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

[dave2008]

The further you deviate from baseline expectations of the game, the less useful, or at least more difficult, subsequent supplements become to use. Now, as far as this thread is concerned, we've seen multiple posters, including @dave2008 talk about how he has no problems, say, doing these kinds of infiltration scenarios.

I just want to clarify that I have no problem with running: low magic or gritty or cosmic horror in 5e. I have not really run what I would consider an infiltration adventure. Sure, some sneaking around and investigation, but not a big heist style infiltration scenario. That was someone else who said that.

 

[dave2008]

Curious: what is it about them in general that makes them so difficult for you to use?

Well, in general they are just not organized in a way I find useful nor do they have all of the information I want. I guess what I would like is a short adventure with a ton of information about everything will a clearly defined flow chart with the consequences for both failure and success at each decision point. So an adventure that takes you from lvl 1-2 with about 120+/- pages of content, maps of all relevant locations, and handouts. If not, why not do it myself.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Agree totally, and now you are playing a game like 4e or DW or some other such system! What I said really only applies to 5e, and generally to other systems that use a 'classic' D&D-esque process. Even a few of them may rise to at least giving the GM a few tools to manage that with. I mean 4e is still pretty close to D&D, even in terms of most of its game process and table roles, yet it delivers a solution.

Fair enough. I just was noting there were games 35 years ago that could at least take the edge off this sort of thing--when GMs paid attention to their mechanical distinctions. Even something as old as RQ could make a distinction between, for example, failing a Climb roll (you have to work your way around that patch and take longer or have other problems) and fumbling one (you fall). You can argue even degree-of-failure systems aren't immune to creating some problems here (usually based around too many rolls not to have a relatively high risk of a terminal failure of some sort even if it requires a fumble or some other bad degree-of-failure), but they at least addressed the "any failure is a terminal failure" problem being addressed.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You sure? I thought games like Cthulhu Dark and Trail were in there as well. I could be wrong, though.

I probably wasn't as clear that I was referencing the part that is CoC proper, but multiple editions of same. It could well include the two you mentioned and other offshoots, though from what I gather, the biggest part of that is still some edition of CoC itself.

 

[Hussar]

Not gonna lie, I’m not reading all that. I’m not interested in a tirade from you.

And if you think I never correct misunderstandings from people who agree with me, you’re very much just seeing what you want to see.

That was a “tirade”?

Talk about seeing what you want.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Fair enough. I just was noting there were games 35 years ago that could at least take the edge off this sort of thing--when GMs paid attention to their mechanical distinctions. Even something as old as RQ could make a distinction between, for example, failing a Climb roll (you have to work your way around that patch and take longer or have other problems) and fumbling one (you fall). You can argue even degree-of-failure systems aren't immune to creating some problems here (usually based around too many rolls not to have a relatively high risk of a terminal failure of some sort even if it requires a fumble or some other bad degree-of-failure), but they at least addressed the "any failure is a terminal failure" problem being addressed.

I'm not sure I would consider it any sort of 'solution' really, it just means it happens less. And yes, I think it helps to have the notion of a complication, whether you call it success or failure is almost semantics in many cases. I think, 35 years ago (it was closer to 40) people were already nibbling around the edges of these problems, but they still hadn't really hit on the idea of structuring games in such a way that the mechanics had some abstraction from the fiction, like a 4e SC does. It just wasn't a notion that really existed quite yet. There were people using partial failure, and degrees of success (Marvel Super Heroes basically has that). In fact MSH really was a very innovative game in several ways, but it STILL didn't put things together entirely. Karma let players stack the odds in their favor on checks when they wished, though it was not clearly intended as a meta-game resource, but does function as such. That was 1984, and is a pretty early example of that sort of thing. Coupled with the 'shift table' there were a lot of possibilities there.

So, yes, progress was made in the first 10 years. In fact Traveler, by cataloging many of the games standard activities into subsystems which each required a series of checks, could be thought of as ALMOST inventing something like the Skill Challenge, and that was 1977.

But all these games pretty much lacked any way to decouple things, and each check was always directly connected to one specific narrative fictional element.

 

[pemerton]

Behold I wins teh internet:

Shark - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

“Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head.”

I did wonder if something of this sort might be forthcoming.

My earlier community service announcement was in aid not just of truth, but of tradition and also precision.

Out of curiosity, do shark folk still turn up occasionally in a powered-up 4-armed version?

 

[Campbell]

Sahuagin are the shark people anyway.

 

[pemerton]

Is CoC even a thing these days? We've got Trail of Cthulhu, why the hell anyone would touch that old mess of a game?

I'd recommend Cthulhu Dark.

 

[pemerton]

Sahuagin are the shark people anyway.

Yes. But do they still have mutant 4-armed bosses?