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

[cbwjm]

I think not having certain things baked into the system can also be good since it lets you add something that suits what you need at the moment. A couple of sessions ago, I was going to be running a battle between a horde of orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, and ogres and the PCs town with their own orc allies and so I needed a mass combat system for the game.

I looked around at a number of systems including mass battle system rules from BECMI, strongholds and followers, ACKs, birthright, and even the old UA mass combat rules. In the end I created my own system kind of based on BECMI. The player's side had an attack bonus based on their own resources and tactics, and the enemy set a DC of 10 + the same numbers as the attack bonus. Then I had the players in the midst of battle fighting targets of opportunity, depending on how well they did, I'd have one of them roll for their army and maybe apply advantage or disadvantage. If they did well, some other targets of opportunity were swept from the board (I chose the targets removed but I think if I did this again I'd have the players choose) and this would impact the end of the battle.

It worked well, I didn't need to bring in any advanced rules for controlling units and essentially making the PCs disappear within the grand melee. Had a mass combat system been baked in, it likely would have been expected to use it and I may have never even considered something else. This was also something I only figured out on the week leading up to the session, I'd been trying to think of a decent system for weeks since I knew this was going to happen but nothing really fit with what I wanted.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Eh, this reads like the worst critiques of 4e to me. Game mechanics and immersion are not necessarily in conflict with one another. Are there some over-designed indie games where the mechanics end up getting in the way of what they’re trying to do? Sure. But I don’t think it’s fair to apply that critique to indie games this broadly.

Not necessarily in conflict, no. Didn’t say they were. I said that bespoke games, IME, go so hard on their theme that I am rolling dice and referencing game rules to determine if I’m turned on by my hot rival, or whatever, and that isn’t a play experience I enjoy.

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.

My direct personal experience disagrees with this claim, strongly. Some editions of D&D, sure, but not the current one. It’s extremely easy to smoothly add to 5e.

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 the love of Melora do we really have to have the “you just only know D&D is why you have this opinion” nonsense in this thread? Can we please not?

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.

Failing forward is advice in the dmg, for a start. Skill challenges also exist. They literally use multiple rolls to make skill resolution more granular and graduated.
You can also just...do a success ladder. I promise the game will handle it just fine. From experience.

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.

Why would I change combat? The issue was skills, so I changed skills.

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.

If we were friends, I could directly change your mind via personal experience. All I can really say, here, is...not in my experience. Adding a skill success ladder to 5e isnt kludgey at all, nor is replacing inspiration with half-level d6s you can use to modify any roll, regaining 1 d6 per long rest, nor any other mechanic I’ve added to my 5e games to change the play experience.

I think not having certain things baked into the system can also be good since it lets you add something that suits what you need at the moment. A couple of sessions ago, I was going to be running a battle between a horde of orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, and ogres and the PCs town with their own orc allies and so I needed a mass combat system for the game.

I looked around at a number of systems including mass battle system rules from BECMI, strongholds and followers, ACKs, birthright, and even the old UA mass combat rules. In the end I created my own system kind of based on BECMI. The player's side had an attack bonus based on their own resources and tactics, and the enemy set a DC of 10 + the same numbers as the attack bonus. Then I had the players in the midst of battle fighting targets of opportunity, depending on how well they did, I'd have one of them roll for their army and maybe apply advantage or disadvantage. If they did well, some other targets of opportunity were swept from the board (I chose the targets removed but I think if I did this again I'd have the players choose) and this would impact the end of the battle.

It worked well, I didn't need to bring in any advanced rules for controlling units and essentially making the PCs disappear within the grand melee. Had a mass combat system been baked in, it likely would have been expected to use it and I may have never even considered something else. This was also something I only figured out on the week leading up to the session, I'd been trying to think of a decent system for weeks since I knew this was going to happen but nothing really fit with what I wanted.

Absolutely. By not having mass combat rules, there is room to deal with a pitched battle however you want. Would more advice for stuff like adding mechanics for a single scene or scenario in a game be helpful? Of course! But I hardly think I’d call D&D more flexible if it had more subsystems!

 

[payn]

Im one foot into agreement on this and one foot out. I did quite a bit enjoy the Paizo adventure paths during the first edition run. They added a lot of mechanical elements such as kingdom building, romance, political intrigue, etc into the game. I think things that move the D&D needle off dungeon crawl and expand the experience are great. The results were very hit and miss, and often the mechanics made the elements hard to immerse oneself in, though I loved the effort.

That said, I also am not a believer in universal or generic systems. I like using PF/D&D for fantasy, and Call of Cthulhu for horror, and Traveller for sci-fi. I like exploring systems beyond my wheel house. You can't knock it, until you rock it, I always say. Also, sometimes what im looking to run needs less weight than a D&D rule system offers. Sometimes though, re-flavored D&D just feels like D&D when you dont want that.

 

[Campbell]

D&D is a bespoke genre game. It's just one you are really use to.

 

[Hussar]

By not having mass combat rules, there is room to deal with a pitched battle however you want. Would more advice for stuff like adding mechanics for a single scene or scenario in a game be helpful? Of course! But I hardly think I’d call D&D more flexible if it had more subsystems!

Actually, there's a perfect example.

D&D does TERRIBLE at handling larger scale ... well... anything. Any time you have more than about 20 combatants, D&D just doesn't work worth a damn. It's horribly slow and boring. Don't believe me? Try giving your PC's a troop of about 20 men at arms, just bare bones Monster Manual Guards, vs a band of, say, 20 bandits and a Bandit Captain. Your PC's are, say, 3rd or 4th level. Just for S&G's, we'll say that everyone is mounted.

I'll see you in a couple of hours by the time you manage to resolve that. And those are as bare bones as you could possibly make them. No multi-attacks, no bonus actions, no reactions (except from the PC's and the Bandit Captain).

This is why ship combat is so difficult in D&D. When you have around 100 combatants, give or take, total, D&D, any edition, just totally breaks down.

 

[MGibster]

Okay, so do you just...not run with an idea for an adventure or arc within an ongoing campaign if it pushes the genre assumptions of stock D&D ? Do you switch systems for that arc?

I can generally run with an adventure arc within an ongoing campaign without needing to add rules. I'm not going to switch over to the Gumshoe system just so the D&D party can investigate a murder. Come to think of it, the AD&D module The Assassin's Knot was probably the first time I ever ran through a murder mystery in an RPG. But if I were going to play a game that revolved around solving mysteries then I'm more likely to use Gumshoe than I am D&D.

I agree, which is why I prefer to modify a game that is built to withstand modification.

I feel that the D&D rules really lend themselves to adventures that involve heroic characters, copious amounts of violence, and the accumulation of an obscene amount of treasure. And very often players have a D&D mindset because the rules push them in that direction which I don't think is appropriate for every game. So if I want to play a game where the typical D&D mindset would be inappropriate then I'm better off switching to another set of rules.

 

[MGibster]

Eh, this reads like the worst critiques of 4e to me. Game mechanics and immersion are not necessarily in conflict with one another. Are there some over-designed indie games where the mechanics end up getting in the way of what they’re trying to do? Sure. But I don’t think it’s fair to apply that critique to indie games this broadly.

I wasn't a fan of 4th edition but I didn't find it any more or less immersive than other editions of the game. I mean, we're talking about role playing games. I think it should be expected that the mechanics should support whatever gaming goals the author(s) have. Am I aware of the Hunger mechanics in Vampire 5th edition? Yeah. Just as much as I'm aware of needing a short rest in D&D. Neither one is particularly breaking immersion for me though. Although I don't mind being reminded that I'm playing a game not living a fantasy.

 

[Arilyn]

Ars Magica wouldn't work with DnD

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

Alen and Cthulhu type horror doesn't work

Modern urban fantasy doesn't work well

Arthurian fantasy doesn't work

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

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.

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.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

I wonder if similar arguments would be made if Traveller, or the World of Darkness, or Call of Cthulhu happened to be the 800lb gorilla in the room. Because arguments in this vein often seem to have an element of arguing in favour of the status quo itself, rather than arguing D&D's specific merits. I wonder to what extent is this a defense of the market leader due to its ubiquity and cultural penetration, and the same formulations of the same argument would be made no matter who held the top spot in the RPG market.

 

[Minigiant]

I find D&D to be like the video game version of a Jack of All Trades RPG characters as video games transitioned from old and new design. D&D is good at D&D fantasy and D&D actions. It is so so at almost everything else but not incompetent at them.

Sort of how JOAT characters of the "lets purposely design our classes to do what they say they do" era. You'd have a JOAT that could magically sneak attack you with an sword. However it would not be the best at Magic, Sneaking, or Swords. However if you adding Henchmen or Healing or Talking or something far from what it was designed to do, it falls over.

That's D&D. It's great at D&D. And D&D has a lot of stuff you can stretch in order to focus on them. But it you attemptsomething it has no pieces for already, you're looking for a bad time or hours of work.