Adventure Time TTRPG Drops "Yes And" System, Switches To 5E

When the Adventure Time roleplaying game was announced back in June, it was going to be using a brand new RPG system called the "Yes And" system, which involved dice which had Yes and No on one die, and things like And or But on the other.

However, publisher Cryptozoic Entertainment has recently indicated that, following fan feedback, the upcoming Kickstarter will now be powered by 5E instead. The update was included last week as part of the FAQ in its current Adventure Time card game Kickstarter.

Has Adventure Time: The Roleplaying Game changed since you announced it a few months ago?

Yes, we made the decision to make it a 5e experience, based on feedback from fans. That doesn’t mean the game shown at Gen Con earlier this year won’t be released too, but the main offering in the upcoming Kickstarter will be the 5e RPG.

 

[Parmandur]

Anecdotes are neither here nor there: we know from WotC and Beyond data that char op is a minority report activity.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Anecdotes are neither here nor there: we know from WotC and Beyond data that char op is a minority report activity.

Just adding a slight clarification here as I'm in a bit of a rush I'll try and be quick.

When I talked about suboptimal play I am not at all talking about characters being built suboptimally deliberately. That happens all the time. I'm talking about characters being played suboptimally. Things like players making deliberately bad choices even in combat, even when it might cause a TPK. Things like starting a fight with the city guards, insulting the king during an audience, in the middle of combat chose to open an interesting door, going off track during combat to explore elsewhere, triggering something that obviously seems like it is a trap, read an obviously cursed book.

D&D lends itself to optimal play, because there is always the risk of a TPK, and a TPK ruins the story. It is something that does not happen in Adventure Time.

There's a kind of tension between that type of play and D&D, because D&D allows player death so every option taken that is not optimal has a small chance of potentially ruining the entire adventure.

This is why comments about Pendleton Ward being inspired by D&D when writing AT stories doesn't really matter. Because PW is writing this as a story and not a game. There is no risk of Finn dying because Jake accidentally triggers a trap when he picks up a legendary sandwich someone dropped on an altar.

The fact that it's a story allows the writers to shield the characters from bad consequences of stupid actions, yet in AT everyone does stupid things alll the time! So there's a tension here between the story (do stupid things) and the game (survive).

Optimal play would be to avoid doing stupid things, because doing that minimises risk of death.

 

[Parmandur]

Just adding a slight clarification here as I'm in a bit of a rush I'll try and be quick.

When I talked about suboptimal play I am not at all talking about characters being built suboptimally deliberately. That happens all the time. I'm talking about characters being played suboptimally. Things like players making deliberately bad choices even in combat, even when it might cause a TPK. Things like starting a fight with the city guards, insulting the king during an audience, in the middle of combat chose to open an interesting door, going off track during combat to explore elsewhere, triggering something that obviously seems like it is a trap, read an obviously cursed book.

D&D lends itself to optimal play, because there is always the risk of a TPK, and a TPK ruins the story. It is something that does not happen in Adventure Time.

There's a kind of tension between that type of play and D&D, because D&D allows player death so every option taken that is not optimal has a small chance of potentially ruining the entire adventure.

This is why comments about Pendleton Ward being inspired by D&D when writing AT stories doesn't really matter. Because PW is writing this as a story and not a game. There is no risk of Finn dying because Jake accidentally triggers a trap when he picks up a legendary sandwich someone dropped on an altar.

The fact that it's a story allows the writers to shield the characters from bad consequences of stupid actions, yet in AT everyone does stupid things alll the time! So there's a tension here between the story (do stupid things) and the game (survive).

Optimal play would be to avoid doing stupid things, because doing that minimises risk of death.

My experience of D&D in practice is closer to your examples of what not to do anf Adventure Time than to any form of "optimal" anything.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What I've seen really does NOT look like D&D; it looks kind of like a drug addled story recount as interpreted by someone on serious psychadelics...
D&D's mechanics just don't lend themselves to the surrealist tone.

It gets much more serialized and traditional in its storytelling after the first season, and that really accelerates in the last few seasons, when they were doing spin-off miniseries that added additional lore.

But it's always pretty weird. The final battle in the last episodes is basically an acid trip version of the Battle of Five Armies.

 

[aramis erak]

Anecdotes are neither here nor there: we know from WotC and Beyond data that char op is a minority report activity.

And yet a large part of many discussions... a noisy minority. And when they hit a non-optimization group, a VERY annoying clash.

 

[aramis erak]

First point, yes, it is Erol Otus the cartoon.

Second point, not my experience of D&D. A friend dripped in on our 3.5 hame once, and described it as feeling like a Tolkien character who found themselves in a Joseph Conrad novel. D&D can get very surreal, and the mechanics do not get in the waynof thst at all.

Not getting in the way is NOWHERE CLOSE to supporting.

 

[Parmandur]

Not getting in the way is NOWHERE CLOSE to supporting.

For this style of play, kind of is the same thing in the end. Play before mechanics.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

My experience of D&D in practice is closer to your examples of what not to do anf Adventure Time than to any form of "optimal" anything.

Yes I know a lot of these things actually can happen in D&D. I've seen them happen myself! A lot of them were actually examples from my own games!

Which is fun, but it can also be extremely frustrating. My point is that I think that an AT system needs to have a way to encourage this kind of play without making it annoying for the other players.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well, it's launched.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cze/adventure-time-the-roleplaying-game/

The Jake dice look nice, but just reading through the description, with the levels of complication Adventure Time is adding on top of 5E, them trying to say this is beginner-friendly seems ... unrealistic.

In Adventure Time: The Roleplaying Game, every character has a STORY (Species, Talent, Occupation, Resources, Yonder). You'll make a series of choices that shape the little STORY about your character and come away with some skills, abilities, and stat boosts to reflect them.

(Also, stop putting your text into graphics. It's a crappy thing to do to your visually impaired and non-English speaking would-be customers.)

There's also the Twist system with cards, 20 new species, 12+ subclasses, etc.

In the FAQ, they claim that the Yes, And version is still coming. I think I'll wait for that campaign.

 

[Aldarc]

Well, it's launched.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cze/adventure-time-the-roleplaying-game/

The Jake dice look nice, but just reading through the description, with the levels of complication Adventure Time is adding on top of 5E, them trying to say this is beginner-friendly seems ... unrealistic.

(Also, stop putting your text into graphics. It's a crappy thing to do to your visually impaired and non-English speaking would-be customers.)

There's also the Twist system with cards, 20 new species, 12+ subclasses, etc.

In the FAQ, they claim that the Yes, And version is still coming. I think I'll wait for that campaign.

If this Kickstarter does well, then should put enough coins in their purse to safely do the non-5e version.