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

[Imaro]

It'd certainly true that you can -ignore- the game's mechanics and narrative to remove morality from the game's systems. And you could certainly try to block out the terms "Good" and "Evil" in various spells for the express intention of pretending it's more about whether a character is native to a specific plane of existence or not...

But those systems and aspects are a part of D&D that make it good at being that specific morality play. Whether you choose to use them or not..

These systems have little to no weight in modern D&D though... the days of spells that affect based on alignment is pretty much over in 5e.

 

[Aldarc]

Meanwhile LevelUp, for example, gameifies travel through the Journey System. It creates a separate resource-pool that the party relies on, spends, and replenishes during travel. It gives combat and non-combat encounters a way to interact with that resource pool that doesn't have to involve combat-effectiveness. It also adds a wealth of interesting activities to pursue while journeying that are specific to the journey in an interesting way. Like Befriending an animal as you travel through a region and getting an "Early Warning System" for danger out of it.

Bunch of worms infested the ship's stores? Best get to clearing them out and check the supplies to find out how bad it hit our "Travel Hit Points" and how much time we're now going to have to devote to replenishing our stocks during the journey. Storm struck? We'd best avoid the shoals and head to deeper water to avoid getting shipwrecked, adding to travel times.

It even adds an Exploration-System element to combat encounters, because those supplies are essential. Bandits attack you and the party on the road? They might not all try to fight or die when a few of them can sneak out of the woods to steal some of your supplies and run away.

Ultimately, of course, the system comes down to Fatigue, in the end, which plays into combat as the penalty for hitting 0 before a long rest... But it adds -so much- before it gets to that point that I can't even be mad at it.

I'm hoping there's similar social gameification coming... though I wrote up a Journey System alternative to gameify the gaining of wealth/prestige as a character in an urban campaign, because one doesn't exist, yet, and the Journey System is pretty adaptable to that purpose.

And I think no one could argue in good faith that D&D's social and exploration pillar offerings are more strongly designed and gameified than they are in, say, LevelUp Advanced 5e. Or GURPS. Or Vampire: The Masquerade. Or various other games that have a strong systems-focus on social interaction often to the expense of combat.

I haven't been following Level Up closely at all, but color me intrigued based upon how you talk about it here. Well done. There are a lot of threads and playtest things in the sub-forum, but is there an overview of the changes that Level Up is making?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, apparently I have to talk about what I don't like about 5e in order for my opinion on this subject to be valid, to some people. That is...completely ludicrous, of course, but hey, why not.

DnD's magic system largely sucks. It has done so in every edition except 4e, and 4e was mostly saved by the fact that you could do magic stuff with skill challenges, the Arcana skill had active uses rather than just being a knowledge skill, and rituals were more interesting and varied. But it still kinda sucked.

What do I mean by that, well basically a magic system that wouldn't suck would be one where caster have some access to improvised magical actions, some ability to manipulate existing magical effects, and the ability in some capacity to work out and train new magical actions or rituals for themselves.

In my own homebrew TTRPG, magic is broken up into a dozen or so skills (the three skill categories are Physical, Interaction, and Magical). It's a world where magic is a skill, so this works well for modeling it. The system largely doesn't bother modeling individual differences in how easy it is to learn, because it doesn't model that with learning a musical instrument or how to swordfight, either.

All magic is skills based, but you can create spells, spend time training with them, and memorize them, which has cost benefits when using that spell as opposed to improvising an effect. It also has a distinct system for creating a ritual to do a thing, which mirrors the system for crafting magical items, potions, etc.

I wouldn't want to copy this over wholesale into DnD, because it doesn't fit most DnD settings' idea of how magic works, and I like that magic isn't always learnable by anyone in DnD. If I wanted my game to just be DnD, I'd just make a DND hack. However, I do see DnD's magic as insanely limited in terms of player creativity, and unfortunately allowing a wide range of improvisation with magic makes it harder to non magical classes to keep up, making one of the rare cases where i've seen players of some classes feeling overshadowed by other characters.

I know I could redo DnD's magic from the top down, and as long as the resource system that governs it stays the same, it could be balanced without rewriting anything outside of the spellcasting system, but it is a ton of work, so I'm looking into 3pp works that have done something like this instead, and considering working up a replacement Wizard, Druid, and Bard, if I can't find something I really like. I'd love a system where you have certain effects available in a given magic skill at a given level, and you can learn spells during gameplay, but you never gain them as part of leveling up, and a hugely expanded ritual magic system.


Also, 5e crafting might as well not exist at all. We had to basically rewrite it, even with the improvements in Xanathar's, because it just provides very little guidance for balancing magic items, and is at the same time very restrictive in terms of the time and cost for many magic items, which puts a lot of work on the DM to run a game that ditches the "the past was better than the present" nonsense that comes from a general misunderstanding of the Middle Ages. Not including advice on running a game with different magic item assumptions in the DMG or any supplement afterward is just...really annoying.

The rules for physical activities also largely suck unless you treat the limits as what you can do without an ability check, but since that's all that's needed to fix that problem, I'm not too mad at it.

 

[Steampunkette]

Ok yeah we just aren't going to see eye to eye on this...I am never going to argue we need a "Use Rope" skill. Tying knots however is about knowing how to do it and it's an action so (attribute check)... so Int check (probably modified by survival but might be persuaded to let another skill sub in) the result of the check then sets the DC for someone to slip out of it? Seems simple enough.

See I prefer this approach to codification. I pick what I want to be a part of my game's particular exploration and let the rest fall by the wayside. Is it really unclear how things work when the game is taken as a whole?

Or you could assemble it into a process that you continuously use in every game.

If I fall... get burned...run afoul of traps...am hurt in general due to weather or terrain...and so on it affects hit points, it applies a certain damage type (fire is a different type from acid) and healing becomes a part of it. How can you run exploration without these things? Especially in a world where a PC or NPC could easily have resistance or immunity to certain damage types?

This just isn't true... nearly everything I listed has mechanics that back it up in the DMG... look it up.

Hey, I'm -glad- you prefer the D&D Approach. Do you understand that because it isn't codified into a Game System that it doesn't cover the Exploration Pillar in the same manner or to the same degree as another game system which -does- Codifiy it into a Game System?

Do you understand that it doesn't codify exploration and social pillars to the same degree that it does combat?

Then hey! We might -actually- see eye to eye on this!

Because the point isn't "D&D has no gameplay involving exploration whatsoever and no social pillar either!" it was, and I'll quote myself, here:

All you have to do is open the PHB, DMG, and MM to see how heavily the game is geared toward combat and how woefully underserved the social and exploration pillars remain.

Underserved. Not absent. Just underserved. Particularly when compared to other "Bespoke Genre TTRPGs" which is the broader point.

And yes. I know nearly everything you listed was in the DMG. Where it came from is irrelevant. All of exploration and social pillar content in D&D is a tiny sliver compared to combat-centric functions. It's why you listed a bunch of individual little segments to try and make it look bigger than Combat.

Which is what Healing and Damage types are. Yeah, you can use different types of damage in exploration, but for the most part the type of damage is utterly irrelevant unless a character is explicitly resistant to it which is primarily a combat functionality.

A human or halfling taking 1d6 Heat or Cold damage from their environment is just going to lose 1d6 hit points.

Meanwhile losing 1d6 Supply is going to affect the party in a much different way.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I've only seen D&D put forth as an alternative for general feel which has been clarified quite a few times now in this thread. I don't think if you said a group wants to play Aliens... or wants to play Star Wars or wants to play LotR or Dragon Age that anyone is going to argue they'd be better off playing D&D as opposed to the specific game made for that property.

I literally posted about a group wanting to play a game like the film “Aliens” meaning the second film in the series. DBW then posted a response how he could craft a suitable scenario for the first movie.

It wouldn't be a better choice, unless I wanted to run a prolonged campaign with those themes in the same kind of world as presented in that game, and without any of the themes that we play dnd for, like having greater agency to change things than we have IRL.

Right. You ONLY want to play D&D. We get it at this point. So what’s the issue? Based on how you describe your ability to make D&D do whatever you want, I can’t imagine you ask for much advice about the topic, so the issue may be about what others get from forum posts? That others may be given crappy “you should just play x game”?

If that’s the case, okay yeah. Then consider my posts an attempt to let others know that using other games besides D&D is actually a good idea.

The fact that I understand the system pretty well and can modify it pretty easily doesn't mean I can't benefit from other people's experience, what they've tried and whether it worked for them, and being pointed to mechanics in other games that can be borrowed without having to use the entire system they're from. It's...pretty straightforward.

It may be. Some mechanics can be lifted from one game and dropped into another fairly easily. Many cannot, and require a lot more consideration.

For example, I think that emulating most forms of horror requires a lot more than just a fear mechanic and the like. Adding a horror factor or insanity stat by itself may get you through a D&D session that’s meant to evoke some horror themes. But for a persistent game? In the long run it’ll be more D&D than it will horror.

Beyond that, the fact that this is easy for me, and I already know how to do it, doesn't mean that is the case for everyone who is asking for advice. That doesn't mean they should just abandon their plan and play a whole different game instead, and telling them that they are wrong to want to do the thing is a crappy way to engage with the discussion they've initiated.

It may be. It depends.

Someone asked at what point would you consider “maybe game X is really what you’re looking for” actually be decent advice? I think it’s a relevant question and if it was answered I think I missed it.

What do you think?

Except not. "Just as effective" is not a thing I've said.

No? The below certainly implies it

Making DnD run a story that is similar to Aliens, feature a monster that you cannot win a fight with, in a closed enviroment, and your friends getting killed left and right around you while the situation gets steadily worse and worse for you, all in a scenario where you had no reason to expect this sort of situation, is very doable in DnD 5e. It can benefit from, but does not require, additional mechanics.

It’s very doable. It may benefit from other mechanics, but may not.

If this is you saying it’s not as effective, I’d say it’s a pretty unclear way to do so.

If I wanted to play in the actual world of Aliens, and kill PCs on a spaceship with a xenomorph, I'd play the Alien RPG. Since what I want is to play a similar scenario in a fantasy context where the moving parts that can be used to get out alive and/or throw the monster out the proverbial airlock are more likely to be magical than technological, I'm going to use DnD and perhaps add some mechanics from the Alien RPG or other monster horror RPGs.

Yeah dude. All you’re saying is that you want to only play fantasy as your primary genre, and mix some others in every now and then. In which case, sure knock yourself out.

I would say even in this case, there are systems equally suited or maybe even better for that concept. And if you wanted a genre other than fantasy to be the primary focus, then there are definitely better systems.

 

[Steampunkette]

These systems have little to no weight in modern D&D though... the days of spells that affect based on alignment is pretty much over in 5e.

There are still weapons that require you to be evil to attune to them. Or Good. Or Lawful. Or Chaotic.

There are still spells which check a creature's alignment. Or block creatures of specific alignments from entering into locations.

There are still massive swaths of the Planes where Alignment plays a huge role.

There are still planes of existence where Evil characters take Damage every turn and Good characters get Healed.

There's literally an ORDER DOMAIN for Clerics wherein they support Cosmic Order. IE LAW and JUSTICE.

D&D Deities are still Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, Neutral and often REFUSE to empower people who do not hold to their personal ideals. (But hey, if you wanna play that Chaotic Evil Paladin of Justice devoted to Torm who the heck am I to argue?)

And even WITHOUT those things, the whole "NPC Alignments" thing where common foes are "Often" or "Always" Evil is there for a reason. Player = GOOD. Monster = BAD. Or if you run an Evil Campaign (Which is still a common colloquialism for a campaign where the players aren't Heroic) Player = BAD. Monster = GOOD.

 

[Steampunkette]

I haven't been following Level Up closely at all, but color me intrigued based upon how you talk about it here. Well done. There are a lot of threads and playtest things in the sub-forum, but is there an overview of the changes that Level Up is making?

Level Up Playtest Document #17: Journeys — Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition (A5E)

This playtest document contains an abbreviated expression of the game’s Journey rules, which form an important part of the exploration pillar of play.

www.levelup5e.com

You can read all about the core Journey System, here. Though the individual regions still lack their Encounter Tables and it'll be a bit before we get to see more of the Monster Signs and stuff.

There's also going to only be 15 Regions provided in the core rulebook... sadly.

But there will be guidelines to build your own Regions and at least one forumite has started doing so. Shout out to @Faolyn!

I've even taken the basic overview from this document and adapted it into a Wealth system for urban campaigns, and shown how it could be used for a variety of others. It's -super- flexible while still having some crunch!

 

[MGibster]

No, it isn’t. The premise is that D&D can generally do the same genre. That most of the stuff people ask for advice on doing in D&D are totally doable within D&D , and it’s really crappy to tell someone who asks how to do a thing in D&D that they’re wrong to want to do it in D&D .

There's no doubt in my mind that you can use D&D to run games set in a wide variety of genres. But I think to get D&D to provide me the same atmosphere I'd find in Alien, Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, Deadlands, etc., etc. I'm going to have to put in a significant amount of work modifying the game to the point where it really isn't worth my effort.

I could haul a bunch of lumber in a sedan. But it'd be a lot easier if I just used a pickup truck instead.

 

[dave2008]

D&D Deities are still Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, Neutral and often REFUSE to empower people who do not hold to their personal ideals. (But hey, if you wanna play that Chaotic Evil Paladin of Justice devoted to Torm who the heck am I to argue?)

FYI, the only supplement that really details Deities (Theros) in 5e does not give the gods an alignment. It does provide "suggested" alignments for their followers (or champions, I forget). Also, we know new PCs races (an possible some / most monsters) will not have a fixed alignment in future supplements. So 5e continues to move away from alignment.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It'd certainly true that you can -ignore- the game's mechanics and narrative to remove morality from the game's systems. And you could certainly try to block out the terms "Good" and "Evil" in various spells for the express intention of pretending it's more about whether a character is native to a specific plane of existence or not...

But those systems and aspects are a part of D&D that make it good at being that specific morality play. Whether you choose to use them or not.

But there aren’t actually any rules that enforce what you’re talking about, outside of like...a couple magic items? Maybe a monster ability or two? It’s vestigial, at best.

Nnnnno... not really a matter of preference. It's a matter of fact.

Whether you'd -like- those social and exploration systems to exist or not doesn't affect whether or not they exist. Which they don't.

Should they? I dunno. That's probably a matter of preference. But in the side-discussion that you're interjecting into here the question is whether they do or don't, and whether they're stronger or weaker than exists in other games.

And I think no one could argue in good faith that D&D's social and exploration pillar offerings are more strongly designed and gameified than they are in, say, LevelUp Advanced 5e. Or GURPS. Or Vampire: The Masquerade. Or various other games that have a strong systems-focus on social interaction often to the expense of combat.

I’m not willing to accept what seems to be your definition of weak. To be weak it would have to attempt to do soemthing and then fail at it. You could make that claim about travel rules specifically, but not the social pillar. The goal of the design of that part of the game isn’t what you want. That isn’t weak, it’s just not your preference.