Shadow of the Demon Lord - your analysis?

[darkwillow]

I'm curious to have that expounded upon...

Noting that your gushing included several items I don't care for, it's not selling me on it, but I am curious about that one element. (4 stats = Strike 1. Professions instead of skills, strike 2. No social stat, strike 3. Flatter progression than D&D 5, if indeed that's what you meant, strike 4.)

So basically you are saying it has to be identical to 5e?

 

[Jd Smith1]

So basically you are saying it has to be identical to 5e?

I believe he is saying that he prefers systems that:
1: Have more than 4 stats
2: Have skills instead of professions
3: Have a social stat
4: Have a equal progression to 5e

Myself, I agree on #1-3. Personally, I feel 5e is grossly overpowers, so my position on #4 is the opposite.

 

[darkwillow]

I believe he is saying that he prefers systems that:
1: Have more than 4 stats
2: Have skills instead of professions
3: Have a social stat
4: Have a equal progression to 5e

Myself, I agree on #1-3. Personally, I feel 5e is grossly overpowers, so my position on #4 is the opposite.

Why would you only consider a game with a numeric charisma. You feel like you must have a number to roleplay to?

 

[CubicsRube]

It's all personal preference i guess.

I find the 4 attributes WAY better balanced than 5e. Each one is useful to everyone.

Strength defines what weapons and armour you can use effectively. It also functions as a saving throw for what would be STR and CON in 5e.

Agility is DEX just less initiative.

Intelligence covers will perception, half the spells, and half the social rolls.

Will covers saving against a number of effects, half the spells and half the social rolls.

I much prefer the social split over two stats than having a single stat. It makes sense to me as people can be charismatic in different ways. In one case you might have a high INT pc with a background as a university lecturer trying to convince someone of something using logic. Another might be a high WILL pc who was a preacher appealing to a persons emotions.

In practice this allows more PCs to interact socially by taking a different approach. This suits me well as i dislike the trope of the single "social" PC in the group.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Why would you only consider a game with a numeric charisma. You feel like you must have a number to roleplay to?

Well, I wouldn't consider using Shadow for a number of reasons. But as a GM, I feel that a game that doesn't have a Social attribute of some sort will not encourage sufficient role-play. It's not a deal-breaker, but it is a mark against a system.

For what it is worth, I have abandoned 5e as a fantasy system after two campaigns, and will no longer use it at all after the conclusion of my Thursday (no-magic modern) game.

 

[CubicsRube]

Well, I wouldn't consider using Shadow for a number of reasons. But as a GM, I feel that a game that doesn't have a Social attribute of some sort will not encourage sufficient role-play. It's not a deal-breaker, but it is a mark against a system.

For what it is worth, I have abandoned 5e as a fantasy system after two campaigns, and will no longer use it at all after the conclusion of my Thursday (no-magic modern) game.

You're entitled to your opinions, but it has 2 social attributes, INT and WILL. It's just not very clearly laid out in the book.

 

[Vaslov]

...I feel that a game that doesn't have a Social attribute of some sort will not encourage sufficient role-play. It's not a deal-breaker, but it is a mark against a system.

While there is not a social attribute I will share a bit more on how SotDL addresses this within the rules for others who may be interested.

For the skills SotDL has Profession. At the start of the game each player has two professions. These are basically what they did before they were an adventures. The player can roll to make it completely random (that's what was done at my game table) or pick from the list. In the core rulebook there are 120 professions and guidance on how to make your own. At my table there was a dwarf who was a butcher and formal naval officer. Rules wise the player can make an argument why the player might know something relevant to their professions. If the GM agrees the player can anywhere from auto-succeed on the skill check (e.g. butcher works in their profession for a day) or gets boon(s) on a skill roll to attempt something (e.g. butcher that beast's corpse for valuable guts without ruining it). This covers things from D&D like a Religion or Animal Handling check. Given it's a profession the available "what I can do with this skill" seems a bit broader to me.

In character creation there are tables to roll on for appearance, personality, bonds and other background details to help flesh out the social details. The tables vary quite a bit by ancestry. For humans this is a 3d6 roll with 3 being "you are hideous" and 18 being "You put beautiful people to shame". Given the super simple skill system in the game this was easy to sort out on the fly, deciding if the appearance, race or other factors gave them a boon or a bane for a skill roll. The players at my table turned hard into their personality table results they rolled, leading to a lot of great roleplaying.

There is a super simple Social Conflict combat system built into the game. Generally based on one of the 4 basic stats. This is where deceive, intimidate, persuade, befriend and other such social rules are. This is also where the boons and banes mentioned above came into play. So the dwarf I mentioned earlier when trying to persuade a dwarven ambassador to help them quoted some obscure naval rules about why they should be supported earning him a boon. His appearance was neutral so no big modifiers there, but his greedy personality meant that he tried to fleece the ambassador asking for a bit more than needed earning him a bane on the same roll.

 

[Jd Smith1]

You're entitled to your opinions, but it has 2 social attributes, INT and WILL. It's just not very clearly laid out in the book.

I don't really see those as social attributes.

But my issues with 5e run far deeper than that. I abandoned d20 systems back in 1982-ish, and only returned to 5e in 2010. After two campaigns, one of 43 sessions, one 18 sessions (ended in TPK) I am once again quitting d20 systems (although I have a current campaign using 5e Ultramodern). I find 5e, particularly the magic and feats, to be grossly over-powered, the skills system to be under-developed, to name my chief complaints.

 

[Jd Smith1]

While there is not a social attribute I will share a bit more on how SotDL addresses this within the rules for others who may be interested.

I'm familiar with SoTDL. My chief complaint with it, is that while it has a great core premise (and one I've stolen more than once since reading it), it fails to get the premise down to the player level the way War Hammer/40k, Fading Suns, or Lovecraftian games (to name a few) get their core themes integrated into the very gameplay.

 

[aramis erak]

You're entitled to your opinions, but it has 2 social attributes, INT and WILL. It's just not very clearly laid out in the book.

Those aren't social attributes; further, some of the dumbest SOB's I've known are absolutely charming. As in, get elected to Congress level charming in one case. SLightly over room temp IQ, no backbone to speak of...
It's a verisimilitude issue.

As for advancement - you've conflated speed and height of advancement. Flat is about how much the numbers grow... I've seen steep but slow, where every advancement is huge, but you almost never get them (Classic Traveller), Slow and relatively flat (2d20 system Star Trek Adventures- where actual growth is about 1 point increase over about 20-30 sessions on a roll that's 1d20 vs tn... Fast and small (a couple percentile games where advancement was 1-2 skills gaining 1-2 points per session), Slow and absolutely flat (no actual numerical growth - but you can swap skills - Several flavors of FATE) Fast and Steep (Palladium at low levels).
5E D&D is pretty flat - the numbers for peak skill go (over 20 levels) from +7 at level 1 to +11 at 20th. Not much growth in the numbers. (The assorted piles of special abilities don't increase those numbers most of the time... but make them available more often. Rogues have much better in a couple fields.)