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

[Thomas Shey]

If suggesting different games that have better support for a concept is going to be considered tone-deaf because it offends people that only every want to hear about D&D, then, well, I'm for this kind of tone-deaf advice.

It isn't, however, about you. If someone asks how to do X in Y system, being told to use Z system is tedious as all hell. Its not the question asked, and its pretty much absolutely unhelpful in most cases. And that's just as true if the practical answer to the question is "poorly".

Point in fact, this is a public board -- the OP is not the only one being served by post. Perhaps the OP doesn't care for the advice, but a reader might discover something they did not know and go on to learn some more games and/or have a good time. The idea that the OP is the only set of assumptions that matters is, to me, the more tone-deaf argument.

So your opinion on the matter is more important than what the original poster is asking for? That's a position, all right.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I guess the question is... does rule zero, which is also part of 5e's play procedures supersede those procedures. Also does BitD have a rule zero?

Frankly responding to any rules problem with a rules set with Rule Zero is kind of a dodge. It may not always be intended as such, but in practice, that's what it always is.

 

[Thomas Shey]

For example most supers games don't really include a progression of character power, or at least not much of one.

Hurm. I think this sentence is carrying a fair bit of weight on both the words "most" and "much" here.

 

[Hussar]

Why are people finding heists so hard to prep? What are you doing wrong? Or am I a magic pixie?

This is really mystifying to me.

Yup, if only we were better DM's, all the problems would go away.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

except in some of these other systems the gm doesn't need to have the final say & won't know how it will turn out once they set the stage to begin rolling the dice. Take the resources & aspects/social combat thing. describing that as "the gm has the final say" is like the gm throwing some monsters out onto the battlemat & declaring "the gm has the final say" about every pc & monster suddenly acting from a ruleset of "ask your gm" rather than codified abilities and such.

That doesn't mean that d&d needs fate style aspects & social combat or that it could even support them. That means any kind of situation that relies on extensive use of those tools is going to have advantages in a system like fate or bitd where those tools exist. D&D could sidestep this somewhat by providing guidance in some of these areas in ways that lean into the strengths of d&d as some prior editions have done through various methods with various areas of gm guidance/gm tools, but 5e largely avoids that too.

I go a bit stronger here. SOME editions of D&D, like 1e AD&D, have very strong and systematic rules for VERY SPECIFIC TYPES OF PLAY. 1e runs dungeon/hex crawls with 'towns' thrown in. That is basically what it does. That graduates to domain management at name+ levels as an added side game. It provides rules for troupe play, hirelings, henchmen, etc. which feed into that, etc. Its really a quite specific type of game which has no general resolution system at all (though several possibilities suggest themselves and were tacked on years later in supplements, though amusingly all 4 incarnations of that are mutually exclusive even though very similar).

2e actually is a very confused game that doesn't know what it is doing. It removes the dungeon crawl centered rules, but leaves the process and mechanics intact and then just punts, literally stating that the GM should simply make up a story and fudge dice rolls and whatnot until it 'works out'. 5e doesn't quite go that far, but it still lacks the really needed exploration rules of 1e. Both games have optional skill systems, but it isn't clear what they are actually FOR.

 

[pemerton]

How do you bribe a guard? You use the skill system, first describing how you approach the task, and depending on that description you either succeed, fail, or make an ability check to determine success or failure, including options for non-binary results.

<snip>

D&D provides a framework for adjudicating tasks, and then gets out of the way to let consequences speak for themselves, or allow the DM to employ optional or homebrewed rules if desired.

I do not use the skill system. I ask the GM. You have right there, but then pretend it's not there. How do I bribe a guard? I ask the GM how it works. The GM has many ways they can choose to do this, from saying yes, to saying no, to saying that's not even possible right now and denying the action altogether, to engaging the ability systems. Engaging the ability system is just another series of prompts for the GM to make decision ad hoc -- which ability, which proficiency, what's the DC? And, after all of this, it still comes back to the GM to narrate the outcome, which isn't strongly constrained by the rolls -- a GM can decide that the guard might take a large bribe, but then later change their mind and report it.

These two posts sum up the mystery of this thread for me.

As I understand them, the 5e rules for resolving any conflict (other than combat) say The GM decides whether or not a check is called for. If the GM calls for a check, the GM decides what proficiency (if any) might be relevant. If a check fails, the GM decides what happens. If a check succeeds, the GM decides what happens.

Upthread I mentioned a cooking competition. The GM could decide to call for a check, or not. Using WIS, or DEX, or INT, or even CON if many dishes are to be prepared over hours or days. If calling for a check, proficiency in culinary utensils may help. Though at 1st level a good stat bonus may well match or even surpass this bonus, which itself will be very modest relative to the spread of possible d20 results. If the roll for character A beats that for character B, that still leaves it open that the GM decides the judge likes (say) B's mediocre flan to A's excellent pie, because the GM can decide that the judge just doesn't like pie.

I think when someone says that BitD handles heists better than 5e, they're looking at the structure and consequent constraints that it establishes for all these things. I think that this is at least a good part of what @Campbell has in mind when he posts that

Blades is at heart a game about pressing your luck in the face of great odds. It's hard scrabble. In the short term you often have the tools to shift the odds in your favor (not control outcomes), but in the long term things are more difficult. PC death is fairly rare, but injuries, narrative consequences, stress (which can lead to ongoing trauma), heat (which can lead to getting arrested and doing time) tend to add up.

I see the same thing in posts like these:

The GM can just ignore that and the player doesn't have an effective way to tell, whether the GM ignores that or not.

And even if the GM does tell the DC before the roll (which is a good idea, though the rules don't require it for some reason), there are no effective levers to negotiate for a better deal.

What if I'm the GM and I want to find out what happens and not decide? What if I am a player and do not want the GM smoothing stuff out? There's all sorts of reasons for liking concrete rules that have nothing do with trust. One common one is a desire for consistency.

 

[Hussar]

So it could blow up in your face at the end of the heist (and by blow up I mean end up in a battle, be arrested, etc.)... this was specifically called out by @Hussar as something that made D&D ill-suited for heist adventures but BitD (because it didn't happen) better... and I thought the post by @hawkeyefan was at least in some part backing this assertion up.

EDIT: I'm really trying to get a handle on what type of heist stories BitD is designed for... what would be the quintessential BitD heist movie or show it emulates?

THat's not quite what I said.

What I said was that in D&D, heist/infiltration scenarios inevitably end up in a battle. As in the majority of the time, all the time spent prepping for the scenario is pretty much a complete waste because, 15 minutes into the scenario, you are caught out somehow and end up killing everything in sight/running away - which is also something 5e notoriously doesn't handle well.

That it "could" blow up in your face is fine. There should be chances for failure. But, those chances shouldn't be so great that they become a near certainty.

 

[tetrasodium]

Frankly responding to any rules problem with a rules set with Rule Zero is kind of a dodge. It may not always be intended as such, but in practice, that's what it always is.

Rule zero itself is a bit of a dodge beyond the justification to do what works at the table. Fate breaks it down into gold & silver rules

Spoiler: golden rule

Chapter 8

WHat to do during PLay
Now that you’ve gone through the process of game creation with the play-
ers, let’s take a detailed look at how to approach your various jobs during a
session of play.
the golden Rule
Before we go into specifics, here’s our general Golden Rule of Fate:
• Decide what you’re trying to accomplish first, then consult the rules
to help you do it.
This might seem like common sense, but we call it out because the order
is important. In other words, don’t look at the rules as a straitjacket or a
hard limit on an action. Instead, use them as a variety of potential tools to
model whatever you’re trying to do. Your intent, whatever it is, always takes
precedence over the mechanics.
Most of the time, the very definition of an action makes this easy—any
time your intent is to harm someone, you know that’s an attack. Any time
you’re trying to avoid harm, you know that’s a defense.
But sometimes, you’re going to get into situations where it’s not imme-
diately clear what type of action is the most appropriate. As a GM, don’t
respond to these situations by forbidding the action. Instead, try to nail
down a specific intent, in order to point more clearly to one (or more) of
the basic game actions.

Trouble with applying this to 5e is that it has so many one off & edge case rules lacking cohesive structure that just trying to change or repurpose parts is a big mess in a lot of cases

Spoiler: silver rule

tHe siLver ruLe
the corollary to the golden Rule is as follows: Never let the rules get
in the way of what makes narrative sense. if you or the players narrate
something in the game and it makes sense to apply a certain rule outside
of the normal circumstances where you would do so, go ahead and do it.
the most common example of this has to do with consequences
(p. 162). the rules say that by default, a consequence is something a
player chooses to take after getting hit by an attack in a conflict.
But say you’re in a scene where a player decides that, as part of trying
to intimidate his way past someone, his pc is going to punch through a
glass-top table with a bare fist.
everyone likes the idea and thinks it’s cool, so no one’s interested in
what happens if the pc fails the roll. however, everyone agrees that it
also makes sense that the pc would injure his hand in the process (which
is part of what makes it intimidating).
it’s totally fine to assign a mild consequence of Glass in My Hand in
that case, because it fits with the narration, even though there’s no con-
flict and nothing technically attacked the pc.
as with the golden Rule, make sure everyone’s on the same page
before you do stuff like this.

This is basically the spirit of rule zero

 

[Hussar]

As one example...the simple fact that it has rules for stealth supports heist stories. Again if you don't see that as support (whether minimal or not is a matter of discussion) there's nothing for us to really talk about concerning this.

Yes, and those stealth rules are such a wonder of ease of use and game design that no one ever has any issues with 5e's stealth rules.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Rule zero itself is a bit of a dodge beyond the justification to do what works at the table.

It is. But "parrying" with it is on an additional level, IMO.