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

[Neonchameleon]

Here's the basic way I look at roleplaying games:

We all basically start with a base of just sitting down and roleplaying, no character sheets, mechanics or any of that jazz. Just having a conversation about some fiction. Here we can pretty much do anything we set our mind to if we are disciplined and principled about it. We are not really playing a game though and I generally find putting yourself in a position where you have to rely on discipline is a bad long term strategy.

So once you have that freeform base the stuff you add on top can either have a negligible effect, a positive impact on play, or be counterproductive. All of it also has a cognitive cost. We only have so much in our budget. We can't just add on top forever. Our play agenda and personal tolerances will help shape what belongs in each category.

When I say game does not do x well (I'm not a believer in can or cannot here) I mostly mean it adds little in the positive column and too much in the negligent and counterproductive columns.

I look at it as that's only one type of RPG and D&D is at root the other.

D&D came from a hacked tabletop wargame where the players took the POV character and wanted to do things that the rules didn't account for and so they had the DM to handle that. (4e is only different in that it tried to move from wargame to combat centric boardgame). The two goals can work together at the same table but they are actually different foundations - and it's why most RPGs are so combat heavy.

The things the rules do for freeform are provide conflict resolution that lets you be heard and then blame the dice, and provide points of inspiration. And that's why success-with-consequences mechanics work so well for freeform plus; they make the game more interesting rather than just smoother than not having them.

And I'm with you that each rule and each second spent engaging with the rules directly or, worse, stopping play to look them up is a net negative unless they provide something else.

 

[Thomas Shey]

@Thomas Shey

I think there's a lot of subjective judgements about which genre are worthy of emulation that goes into what we lump in the "focused" column and what goes into the "flexible" column. For example Monster of the Week that emulates stuff like Buffy and Supernatural gets seen as less focused than something like Monsterhearts that emulates dark supernatural romance like The Mortal Instruments, Teen Wolf, and Vampire Diaries. Modern D&D's challenge oriented party based heroic fantasy action adventure gets to be in the flexible column while Blades in the Dark's crime fiction gets labeled more focused. Their underlying genre are not more or less specific, but the popular genre get to be "flexible".

I like the action adventure stuff. Having a ball doing it in Infinity right now, but it's fairly obvious that it's just seen as the norm.

Well, I think that's part of the gig; Monster of the Week and and its kin don't look that much different than a number of unrelated subgenres where episodic problems come along that are solved with violence.

Monsterhearts, though, is representative of a subgenre that is a hybrid between a couple of things that, while it shares some elements with its parents, brings a feel to them that isn't like really either of them; it isn't entirely like other romances types (where the stakes are rarely nearly as bloody) and its far more outward-facing that the varieties of non-romantic horror-adjacent stories it otherwise looks somewhat like.

That doesn't mean you aren't right that the farther outside the action-adventure end of things, the more unusual an RPG is considered, but even if that wasn't true I think the thing Monsterhearts is representing would be pretty out on the periphery.

 

[Campbell]

Well, I think that's part of the gig; Monster of the Week and and its kin don't look that much different than a number of unrelated subgenres where episodic problems come along that are solved with violence.

Monsterhearts, though, is representative of a subgenre that is a hybrid between a couple of things that, while it shares some elements with its parents, brings a feel to them that isn't like really either of them; it isn't entirely like other romances types (where the stakes are rarely nearly as bloody) and its far more outward-facing that the varieties of non-romantic horror-adjacent stories it otherwise looks somewhat like.

That doesn't mean you aren't right that the farther outside the action-adventure end of things, the more unusual an RPG is considered, but even if that wasn't true I think the thing Monsterhearts is representing would be pretty out on the periphery.

I think that's pretty fair. While they obviously have more traction I do think Dungeons and Dragons, Legend of the Five Rings, Shadowrun, Exalted and Vampire are pretty much just as idiosyncratic. A lot of RPGs seem to be a pretty weird mix of genre.

 

[Don Durito]

A rpg that faithfully aims to recreate a genre doesn't tend to get a lasting fan base.

I think the idiosyncracy is the key to a successful rpg. To some degree they have to create their own genre.

 

[dave2008]

Another fun way to hack the moving parts of 5e encounter design is to have really mythic creatures carry their lair with them,

I pretty much instantly allowed ancient dragons to use lair actions even if they are not in their lairs. My biggest complaint about 5e dragons is that they are very much the same. The lair actions are what make them feel different an unique.

I also enjoy giving a troupe of enemies legendary actions that let them do some stuff as a unit, or respond to what's happening to eachother more fluidly, making trained units much scarier.

That is interesting, can you provide an example? I give mob/horde swarms lair actions, but I don't think that is what you are talking about.

• Demon: Dretch Horde (Legendary, CR 8)
• Demon: Hezrou Horde (Legendary, CR 27)
• Demon: Vagouille Swarm (Legendary, CR 19)
• Demon: Vrock Chaos Squadron (Legendary, CR 23)
• Devil: Imp Swarm (Legendary, CR 15)
• Devil: Lemure Swarm (Legendary, CR 4)

 

[dave2008]

I have an inner purist for system part of myself that vastly prefers how PF2 builds in that dynamic into the game's math rather than creature stats.

I both like and hate the PF2e method. I like that PF2e monsters of +3-5 are actually threats, but I dislike that is always the case. No matter what the monster, if it s 3-5 lvls above you it is a solo. That rubs me the wrong way. I would prefer a lateral system like 4e or a greater range (+8-10 lvls) which I guess is the 5e approach.

I also find legendary resistance and actions a pain in the keister in play from both sides of the screen. I hates it.

I love legendary actions, they really make a solo fight more interesting in my experience (I don't really understand your "purist" sensibilities on this, but I accept that they are a thing). Now, legendary resistance I have mostly replaced with some version of:

Unstoppable. The balor can can use a reaction, take 30 hit points of damage, and end one condition or effect it is suffering.

 

[Argyle King]

Its difficult for me to parse how these statements above exist in concert.

If you're not trying to interpret a game's engine as "rules as physics (rules that govern the physical interactions of the shared imagined space)", how does the above make sense?

In 4e, a GM/player isn’t concerned about world collisions/interactions/physics that are irrelevant to the thematic story embedded in 4e; a Points of Light, World on Fire, Diablo meets Greek myth, where mythical heroes must overcome mythical challenges and take sides in mythical conflicts.

You're framing scenes that provoke and resolve those conflicts. That is the story of 4e; who the Character Themes, Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies, Quests and conflict resolution create the trajectory of play and decide the outputs of the collisions of those themed conflicts.

You don't care whether Ancient Red Dragons are better or worse at weaving or crafting or picking pockets than the heroes. Because that stuff never sees table time/scene-time and is wholly irrelevant to play/the story of 4e!

Conversely, it seems to me that what your quoted post above is saying is exactly "I expect game engines to be rules as physics that govern my orientation toward and interaction with the content of the shared imagined space (even the stuff that is never onscreen)."

I expect that -even in a reality which drastically departs from our own- that the internal consistency of the story itself be mostly solid.

For example, I highly enjoy most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's a universe in which people are flying, making incredible leaps, and doing all sorts of things which are far beyond what is even remotely possible in the real world; but, at the same time, there generally are some "in-game" (if I can borrow that phrase and apply it to movies) rules which generally remain consistent. When something deviates from that foundation of the rules, the audience tends to notice. When it is done well, there's typically some onscreen explanation of why to ease the audience into it. When it is done poorly, it tends to be jarring for the audience.

Obviously, no story (movie, game, or otherwise) is perfect, but that's not necessarily a problem -if the story being told has built up some amount of goodwill with the audience. An audience may easily forgive a handful of drastic departures from the rules of the story if most everything else is done in an acceptable way. If deviations from the established logic of the world are the norm -rather than the exception to the general rules, it becomes (imo) more difficult for an audience to buy in.

I may not care about dragons picking pockets, but there were times when comparing -monster math vs game world math- against -PC math versus game world math- produced jarring results, especially in the context of trying to frame a scene and tell a story.

Later 4E books started to attempt to fix this; as I alluded to in previous posts, I also started to rework some of how the game functioned on my own. The best 4E campaigns I ran looked quite a bit different from what was advertised in the 4E preview books.

To be completely fair, I will say that I found 4E to be overall more consistent than 3E, and that is because of my response a few posts back (in which GURPS was mentioned). At first, I honestly did not notice because I was not very familiar with rpgs when I was playing 3E. I had little idea about how a game should function (or really even that games beyond D&D existed and did things differently). I started to realize that things did not quite make sense when I attempted to make a character who was (what I thought was) a classic fantasy archetype: the armored knight on horseback. The outcome was a miserable failure once I gained a few levels. Likewise, taking the leadership feat and attempting to role-play being a character who was in a leadership role in an organization didn't work very well because no amount of low-level followers could tangibly help against level-appropriate creatures. 3E advertised that such things were viable options for building a character, but -in actual play- they worked very poorly, and I believe that is because 3E was attempting to be two different games at the same time: 1) something resembling an attempt at what GURPS does and 2) a game with a rather steep power curve and linear level advancement in the vein of D&D.

Note: None of this is meant to suggest that I did not (or have not) enjoyed D&D throughout the years. Just, as my gaming palate has been exposed to more flavors, I have gained a better idea of what I like, what I don't like, and what I believe things should taste like. In a similar way, I once believed the store down the road from where I grew up made the best pastries, but my opinion changed after I went elsewhere and tried different things. Can I still buy a pastry from there and enjoy it? Sure, but if I want something which pairs better with the coffee I drink or something which I feel is better suited to relaxing and home and reading a book with my cat, I make the trip elsewhere.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Bwuh? In my copy of Monster Vault there are seven different types of orc. There weren't "just orcs", there were entire communities and social structures of them.

You misunderstand. Any given Orc is usable at any level by restatting it. There is no “low level Orc”, because that Orc can level up and come back as an elite leader in fifteen levels, but narratively its the same Orc, or it can not level up and it instead becomes a minion.

Here 5e is an outlier.

Yes. And that’s good. It’s a benefit of 5e.

The giant has to care if two crossbow bolts take an average of over 10% of his hit points.

Why are you nitpicking the example at all, much less assuming a hill giant to do so?

That's because, thanks to the magic of bounded accuracy, the giant isn't really a threat to an even vaguely prepared village unless it uses guerrilla tactics. Is that what you want?

For a hill giant? Yes! If it weren’t the case it’d be weird that the town is still there.

I pretty much instantly allowed ancient dragons to use lair actions even if they are not in their lairs. My biggest complaint about 5e dragons is that they are very much the same. The lair actions are what make them feel different an unique.

That is interesting, can you provide an example? I give mob/horde swarms lair actions, but I don't think that is what you are talking about.

• Demon: Dretch Horde (Legendary, CR 8)
• Demon: Hezrou Horde (Legendary, CR 27)
• Demon: Vagouille Swarm (Legendary, CR 19)
• Demon: Vrock Chaos Squadron (Legendary, CR 23)
• Devil: Imp Swarm (Legendary, CR 15)
• Devil: Lemure Swarm (Legendary, CR 4)

So a unit of orcs would have 3 legendary actions per round, with 5 options. Some would require the Orc Captain be present, at least one might require the Orc priest be present, others require neither.

If I’m feeling complex, I’ll also reduce the number of legendary actions as they lose troops, but usually not.

example legendary actions:

• Form Up! - All orcs within 60ft of the Orc Captain can move up to half their speed w/o OA, and gain +2 AC while within 5ft of another orc, until the end of their next turn.
• Shield Rush - (recharge 4-6) One enemy within 5ft of each Orc that can hear the leader must succeed on a strength saving those or take 1d4 damage and be pushed 5ft knocked prone
• In Gruumsh’s Name! - All orcs within 30ft of the Orc Priest deal 1d6 extra damage on their next successful attack before the end of their next turn.
  

It doesn’t have a specific creature tied to it, but I always designate which creature calls the order.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Argyle King

I appreciate your long post (hence the xp), but I cannot remotely conceive (in terms of how the actual system gives rise to antagonism/"being-an-obstacle-to-PC-dramatic-need") of what you're envisioning here. In the actual play of the game.

If I'm running a 4e game at Epic Tier for a level 26 party and they're trying to Parley with an Ancient Red Dragon (level 30), I'm running a Complexity 1, Level 30 Skill Challenge. The Medium DC is 32 at that level. They need to defeat 4 * DC 32 obstacles before they fail * 3 (and lose the Parley). Let us say this is the beginning of the framing:

"Jendyx the Inferno lays like a disinterested dog in the molten slag of the burning volcano. Only a quarter of his body uncovered and even that is waxing and waning as the lava pools all around him. He knows you need his help...and he clearly doesn't feel threatened by you.

Without looking at you, his voice rumbles. Your people hail from a furnace much like this Katerina (a Fire Genasi). Refresh my memory. Wasn't their volcano doused by the Frozen Wind of the North (an Ancient White Dragon). And with that dousing, your proud people turned refugees. Those that didn't die as cowards from the dragon's razing their home.

...not impressed...or am I mistaken?"

You don't roll dice for monsters in 4e noncombat conflict resolution (just like in PBtA). The GM provides the thematic adversity/obstacles, provokes the players to action, and then changes the situation with more/new/escalated adversity. The only numbers that matter here are 32 and * 4 vs * 3. But those numbers don't tell me how much history Jendyx the Inferno knows, how initially he is unwilling to aid the PCs, how initially unimpressed he is, how deep his reservoir of Arcana is (knowledge or power). Like 6-, 7-9, and 10+ in PBtA, they just tell me what target numbers PCs have to get what they want and move the fiction and gamestate along in a trajectory that nets them a Story Win (Jendyx's aid) or a Story Loss (Jendyx's ire).

Just like in PBtA games, its my job to faithfully frame conflicts and convey Jendyx as x, y, and z (and in so doing provoke PCs into action/decision-points).

Maybe the PC goes with a History move, succeeds, and corrects a detail of the record for Jendyx and turn his move back on him (which he'll naturally say it was a test and they passed...and then I'll move to the next Jendyx parley obstacle). And things will continue on from there.

Its unclear to me what you're imagine here is a problem. And I would have to imagine that you would have exactly the same problem running a dragon in Dungeon World (given that, like 4e, DW's monsters are a collection of tags and numbers and its up to the GM to appropriately render them into the shared imagined space...then players make moves and roll dice - just like 4e - and we find out how things go)?

Do you have an example of some kind that can clarify? An example in either 4e or Dungeon World would do the trick in helping me understand what is going on "under the cognitive hood" for you as it pertains to the actual systemization of these games?

 

[Thomas Shey]

As for Cyberpunk, RT Talsorian just turned Interlock, 2020's rules, into a mediocre generic RPG (ruining combat in the process) - FUZION - and then tried to make it run every genre under the sun. The results were sufficiently bad that literally the only game my group has ever rejected after only one session was a FUZION game.

Not to argue with your feelings, but just as a note about how different people can be--I found Fuzion enough better a system than Interlock that when I planned a second version of a campaign that had been operated under a mix of the Mekton and Cyberpunk versions of the latter, I had every intention of running it with the former.