I am surprised I am still excited for Daggerheart
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Retros_x
Adventurer
If you don't find any reason to try out new stuff, than of course be happy with the usual. But there are people who complain about D&D, are not happy with it, homebrew it to death, but refuse to try out new systems because "they don't have time to learn them" and I don't understand that. I think its a fallacy.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
There's literally no contradiction between those two bolded things. I speak from decades of experience.
The contradiction is between actually playing and learning/creating new PCs but the cold, hard reality is that D&D is one of the harder RPGs to learn in the current era, and creates more analysis paralysis about making PCs than most. The only things that are bumping around right now that are as hard, or harder to learn than D&D are all D&D-derivatives! We're no longer in the era where D&D is a representative of "medium crunch" in current RPGs as might have been possible to argue in say 1993 - it's an outlier of high crunch by current standards. People can say "Oh but D&D doesn't require the players to learn many rules to start playing!" (because it shifts that burden to the DM instead), but it still requires players to learn at least as much as they'll ever need to learn to play most other RPGs! And indeed, many popular RPGs ask far, far less of the players in terms of what they need to learn.
I'm not saying that's nothing, to be clear, and different groups and players are different. But that brings me to this point:
I don't know if it's a fallacy, exactly, but it's certainly "interesting" when you hear people say "Oh my group can't/won't learn another system!" and then you hear from the exact same person (and I have heard precisely this multiple times - not from anyone here) that if they don't get quorum for their group, they're playing a Gloomhaven game, or some other highly complex boardgame (or multiple different complex boardgames). It's like, I'm sorry, but Gloomhaven is drastically more complicated than anything but absolutely maximum-crunch TTRPGs. So there's no way "learning rules" is really the issue. That doesn't mean there can't be a valid issue but it does mean it's being misidentified!
I think the real issue tends to be one of two things:
1) D&D has scared people about how complex/hard-to-learn RPGs are.
This is especially likely to be true for groups that started with older editions, in my experience. D&D has, historically, and even in 5E to some extent, had a lot more inconsistent rules systems, a much larger number of splats, an insane number of spells/powers, and so on. And if a group spends decades avoiding trying other RPGs because D&D has scared them about this, they won't be aware that that's not really the case.
And worse, there's the big lie, imho, which is the lie that it's easier for a group familiar with D&D to go to a D&D-derivative than learn a new game. This is patent nonsense. Those are the heaviest-crunch, most ensplattified games out there! Literally just learning a D&D-derivative's changes is likely going to require more learning than an entire new modern RPG in many cases, perhaps the vast majority of cases! But this oft-unintentional/well-meaning lie is pretty common, so when a group does try another game, they get another dreadful chonker of an RPG, and so it further reinforces the incorrect opinion that they're "all like that!".
(To be clear there are legit reasons to stick with D&D-like games, particularly that you just like that whole deal with killing things and taking their stuff, fairly rapid linear power gain due to level ups, D&D-style magic, etc. - but the idea that they're "easier to learn" is pretty off.)
2) Rationalization (i.e. backwards construction of reasons) of a simple lack of interest.
One thing that has been ever-present on the internet and to some lesser extent occurs in real life is that some people - maybe a lot of people - can't just say "Not enough people in my group are interested in learning any new RPG" or similar, instead they have to come up with reasons - often ones which don't necessarily actually speak to that point. Why? I guess they might feel that it somehow reflects badly on their friends/players if they imply they're incurious/uninterested but I feel like that can't quite be right when some of the same people casually imply their friends are too brain-weak to learn a new RPG lol.
Also, with specific games there's sometimes a third issue:
3) Inability to learn/time pressure being used as an excuse to avoid saying "I don't think this game is going to vibe with my group".
I'm definitely not talking about @Zaukrie here - I think you said precisely that! But I have seen it before, and I think the usual reason here is that people don't want to get into an argument about why it might not vibe with their group, which you can get pretty into the weeds with. I think the real answer is to just not engage with the "But why!?" crowd rather than blaming "can't learn new rules" or the like.
But I am definitely a bit biased here because I've seen my group learn the rules of dozens of different games without issue, and I've always found it a little vexing that a lot of the same people who say "Oh I can only learn one RPG! They're so complex!" or similar play a whole bunch of rules-minutiae-filled boardgames.
Last edited:
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
I think DaggerHeart is very interesting, but I'd only recommend it if you're looking for a new RPG that does things differently. If you're happy with your current game, perhaps it's not worth your time. It is, however, very shiny, and does things very differently from D&D. If you are interested in new ideas (and the Environment rules are a cool new idea, for instance) I'd definitely recommend it.
Sure. I agree with this. I don't get that either.
As opposed to what?
I'm not trying to be difficult. I really don't understand this statement.
Is there a game you would say "If you're looking for more of the same, try this!"?
I’m not @SteveC and I don’t want to sound facetious, however that was pretty much the summary sales pitch of a whole bunch of not-Wizards D&D-alikes when the OGL scandal happened…
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
As opposed to traditional D20 rpgs that people on EnWorld will be familiar with front and center. It is a much more narrative game than most traditional RPG players are going to be familiar with. If all you've played is 5E, it may likely be a bridge too far.
I am someone who's played a ton of different RPGs. DaggerHeart has a list of games that it used for inspiration, and I have played all but one of them. I'm very much not the typical gamer, so the game doesn't have much that's new for me. For most of the people who might be reading this and have played 5E and that's it? It will be very different.
It's a much more narrative game. I've been involved with a bunch of discussions here where the notion of narrative play was entirely new to a lot of the people involved. And that may be something they don't end up liking.
For game design, the saying that "there's nothing new under the sun" really applies. It's been a long time since I've seen anything genuinely as a first-time mechanic. But that doesn't mean the game is going to just be a rehash of existing parts for most people. And I think it does some similar things better than existing games. This is obviously just my opinion, but I like how it handles GM currency and adding to a scene better than 2D20, which I see as an inspiration for it.
If you've played a bunch of indie games, such as PbtA or FitD, you will feel at home here. If you've played D&D, there's so much that you'll never have seen before.
And to talk about "more of the same," games, the entire OSR movement, and 5E derivative games stake their claims precisely on being more of the same.
My question was more about the idea that if people are not looking for something new, why would they be buying the new hotness?
Similar Threads
