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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9672009" data-attributes="member: 18">Sorry, but this is absolutely false, and it doesn't like you're genuinely "trying to understand", it sounds like cheap whataboutism for the sake of internet point-scoring. I'm sorry if that's not your intention, but that's absolutely how it reads to me.First off, there aren't games that are "better" for "that genre/tone/style" here. That's actually a major issue point worth discussing! Because Age of Umbra isn't "low fantasy" or "dark fantasy" or w/e, it's very over-the-top Elden Ring-style (but in a less destroyed world) fantasy, which in terms of mechanics, is vastly closer to Heroic Fantasy than it is to say, Low Fantasy. D&D 5E wouldn't actually be a terrible model for this setting either - no-one is suggesting it would be, AFAIK.D&D 5E if you just do tiny changes like the ones [USER=467]@Reynard[/USER] suggested is an absolutely disaster for a lot of genres/settings, but not all of them! Like, anything where people start powerful and don't shoot up in power like a rocket, D&D 5E as a base is an absolutely awful base. Anything where people don't go from easily killed to very hard to kill, D&D 5E is a terrible place to start. But if those things are true in that genre/setting - then closer examination is merited! Maybe 5E would be fine!Daggerheart is a better fit for this specific setting, unsurprisingly given the setting was designed for it (mostly because PCs start a lot tougher, which fits the genre/setting), but in this case, there aren't RPGs out there which actually do this particular and specific genre/tone/style better than it. I mean, if there, mate, I'd have bought them, I can assure you of that. I have virtually every fantasy RPG published in the last decade that could even potentially do this sort of vibe - right down to obscure Itch.io ones that only a few hundred or a few thousand people have bought, like <a href="https://tundalus.itch.io/trespasser" target="_blank">Trespasser</a>. And no, the Dark Souls TTRPG definitely does not do a better job, because it's an absolute car crash of an RPG on multiple levels but not least the rules, but that's a separate discussion! (Nor does Shadow of the Demon Lord or a number of others - they're doing something a bit different, a bit more heavy metal - also frankly SotDL is a cool game but it's also, at its heart, Heroic Fantasy!)I think that's actually a major reason why Daggerheart is doing this - the lack of real work in this genre**. Another I suspect is that D&D 5E, especially 2024, has proven weirdly averse to setting-specific rules. Not that it's had none, but it's sure had fewer than other editions. So your "exactly the same thing 5E has done" is absolutely false. No, 5E has not done that. Nor have people been mad about 5E for doing that, because it hasn't done that. You seem to be confusing fans trying to use 5E to run John Wick campaigns or w/e (which doesn't make much sense, and the "other RPGs" argument is valid for) with 1/2/3E-style setting-specific rules for D&D. That's what we're looking at here - stuff that's like the way magic changes in Dragonlance, or the way you can turn to the dark side in Ravenloft, or a bunch of stuff in Dark Sun and so on. Not "let's just use one setting for a genre it's ill-suited to!".Notably all the Daggerheart settings are basically Heroic/Epic Fantasy. Age of Umbra is just that in the Elden Ring/Diablo/Blasphemous sort of format, where the characters are absolutely powerful, hard to kill, and gain rapidly in power.TLDR: You're confusing age-old D&D-style "setting specific rules", which were particularly common in 2nd edition AD&D, like those for Dark Sun or Ravenloft or Dragonlance with "Let's just use 5E's rules to run John Wick and then get confused/surprised when the tone seems totally off!". Again, simple false and wrong to claim people are "mad at D&D for doing the same thing!"** = I think I once saw one saw one person complain that Ravenloft wasn't great for horror, but it's like, Ravenloft isn't really horror-primary, so that's missing the point - Ravenloft is Heroic Fantasy with a side-serving of horror.** = The only major game I can think of coming out in this sort of space is Hollows by Rowan, Rook and Deckard</blockquote>

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