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

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not sure that horror is distinct here. Rules probably can't make me feel love, either, or deep sorrow. Does that mean that a dramatic (or melodramatic) RPG can't be done?

As I understand it, the point of rules in a RPG is to settle the content of the fiction. And fiction can make me feel (by imaginative projection, if not literally) horror, and love, and deep sorrow. So a RPG can do horror if its rules work in a certain way to support a certain sort of fiction.

Personally I wouldn't look to any version of WotC D&D to do this - the rules complexity is, I think, too apt to intrude on the establishment of those sorts of feelings and these games don't have other devices to keep those feelings front and centre. But maybe BW could do horror - it is complex too but does have devices to keep feelings at the forefront. And something like Wuthering Heights or Cthulhu Dark could manage it too, I think.

I once read a whole long piece about a person, a number of people actually but the author was one, who participated in an RPG which actually "broke the 4th wall." The content was a sort of modern conspiracy/horror kind of thing. The revelations of the GM WRT the game world (which was claimed to be the real world) were so stark and compelling that the players began to see their participation in terms of revelation of ACTUAL mysteries and conspiracies, and that it became so compelling that they in essence 'crossed the line' from participating in an RPG into participating in an actual conspiracy (I think one of the elements of the game is that their characters were pretty much the players). So, who really can say what the limits are? hehehe.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Heh - a relatively new DM in our crew tried running some DW online last year while her main in-person campaign was on hold (same players). I guess she must have dialled the volume up a bit beyond 10 as she TPKed them something like three times in the first ten sessions or so.

Something to consider for those who are saying throw the farm at them.

Yeah, you CAN kill the PCs, but that requires just making lots of hard moves and not giving them a chance to have some downtime. Really it isn't much different from classic D&D in the sense that the players presumably have the option to 'go back to town' unless the GM is really hammering on them. Anyway, death is not against the agenda, necessarily, but party wipes are probably not usually a good outcome. I guess if you basically say to the players "well, you can die gloriously and save the town" and they go for it, OK!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Be careful with that assumption. On the old WotC boards I was constantly told I was playing 4e wrong too. How we played 4e at our table seemed to be very different than a lot of other people. Heck we played a 4e adventure without powers once, completely improv - just player description and DM adjudication!

Yeah, 4e really CAN be played a few ways. I talk about it as "4e as Story Now game" but that is NOT how most people actually played it. I think there was a typical sort of play, exemplified by organized play, but there is a LOT of variety possible.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There are a number of Cthulhu Mythos games that have been mentioned thus far:

• Call of Cthulhu (Basic Roleplaying)
• Trail of Cthulhu (Gumshoe) - the core rulebook is 250 pgs.
• Cthulhu Dark (the free 4 page pdf)
• Fate of Cthulhu (Fate)

There may have been others, but these are the ones that I recall off-hand that have been mentioned in the thread.

Delta Green is another one (I don't know much about it). There was at least one other, can't recall what it was called. I think there's a FitD based one too, maybe that was what I am thinking of.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Additionally, although the Alien Mythos is not my thing, I'm curious how the Alien RPG plays in action, particularly its Stress & Panic mechanic. From what I have read, I could see how a similar mechanic could work for Lovecraftian, cosmic, or Cthulhu horror.

It's a very well designed game, and the Stress/Panic rules are very evocative of the films. It's a lot of fun. There is mounting tension as more Stress dice get added to your pool, which benefits you in the short term. But then there's this looming threat every time you have to roll because once one of those Stress dice turns up a 1, it's panic time.

The panic results run the gamut from minor consequences, to a character flipping out and shooting wildly, to death by heart attack!

The game works best when players aren't necessarily trying to "win" so much as they're trying to play out a scenario like one you would see in an Alien film. That's something I think holds equally true of Call of Cthulhu and I think you are right that these mechanics would likely translate to a CoC type game very well.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I didn't read past this, just a quick glance, because, IMO, this is not accurate. It is a sliding scale not one or the other.

It have seen this (making combat more dangerous) work in various ways with multiple people/groups. I can't say it works for you and your group, but it works for many people I have played with. Now, do other factors play a roll in it, most likely. However, IMO the biggest factor is the danger level of the combat.

As an example: I experienced this directly in one of my 4e groups. They were new to D&D and RPGs and played in the gung-ho style 4e generally promotes. Once I started ignoring the encounter guidelines and started making encounters more dangerous they very quickly changed their strategy and tried to find ways to parlay or avoid combat. No more guns-a-blazing into every encounter! It works, sometimes surprisingly well.

Sure, but in the case of 4e you then need to do a few extra things. You need to either not use XP, or you need to reinforce that it is given out for different reasons (maybe focus it all on quests for example). You then need to construct a way for the PCs to get their treasure parcels without fighting. Otherwise the players WILL engage in battle, they will simply alter their tactics to accommodate much stronger opposition (IE only fighting one battle per day no matter what, buying a lot of consumables, heavily optimizing their PCs, engaging in things like hit-and-run tactics that are not really normally incentivized by 4e). If they are really not going to fight, or not often, these are things that need to happen. This is more than just removing/altering XP, it touches the other incentives for combat.

The other point that was made, that you are now only playing with about 10% of the games rules most of the time is also valid. Its definitely a way to play. It might however be said that your games are almost at a point where you could use a lot of other systems and hardly notice the difference.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's certainly what it looks like to me, and it's not at all recent. Ever since the concept of milestone leveling was popularized in what, late 3.5E, I've seen people adopting it, and I keep seeing it. I believe it also tends to be supported by official adventures (I haven't read enough to be sure its universal). I suspect if you polled all D&D players perhaps a majority would be using that or something like it, with the smaller portion using XP, but you never know.

Yeah, I basically stopped giving out XP in 4e in maybe about 2009. But even in the OLD days of 2e, back in the early 90's I just 'eyeballed it'. Actually deciding how much XP everything was worth and doing all the math and then deciding if the wizard casting a spell was worth how much XP, forget it. The party would go through the adventure and level up at the end, or after some amount of story arc, or something. It was not real scientific.

Anyway, that was what basically lead, along with the 4e idea of 'boons' to the current system where I level a PC when they acquire a significant boon. These are simply story driven, nothing else. This DOES incentivize looking for situations where boons are granted though, which is very very cool!

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not imagining the GM saying that in the middle of a session or GM-sez. It's more the general uncertainty at the end of a session, which I have experienced even as both a player and GM, of "umm... I don't know. I guess we can say that y'all have leveled." As a player it can sometimes feel like, "But did I earn this or are we being up-leveled for the sake of planned future content or just because we asked the GM if we hit a milestone yet?" It's more about providing a bit more structure and benchmarks for PC leveling without having to make these sort of judgment calls as a GM. So the actual milestone is a bit more concrete: it's when the adventure/module is done.

All these problems go away if you use xp...just sayin'...

 

[hawkeyefan]

The XP system in D&D stinks and I don’t like it.

We use a milestone type system and have for many years, across editions. The reason we do this is because it’s easier and allows the GM to control the pacing of progression.

But there are other games that have experience systems that I actually like, and I’d prefer that to the D&D book keeping method. A concrete system helps give a sense of forward momentum and accomplishment.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The XP system in D&D stinks and I don’t like it.

We use a milestone type system and have for many years, across editions. The reason we do this is because it’s easier and allows the GM to control the pacing of progression.

But there are other games that have experience systems that I actually like, and I’d prefer that to the D&D book keeping method. A concrete system helps give a sense of forward momentum and accomplishment.

What do you like? I personally just don't like book keeping. I'd be fine with a system that the players keep track of, except I'd be afraid they would also forget! (CoC/BRP uses such a system, and PbtA games kind of work that way).