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

[Hussar]

I mean my game ended with a TPK and Cthulhu destroying the world. That feels pretty pessimistic to me.

Let me ask you this then.

How was that encounter, with 6th level PC's with your house rules (cool house rules by the way) any different than simply tossing a CR 20 dragon at them? It would be the same result. TPK. Simply using Cthulhu and killing the party doesn't make it a Cosmic Horror story.

Since you went from 1st to 6th level with this campaign, I'm presuming this took several adventures and many sessions. What other setbacks/bad things did the PC's suffer by the time they met Cthulhu? How many PC's had died by that time? How many had gone insane/permanently damaged before that encounter?

Because, and again, I'm not at your table and I can only go by what you are saying here, it looks like a fairly bog standard D&D game with some tentacles. TPK's don't make it Cosmic Horror.

 

[Hussar]

We are not talking about the same things clearly. I never said Dracula was cosmic horror and in the post of mine you referenced I said: Title character. The title of the book is Dracula.

IIRC the post I originally responded to mentioned Dracula as a horror threat. My point is that in book he is barely a threat, so much so that I was very disappointed when I read it. He is in fact defeated by heroes rather easily and spends a good deal of time running from them.

Ah, I understand now. Sorry, since I was the one quoted in the post, then I thought it was directed at my point. There are a few gaps in my threads due to some ahem, interactions with others that probably explains my misunderstanding. That, or in this fast moving thread, I just missed it.

Dracula is a 19th century novel. It is very, very much a product of its time.

 

[dave2008]

Let me ask you this then.

How was that encounter, with 6th level PC's with your house rules (cool house rules by the way) any different than simply tossing a CR 20 dragon at them? It would be the same result. TPK. Simply using Cthulhu and killing the party doesn't make it a Cosmic Horror story.

Since you went from 1st to 6th level with this campaign, I'm presuming this took several adventures and many sessions. What other setbacks/bad things did the PC's suffer by the time they met Cthulhu? How many PC's had died by that time? How many had gone insane/permanently damaged before that encounter?

Because, and again, I'm not at your table and I can only go by what you are saying here, it looks like a fairly bog standard D&D game with some tentacles. TPK's don't make it Cosmic Horror.

I'm not at my computer so I can't answer that in depth now - to hard to type. I will get backmtomyou

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ok, just to clarify things a bit.

Why the Madness Mechanics didn't Work For Me.

Context: I was not running a Cosmic Horror game. It was a Primeval Thule game, so there were pulp horror elements but, it wasn't the main thrust of the game. Think Conan, not Dunwich Horror.

I introduced the mechanics to the players. The players immediately realized that the mechanics were very bolted on and did not interact with any other part of the system. The mechanics are basically, "See something really scary, make your Sanity check. Fail enough of those, you get a temporary insanity. Fail enough times after that, and you go permanently insane".

The players and I realized that there was absolutely no context with these mechanics. 1st level or 15th, you had the same chances of failure (more or less). Didn't matter your class, background, level or anything else. Everyone had the same (again, more or less, certainly within about 10-15% either way) chances of failure. So, sure, the first time you meet that horrible tentacled thing, you make your saving throw. The third time you meet yet another tentacled thing, you are still making the same saving throw. By 15th level, you've literally met dozens of tentacled things, but, you make the same saving throw at the same odds of failure.

There was no way for the players to mitigate any of this. You can't get "better" at these checks. Which makes it stand out very starkly from the rest of the game. A 15th level barbarian who has faced dragons without flinching suddenly goes insane from seeing a gibbering mouther, even though his grandmother is more scary.

The players, immediately realizing they had zero input into the system, become totally passive/agressive about it. "Oh noes, another tentacled horror. Whatever shall I so. Oh, look, I failed my saving throw. Oh noes, I'm insane now. Whoopee!"

There's nothing for the players at all in the system. It's just a thing that sits there, like a lump. It doesn't impact any role play (having a lower or higher Sanity score doesn't mean anything, other than it's slightly easier or harder to make a saving throw). It only interacts with this single element - seeing something scary/experiencing something scary. There's no integration. There's not even the slightest attempt to explain what anything actually means. If I have a 15 strength and you have an 8 strength, we can roleplay that. Anyone can roleplay that. But, what does a 15 sanity score mean? What does an 8 mean? It's just numbers on the sheet.

So, yes, that's why I say the mechanics are a failure. They are bolted on lump of meaninglessness that just serve to annoy the players and add nothing to the table.

I think whomever it was who posted and explained that it is an ABILITY SCORE and thus participates in all the various elements of being such (saves, but also checks and potentially attacks). Obviously there are no attacks that use SAN, as it is bolted on, as you say. Still, the GM COULD impose checks based on it, in addition to the saves. Technically I guess you could also spend ASI on it.

I would also point out that, in terms of SAN 'loss' mechanics/insanity mechanics, the core SAN mechanic of CoC isn't THAT much different (except that you do take SAN loss, which makes it a positive feedback 'death spiral'). Also their insanity rules are much better in CoC (at least 7th Ed ones).

The problem is what I enumerated before, and what illustrates your 'bolted on' statement, there's nothing like the interplay between SAN and Mythos knowledge or SAN and magic. Nor is there inherently the urgency to confront SAN check inducing opponents (I mean you can clearly create such urgency, but in a horror game the horror is generally all around you).

And finally the very impotency of ability checks in 5e just breaks things. What does such a check even DO? Why would it be called for? It is just nothing but a sort of "I am the DM, I will ask for this check, and then maybe I'll abide by it and go that way with the fiction, but I don't really have to, I could just ask for some other check 30 seconds later and go with that direction instead" (wash, rinse, repeat).

 

[dave2008]

Ah, I understand now. Sorry, since I was the one quoted in the post, then I thought it was directed at my point. There are a few gaps in my threads due to some ahem, interactions with others that probably explains my misunderstanding. That, or in this fast moving thread, I just missed it.

Dracula is a 19th century novel. It is very, very much a product of its time.

It started for. Your post 1939 (sorry can't seem to link on my tablet) where you equated Dracula with being unlikable like most horror

 

[dave2008]

I think whomever it was who posted and explained that it is an ABILITY SCORE and thus participates in all the various elements of being such (saves, but also checks and potentially attacks). Obviously there are no attacks that use SAN, as it is bolted on, as you say. Still, the GM COULD impose checks based on it, in addition to the saves. Technically I guess you could also spend ASI on it.

I would also point out that, in terms of SAN 'loss' mechanics/insanity mechanics, the core SAN mechanic of CoC isn't THAT much different (except that you do take SAN loss, which makes it a positive feedback 'death spiral'). Also their insanity rules are much better in CoC (at least 7th Ed ones).

The problem is what I enumerated before, and what illustrates your 'bolted on' statement, there's nothing like the interplay between SAN and Mythos knowledge or SAN and magic. Nor is there inherently the urgency to confront SAN check inducing opponents (I mean you can clearly create such urgency, but in a horror game the horror is generally all around you).

And finally the very impotency of ability checks in 5e just breaks things. What does such a check even DO? Why would it be called for? It is just nothing but a sort of "I am the DM, I will ask for this check, and then maybe I'll abide by it and go that way with the fiction, but I don't really have to, I could just ask for some other check 30 seconds later and go with that direction instead" (wash, rinse, repeat).

FYI, @Hussar was talking about Madness, not Sanity. I don't think they used sanity

 

[Lanefan]

I can't conceive any way to make a brave fighter eating dirt because he've seen a tentacled mess (and then being okay 1d10 minutes after) seem believable.

Exactly. The recovery period should be more like 1d10 days, and even then not guaranteed.

Mechanical teeth refers to teeth on a gear, not to teeth in a dragon's maw.

Wait.

Do I really need to explain that removing a player from a game for a considerable amount of time isn't a good idea in any RPG?

By your standards, perhaps. I'd see it as an expected part of the game if playing in a genre like this, that there's flat-out going to be times when one or more players will be completely sidelined due to in-fiction effects for longer than they might like; maybe even one or more entire sessions. Don't like this? Don't play.

That's not how game design works. The best, most effective move available to a player should always align with the tone of the story. With madness rules the best, most effective move is to say "no way I'm doing this" and "screw this naughty word, let's get outta here".

So then out they go...until something else arises elsewhere to drive them mad.

Part of the tone of this genre is that if you try to escape the horror, you can't; and if you try to face up to it then maybe you'll win out (heroic) or maybe you'll just delay the inevitable (Cthulhu-esque).

 

[Hussar]

FYI, @Hussar was talking about Madness, not Sanity. I don't think they used sanity

We used Sanity. Sorry, that wasn't clear.

 

[Hussar]

It started for. Your post 1939 (sorry can't seem to link on my tablet) where you equated Dracula with being unlikable like most horror

OIC. Just went back and reread the post. Umm, was that really not clear when I mentioned Jason and Freddy as well? Dracula was largely unkillable through most of the story - until he comes to London anyway. And certainly the pop culture version, which is much more than just the novel version, fits with what I said. That seems needlessly nitpicky to pull out a single bit like that and ignore the larger point.

 

[Lanefan]

My standard D&D 5e game has a very heavy Middle-earth influence and I feel we do it, or at least our memory of it, justice. However, I feel things like Shadow (or whatever it is called) in TOR or AiME actually detract from the middle-earth feel. I know you will not agree, but I think 5e does middle earth fairly easily.

Curious: what if any changes have you made, either in tone or to the ruleset, to achieve this Middle-Earth tone?