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

[Ovinomancer]

To be fair, Lovecraft seemed to believe that EVERYONE had a tenuous grasp of sanity.

GASP! It turns out that I had a non-white ancestor. Well, it’s the asylum for me!

Let's not turn this into a thread about Lovecraft, the badly flawed person. Thanks.

 

[prabe]

If you actually think that's what I'm saying, or is a logical outcome, then anything not fighting matches that. Do you honestly think I'm making an argument that anything that isn't combat is tossing out 80% of the game? Jebus, man, we've had some great talks in the past, why are you treating me like I'm a drooling moron?

I don't think you're a drooling moron.

What you have seemed to be saying was that if you offered people a game of D&D 5E, and then took the game off in a Cosmic Horror direction, so that combat wasn't an option or a path toward a solution, that you were throwing 80% of the game away, plausibly not really using D&D, and being kinda a dick. How does that change if "Cosmic Horror" is replaced with any other story-type that isn't compatible with being solved by fighting things?

Cosmic Horror is, by definition, something that cannot be defeated. If I'm going to do Cosmic Horror, then the combat rules just do not matter much -- I've tossed them in pursuit of the genre. This is not the same as having a social encounter, or an exploration one, where we're just not currently focusing on combat, but it'll come around again. The idea of Cosmic Horror is not conducive to a combat system. This is actually one of the larger complaints about older CoC versions, where they had all kinds of rules for combat that just didn't matter. You could make a serious bruiser in the rules, but when it came to actually fighting, they were as useless as everyone else because so many of the mythos horrors you just can't shotgun.

Cosmic Horrors generally cannot be defeated permanently, but they can usually be ... delayed, somehow. A ritual can be interrupted, a rift can be sealed: something can be done (or else, there's not much of a point, is there?).

My own utter break with CoC came when we utterly botched something, and in-game the world didn't end. All the crap the PCs went through didn't matter, there was no point. My character suicided and I refused to make another.

I did. You quoted my post where I did when you asked my questions. If you're changing the topic, please do so more clearly. Of course you can have horror where you can fight the baddies.

Fair enough.

I think it's possible to have a Cosmic Horror type threat that cannot be defeated, in a scenario where PCs still get to fight things--and where fighting things might even enable them to solve the problem. It's tricky, but I think it's possible.

I think it's also possible for someone to look at such a scenario and not see it as Cosmic Horror. So, there's that.

There's a D&D genre -- it's not just mechanics, it's a whole feel with it's own set of genre logic and tropes.

D&D games tend to feel (or play) a certain way, yes: One of the better lines I've come across about it is to the effect of "The thing D&D is best at simulating is a game of D&D." I don't see as much conflict between that and allowing different types of stories to emerge as you seem to.

 

[dave2008]

Do a google search for Cosmic Horror and you'll see it's the standard definition. It's also exactly what I picked up from HPL stories. I'm not sure what you picked up, but if it wasn't going mad in the face of the incompressible horror of the Other, then I'm curious what stories you actually read and what you got out of them.

It has been a while since i read much (like 30 years), but your description is more like what I read about HPL or the Cthulhu mythos than what I read of his work. Ghouls in particular I remember being more nuanced. And all the Dreamlands stuff didn't seem like it overly stretched the protagonists sanity.

Which does nothing to Cthulhu. He didn't actually fight or defeat the creature, he did a desperate act that didn't make a difference and managed to survive. Honestly, surviving is the only hopeful outcome of HPL stories, and that's not universal.

In they story cultist are fought and defeated. Another character survives a fight with Cthulhu. The attack does actually do something. It damages the big C's body and slows him down enough for the character to get a way. So yes, it did do something very important.

FYI, that was better than my group which ended in a TPK when they encountered Cthulhu in my 5e version of the story.

Did they defeat Cthulhu?

In a sense, yes. The attack evidently delayed Cthulhu enough that it was trapped again when R'yleh sank again.

 

[prabe]

I'm not American!

Sorry--I didn't look.

Fairer to note that you're making English-language literature references at someone for whom English isn't their first language.

 

[dave2008]

I haven't seen it. It's possible it's a well integrated mechanic that does a good job -- I don't prejudge. You're treating me like I dislike 5e, which is far from the truth. You're also treating me like I'm arguing from a irrational position -- that I will reject things that disagree with a held premise, sight unseen.

You seem to be pre-judging how we played cosmic horror (more literally the story Call of Cthulhu) without seeing our house-rules or how we actually played. Perhaps I misunderstood you, but you certainly came off that way to me.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Do a google search for Cosmic Horror and you'll see it's the standard definition. It's also exactly what I picked up from HPL stories. I'm not sure what you picked up, but if it wasn't going mad in the face of the incompressible horror of the Other, then I'm curious what stories you actually read and what you got out of them.

White guy dismisses the warning of the people who have some idea of what’s going on because they are “primitive”, non-white (or sometimes, simply the “wrong” type of white) or simply because they know better or are superior. Gets eaten (or goes insane).

 

[Imaro]

Gainsaying isn't very helpful, either. D&D doesn't do Cosmic Horror, it does D&D with some different spices.

I'll assume you mean In your opinion... got it.

It's exactly how Madness works in D&D. Please double check your rules. And don't swap in a different rule for the one I was talking about. All Sanity does is add a different option to the Madness rules for how you make saving throws against Madness.

I originally asked about the Sanity rules. And yes it does modify them which addresses your entire complaint about Wis and Cha saves. Not sure how you can just dismiss the parts you want in order to make your point. Again feels disingenuous.

How do you enforce those effects? Let's pick one from the permanent table: "I keep what I find." How does that get at all enforced in the ruleset?

I said if you want mechanical effects use the longterm madness as permanent. But there is a school that believes that a player will play their character honestly and with integrity so a mechanical enforcement isn't necessary as they have bough into the genre tropes for cosmic fantasy.

The Madness charts are all about applying combat reducing effects. The short term and even long term effects are easily waited out unless combat is forced on the PCs. They just don't do anything else impactful. The ones that aren't combat problems can only be enforced by the GM overstepping and telling a player how to play their PC. This may fly at your table, but it's a direct refutation of the opening explanation of play in the PHB - the player decides what their PC thinks, feels, and does. The Madness table is a terrible throwback to the bad idea that the GM enforces proper roleplaying at the table. It's trash.

NO they are not all about applying combat reducing effects and you repeating it doesn't make it so... Any of these affect the character overall not just specifically in combat

Short Term
-The character experiences vivid hallucinations and has disadvantage on ability checks
-The character does whatever anyone tells him or her to do that isn't obviously self-destructive
-The character falls unconscious
-The character begins babbling and is incapable of speech or casting spells
-The character becomes incapacitated and spends the duration screaming, laughing or weeping

Long Term
-The character suffers extreme paranoia. The character has disadvantage on Wis and Cha checks
-The character loses the ability to speak
-The character experiences a powerful delusion. Choose a potion. The character believes he or she is under it's effects.
-The character is blinded or deafened

 

[dave2008]

It's exactly how Madness works in D&D. Please double check your rules. And don't swap in a different rule for the one I was talking about. All Sanity does is add a different option to the Madness rules for how you make saving throws against Madness.

FYI, sanity is a new ability score:

New Ability Scores: Honor and Sanity​

Spoiler

If you’re running a campaign shaped by a strict code of honor or the constant risk of insanity, consider adding one or both these new ability scores: Honor and Sanity. These abilities function like the standard six abilities, with exceptions specified in each ability below.

Here’s how to incorporate these optional abilities at character creation:

• If your players use the standard array of ability scores, add one 11 to the array for each optional ability you add.
• If your players use the optional point-buy system, add 3 points to the number of points for each optional ability you add.
• If your players roll their ability scores, have them roll for the added ability scores.

Sanity Score
Consider using the Sanity score if your campaign revolves around entities of an utterly alien and unspeakable nature, such as Great Cthulhu, whose powers and minions can shatter a character’s mind.

A character with a high Sanity is level-headed even in the face of insane circumstances, while a character with low Sanity is unsteady, breaking easily when confronted by eldritch horrors that are beyond normal reason.

Sanity Checks. You might ask characters to make a Sanity check in place of an Intelligence check to recall lore about the alien creatures of madness featured in your campaign, to decipher the writings of raving lunatics, or to learn spells from tomes of forbidden lore. You might also call for a Sanity check when a character tries one of the following activities:

• Deciphering a piece of text written in a language so alien that it threatens to break a character’s mind
• Overcoming the lingering effects of madness
• Comprehending a piece of alien magic foreign to all normal understanding of magic

Sanity Saving Throws. You might call for a Sanity saving throw when a character runs the risk of succumbing to madness, such as in the following situations:

• Seeing a creature from the Far Realm or other alien realms for the first time
• Making direct contact with the mind of an alien creature
• Being subjected to spells that affect mental stability, such as the insanity option of the symbol spell
• Passing through a demiplane built on alien physics
• Resisting an effect conferred by an attack or spell that deals psychic damage

A failed Sanity save might result in short-term, long-term, or indefinite madness, as described in chapter 8, "Running the Game." Any time a character suffers from long-term or indefinite madness, the character’s Sanity is reduced by 1. A greater restoration spell can restore Sanity lost in this way, and a character can increase his or her Sanity through level advancement.

I am not saying it is good or not, but it is definitely its own ability score and doesn't rely on Cha or Wis to inflict madness as you suggested, nor is it limited to just interacting with Madness.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Incomprehensible means not able to be understood; not intelligible. You're describing not yet understood, and the scientific principle that says to always test current understanding to see if it's false and can be improved. If a thing is incomprehensible, then you can't do even this. The universe being incomprehensible would mean that science is a complete lie -- all of it is complete delusion.

Incomprehensible means can never be understood. Like Literature to a goldfish. If something is not yet comprehended, but can be comprehended in the future it is, by definition, comprehensible. There is no way to determine if something is, or is not, comprehensible, until it is comprehended.

Some scientists choose to believe the universe is comprehensible, but this is faith, not science. There is no evidential proof.

You are right, if the universe is unintelligible, then science cannot function. There is no way to prove the universe is intelligible, other than experience. Every time the Sun comes up in the morning it makes it seem that the assumption that the universe is intelligible more reasonable, but it is not proof.

Again, if this is your thinking, I struggle understanding how you've chosen to continue in the field.

In my field I, of course, speak to many in my field. It is a view shared by many of those in my field, although there is a tendency to pretend to non-scientists that we are a lot more confident than we are.

I'm an electrical engineer, by training and trade, so I'm well acquainted with the process of science -- my livelihood depends on it like yours does.

Engineering only needs to know "does it work?". "Is it true?" is irrelevant.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sorry--I didn't look.

Fairer to note that you're making English-language literature references at someone for whom English isn't their first language.

Well, I would make other-language literature references if I knew any other languages!