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

[Aldarc]

@Imaro, just to be clear here. No, I'm not looking for a way to make Madness and Sanity rules work in D&D. I tried. The mechanics in the DMG did not work for me. Like, at all. The players, as I said, absolutely hated them and, well, that's largely that.

In fact, that's largely my take away from all of this. People keep going on about how easy it is to change 5e. That has really not been my experience, either as a player or as a DM. Every time I've either played or run D&D, and tried to move away from baseline, it has largely resulted in failure. I've now talked about running infiltration scenarios, low magic and horror. I've DONE the last two of those and participated in the first under three different DM's. It's never worked.

Don't you know? That's because you are a bad GM. A good GM could make these mechanics work or be competent enough to change them. Since you failed and you can't, then you must be a bad GM. Remember that there are no bad mechanics in D&D 5e; there are only bad GMs. Don't criticize the system: criticize the people who failed to have fun with it.

So, you're right, in a sense, @Imaro, that I'm not really looking for ways to make this work in D&D. D&D, AFAIC, is such a tightly bound system that I simply wouldn't try any of these ever again in a D&D game. There are so many knock on effects to any changes that it is not worth the effort to try to pound the square D&D peg into round holes. It's simply a recipe for disappointment, in my experience.

Which is why telling me that it's somehow wrong or mistaken to tell people that running these things in D&D is a waste of time just flies straight up my nose. I WISH someone, years ago, had just pulled me aside and told me that when 5e came out, it would be best to stick to bog standard D&D tropes and concepts. It would have saved me a LOT of frustration and a ton of time and effort.

See, the funny thing is, my current campaign is pretty much that. Bog standard D&D. Couple of minor class alterations, but, nothing that particularly comes to mind. And it's been a riot. Totally fun. Fun for the players and fun for me to run. So, telling me "Oh, it's easy to change 5e" is the absolutely worst advice you can give. Because 5e is anything but easy to modify. It's really, really HARD to modify outside of a couple of areas. New monster? Ok, that's no problem. New class? Maybe a bit of work, but, so long as you keep to the math, and don't mind some rough edges, probably not a problem. Drift genre and try to add major mechanical changes like a Sanity/Madness mechanic? Don't bother. It's a waste of time unless you have players who are REALLY into drifting D&D into different directions.

Otherwise, just play a different bloody game. It's far easier and, again, in my experience, your success rate will be much higher.

Same. I don't mind customizing a game to suit my needs, but I don't think that customizing 5e D&D is always the right or easiest choice.

 

[dave2008]

I mean, look at the changes @dave2008 has made to achieve Cosmic HOrror. Strip out virtually all the classes. Strip out virtually all the spells and spell effects (at least all the player facing ones). Limit levels to 6. Add in a AC as DR system (no mean feat in and of itself. That's a huge issue right there that's been debated all over the place for years). Add in lingering wounds and change the healing system. Adjust encounters because now your PC's can never pick up anyone in combat who drops below 0 HP. ((Frankly, I'm not really sure how this group managed to get past 2nd or 3rd level with these changes)).

Just wanted to point out the changes to AC/DR and healing/rest were not made for Cosmic Horror. Those are the standard house rules we play with. My group will not play a game if there is not some type of DR associated with AC. Also, AC still exists and functions as normal, the DR is an additive rule.

Regarding magic and spell casting classes: we removed those because they don't exist in the story Call of Cthulhu. I personally don't think anything beyond ritual casting is appropriate for Cosmic Horror, but others may differ. I don't think eliminating them is required or a big deal to do.

So to be clear. The changes we made from our standard game where:

1. Removed one class (the Wizard)
2. Added lingering injuries from the DMG
3. Reduced hit points

 

[dave2008]

Sure, sometimes, in the end. And yet usually there's that LAST scene where some doubt is cast on the demise. But that is an attraction of most sub-genre of horror is that the badness IS overcome in the end. Jaws is killed, Dracula slain, etc. OTOH COSMIC horror has unkillable bad guys (you may kill minions and such). There's a lot of variety. Still, any threat worth its salt isn't just killed easily, certainly not wiped out by getting into a melee with it, which is pretty classic D&D.

I never claimed other horror genres were like cosmic horror - that was you. I simply disagreed with that. I've always been on board with the unkillable cosmic horrors. I was reacting to your post. You keep trying to argue something we both agree on and don't seem see that we agree. Not sure what is going on over there on your side of the internet, but it is a bit strange.

 

[Imaro]

I don't think that giving the GM constraints equals "assuming them being bad". Codified Agenda, Principles and Moves achieve several important goals:
1) Synchronise expectations -- RPGs are by their nature collaborative, after all, and it's much easier when everyone understands how the game works, and what story we're here to create.
2) Ensure consistency -- so watching John Wick or playing Dead Space in a week between sessions won't derail your game completely
3) Help in the hard battle against the blank sheet
4) And, yeah, help to create the experience the system was designed for

Yeah, you may want something else, different from what a specific PbtA, or FitD, or Paragon game gives you, and then... Then you hack it. You design a system, with constraints and mechanics that work for the thing you want to achieve.

Again I get you like PbtA and FitD... I mean you even published a game under FitD so there's the incentive of more players for your own game...but you do get that some people may not like this style of game... right? Let me be clear, you don't have to come around to my preferences but I get the impression that you think alot of your statements are objective truths. If that's not the case and you are talking personal preference just say so but even this post above seems to push that having constraints, codified agenda, principles and moves is the objectively better way to go for a ttrpg and it's not, not for everyone.

 

[Imaro]

@Imaro, just to be clear here. No, I'm not looking for a way to make Madness and Sanity rules work in D&D. I tried. The mechanics in the DMG did not work for me. Like, at all. The players, as I said, absolutely hated them and, well, that's largely that.

In fact, that's largely my take away from all of this. People keep going on about how easy it is to change 5e. That has really not been my experience, either as a player or as a DM. Every time I've either played or run D&D, and tried to move away from baseline, it has largely resulted in failure. I've now talked about running infiltration scenarios, low magic and horror. I've DONE the last two of those and participated in the first under three different DM's. It's never worked.

So, you're right, in a sense, @Imaro, that I'm not really looking for ways to make this work in D&D. D&D, AFAIC, is such a tightly bound system that I simply wouldn't try any of these ever again in a D&D game. There are so many knock on effects to any changes that it is not worth the effort to try to pound the square D&D peg into round holes. It's simply a recipe for disappointment, in my experience.

Which is why telling me that it's somehow wrong or mistaken to tell people that running these things in D&D is a waste of time just flies straight up my nose. I WISH someone, years ago, had just pulled me aside and told me that when 5e came out, it would be best to stick to bog standard D&D tropes and concepts. It would have saved me a LOT of frustration and a ton of time and effort.

See, the funny thing is, my current campaign is pretty much that. Bog standard D&D. Couple of minor class alterations, but, nothing that particularly comes to mind. And it's been a riot. Totally fun. Fun for the players and fun for me to run. So, telling me "Oh, it's easy to change 5e" is the absolutely worst advice you can give. Because in my experience 5e is anything but easy to modify. It's really, really HARD to modify outside of a couple of areas. New monster? Ok, that's no problem. New class? Maybe a bit of work, but, so long as you keep to the math, and don't mind some rough edges, probably not a problem. Drift genre and try to add major mechanical changes like a Sanity/Madness mechanic? Don't bother. It's a waste of time unless you have players who are REALLY into drifting D&D into different directions.

Otherwise, just play a different bloody game. It's far easier and, again, in my experience, your success rate will be much higher.

I get it and there's no hard feelings but us going back and forth isn't going to "prove" anything and if I find D&D suits my needs and is easy to hack and change for me while you find it unwieldy and difficult... and we are pretty much entrenched in those opinions... then the only discussions left would be either me trying to give advice and/or help to make hacking D&D easier (which you now have clearly stated you don't want) or you suggesting games which would do a particular genre I am trying to emulate better... which since I am in the middle of a D&D game (on hiatus) I don't particularly need. So really we're just butting heads at this point and it serves no purpose.

 

[Imaro]

Sorry, was going for levity here.

So, how do you pair a Sanity check with an Int skill? I don't recall ever seeing any advice in that direction, but, it has been a while.

I'm going to assume there's no real point in answering this now, but the general works in D&D unless it's superseded by the specific. So Sanity is used as an ability with all the general rules of abilities, ability checks, saves, etc. applying (including any optional rules the DM might be using for abilities). The DMG gives specific examples of what might require a San check and San save... but at this point I don't think it's worthwhile for me to type it all out.

EDIT: Also, and this is IMO, it is fitting that no class has prof in SAN saves as it keeps everyone on equal footing when it comes to this in a horror game unless they are willing to make a hard choice and devote an Ability improvement to it... with a class based proficiency the saves would become trivial at higher levels and would totally destroy any sense of tension or fear at failing them. Your players seemed to be looking for a way to mitigate the actual horror part...which in a sword and sorcery game with a dash of horror might have been a good thing... but in an actual horror campaign (which I believe these rules were intended for) would be terrible.

 

[Hussar]

Just wanted to point out the changes to AC/DR and healing/rest were not made for Cosmic Horror. Those are the standard house rules we play with. My group will not play a game if there is not some type of DR associated with AC. Also, AC still exists and functions as normal, the DR is an additive rule.

Regarding magic and spell casting classes: we removed those because they don't exist in the story Call of Cthulhu. I personally don't think anything beyond ritual casting is appropriate for Cosmic Horror, but others may differ. I don't think eliminating them is required or a big deal to do.

So to be clear. The changes we made from our standard game where:

1. Removed one class (the Wizard)
2. Added lingering injuries from the DMG
3. Reduced hit points

Hang on. Did you remove all spell casting classes or just the Wizard? You had said you removed all casters before. There's a pretty big difference there.

And, that AC/DR thing is a huge change in the game. That's something that's been debated over and over again on how to implement it. That's not a small change and will impact everything else. Meaning that if I want to get your results, I have to use that too. That you use the same house rules for other games doesn't really change my point.

 

[FrozenNorth]

And here I thought we were done with Oberoni. If it was so easy to do, why are we having a discussion about how to do it? I'd largely agree with your list here, which really, isn't any different from what I said. Yet, the notion that in 5e, "a situation where even if the characters win, they feel like they lost" is anything but easy and requires so much rail roading that I wouldn't even try it in 5e.

It isn’t the Oberoni fallacy, it’s a disagreement. And setting out what different people mean by “Cosmic Horror” is more productive than two sides each arguing that the other doesn’t “get” Cosmic Horror.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Hang on. Did you remove all spell casting classes or just the Wizard? You had said you removed all casters before. There's a pretty big difference there.

And, that AC/DR thing is a huge change in the game. That's something that's been debated over and over again on how to implement it. That's not a small change and will impact everything else. Meaning that if I want to get your results, I have to use that too. That you use the same house rules for other games doesn't really change my point.

To be fair, it seems that @dave2008 has an extrememely modified 5e as a baeline. So he may have already removed all spellcasting classes except the Wizard from his base game. I guess his base game is Fighter (not all subclasses), Rogue (not all subclasses), and Wizard. This way, removing the Wizard class removes all spellcasting?

Maybe?

 

[dave2008]

Hang on. Did you remove all spell casting classes or just the Wizard? You had said you removed all casters before. There's a pretty big difference there.

I should have been more clear. In our standard campaign everyone is either fighter (2 battlemasters) or rogue (thief & scout), and we have one wizard. I was saying from our standard campaign we only dropped the wizard. Technically the other classes are possible in our standard campaign, but functionally they don't exist as no one plays them.

I was listing the changes from our standard game, so the only thing that was dropped from our standard game was the wizard. However, again that wasn't necessarily because of Cosmic Horror, that because we were playing in a world without magic. Though I do think magic is problematic for cosmic horror and think it should be severely limited.

And, that AC/DR thing is a huge change in the game. That's something that's been debated over and over again on how to implement it. That's not a small change and will impact everything else. Meaning that if I want to get your results, I have to use that too. That you use the same house rules for other games doesn't really change my point.

My point was that our AC/DR rule is not needed for Cosmic Horror. It is just the rule we use. Here is the rule:

• AC works normally (RAW)
• Additionally, armor has DR = AC-10. However,...
• DR only comes into effect when HP are 0 or a critical hit.

So your armor's DR only comes into effect when your suffer a critical hit or when your HP are 0. Otherwise AC and damage works just like RAW. Simple and effective, for us anyway.

It really wouldn't change much if we didn't use this rule in our Cthulhu game.