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

[Blue]

I agree. IME it is far easier to borrow a few ideas from a game like BitD and add them to D&D, than it is to rework something like BitD to do everything D&D can do (a campaign centered around exploring a mega dungeon crawl for example).

Your statement is true, but it only supports a straw-man that the OP put up, it's not relevant to an actual discussion. No one in the real world is picking a bespoke game trying to make it a big tent game. That's just not the direction you take if you are intentionally picking a bespoke game.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The basic game rules include tables to roll on for random treasures with more challenging monsters providing more treasure. Copious treasure is built right into the game.

Those tables are entirely optional.

So what's the purpose of this thread?

to discus the topic.

 

[Blue]

Well, I wouldn’t advise porting over any mechanics from other games just because you like those mechanics.

I also suspect that replacing D&Ds magic system would be pretty simple, as long as the new system is, itself, simple. You don’t even have to replace classes if you keep either spell slots or spell points as a limiting resource.

I don't want this to seem like a personal attack, but please try to replace D&D's magic system before making such a claim. Say with Ars Magica or Shadowrun. You've got to replace the entire spells known/prepared, spell slots, advancement to match challenges within D&D - it's a huge rework and rebalancing to the majority of the classes.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Your statement is true, but it only supports a straw-man that the OP put up, it's not relevant to an actual discussion. No one in the real world is picking a bespoke game trying to make it a big tent game. That's just not the direction you take if you are intentionally picking a bespoke game.

Except that “play XYZ indie game instead of D&D” is frequently given as advice when someone wonders how to add a dynamic to their D&D game.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't want this to seem like a personal attack, but please try to replace D&D's magic system before making such a claim. Say with Ars Magica or Shadowrun. You've got to replace the entire spells known/prepared, spell slots, advancement to match challenges within D&D - it's a huge rework and rebalancing to the majority of the classes.

Damage by spell slot level chart is most of what you need for balance. From there, you could go with a system of magic skills, and base number of magic skills known on how much Spellcasting a class has, with each magic skill having 1 or 2 basic actions that are at will, for instance.

 

[Blue]

Damage by spell slot level chart is most of what you need for balance. From there, you could go with a system of magic skills, and base number of magic skills known on how much Spellcasting a class has, with each magic skill having 1 or 2 basic actions that are at will, for instance.

Again, not trying to make this a personal attack, but this shows you have no idea about how to do this. The assumptions that most other magic systems are damage spells, that they are castable at D&D combat speeds, that there aren't drawbacks to casting instead of spell slots and instead want a simple skill system - this really shows that you are vastly underestimating how hard this is to transplant them over while keeping the feel and flow that made you want them in the first place.

 

[Campbell]

Except that “play XYZ indie game instead of D&D” is frequently given as advice when someone wonders how to add a dynamic to their D&D game.

It's a mistake to suggest to someone who wants to do an occasional heist in their D&D game that they should instead play Blades in the Dark. Likewise it is also a mistake to think you can easily capture what makes Blades in the Dark so good through a rough hack of its heist rules. Blades is more than its heist rules. The idea that D&D basically contains or could easily be made to contain all the valuable things other games bring to the table is just wrong. Luckily it has a lot that it uniquely brings to the table.

 

[Arilyn]

To continue with Ars Magica. The magic system is utterly different from DnD. The wizards combine arts and forms, there are memorized familiar spells that take effort to learn but are safe to cast vs magic cast spontaneously which can be dangerous. Wizards have to spend lots of time actually studying magic and crafting their spells. I wouldn't even know how to begin to translate this system into DnD.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Again, not trying to make this a personal attack, but this shows you have no idea about how to do this. The assumptions that most other magic systems are damage spells, that they are castable at D&D combat speeds, that there aren't drawbacks to casting instead of spell slots and instead want a simple skill system - this really shows that you are vastly underestimating how hard this is to transplant them over while keeping the feel and flow that made you want them in the first place.

Your intent is irrelevant, in this case.

Making a lot of silly assumptions based on my very brief foundation for a magic system in order to tell me I’ve no idea what I’m talking about is a personal attack, regardless of what you mean to do.

I posited the basis for a replacement magic system. I’m not going to build a whole system to make a point. I don’t owe you that work, unless you want to pay me for it.

So, to address your needless, conclusion-first, assumptions about the proposed system;

No, I’ve not assumed any of those things. Even the action thing is only being assumed for some part of the magic system, because I’m specifically positing a system whose purspose is to replace D&Ds magic system with one that serves the same basic purpose, but in a less restrictive manner. That requires that some magic be usable in a fight.

If you’d specified specific goals, I’d have given you different answers.

Instead, you gave a completely vague challenge, and when I gave an example, you acted as if I’d suggested that my example could work for any set of goals.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

To continue with Ars Magica. The magic system is utterly different from DnD. The wizards combine arts and forms, there are memorized familiar spells that take effort to learn but are safe to cast vs magic cast spontaneously which can be dangerous. Wizards have to spend lots of time actually studying magic and crafting their spells. I wouldn't even know how to begin to translate this system into DnD.

I mean, are you trying to port over the system, or make a magic system that accomplishes roughly the same fiction?