPGs have a way of placing tags on PC sheets as part of the build process, and have a default die roll. Hence my description of this as close to a limit case.

 

[tetrasodium]

Just to add to @pemerton's point about "tags" because I do think it's a very salient point.

Say my character is trained in Jeweler's tools. Jeweler's Tools consist of "a small saw and hammer, files, pliers, and tweezers."

Can I use that training to open a lock? What can I do with Jeweler's Tools proficiency? Even with Xanathar's, the answer is, "Look at gems". So, I'm trained in cutting and polishing gems, presumably making jewelry, but, can I apply that knowledge beyond gems?

Well, in 5e, the answer is universally, "Ask your DM". So, maybe.

you absolutely can, but it depends on the lock & you would know at a glance if it was something you should bother with. The way lockpicking is handled by d&d is just silly & it's made worse by omitting any sort of trivial electronic/computer (ie arcane) measures built in as a meaningful component. Locks in every setting but eberron sigil & maybe some of darksun/ravenloft where pre-cleansing locks & magically enhanced mechanisms might be in use are comparable to a period where locks were largely a status symbol to show you could afford one or little more than something to keep polite people out. In fact this lock is centuries more advanced than anything in d&d not backed up by arcane components due to the comparably extreme high precision* involved in the construction.

Arcane lock mechanisms, possibly involving runes & sigils engraved with jeweler's tools or similar, really need the same sort of structured thing as the how to bribe a guard & how to handle stealth as more than pass/fail being discussed. Your jeweler's tools proficiency might even include knowledge required to build arcane locks wards & enchantments into jewelry locks & so on even if done by rote copying of a schematic you don't understand

* That's not meant as sarcasm,

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't really know what valid means here. I also don't know how you see rules being related to mechanical structure, nor how you see either/both of these being related to teeth.

My view is that if the GM is free from moment to moment of adjudication to decide what happens in the fiction, and if the rules of the game place no significant constraint on that, then there are no teeth. Declaring an action may prompt a check, or may not. Failing at any such check may bring down disaster, or may not. Succeeding at it may avert disaster, or may not.

I'm not really seeing much in the way of rules either. Being trained in a skill, or with a tool, puts a "tag" on my PC sheet which says I'm a bit better at this than I otherwise would be. But there is no rule that states when that tag actually matters to resolution. The GM is welcome to have regard to it, or not.

This is a wildly different way to approach RPGing from BitD. And (to restate what I think is @Ovinomancer's point) it provides support only in the sense that it establishes those tags on PC sheets and gives the GM the permissions I've described above.

I think the contrast with how D&D approaches combat - where there are teeth, and there is much more to resolution than just a few tags and some GM permissions - is pretty striking. Likewise the contrast with how classic D&D (AD&D, B/X) approaches dungeon exploration - where again there are teeth, in the form of concrete rules about how much time passes while doing various things that in turn interface with spell durations, wandering monsters tables (that interact with dungeon level, which in turn interacts with treasure available) and the like.

If someone said that Prince Valiant provides support for D&D-esque dungeoneering because it has machinery for framing and resolving perception checks and dodging scything blades, I think the reply would be pretty obvious: while those things are true, it has no machinery for giving the whole process of exploration teeth. The GM can dial up or dial down the pressure at will, and the passage of time means nothing besides colour.

Somewhat the same thing is true of the "heist" I described upthread from my Traveller game. My narration of an approaching Imperial Navy cutter was a "soft move" (in PbtA) terms, in that it introduced an approaching threat/problem; and it allowed me to colour some subsequent narration of the passage of time and the resolution of actions on board the alien vessel, much as a PbtA GM might. But it had no teeth in that, until I narrated its arrival, it was just a source of narrative colour. I think a system that has a way to make that sort of thing more than just colour - like a clock framework - is clearly providing more support for heist/caper RPGing.

So, what you’re talking about is mechanical teeth, though I don’t really dig the term “teeth” here.

What I am saying is that the teeth don’t have to be mechanical, and can instead be social and narrative. D&D is, for many of us, an improv game of cooperative storytelling and narrative exploration. Combat benefits from hard structure because combat is the easiest aspect of play to become unfair without it, and because it, for many of us, benefits the most in terms of fun from having a lot of distinct moving parts. I want combat to be somewhat tactical. I will struggle to engage meaningfully with a game where interaction is tactical via detailed and complex sets of many moving parts.

Mechanical vs narrative teeth is just a preference.

And again, relate this back to the OP, because I’m not all that interested in “is BITD better at heists”, my position is based in the following;

• D&D 5e is a good system for hacking, because it chooses to keep 2/3 of the game open with a set of rules to choose from for situationally appropriate adjudication. It also kinda sucks at explaining and showcasing that. This will not work for everyone, but for those it does work for, it works very well.
• It is not reasonable to assume that because a thing doesn’t work for one group, it cannot or will not work for another.
• It’s rude to drop dismissive comments in a thread that amount to “your premise is bad and you shouldn’t want or like the things you want and like.”
• It’s good to give actual advice, including your reasoning behind the advice. Recommending games that might work better, or might just serve as inspiration, is generally good advice.

 

[Hussar]

Some people do... others don't. The same way you have issues hacking D&D (and assume it must be universal) but others have done it (and so it must be possible)...

Just to harp on this one again.

This is pretty much textbook Oberoni Fallacy. I mean, the rules are problematic for a number of people and the response is, "Well, some people don't have problems using these rules, so, if anyone has problems, it must be their fault.

See, in this particular example, I just use the 4e rules for stealth because they are a lot better. Stealthing adds a Hidden condition to the character. Anything that is Hidden isn't noticed by observers. Observers can find a Hidden character (or object) with a Perception check opposed by the Stealth check. If successful, it removes the Hidden condition.

So, invisibility does not confer the Hidden condition. You can turn invisible, but, everyone still knows what square you are in. If you turn invisible and then take an action to use Stealth (allowed by the invisibility spell), then you become Hidden and cannot be detected without someone in turn burning an action (or a high enough passive Perception) to try to find you.

Simple, elegant and works in all situations. Something that is very much not true in the 5e rules.

But, according to @Imaro, if I was just a better DM, then I wouldn't need to look to 4e to fix these rules, I'd just be able to use the 5e ruleset without any problems.

 

[billd91]

However, I do disagree where our main point of disagreement is. I think that this:

"The claim that heists cannot be done well in D&D 5e is false"

Because, while myself and others have given extensive examples of why heists/infiltration scenarios don't work very well in 5e, the counter claim has never given any evidence other than "As long as my group has fun, that's all that matters". @billd91 claims that it's the DM's fault because the DM is too focused on the mechanics. Other claims have basically swirled around in a cloud of Oberoni Fallacy. And, frankly, in a system that lacks any real concrete mechanics for dealing with something, it's always going to come down to the DM to make it work.

If you made the choice to hose the heist because of ONE FAILED CHECK, did your players have fun? If this is hypothetical, do you THINK your players will have fun with it or do you think they’ll be disappointed?
And if it’s not hypothetical and your players didn’t have fun, did you learn from the experience? I mean, we all make mistakes, but the big ones are not to learn from them or to dig in deeper over them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Fair enough. And, honestly, I've been more than a dick here, so, yeah, I'll make a concentrated effort to tone it down.

Cool. I’m glad we stepped back and chilled out toward eachother.

However, I do disagree where our main point of disagreement is. I think that this:

"The claim that heists cannot be done well in D&D 5e is false"

Because, while myself and others have given extensive examples of why heists/infiltration scenarios don't work very well in 5e, the counter claim has never given any evidence other than "As long as my group has fun, that's all that matters". @billd91 claims that it's the DM's fault because the DM is too focused on the mechanics. Other claims have basically swirled around in a cloud of Oberoni Fallacy. And, frankly, in a system that lacks any real concrete mechanics for dealing with something, it's always going to come down to the DM to make it work.

Which, as @Ovinomancer so rightly points out, is EXACTLY what it says on the tin for 5e D&D. That's the point of "Rulings not Rules". But, that's also it's biggest weakness - relying on the DM to make up stuff will always be problematic. That's always been true. So, just saying, "Well, it works in 5e because this or that DM made it work" isn't a win for 5e. It's a win for that DM.

You can't claim that a game supports something when the support basically amounts to, "make something up" and dumps everything into the DM's lap.

Okay, but that doesn’t actually change anything, even if we just take that all at face value. If people have done heists well in D&D, then D&D can do them well. Beyond that, I have given an example of play, and talked about how I have run a heist, and about what tools within the game help give less binary task results, and man...I’m kinda tired of defending my own lived experience.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There have been extensive threads on these boards which have argued that players absolutely cannot initiate any skill check. The rules of 5e D&D do not permit players to do so. They can ask the DM if they can do something, and then the DM tells them what check to make, if the DM decides if that check is necessary or not.

At no point under the rules of 5e, do the players have the opportunity to tell the DM anything. At best, the player can ask if they can attempt something.

This isn't actually true, and it's easy to demonstrate.

The first part is - you can't say "I roll Intimidate" or whatever, you have to describe your action. But that's the same as PtbA games, including Dungeon World for example. You state the fiction and the DM tells you what to roll, if anything. I was under the impression BitD used the same approach. So there's essentially no distinction between the games there.

The second part is abjectly false. We've discussed this at length in other threads. Spells and special abilities absolutely allow the player to "tell the DM" stuff. This is one of the great issues with D&D - some characters can tell the DM what's happening, others have to ask. However your statement is demonstrably wrong. And again, with PtbA games, like BitD, it's basically the same scenario, except all characters have access to at least some "tell the DM" abilities (which is true in most modern games).

See, in this particular example, I just use the 4e rules for stealth because they are a lot better. Stealthing adds a Hidden condition to the character. Anything that is Hidden isn't noticed by observers. Observers can find a Hidden character (or object) with a Perception check opposed by the Stealth check. If successful, it removes the Hidden condition.

This on the other hand is true and definitely a better approach.

Yup, if only we were better DM's, all the problems would go away.

Strawmen, really bro?

My point is very simple - if you can write adventures for Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, and a just really a bunch of other games, which are all essentially "heists", and have a similar "lack of support" for heist to D&D (in that they have no explicit support for "cinematic" heists), why is hard to do this for D&D? Can you answer that or is it only going to be weakass strawmen?

All this "Oberoni Fallacy" stuff is pretty funny because what you're essentially saying is that only a handful of narrative-focused systems can possibly run a heist, and with any other game, including ones where people have routinely been running heists for 30+ years now, like Shadowrun, it's entirely down to whether you have a "good DM". I think it's pretty fair to suggest you may be severely overstating the issue.

I mean, really, your position is just as much "Shadowrun doesn't support heists" and "Cyberpunk doesn't support heists" as it is with D&D.

 

[Jaeger]

Because, while myself and others have given extensive examples of why heists/infiltration scenarios don't work very well in 5e, the counter claim has never given any evidence other than "As long as my group has fun, that's all that matters"

I admire your thread stamina.

But the OP has taken a very heads I win, tails you lose, stance defending his position.

He has openly declared:
-EDIT- It seems that doctorbadwolf has added me to his ignore list so that I can no longer see his posts or my quotes from them - Executing the time honored debating tradition of the: 'La, la, la, la, la, la, I can't hear you...' defense. -EDIT-

The full quote that I responded to:
doctorbadwolf:
"The salient question isn't whether I can easily mod the game for broad consumption. The question is can I mod the game easily for a specific story. If that means adding damage to monsters but not PCs to make PCs feel fragile, or to scoop out HP entirely and replace it with a system of graduated damage thresholds where damage over a threshold has increasingly deleterious effects, and massive damage can one-shot you out of the fight, the game won't break. It will play differently.
Average damage remains the same, stuff like DR and resistance and THP work the same, but are more important. Healing would need some kind of conversion system that can be made into a chart based on healing by level converted into "X healing has Y effect", and that would be possibly the hardest part. I wouldn't bother unless I was making a whole game based on 5e, but if it somehow served what I needed for a story, it'd be work that I'd enjoy doing enough that I wouldn't mind it. Nothing wrong with not making the same choice, but I'm not going to pretend that 5e can't handle that sort of thing just because the process would be time consuming."

The salient question isn't whether I can easily mod the game for broad consumption. The question is can I mod the game easily for a specific story. If that means adding damage to monsters but not PCs to make PCs feel fragile, or to scoop out HP entirely and replace it with a system of graduated damage thresholds where damage over a threshold has increasingly deleterious effects, and massive damage can one-shot you out of the fight, the game won't break. It will play differently.

Average damage remains the same, stuff like DR and resistance and THP work the same, but are more important. Healing would need some kind of conversion system that can be made into a chart based on healing by level converted into "X healing has Y effect", and that would be possibly the hardest part. I wouldn't bother unless I was making a whole game based on 5e, but if it somehow served what I needed for a story, it'd be work that I'd enjoy doing enough that I wouldn't mind it. Nothing wrong with not making the same choice, but I'm not going to pretend that 5e can't handle that sort of thing just because the process would be time consuming.

To the point of having to re-write 5e into an entirely new "5e based" game; the OP will not concede that there is a genre that 5e cannot do well.

You are trying to squeeze an ocean of water from a desert stone here Hussar.

 

[loverdrive]

The stealth rules, and the rules for adjudicating ability checks, tell you how to sneak past someone. You declare that you’re doing it, preferably also how you do it. The DM decides if there is a reasonable chance of failure. If so, you roll against the creature’s passive perception. You either have a binary pass/fail result, or use one of a couple optional rules that create more variable results.

I don't think "GM decides" is a rule that can be meaningfully interacted with — it's not a mechanic that provides gameplay the way negotiations for P/E in Blades, or choosing my options in a PbtA does.

In an imaginary PbtA game, imaginary move "SKULK: when you sneak quietly in the shadows to get somewhere or gather information, roll +Sneak. • On 10+, choose two: it didn't take much time — or — you didn't leave a trace behind — or — you still have a way out. • On 7-9, choose one." is gameplay in of itself, and more importantly, it gives me clarity and structure, whether I am GM or a player.

"The GM will tell you what to roll and your DC (maybe by consulting on some table somewhere) and then will tell you what happens next" doesn't give me neither

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"

That's actually poses a very interesting question worth discussing.

At which point we actually stop playing D&D and start pretending that we are playing D&D?

It's very clear with, say, Dungeon World. If I'm running a murder mystery set in an absolutely mundane vaguely medieval city, where the PCs are hunting for clues and piecing together a puzzle, while not being in any danger themselves, I'm not running Dungeon World anymore:

• I'm not playing to find out what happens — the important things already have happened and the main thing is figuring them out
• I'm not portraying a magical world
• I'm not filling the PC's lives with adventure

It's pretty obvious, and undeniable — at best, I'm running a hack of Dungeon World with different Agenda and Principles (even if they are not formulated), at worst I'm fooling myself and everyone else.