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

[Ovinomancer]

They're still all BRP derivatives, even the most recent one which is the most divergent.

You sure? I thought games like Cthulhu Dark and Trail were in there as well. I could be wrong, though.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

It's like celebrity culture - far too much credence is given to people simply because they're famous or a game designer. They're no better or worse than any of us and their intentions are no more or no less noble than any of us

Fair enough. But, it's all the evidence we can actually see since none of us writes adventures for home games that would be usable by anyone else.

If the adventures that many, many people are playing (or have played) have commonalities, then it's fair to say that those commonalities are evidence of play expectations. I've yet to see a module that dumps an completely unwinable situation on the group that will guarantee a TPK (Ie. Rocks Fall Everyone Dies), so, it's fair to say that such scenarios aren't expected in play.

I've rarely seen romance included in a D&D module. Again, because romance in D&D is generally not expected in play. I'm not saying it never happens. I know that it does. But, it's probably fair to say that romance plot lines involving an NPC and a PC are fairly rare. For all sorts of reasons.

And that's ignoring all sorts of icky scenarios like forced sexual contact with the PC's. I've never seen a rape scene in a module, for example, because we certainly don't expect that in a D&D game.

So, I disagree that examining modules is a bad place to look when trying to see game expectations.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Who makes good adventures? I ask because I have always hated published adventures and find them extremely difficult to use., whether that was from TSR, WotC, or Paizo. I have yet to see a published adventure that I liked. I would honestly like to know what a "good" adventure looks like.

Full disclosure, I haven't tried to run a published adventure since 4e, but I still look at them (and have purchased most of the WotC 5e ones) and they continue to baffle me.

That’s a tough one. I’d say it’s pretty much independent of publishers and/or editions. Some adventures are good, some are bad...and it often seems unrelated to publisher or edition. You may find some specific authors/contributors that you like, but a lot of the time it’s work for hire, so again, publisher/edition is less relevant.

There are good examples of adventures from most editions. Some of the old classics are good, although usually more as a starting point than anything else. Soooo much stuff from the 2E era that it’s tough to sift through, but there are some really good products in there. 3E has some solid options, but also this was where the adventure path really took hold. I didn’t play 4E long but I remember some of the adventures being solid (layout and ease of use at table were particularly strong here).

With 5E, Lost Mines g Phandelver is very good. Curse of Strahd is very good. The others are hit or miss. From what I understand there are some really good Adventurer’s League modules that are good, and third party.

Lots of OSR stuff that can be used in just about any edition.

TLDR; there are plenty out there, but they’re outnumbered by garbage, and so finding the useful ones can be tricky.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

TBH we only played 4e once, and that was after it was canned by WoTC - 4e came out during a period that I call 'The great I really cannot afford any new games at the moment because of austerity and I don't want to become insolvent like so many friends did so knuckle down and pay off all those credit cards and loans you've been servicing for several years while you can still afford to'

Well, you picked wisely, that game was EXPENSIVE. I think I spent at least $1000 bucks on it, maybe more. Probably a lot more actually. I like my 5e budget better, $0. lol. That isn't quite fair, I was gifted a set of core books.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Huh, irony.

Not even a little.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Lol I said I wasn't a huge fan, not that I'm not a fan. I like a lot, an awful lot, about 5e but TBH it's the genre I'm burnt out on - fantasy. Sometimes you need a change and Dredd/2000AD is occupying my attention at the moment (I've read the comic, every issue, since 1977).

I'm also of that camp that thinks the Critical Role AP's are doing a disservice to the game by setting expectations for new players too high and realising that I can see they're scripted to a large extent but a newbie wouldn't. The likes of my step son were daunted by the expectations it gives new players rather than inspired. The law of unintended consequence in action.

I'd have to ask J how he hacked 7th Sea with 5e but his FLGS has been click and collect only for over 12months now. TBH I think it's a project he's been forced to abandon with the shop being shut to actual play events. I do know his intent was to try and seduce players into 7th Sea by giving them a taster thru 5e. He was a kickstarter backer like me and, like me, has found it very hard to sell to players given the jugganaut that is DnD 5e. I tried with my group but they simply were too uncomfortable with the mechanics, they loved the premise of the world (which I had bastardised by inserting the premise of 2000AD 'DeFoe' into it - reeks/zombies and the 1666 comet of ill fortune) they just struggled with the actual game play. For them the jarring bit was being experienced DnD combat monkeys faced with the narrativist 7th Sea 2e combat: they just didn't grok it. I'm sure, had we played on for a bit longer, it'd have started working for them but they simply didn't want to and then Fantasy Flight released their reprint of the original WEG Star Wars RPG and then I became a bit burnt out GMing so I played some 5e (the We're All Bards Party World Tour) while I started prepping for Saltmarsh 5e (3d printed a 28mm scale SeaGhost it took months to finish it - but, as I said, I'm a bit burnt out with the fantasy genre at the moment so that'll have to wait for another day) and then ............ covid (front line, PPE'd at work then enhanced social distancing at home so haven't seen anyone of the old group in person since March 2020 - except when one of them died unexpectedly, it's pretty f***ed up when the social highlight of your year is a funeral)

NB: the coherency problems of my previous post had more to do with using a phone during work breaks to post - breaks that were often broken because something needed to be seen to asap. I apologise if sometimes I seemed to jump from one idea to another - but that's the honest reason why. Better to be upfront than try to BS ones way out of a 'thing'

My comments on coherence had nothing to do with your post -- they were comments about compatibility of game mechanics and agendas. Your posts have been perfectly coherent and understandable.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Not even a little.

Ah, so it was unintentional irony, cool. Be funnier if you meant it, though. And a good bit more self-aware.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ah, so it was unintentional irony, cool. Be funnier if you meant it, though. And a good bit more self-aware.

Now that is irony.

 

[KainGuru]

Fair enough. But, it's all the evidence we can actually see since none of us writes adventures for home games that would be usable by anyone else.

If the adventures that many, many people are playing (or have played) have commonalities, then it's fair to say that those commonalities are evidence of play expectations. I've yet to see a module that dumps an completely unwinable situation on the group that will guarantee a TPK (Ie. Rocks Fall Everyone Dies), so, it's fair to say that such scenarios aren't expected in play.

I've rarely seen romance included in a D&D module. Again, because romance in D&D is generally not expected in play. I'm not saying it never happens. I know that it does. But, it's probably fair to say that romance plot lines involving an NPC and a PC are fairly rare. For all sorts of reasons.

And that's ignoring all sorts of icky scenarios like forced sexual contact with the PC's. I've never seen a rape scene in a module, for example, because we certainly don't expect that in a D&D game.

So, I disagree that examining modules is a bad place to look when trying to see game expectations.

I have always seen modules as framework rather than a complete adventure. Though I am reminded of the original Saltmarsh module, being UK written and produced it had a notably different flavour to the the ones produced in the US - so much so that they acknowledge it in the forward, as well as noting that some US readers might find the UK English very different. Same game, at the time, but different expectations of play driven (probably) by different social conventions. Note there was no internet then, there was Dragon magazine (US) and WhiteDwarf (UK), the scenarios in both publications had very different, distinct, flavours: in play you could easily distinguish a WhiteDwarf Adventure from a Dragon Mag Adventure. This is where I believe social conventions cannot be assumed, and games cannot exist in isolation from those social conventions - they are invariably bought to the table because these social conventions are the world we live and, in part, form the lens that our expectations are parsed thru

 

[Hussar]

Here the PC does what the PC would do, which sometimes includes dealing with minor stuff on its own without waking everyone else.

I wouldn't presume that potential ambushes while the party sleeps to be "minor stuff".

How often does this happen and how often does it result in the party suffering significant losses? In my own games, where I don't generally bother tossing insignificant threats at the party that a lone PC could deal with, this sort of thing would lead to a TPK very quickly - or at least dead PC's. Particularly in older editions where a sleeping PC could be killed with a single action.

Like I said, a player pulling this in any of the groups I've played or run would be looking for a new group. "Oh, it's what my character would do" results in "don't make characters like that please, because we'll strip them naked, and stake them out for bear food."

I never presume that the players make incompetent characters.