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

[Hussar]

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.

There's a very good reason for that.

XYZ game is specifically designed with that dynamic in mind, thus, you aren't fighting the system, constantly, to try to fold, spindle or maul your concept into the D&D framework.

Take a common element in many RPG's -lethal combat. Combat, where, if you start into a fight, it's very, very likely that someone is losing a PC. Something akin to Dread, say. Where dying by zombie is much, MUCH more likely than survival. Or, any game with a death spiral, for that matter.

D&D doesn't work that way. D&D characters are expected to be able to fight, again and again and again. No permanent injury, no realistic combat system at all. So, if you want to play an RPG with a realistic combat system, then, well, D&D is probably not the direction to go. HP and AC don't lend themselves to realistic combat systems. Not that that's a bad thing. But, just that it's a limitation of the system.

 

[Imaro]

I do have to disagree with your basic premise. The amount of work it becomes to change D&D to allow for certain things means that, by and large, it's extremely kludgey to try it in D&D.

D&D does D&D fantasy extremely well and I think a lot of people have incorporated the tropes of D&D so deeply that they don't really see other ideas. For example, trying to do a really skill heavy session with D&D doesn't work worth a damn because D&D skills are binary - pass/fail - with no gradiation. And no support for gradiation either. You are basically entirely on your own if you want a skill system where you can pass, squeak by, just fail, fail badly. There's nothing in the game that actually supports this.

Options for this are right there in the DMG...

Can you add it on? Sure. But, then you start getting real weirdness where you have a combat system of pass/fail skill checks but a skill system that is based on gradiations. And, how granular do you want that skill system? So on and so forth.

Well the combat system and skill system are separate in D&D so I don't think there's any real weirdness there... but for arguments sake... isn't amount of damage basically gradations of success for an attack that is already built in to the game? As for "how granular do you want that skill system..." and other such questions... aren't you still going to have to spend time thinking about this and researching various games to see if they align with your desires?

Look, we've all made our frankengames where we bolt on mechanics from a dozen different systems and just sort of close one eye to all the inconsistencies. But, at no point is any one game going to be better at all things than a game that is purpose built for a specific task. It's just not. We can "make it work". Sure. Hell, the "Roll High" system works a lot of the time. But, it doesn't mean that D&D is a general purpose game. Just that most people don't mind frankengames.

But a game we purposefully modify the way we want to... can be better for our specific desires and wants in addressing a task than a game made by someone else to address that same task. I mean it all honestly boils down to preference at some point.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But a game we purposefully modify the way we want to... can be better for our specific desires and wants in addressing a task than a game made by someone else to address that same task. I mean it all honestly boils down to preference at some point.

A game we purposely modify the way we want to ... is inherently not playtested. It therefore might be better for our specific desires - or it might struggle when the rubber meets the road in ways that a playtested game is less likely to.

 

[dave2008]

@doctorbadwolf , I just wanted to chime in and say I agree with your basic premise that D&D 5e is very flexible and easy to add (or subtract) rules from to make a different style of game. I would much rather make slight modifications to a game a know and really enjoy than play another game.

 

[dave2008]

A game we purposely modify the way we want to ... is inherently not playtested. It therefore might be better for our specific desires - or it might struggle when the rubber meets the road in ways that a playtested game is less likely to.

As a moder myself I have come across this argument before, but it doesn't hold water for me. I am not trying to publish something, just make something for my game. I don't see any reason to worry about corner cases that don't affect my game. Furthermore, I play with mature people, if we find a change isn't working for some reason, we are happy to change it again as needed. We don't need something to be playtested and balanced to be lots of fun.

 

[dave2008]

@doctorbadwolf

Basically no one who has ever played a lengthy game of Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, Burning Wheel, Sorcerer or a plethora of what you would call bespoke genre games would claim that they are more narrow in focus than D&D. I think you and many other people who make that argument greatly misjudge the flexibility of other games and carry a lot of unspoken assumptions about what all RPG play must look like. Basically your understanding of RPG play is defined by D&D and other games that are almost carbon copies of it.

I think it is less about length, than familiarity. I am very familiar with D&D, so it extremely easy for me to modify at this point. In the 80s I tried many games and played them at length (if a year +/- is a lengthy game to you), but always went back to D&D. Therefore my familiarity with D&D was built up over decades. I know what I can do with it a lot more than games that I only played for a year or so.

Now, because of my experience with D&D I can now see how I might modify other games, but I see less of a point when I can so easily modify D&D to be what I want it to be.

 

[Imaro]

A game we purposely modify the way we want to ... is inherently not playtested. It therefore might be better for our specific desires - or it might struggle when the rubber meets the road in ways that a playtested game is less likely to.

Hence why I used the word "can". The problem with playstested games is they may hit the target we want but do it in a way we don't like or find unplayable.

EDIT: Also why would it necessarily not have been playtested? There's nothing wrong with playtesting and adjusting during gameplay... especially if you are upfront with your players about it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

As a moder myself I have come across this argument before, but it doesn't hold water for me. I am not trying to publish something, just make something for my game. I don't see any reason to worry about corner chases that don't affect my game. Furthermore, I play with mature people, if we find a change isn't working for some reason, we are happy to change it again as needed. We don't need something to playtested and balanced to be lots of fun.

Whereas for me I can and do mod systems. But having already playtested games is one of the few things I think is actually worth paying money for, with the other being approaches I wouldn't have thought of. I can write my own adventures (and adapt them on the fly) and even develop my own systems and balance them by eye. But playtesting takes time.

 

[dave2008]

There's a very good reason for that.

XYZ game is specifically designed with that dynamic in mind, thus, you aren't fighting the system, constantly, to try to fold, spindle or maul your concept into the D&D framework.

I think @doctorbadwolf 's point is that you don't have to fold, spindle, or maul D&D 5e to a concept into it, and I agree with him. To the extent of my experience at least.

Take a common element in many RPG's -lethal combat. Combat, where, if you start into a fight, it's very, very likely that someone is losing a PC. Something akin to Dread, say. Where dying by zombie is much, MUCH more likely than survival. Or, any game with a death spiral, for that matter.

D&D doesn't work that way. D&D characters are expected to be able to fight, again and again and again. No permanent injury, no realistic combat system at all. So, if you want to play an RPG with a realistic combat system, then, well, D&D is probably not the direction to go. HP and AC don't lend themselves to realistic combat systems. Not that that's a bad thing. But, just that it's a limitation of the system.

Obviously depends on the specifics you are looking for, but I find 5e can do highly lethal very well with very few changes. Now, I haven't gotten into called shots level of detail, because any system I have tried (D&D or otherwise) just wasn't fun. By highly lethal, 5e can handle that.

 

[dave2008]

Ars Magica wouldn't work with DnD

I don't know what that means, so I can't comment.

Super Heroes don't work unless you really turn the system inside out like Mutants and Masterminds

I have no issue with doing superheroes with 5e. Not my preference, but is it pretty easy. Obviously, definition of superhero is objective not subjective.

Alen and Cthulhu type horror doesn't work

I've done it in 5e, and I enjoyed more than when I played CoC in the 80s (and CoC is my 2nd favorite rpg)

Modern urban fantasy doesn't work well

I don't see why this wouldn't work, and there are modern settings for 5e, but I haven't personally tried it.

Arthurian fantasy doesn't work

Not sure what you mean, but again I don't see an issue with this in 5e. I personally feel our default game is Arthurian in flavor, but I am not sure what you are defining here.

Even Middle Earth. AiME has a lot going for it, but still doesn't really capture Tolkien as well as The One Ring.

I have not played TOR, but I personally don't like the shadow mechanic. That doesn't feel like Middle Earth to me. Now my view of middle earth skews to the hobbit more the LotR.

However, my whole groups background is in the hobbit and LotR and we definitely style our D&D games like our impressions and memories of middle earth. So I definitely disagree with your assessment on this one.

DnD has specific quirks that don't cross into other genres well like classes, levels, balance strictly through abilities, weird rules like armour not actually reducing damage and a strange, rather flavorless magic system. The rules are a bit clunky and overly crunchy. When I teach DnD to newcomers to the hobby, there are a ton of puzzled questions. Not so much in other games. Fate is puzzling to veteran DnD players, but a breeze to teach to brand new rpgers.

I could see that I guess. I was able to teach 4e to a bunch of elementary school children in about 15-20 minutes for a 2.5 hr D&D birthday party adventure and it went really well. I think is is less about the system and more about how you teach it (and your audience too I suspect).

I definitely agree with you that going to different games at this point in my RPG life is more difficult.

DnD is fun, but if I could only pick one system to use for the rest of my life, DnD would be near the bottom of the list.

And D&D would be at the top of my list. With 5e we have a bout 1 page of house rules that makes it the game we want to play. And I find I really don't need to add or subtract much to play very different styles, but we are not really interested in that so much (mostly just and occasional one-shot now and again).