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

[KainGuru]

I'm not familiar with what you're citing, but I'm assuming this is about IP law?

1) I don't see how IP law has any implications on system matters.

2) I certainly don't think judges are particularly informed on how TTRPG play experience (both inputs and outputs) are informed by systematization!

3) Finally, it seems a bit...odd (?)...that you would defer to judges (who specialize in legal precedents and theory) opinion on matters waaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside of their knowledge/experience-base! That seems like an instantiation of the sort of "deify then defer" problem with "celebrity culture" you were decrying above (someone has credibility afforded to them because of their capabilities in one area > they're irrationally anointed > the masses defer to them in matters outside of their domain).

Simply because the law is the.law - the fact that you can separate the mechanics from an IP proves the point. But don't get me onto dice mechanics and a common, fundamental, misunderstanding of probabilities vis-a-vis bell curve vs linear (there is a difference but it doesn't work the way a lot of people assume there is a 3rd factor that makes the difference between the two tangible or irrelevant)

 

[loverdrive]

I'm just an old punk who doesn't like rules and always has a problem with authority.

Interesting you should use Risk as an example- because there is an entire community of gamers who have hacked Risk to be a very different sort of game: including one that was created to emulate the War of the Ring (before the official version) another that was put up as a replacement for the old TSR GreyHawk Wars (the links to these old hacks have long since expired unfortunately - but they will be out there in the wilds of the internet somewhere).

I've limited my comments to those GM heavy games because it is primarily about DnD. Rather I'm not commenting on indie games because there are so many - but it was originally posted as DnD compared to indie games vis-a-vis DnD handling concepts which are, by default, better handled by indie games (a moot point at this point).

My biggest gripe with DnD isn't with DnD it's with the way it's strangling itself by letting its own mechanics limit it. The creativity of newer players and DMs is being, unintentionally, stifled: because WoTC has inadvertently created a culture where DMs and players wait on the musing of a WoTC demiurge to create rules to solve a problem vs finding their own solution and sharing it and this shared knowledge feedingback to the designers ... it used to be more collaborative ADnD 2e was informed by many houserules. The designer of the AdnD 2e rules compendium software was on record saying that he created the software to allow for games like the one he played at his own table, where he had a dwarf Paladin which wasn't RAW but it was the game he enjoyed.

Or those houserules are bullshiting themselves and everyone else. And, more importantly, they don't aknowledge and take credit their own hard work.

I used to have a guitar, originally made by Yamaha. Over the years, I've changed pretty much everything on it. The only original part on it is griff. I've replaced the pickups, then the deck, then pickups again. No way in nine hells I'm gonna call her "Yamaha guitar" at this point, no. I built it, with my own two hands and she deserves to bear my name.

Not to mention that system's purpose is to create a fitting experience just by the way the rules work. You grab Blades in the Dark, you get a game of daring scoundrels executing bold operations and getting entangled in some deep naughty word. You grab Monsterhearts, you get a game of teenagers coming to peace with their gender, race and sexuality and embracing their identity. Just because the mechanics are pushing the story in the desired direction.

But I don't think I want to explain game design 101 for the millionth time.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm just an old punk who doesn't like rules and always has a problem with authority.

Interesting you should use Risk as an example- because there is an entire community of gamers who have hacked Risk to be a very different sort of game: including one that was created to emulate the War of the Ring (before the official version) another that was put up as a replacement for the old TSR GreyHawk Wars (the links to these old hacks have long since expired unfortunately - but they will be out there in the wilds of the internet somewhere).

I've limited my comments to those GM heavy games because it is primarily about DnD. Rather I'm not commenting on indie games because there are so many - but it was originally posted as DnD compared to indie games vis-a-vis DnD handling concepts which are, by default, better handled by indie games (a moot point at this point).

My biggest gripe with DnD isn't with DnD it's with the way it's strangling itself by letting its own mechanics limit it. The creativity of newer players and DMs is being, unintentionally, stifled: because WoTC has inadvertently created a culture where DMs and players wait on the musing of a WoTC demiurge to create rules to solve a problem vs finding their own solution and sharing it and this shared knowledge feedingback to the designers ... it used to be more collaborative ADnD 2e was informed by many houserules. The designer of the AdnD 2e rules compendium software was on record saying that he created the software to allow for games like the one he played at his own table, where he had a dwarf Paladin which wasn't RAW but it was the game he enjoyed.

I think they did a lot of things to create that problem, but 5e itself sets the dials to make doing that as difficult as possible for a gm willing to by setting si many dials so high. Back in past editions a gm has much more latitude to change things by being given room to engage in horsetrading. "so I was thinking bout dialing downX and giving you guys Y" was a common start. In 5e they already have Y & quite possibly at a higher value than would have been offered so the gm has nothing to horsetrade with when making changes to X. I think survivors ight be the first step from wotc towards supplying a gm with tools to empower that.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yes but no, what I'm reading here (and no criticism) just reminds me of when I first studied psychology - it was a behvaiouralist/reductionist model. But the discipline evolved and moved on from there. Yes, it's easy to understand and predict people when you reduce them to these action/responses- but here we are nearly 40yrs later and there are much better ways of understanding people.and predicting their behaviour/responses. The cognition as a computer model - when pushed as far as it can go - simply isn't a viable one anymore. The human experience is far more nuanced than this and influenced by far more than stimulus/response. It just kind of jars me to read human behaviour in such limiting terms but then again I jumped on board with the social psychology paradigm early on - discourse analysis, et al.

You've decided that something -- I'm not sure what, really -- is like something in another field that you feel is entirely discredited and so it must be incorrect? Meanwhile, you're into the new hotness in this other field, and it doesn't have the same problem as the discredited model, so that must mean that how you feel about games is similarly nifty cool compared to the... other thing?

I mean, if I guess, the "thing" you're disagreeing with is that people aren't all happy with the GM just making it up and not following the rules? If so, this is a terrible take -- there's lots of evidence anywhere you care to look that people very much care about how the rules work and expect them to be followed. A bit more and you can find evidence that people dislike pure ad libbing by the GM. I'm one of those people, though, in case you don't wish to go looking -- I'd be very frustrated in a game where the GM felt it okay to ignore the rules whenever they thought it would make for a better experience. That's not at all what I'm looking for in a game.

If not that, then I'm guessing you're questioning if other games actually work differently. Again, they're out there, you can look at them. Dungeon World is largely available for free online. There's lots of threads on ENW, and more elsewhere, that talk about how these games function very differently from games like 5e or BRP. This isn't a matter of a fad theory -- it's the difference between Monopoly and Risk. While Dungeon World share a huge number of trope and genre conventions with 5e -- it actually started as a way to make D&D into Story Now -- how it does things is radically different to the point that there is no way to recreate 5e play in Dungeon World and no way to recreate Dungeon World play in 5e.

 

[prabe]

If it happens, I've never seen it. A player on watch that didn't wake the party when they saw something strange would be looking for a new group PDQ in any group I've ever seen. This ranks up there with "don't steal from the party" for stuff that you just don't ever do.

I've done it as a player, in a three-person party with the other two being spellcasters. And I'm pretty sure I've seen it happen with at least one of the parties I'm DMing for. I'm not saying it's common, just that it does happen sometimes.

 

[KainGuru]

I think they did a lot of things to create that problem, but 5e itself sets the dials to make doing that as difficult as possible for a gm willing to by setting si many dials so high. Back in past editions a gm has much more latitude to change things by being given room to engage in horsetrading. "so I was thinking bout dialing downX and giving you guys Y" was a common start. In 5e they already have Y & quite possibly at a higher value than would have been offered so the gm has nothing to horsetrade with when making changes to X. I think survivors ight be the first step from wotc towards supplying a gm with tools to empower that.

Yeah that is probably my problem with DnD 5e as presented - the dials are turned up needing them to be turned down rather than wiggled from side to side.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm just an old punk who doesn't like rules and always has a problem with authority.

Okay, strange statement from someone quoting IP law to try to make a completely unrelated point.

Interesting you should use Risk as an example- because there is an entire community of gamers who have hacked Risk to be a very different sort of game: including one that was created to emulate the War of the Ring (before the official version) another that was put up as a replacement for the old TSR GreyHawk Wars (the links to these old hacks have long since expired unfortunately - but they will be out there in the wilds of the internet somewhere).

No, they haven't hacked it into very different games. It is still a game about moving armies around and taking territories. It isn't a game about solving a murder, like clue, or turning friends and family into murderous rage-machines like Monopoly. They've added to the base of the game, but they haven't made it something actually different in kind. If I want to play Monopoly, I will not reach for any version of Risk.

I've limited my comments to those GM heavy games because it is primarily about DnD. Rather I'm not commenting on indie games because there are so many - but it was originally posted as DnD compared to indie games vis-a-vis DnD handling concepts which are, by default, better handled by indie games (a moot point at this point).

Wait, the thread is about a comparison between D&D and "indie" games but you've decided that point is moot (I question the continued participation in that discussion, but okay) and decided to go with the orthodoxy of D&D only -- an odd statement for an old punk with authority problems.

My biggest gripe with DnD isn't with DnD it's with the way it's strangling itself by letting its own mechanics limit it. The creativity of newer players and DMs is being, unintentionally, stifled: because WoTC has inadvertently created a culture where DMs and players wait on the musing of a WoTC demiurge to create rules to solve a problem vs finding their own solution and sharing it and this shared knowledge feedingback to the designers ... it used to be more collaborative ADnD 2e was informed by many houserules. The designer of the AdnD 2e rules compendium software was on record saying that he created the software to allow for games like the one he played at his own table, where he had a dwarf Paladin which wasn't RAW but it was the game he enjoyed.

This issue is that you think your play agenda is paramount to others -- that if people just liked the game like you like it then everything will be okay. It's a bad take to think that D&D should 1) suit you specifically and 2) that other play agendas do not exist. 5e is the most feedback based game on the market -- it has had much more community feedback than any other game out there, but before and during development and continuing into the sustainment of the game and production of additional products. That you think that WotC is missing the boat for the majority of players is a strange, rather ego-centric take on things. WotC doesn't seem to be hurting for not following your desires.

I mean, 5e is the absolute most successful RPG ever, by any measure that's remotely objective. If WotC is shooting itself in the foot by having the most popular RPG ever, then what hope does anyone else have?

 

[Ovinomancer]

I've done it as a player, in a three-person party with the other two being spellcasters. And I'm pretty sure I've seen it happen with at least one of the parties I'm DMing for. I'm not saying it's common, just that it does happen sometimes.

Yeah, it's happened in my games, too, and I've done it in a game. That said, it's usually a bad choice. D&D doesn't really do any kind of balance that isn't balanced on the party, so if anything goes hot while you're winging it solo, it's often going to be bad if the planned encounter was for the party. That said, you can, as a GM, plan a different thing , but I'm not sure how common that is. I try to do different things, and mostly that's meant that I've stopped doing overnight interruption where the party member on guard needs to make this kind of choice blindly, but that really just means I make the oncoming encounter obvious rather than sneaky. The point of rest-time encounters is to disrupt rest, so I tend to dispense with the "do you notice people sneaking up on you while resting" bits. That just tends to reinforce paranoia in the players (which I'd rather focus more narrowly) and distrust in the GM (for going for sneaky-time kill teams).

 

[KainGuru]

Or those houserules are bullshiting themselves and everyone else. And, more importantly, they don't aknowledge and take credit their own hard work.

I used to have a guitar, originally made by Yamaha. Over the years, I've changed pretty much everything on it. The only original part on it is griff. I've replaced the pickups, then the deck, then pickups again. No way in nine hells I'm gonna call her "Yamaha guitar" at this point, no. I built it, with my own two hands and she deserves to bear my name.

Not to mention that system's purpose is to create a fitting experience just by the way the rules work. You grab Blades in the Dark, you get a game of daring scoundrels executing bold operations and getting entangled in some deep naughty word. You grab Monsterhearts, you get a game of teenagers coming to peace with their gender, race and sexuality and embracing their identity. Just because the mechanics are pushing the story in the desired direction.

But I don't think I want to explain game design 101 for the millionth time.

The Ship of Theseus Problem - glad you have solved that conundrum. I prefer it still be a matter for ongoing debate - because it comes down to opinion and opinion doesn't equate fundamental truth. Opinions should differ, the world is all the richer for it.

No one is saying indie games don't do it better but I reject the idea that it cannot be done in another ruleset. Again it's expectations, I'm too old and have spent too much time ignoring 'authority' to be dictated to by anyone: once I have paid for game it belongs to me to do whatever I want with it - provided its still fun and the social experience everyone at the table expects.

They are just games - people get to heat up about that and wanting people to agree with how they play. You do you, I'll do me - for me games are an escape from the literal life and death decisions that go with my real world responsibilities (and ironic that those responsibilities during the pandemic have meant, being a front line worker, no face to face gaming with my group for over 12 months).

If anything I look at the likes of Mongoose who grabbed game licences and did different things with them - regardless of the original designers intent.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The Ship of Theseus Problem - glad you have solved that conundrum. I prefer it still be a matter for ongoing debate - because it comes down to opinion and opinion doesn't equate fundamental truth. Opinions should differ, the world is all the richer for it.

No one is saying indie games don't do it better but I reject the idea that it cannot be done in another ruleset. Again it's expectations, I'm too old and have spent too much time ignoring 'authority' to be dictated to by anyone: once I have paid for game it belongs to me to do whatever I want with it - provided its still fun and the social experience everyone at the table expects.

They are just games - people get to heat up about that and wanting people to agree with how they play. You do you, I'll do me - for me games are an escape from the literal life and death decisions that go with my real world responsibilities (and ironic that those responsibilities during the pandemic have meant, being a front line worker, no face to face gaming with my group for over 12 months).

If anything I look at the likes of Mongoose who grabbed game licences and did different things with them - regardless of the original designers intent.

This rejection is born of ignorance. You lack the necessary experience with other systems to understand that there are fundamental differences that cannot be bridged by a simple set of houserules or even a massive overhaul of a different system. You can't do what Dungeon World does with 5e. You can't do what Blades does with 5e. This is because they do things in a very, very different way -- there are fundamental assumption changes about the very core nature of the gameplay. You're approaching this with a "the GM can just ad lib any result they want if the rules get in the way," and that's a fine approach. But what if I don't want the GM to ad lib, what if I want the rules to be followed very closely, what if I want the resolution mechanics to decide? 5e doesn't offer me the same set of results, and neither does the GM ad libbing the outcomes. This is a key, important difference, and one you're absolutely missing with your assertions.

That said, I would think that you would have a very unenjoyable time trying to run a Blades in the Dark game -- the level on constraint on the GM is much tighter than any D&D game, and that's before you realize that there is no Rule Zero: the GM is not free to alter or ignore the rules of the game however they want. This is a rather stark difference in play.