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

[dave2008]

I gotcha. And again, I think it’s fine if all anyone wants to do is play D&D. I would recommend otherwise if asked, but I also play D&D myself and if asked a specific question about how to do something in D&D, I can tailor my advice so that I’m not saying “you should just play game X”.

But if someone isn’t asking that and is instead asking something like “what’s a good sci-fi game” my recommendation isn’t going to be “take 5E and hack it until it works”....I’m going to recommend some sci-fi games.

Sure, that is completely reasonable.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I really enjoy D&D, so I naturally doubt I will have as much fun in another system, even it is designed for a specific genre that I want to run with D&D.

Until I experience it, there will naturally be some doubt. Just because a game is designed for a particular genre doesn't mean I will like how the game attempts to portray that genre.

And of course one can't ignore the familiarity factor. Its entirely possible to accept that a bespoke game will handle the particular thing its designed to do better than whatever general purpose tool you have (though I'm still struggling to think of any incarnation of D&D as a really general-purpose tool) while still not thinking it does so so much better from your POV to overcome the familiarity issue.

And of course this can vary as to the particulars; I'm very unlikely to use a general purpose system (barring one that got its start for this purpose like Hero) for superhero games even though I know a couple of them really well, because I've been underwhelmed (Savage Worlds) to really underwhelmed (GURPS) by how they do so (and this is when you consider that as my exchange with Ruin Explorer earlier in the thread showed, I have less really specific expectations about degree of genre representation than some). On the other hand, if I'm going to run an exploring-other-planets game I might very well because other than providing me some possibly useful random tables, I'm not sold that a dedicated game would actually bring anything to the table I care about I wouldn't get out of one of those general purpose systems.

 

[Lanefan]

Back in the dim old days when we were running 1e, we would sit behind our DM's screens, and the player would say "yeah, I go talk to the bartender about it." and then I would just pick up some die or other and think in my head "well, maybe if I roll a 6 on this die, he'll tell the character something interesting." Its no different from that. I didn't have to roll that die, nobody saw it, nobody can say what any number that came up means. It was no more than a mental tool to use, or a whim perhaps. Skill checks, taken in isolation, or similar types of isolated unstructured resolution techniques are really no more valent than that. Sometimes I wouldn't like the number I got on my idly pitched die, and I would ignore it. Or maybe it would inform some trivial bit of fiction that didn't come to anything. It was all just my choice.

You were using a private die roll as a (potential) guideline for what came next, but you weren't necessarily committed to it. I for one have no issues here at all, and nor should I given that I do this same thing probably anywhere from 10 to 50 times a session.

The problems arise IMO when these die rolls either become player-facing or player-side and thus force the table to commit to whatever outcome the die provides. The roll becomes a hard and fast determinant rather than just an ignorable guideline, and that now means there have to be hard and fast rules around it as to what the results mean, when and under what conditions the die can be rolled, etc. etc. To me that squeezes the joy out of it somehow.

 

[Lanefan]

I think you cannot actually GET more flexible than a system like 4e SCs, which cover ANY POSSIBLE SCENARIO with a structured resolution system. It is like having a combat system, but for anything. You want to navigate a minefield? SC. You want to do a bank heist? SC. You want to negotiate trading rights with the Spacing Guild? SC. I mean, why do I need some other less structured way to do it? I don't get it at all. Adding SCs to 5e universally makes all these things easier.

Except when that mechanic simply isn't granular enough to do what you want it to, and-or doesn't allow resolution at a high level of detail.

Putting something big like a bank heist or a negotiaton of trading rights into a skill challenge takes what otherwise has the potential to be a session's fun gaming and concatenates it into a few dice rolls. No thanks.

I've seen things like this in published 4e adventures I've converted and run - something (usually hazardous exploration) that would normally be done and resolved step by step in fairly deep detail is just all pushed into a single skill challenge.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Someone has already done it. I will see if I can find it and post it here.

Found it:
Giffyglyph's Monster Maker: Build new monsters the 4e way - Reddit
GiffyGlyph's Monster Maker - PDF
GiffyGlyph's Monster Maker - Webtool

Thanks!

So I bolded some of your quote because that qualifier you’ve added seems almost all encompassing given your comments about 5E in this thread.

When is 5E not capable of being tweaked for what you want?

We played monster of the week because “Buffy/X-Files/Supernatural” sounded fun, and wasn’t ready to go. We didn’t want to play that “but in a fantasy world”, because that’s just...D&D. You need most PCs and most NPCs to be mundane for that specific kind of story.

But we didn’t want to play a heist campaign, or make characters to tell the story of a single heist, so we stuck with D&D for that.

I think one of the big things is, most of the time when this comes up in my groups it’s because someone has an idea for a single story, not for a campaign, that is outside DnD’s norm, and often that idea relates to an ongoing campaign or a setting we already play in. It’d be fun to do a caper in my friends Venetian city state during its festival of masks. We already play D&D in that world, so why wouldn’t our first thought be to do it in D&D?

Okay, so when is 5e not capable of doing the thing?
I mean, when we want a different gameplay experience, either in general or when we desire a particular experience that dnd isn’t?
When we are excited about the very specific thing that the game does (ie, literally Aliens, as opposed to a story loosely inspired by)?

We sometimes tell stories where the only mechanic is rolling a d6, and one person directs the story based on the improv of the players. We’ve talked about complicating that to 2d6, with the success ladder used in pbta games, and you might have advantage (best 2 or 3 d6s) or disadvantage based on your competencies and what makes sense to everyone.

I guess I just don’t have any reluctance to modify any game I play, much less a game I’m familiar with.

 

[Lanefan]

There used to be a poster here on the boards, a RavenCrowking, who had a 300+ binder of rules for his 3e game that he INSISTED was still 3e D&D.

I remember RC. Interesting person, and I usually found his posts and thoughts well worth reading.

But take me, as a more here-and-present example. My game is based on 1e but there's virtually no aspect big or small of original 1e that hasn't been to a greater or lesser extent tweaked, hacked, kitbashed, modified, augmented, deleted or butchered to produce the game I run and play today.

Yet if someone asks me what I play I say D&D. If they ask what edition I say 1e, as that's still the closest representation. If they seem interested in hearing any more (and I can't blame them if they don't ) then I'll mention it's a modified version, etc.

 

[Lanefan]

It's a pretty rare game that fails to support it's core conceits. There's a great quote about game design by, I want to say John Wick but it's been a long time, which goes something to the effect of, "When designing again, ask yourself, what is this game about? Really drill down to the core of what this game is about. Now, how does your game help you to do that?" And, really, the more successful a game is, the better it hits that mark.

Thing is, once you've gone past the most basic things - OK, it's to be a medieval-fantasy-based table-top RPG preferably with party-based play to emulate the adventurers in LotR - the answer to "What is this game about?" is sooner or later gong to be "Within the parameters listed, everything."

The thing I like about D&D is it hits that "Everything" answer sooner than most bespoke games (put another way, it has fewer confining parameters), and then tries to cover that ground. Flexibility rather than pinpoint accuracy, sacrificing perfection in a narrow area for good enough in a wide area.

 

[pemerton]

Putting something big like a bank heist or a negotiaton of trading rights into a skill challenge takes what otherwise has the potential to be a session's fun gaming and concatenates it into a few dice rolls. No thanks.

I've seen things like this in published 4e adventures I've converted and run - something (usually hazardous exploration) that would normally be done and resolved step by step in fairly deep detail is just all pushed into a single skill challenge.

I think you are not thinking of skill challenges in the sort of way that @AbdulAlhazred is.

My guess is that he has in mind something more like this or this

 

[Thomas Shey]

I remember RC. Interesting person, and I usually found his posts and thoughts well worth reading.

But take me, as a more here-and-present example. My game is based on 1e but there's virtually no aspect big or small of original 1e that hasn't been to a greater or lesser extent tweaked, hacked, kitbashed, modified, augmented, deleted or butchered to produce the game I run and play today.

Yet if someone asks me what I play I say D&D. If they ask what edition I say 1e, as that's still the closest representation. If they seem interested in hearing any more (and I can't blame them if they don't ) then I'll mention it's a modified version, etc.

I have to say, man, that in that case telling someone its 1e is, while not malign in intent, deceptive. From your description its no more AD&D1 than Arduid was OD&D. Its still probably D&D in the broad sense, but that specific incarnation of it it pretty clearly from your description it isn't.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Thing is, once you've gone past the most basic things - OK, it's to be a medieval-fantasy-based table-top RPG preferably with party-based play to emulate the adventurers in LotR - the answer to "What is this game about?" is sooner or later gong to be "Within the parameters listed, everything."

That's probably true in your games from the way you've described them in the past, but its absolutely not true for a lot of people and a lot of campaigns.