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

[dave2008]

Not that they will see this but, to @Aldarc: I am sorry if I said something that offended you enough to block me. My apologies, that was definitely not my intent!

 

[Manbearcat]

Isn't this at odds with the argument that DM's can do anything they want in 5e. This is a serious question and I'd like to know how both the players can have too much control and the DM have absolute control (and I understand if that's not your position and won't take offence if you say that).

Its much more complex than a simple configuration of "a lot of control/mandate" vs "limited control/constraint."

First you have to consider how asymmetric power relationships manifest in any given situation. Then you have to consider how the play agendas and authority distribution intersects with that asymmetry. Then you have to consider how aspects of the system/play are table-facing and aspects of the system/play which are GM-facing intersect with all of this.

So for instance, 5e possess the following qualities:

1) Rulings Not Rules + GM as Lead Storyteller + Role (and the mandate afforded that role) to ensure a memorable is told at the table and people have "fun."

2) An admixture of table-facing and GM-facing aspects of play that can wax/wane/change as play unfolds.

3) (1) + (2) above is a mandate for the deployment of GM Force at the GM's discretion to facilitate their role and responsibility.

4) However, simultaneous to that is a Skilled Play imperative that undergirds all D&D play since time immemorial.


So you've got competing priorities here. The typical GMs resolve this is they keep both the Skilled Play Imperative ball and the Storyteller Imperative ball in the air and do their best to decide when one needs to be sacrificed for the sake of the other. How GM-facing the game is, how asymmetric the power relationships/authority distribution is, how much the offscreen matters all serve as their cover for a lot of this stuff.


So consider the Rest/Recharge. The players have played Skillfully in a scenario (be it a dungeon crawl or a plane-hopping excursion or a wilderness trek or whatever). They've relatively dominated but they've expended enough resources that they want to attempt a Long Rest to Recharge.

* The Table-Facing aspects of play all say that the Wizard and the group's contingencies should allow this Long Rest to occur.

* The Skilled Play Imperative should say that the Long Rest should occur.

HOWEVER...

* The Storyteller imperative is at tension with whether the Long Rest will occur. Its going to lead to unrewarding, anticlimax if it occurs.

* The GM-Facing and the asymmetric power relationship say that the GM can just deploy move x, y, or z (or all 3 if they wish) to ensure that the Long Rest Recharge doesn't occur. There is nothing systemitizing this. The GM is just extrapolating the fiction in order to make this happen...but the important part here is that their first principles to justify this "block" are The Storyteller Imperative requires the Long Rest Recharge to be disabled.

Its entirely possible for the GM to extrapolate the situation naturalistically such that the Long Rest Recharge should be enabled. Again, also, its entirely appropriate to extrapolate that the Long Rest Recharge should take play from the Skilled Play Priority.

But they execute the block (by using move x, y, z) because they deem the Storyteller Imperative as the most important priority here.


I hope this explanation and example shows how asymmetric power relationships, authority distribution, Rulings Not Rules (meaning the game isn't tightly encoded and procedures aren't all table-facing), table/GM-facing dynamics (that are togglable at GM discretion), Storyteller Imperative, Skilled Play Priority are almost invariably going to lead to points of tension during play where a GM is going to have to choose between "having their cake" and "eating it too."


This is very different than the sort of control (lackthereof) that is systemitized in a game like Dread or via a mechanic like a Doom Pool.

 

[dave2008]

Consider Dread's Jenga resolution mechanic.

What do you need for horror?

* Vulnerability (physically, mentally, emotionally)

* A teetering sense of control over outcomes...particularly if that spirals


So if you want systemitize actual horror, you need to actually inject play with these things. Horror cosplayed is not actual horror. Because there is too much control and not enough vulnerability.

So consider how best to systematize these things. The jenga tower as a resolution mechanic is a great way. Its also why GM Force (a GM going outside of the rules to actively subordinating player input/volition) is a useful technique. However, you can systemitize GM Force so that it no longer becomes actual Force (see (b) below) because its now inside of the rules to subordinate player input/volition. (a) A jenga tower as a primary resolution mechanic and/or/also (b) the GM having some kind of table-facing currency that ebbs/flows and builds up like a Doom Pool in MHRP that the GM can deploy at their discretion to wrest control of the trajectory of play from the players and say "this awful thing happens right now" are two robust means to ensure the above.

If you look at the inverse, this is precisely why D&D struggles to do actual horror (eg not cosplayed horror). Its because PCs are so robust (in every way, including controlling recharge/recover mechanics) and the resolution mechanics don't possess all the facets that make (a) and (b) work (actual GM Force or GM-facing mechanics feel very differently upon play than something like a Jenga Tower or a scary Sword of Damocles like Doom Pool...perpetually building toward some terrible end).

Thank you for the reply! I never considered props like a jenga tower. That sounds like a great mechanic and instills tension, but not Horror IMO. I honestly didn't follow how GM Force or a Doom Pool creates horror either. They create tension, not horror. I can see where creating tension can help facilitate the feeling of horror, but those are not mechanics of horror IMO. But maybe that is just me, probably is.

 

[loverdrive]

Its much more complex than a simple configuration of "a lot of control/mandate" vs "limited control/constraint."

First you have to consider how asymmetric power relationships manifest in any given situation. Then you have to consider how the play agendas and authority distribution intersects with that asymmetry. Then you have to consider how aspects of the system/play are table-facing and aspects of the system/play which are GM-facing intersect with all of this.

So for instance, 5e possess the following qualities:

1) Rulings Not Rules + GM as Lead Storyteller + Role (and the mandate afforded that role) to ensure a memorable is told at the table and people have "fun."

2) An admixture of table-facing and GM-facing aspects of play that can wax/wane/change as play unfolds.

3) (1) + (2) above is a mandate for the deployment of GM Force at the GM's discretion to facilitate their role and responsibility.

4) However, simultaneous to that is a Skilled Play imperative that undergirds all D&D play since time immemorial.


So you've got competing priorities here. The typical GMs resolve this is they keep both the Skilled Play Imperative ball and the Storyteller Imperative ball in the air and do their best to decide when one needs to be sacrificed for the sake of the other. How GM-facing the game is, how asymmetric the power relationships/authority distribution is, how much the offscreen matters all serve as their cover for a lot of this stuff.


So consider the Rest/Recharge. The players have played Skillfully in a scenario (be it a dungeon crawl or a plane-hopping excursion or a wilderness trek or whatever). They've relatively dominated but they've expended enough resources that they want to attempt a Long Rest to Recharge.

* The Table-Facing aspects of play all say that the Wizard and the group's contingencies should allow this Long Rest to occur.

* The Skilled Play Imperative should say that the Long Rest should occur.

HOWEVER...

* The Storyteller imperative is at tension with whether the Long Rest will occur. Its going to lead to unrewarding, anticlimax if it occurs.

* The GM-Facing and the asymmetric power relationship say that the GM can just deploy move x, y, or z (or all 3 if they wish) to ensure that the Long Rest Recharge doesn't occur. There is nothing systemitizing this. The GM is just extrapolating the fiction in order to make this happen...but the important part here is that their first principles to justify this "block" are The Storyteller Imperative requires the Long Rest Recharge to be disabled.

Its entirely possible for the GM to extrapolate the situation naturalistically such that the Long Rest Recharge should be enabled. Again, also, its entirely appropriate to extrapolate that the Long Rest Recharge should take play from the Skilled Play Priority.

But they execute the block (by using move x, y, z) because they deem the Storyteller Imperative as the most important priority here.


I hope this explanation and example shows how asymmetric power relationships, authority distribution, Rulings Not Rules (meaning the game isn't tightly encoded and procedures aren't all table-facing), table/GM-facing dynamics (that are togglable at GM discretion), Storyteller Imperative, Skilled Play Priority are almost invariably going to lead to points of tension during play where a GM is going to have to choose between "having their cake" and "eating it too."


This is very different than the sort of control (lackthereof) that is systemitized in a game like Dread or via a mechanic like a Doom Pool.

My cursed problem collection now has one more peculiar specimen. Never thought about it that way before.

Thanks!

 

[Imaro]

You see, the main difference is, even an utterly mediocre GM can grab BitD, just follow the rules and get pretty decent results. Just following the rules of D&D can lead to a great game remembered for centuries or a game so naughty word everyone within a mile from the table would get hanged without a trial by the role-playing secret police. Or anything inbetween.

I don't disagree with this...

A good, experienced game master can run a game with nothing more than a sheet of paper, a pen and two asscheeks, sure. That's how I start my design process, and it works great to me. But can we count on a good, experienced game master when designing rules? Of course not.

I don't know if assuming they will be bad is the answer either honestly. It seems like some people just bump really hard up against the types of constraints that games like BitD or Agon impose... I think for some (whether right or wrong) it feels like it's limiting creativity and freedom.

Then, there's another thing worth discussing. You can't know what you don't know.
When you already are familiar with the genre, know the tropes and stuff, that's one thing. You can emulate it to some extent, even if you end up putting more work into it than necessary.
But what if you don't know the thing the game is about? To hell with newschool, let's talk oldschool. I know pretty much nothing about caving, but when I use, say, Veins of the Earth, I get a claustrophobic cave-dwelling experience that I wouldn't be able to get on my own -- again, because I can't know what I don't know.

This one I would say is unlikely, I can't see someone who doesn't know anything about horror deciding all of a sudden to run a horror game. Not saying it's impossible just probably very unlikely and probably an outlier case but a valid one. That said plenty of people run swordfights in various systems without having experienced them first hand... I've never climbed a cliff but I can read a description and know enough to give a sense of verisimilitude. That I think is what's important getting your players to buy into what you are describing or portraying which can just as easily come from reading someone describing it.

 

[Imaro]

Its much more complex than a simple configuration of "a lot of control/mandate" vs "limited control/constraint."

First you have to consider how asymmetric power relationships manifest in any given situation. Then you have to consider how the play agendas and authority distribution intersects with that asymmetry. Then you have to consider how aspects of the system/play are table-facing and aspects of the system/play which are GM-facing intersect with all of this.

So for instance, 5e possess the following qualities:

1) Rulings Not Rules + GM as Lead Storyteller + Role (and the mandate afforded that role) to ensure a memorable is told at the table and people have "fun."

2) An admixture of table-facing and GM-facing aspects of play that can wax/wane/change as play unfolds.

3) (1) + (2) above is a mandate for the deployment of GM Force at the GM's discretion to facilitate their role and responsibility.

4) However, simultaneous to that is a Skilled Play imperative that undergirds all D&D play since time immemorial.


So you've got competing priorities here. The typical GMs resolve this is they keep both the Skilled Play Imperative ball and the Storyteller Imperative ball in the air and do their best to decide when one needs to be sacrificed for the sake of the other. How GM-facing the game is, how asymmetric the power relationships/authority distribution is, how much the offscreen matters all serve as their cover for a lot of this stuff.


So consider the Rest/Recharge. The players have played Skillfully in a scenario (be it a dungeon crawl or a plane-hopping excursion or a wilderness trek or whatever). They've relatively dominated but they've expended enough resources that they want to attempt a Long Rest to Recharge.

* The Table-Facing aspects of play all say that the Wizard and the group's contingencies should allow this Long Rest to occur.

* The Skilled Play Imperative should say that the Long Rest should occur.

HOWEVER...

* The Storyteller imperative is at tension with whether the Long Rest will occur. Its going to lead to unrewarding, anticlimax if it occurs.

* The GM-Facing and the asymmetric power relationship say that the GM can just deploy move x, y, or z (or all 3 if they wish) to ensure that the Long Rest Recharge doesn't occur. There is nothing systemitizing this. The GM is just extrapolating the fiction in order to make this happen...but the important part here is that their first principles to justify this "block" are The Storyteller Imperative requires the Long Rest Recharge to be disabled.

Its entirely possible for the GM to extrapolate the situation naturalistically such that the Long Rest Recharge should be enabled. Again, also, its entirely appropriate to extrapolate that the Long Rest Recharge should take play from the Skilled Play Priority.

But they execute the block (by using move x, y, z) because they deem the Storyteller Imperative as the most important priority here.


I hope this explanation and example shows how asymmetric power relationships, authority distribution, Rulings Not Rules (meaning the game isn't tightly encoded and procedures aren't all table-facing), table/GM-facing dynamics (that are togglable at GM discretion), Storyteller Imperative, Skilled Play Priority are almost invariably going to lead to points of tension during play where a GM is going to have to choose between "having their cake" and "eating it too."


This is very different than the sort of control (lackthereof) that is systemitized in a game like Dread or via a mechanic like a Doom Pool.

Not sure I agree with everything here, need some more time to process what you're saying but thanks for answering.

 

[Manbearcat]

Thank you for the reply! I never considered props like a jenga tower. That sounds like a great mechanic and instills tension, but not Horror IMO. I honestly didn't follow how GM Force or a Doom Pool creates horror either. They create tension, not horror. I can see where creating tension can help facilitate the feeling of horror, but those are not mechanics of horror IMO. But maybe that is just me, probably is.

Youre very welcome.

Try this.

Look at how a Doom Pool synthesizes all the aspects of “Jenga Tower as action resolution.”

* Oh no, the dice pool is building...things are growing increasingly dangerous...more out of my control. Who knows when it’s going to “go off” and everything goes to hell <like looking at the increasingly teetering tower>.

* Player makes a move <GM deploys Doom Pool to shut down the player move and send things calamitously spiraling out of your control>. OH NO! ITS ALL COMING APART! <Jenga tower collapses and badness happens>

 

[Manbearcat]

Not sure I agree with everything here, need some more time to process what you're saying but thanks for answering.

You’re very welcome.

Maybe distill it down to the following when you’re doing your consideration of the post:

* To allow Long Rest Recharge or not?

* Are there alternative/competing explanations from the situation on whether or not I can allow or disallows recharge? The answer to this is almost always going to be “yes.”

* From first principles, why am I allowing the Long Rest or why am I disallowing it in this situation?

* What play priority does that ultimately serve; rewarding Skilled Play or ensuring a memorable/satisfying story climax?

* What facets of play/system enable the execution of my decision?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah I'm extremely familiar with Dungeon World but I think I'm being dim. What/where are the knobs? It seems to me that DW would be pretty bad at supporting LotR, for example, because the classes/monsters/moves don't align at all well with that vibe, whereas Conan would be absolutely fine, as would a Shrek-esque fairy tale (which is perilously close to D&D anyway - the first D&D adventure I wrote was based on an episode of The Gummi Bears...). Warhammer would be fine as long as you didn't want it to be old-skool WHFRP-style (i.e. "You are a gravedigger, you own rags and a shovel, you die in the first combat you get into"), and the characters were the equivalent to inquisitors, knights, low-end wizards, assorted elfs and so on.

So if you're saying "DW runs a broad swathe of D&D-esque fantasy", sure, but even with the players and DM trying to make only LotR-esque moves (which is already slightly frown-inducing), the mechanics of the game are going to make it well, play out more like the movie version of The Hobbit (and not in a good way).

LotR really feels like it would be it's own separate hack, possibly not even based on DW.

Indeed I thought I recalled one and there is one and it's even on my DriveThru RPG wishlist lol: Fellowship 2nd Edition - A Tabletop Adventure Game - Liberi Gothica Games | Fellowship Playbooks | DriveThruRPG.com

To me DW is consciously (and highly successfully) trying to emulate D&D and D&D-isms, which means using it for other things, with the best will in the world, doesn't work great.

But maybe I'm profoundly missing something.

Yup and I think it relies on the players to very much support that, which not every player is great at (there's maybe a whole separate discussion about the ease of procuring players who are able to play in different styles).

But my point was that FATE does offer actual knobs/tools for genre emulation, whereas broadly speaking, PtbA games don't. Rather each PtbA game tightly customized to a specific genre. Even one that seems superficially close to what you want may prove unsuitable because a major mechanic may revolve around something that isn't going to work in the scenario you want. This is an actual downside to PtbA's approach. I have several perma-shelved PtbA games becauses they're cool, and I got them because I thought they'd work, but in fact they had some particular major mechanic which wasn't right for what we wanted to do.

Well, it is fair to say that each PbtA game has a certain COLOR to it. They obviously each occupy a genre, and then within that genre they MAY invoke some specific rules that are either related to the overall genre, or provide this color. Of course some/all of it might also be provided by things like creatures, gear, etc. Surely the available moves and playbooks will form a significant part.

However, it SEEMS TO ME, that at least some of them are pretty darn general overall. That includes the 3 most commonly used games, Apocalypse World (which does post-apocalyptic Mad Max style play pretty well), Dungeon World (D&D adjacent Fantasy), and Uncharted Worlds (general Space Opera ala Foundation/Traveller/other 'harder' far future milieu).

So, I'm thinking about LotR here, for the sake of argument. D&D doesn't do this super well, despite drawing a lot of superficial details from Middle Earth lore, like many races of elves. LotR is true high fantasy. Despite addressing a scenario in which the characters traverse the land, journeying from one hazard on to another, it is NOT a very 'gritty' story. Instead it deals with personal growth, standing up against evil, personal courage, temptation, and with minor themes of redemption and obligation. Mundane things like equipment, food, finding a path through the wilderness, surviving said wilderness, etc. are all very minor peripheral parts, at best. Simply incidental plot devices. Likewise the author never really describes a living material world including all the details of people's lives and seeming LIVED IN to any great degree.

Yes, The Shire, and a bit of Bree, is brought to life, but that is about it, and mostly to contrast with the actual locations where the action happens. We learn nothing about how Bree supports itself (we can guess, there are enough details) but we have literally NO IDEA how Rivendell works, what do they eat? How do they obtain it? Where do all the materials come from for all their stuff? Is it all just elf ring magic? Likewise Lothlorien is not really depicted as any sort of realistic location you could interact with. Even Minas Tirith and Rohan (I forget the name of the town) don't really have any practical details (again, we could at least imagine some are unstated).

And this has always been the biggest problem with classic attempts to make an LotR-based Middle Earth RPG, from the days of MERP all the way down to today. Third Age Middle Earth isn't really a living world, its a stage on which to tell a certain tale, and any attempt to create an RPG which engages with ordinary everyday concerns, in any way, except as occasional plot devices, is doomed to conflict heavily with the atmosphere of LotR. I mean, MERP isn't a bad fantasy RPG, and it reproduces the MATERIAL of LotR adequately to a degree (IE you can make wizards and elves, and they do magical and martial things that sound like things that would be possible in Middle Earth) but it mostly fails on the 'color' front, the atmosphere is all wrong. This is because it fundamentally uses a play process that is pretty much lifted from RM, and ultimately from D&D (there are some differences, but it is still substantively a cousin of D&D).

Now, Dungeon World will, by default, hit some of the same issues. ME RP definitely is NOT about checking off boxes of food rations, or wandering around the countryside poking into every odd grey zone on the map. You COULD kinda make it work by focusing on fronts and whatnot that are existential threats, and playing up personal responsibility, obligation, and the 'step up and take it on' ethos of Frodo Baggins. Bonds, alignment, etc. would actually help with that. You would probably want to do away with most of the equipment rules, maybe use a model for harm that was different, and maybe alter the moves a bit. Still, you could use most of DW at some level.

5e, maybe not so much. I mean you could do a lot of the above, de-emphasize equipment and whatnot, but equipment feeds heavily into the rest of the rules, so that would take some work. Magic in D&D is definitely not Tolkien magic, so that would have to be addressed, which probably means scrapping or heavily revising spell lists and many/most classes and sub-classes.

The thing is, DW/PbtA DOES HAVE HOOKS, in fact in spades, to address motivations, methods, style, and such of the PCs and the kinds of threats and how they fit into the world. D&D just doesn't. It isn't like you CANNOT try to figure it out, but I think a fairly light revision of DW would inherently do it. With 5e it would be a matter of each DM figuring out for himself all of the above, and then invoking the correct rulings in the right way to get the flavor to come out right. It is not going to be a walk in the park, and the only sort of mechanical approach that I can see is an 'indie' Story Now sort of one where the game inherently introduces that flavor. No amount of simply presenting spells, classes, monster, and such in 5e fashion will get you there, the game simply lacks the 'language' needed to describe what makes Middle Earth tick.

 

[dave2008]

Youre very welcome.

Try this.

Look at how a Doom Pool synthesizes all the aspects of “Jenga Tower as action resolution.”

* Oh no, the dice pool is building...things are growing increasingly dangerous...more out of my control. Who knows when it’s going to “go off” and everything goes to hell <like looking at the increasingly teetering tower>.

* Player makes a move <GM deploys Doom Pool to shut down the player move and send things calamitously spiraling out of your control>. OH NO! ITS ALL COMING APART! <Jenga tower collapses and badness happens>

I understand the mechanic (at least I think I do), but I don't see how that is a horror mechanic.. Can it help, sure. But it can also help do things that are not horror. It is not, IMO, a be-spoke horror mechanic.

To be clear, after some thought, my underlying opinion is the game mechanics cannot create horror. A player is always aware it is a game and the mechanics are just tools of the game. If anything, player facing mechanics like Doom Pools are even more gamist and break the horror immersion IMO.

I just had a thought that maybe the best mechanics for a horror game are lack of be-spoke mechanics. Maybe creating specific mechanics to create "horror" actually works to undermine the sense of horror.