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

[dave2008]

The OP still doesn't oresenr the motte argument, but the bailey. I checked before I responsed to you.

Just curious, what does the bold part mean? That seems like complete gibberish to me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's possible the OP got edited before I saw it, but I always understood the concern to be asking for help doing something in 5E and being told not to do it in 5E (including being told to do it in a specific other game). I'd think asking for help doing something (caper, Cosmic Horror, whatever) in an ongoing 5E campaign is contained in the larger asking for help doing it in 5E. I can see someone asking how to do something in an ongoing campaign, and not mention it was an ongoing campaign. But it really doesn't matter; if someone is asking for help doing something in 5E, I don't think flat advice to do it in a different game is anything like as helpful as specific advice for going it in 5E. It's plausible that it's very slightly less tone-deaf than offering that same advice when someone is clearly asking for help managing something coming up in an ongoing campaign.

I'll just note that the framing of the original post and the title doesn't seem entirely congruent with that. If all you want is advice within one system, why even bring up other systems in the context? Especially given the title?

 

[tetrasodium]

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. This is also far from the truth. It's possible that WotC has figured out a great way to morph 5e into being something not D&D with the Stress mechanic. Unlikely, and I'd question why they want to -- being D&D is really the primary selling point of 5e, and Ravenloft is the D&D horror version. It's not Horror first, though, it's D&D first, so I fully expect WotC to understand and design towards that goal. I hope they do come up with a good mechanic with Stress that enables more horror in D&D.

Its here

Spoiler: fear & stress

Pretty much a phobia-ish type refluff of the flaws/bonds for voluntary tries for inspiration & a save vrs -1 to everything till your next long rest. Wotc very obviously ran hard into 5e's lack of mechanical places mount the hooks & teeth

If you are familiar with my 5e epic monster updates you know I don't ascribed to that belief. I like to stat cosmic level threats because it is fun, even if there is no way for the PCs to beat them. Though I generally agree with the concept.

However, how often do 15 HP PCs want to challenge an aberration with 75 hit points, let alone a 1,200 HP cosmic horror that does 84 damage with one claw attack?

If so, I guess we (my gaming group) are all anemics as we can play D&D 5e just fine without a lot of combat, little to no house rules and have a great time. That is really all I want - to have a good time with my friends. I personally don't find that I need a lot of rules for social interaction, investigation, infiltration, etc. to achiever that goal. Though, as always, everyone is different and has different needs.

That was probbly the general line of thought in 3.5 when TSRs statted tatting great wyrms & various gods. I's pretty much a step towards d&d's strength before 5e removed all the useful buff/debuff/control stacking & tactical components.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Just curious, what does the bold part mean? That seems like complete gibberish to me.

Mispelling of present. The rest is fine. If motte and bailey aren't something you're familar with, then you have an opportunity to learn something. It's a type of early fortification, the motte being a fortified hill and the bailey being an area before the motte holding homes, workspaces, and crops defended lightly, usually with a stake wall. When attacked strongly, the bailey was abandoned and the defenders fell back to the motte.

In rhetoric, the motte and bailey is an argument tactic where the bailey represents a broad claim. When attacked, the fallback is a narrower, simpler version of the argument that is harder to attack. Here the bailey is that you shouldn't be recommending ither games to posters asking how to do X in a game. This is weak for many reasons. The motte is to narrow this to existing D&D games where the poster only wants to do a short arc in their current campaign. Much less objectionable, but not tge starting argument. Once the attack has tampered off on the motte argument, and posters have perhaps moved on, the position creeps back out into the bailey. Rinse, repeat.

 

[Jaeger]

...
In rhetoric, the motte and bailey is an argument tactic where the bailey represents a broad claim. When attacked, the fallback is a narrower, simpler version of the argument that is harder to attack. Here the bailey is that you shouldn't be recommending either games to posters asking how to do X in a game. This is weak for many reasons. The motte is to narrow this to existing D&D games where the poster only wants to do a short arc in their current campaign. Much less objectionable, but not tge starting argument. Once the attack has tampered off on the motte argument, and posters have perhaps moved on, the position creeps back out into the bailey. Rinse, repeat.

Perfect summary of what the OP had been doing.

I told the OP he was taking very "heads I win, tails you lose" positions in his arguments earlier in this thread. But your motte and bailey description is way better.

If you use this tactic, eventually you are going to contradict yourself.

And when people pointed out those contradictions using the OP's own quotes - he did not like it very much. Which is why myself and others made the OP's ignore list.

 

[dave2008]

Mispelling of present. The rest is fine. If motte and bailey aren't something you're familar with, then you have an opportunity to learn something. It's a type of early fortification, the motte being a fortified hill and the bailey being an area before the motte holding homes, workspaces, and crops defended lightly, usually with a stake wall. When attacked strongly, the bailey was abandoned and the defenders fell back to the motte.

In rhetoric, the motte and bailey is an argument tactic where the bailey represents a broad claim. When attacked, the fallback is a narrower, simpler version of the argument that is harder to attack. Here the bailey is that you shouldn't be recommending ither games to posters asking how to do X in a game. This is weak for many reasons. The motte is to narrow this to existing D&D games where the poster only wants to do a short arc in their current campaign. Much less objectionable, but not tge starting argument. Once the attack has tampered off on the motte argument, and posters have perhaps moved on, the position creeps back out into the bailey. Rinse, repeat.

Thanks for the reply. I guess I will hold firmly in the motte then. I think it is bad form to suggest playing a different game if someone is asking to do something in a particular game (regardless if they have started a campaign or not). I've no need to hide back in the bailey. I understand others don't agree with that, but I am comfortable in my opinion. It holds to my views of decency and respect. Note, I have been known to cross those lines once and while myself, it happens.

Also, regarding the OP: it specifically gave an example of the bailey (playing in an Eberron D&D game and running a heist), so they were not up front about taking the narrow definition to begin with. That should have been obvious to anyone who read the post I think.

For reference here is the last paragraph of the OP:

What's more, I generally don't want to play a campaign of heists, or a campaign of city building, or a campaign of building a revolution. I want to use those elements within a larger campaign that features those things and more. When my Eberron group did a heist to keep a powerful artifact from being purchased by Emerald Claw terrorists, I stole mechanics and ideas from indie RPGs and from movies and tv shows. If it was a broadcast game, I'd have credited them in the show notes, but I certainly wasn't going to tell my group to remake their characters in Blades in The Dark, expect everyone to learn that system in order to participate in the next story arc, and then go back to DnD when we were done with that job.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yep that was me. Again I was trying to recreate cosmic horror as I understood it from reading Lovecraft's work. I was not trying to recreate the CoC game. I've never felt that mechanic was particularly relevant for recreating what I've read of HPL.

I always thought SAN was one of the most dead-on mechanical particularizations of a genre trope that has ever appeared in RPGs. Lovecraft and Co are FILLED with scenes where characters are reduced to gibbering idiots or rendered utterly helpless by the sheer mind blowing experiences inherent in the mythos. I mean, I'm sure there are other ways to handle it than a discrete specific SAN attribute, but I liked that there was this feeling of inevitability, sooner or later you WOULD go mad, it is only a matter of time. Even a 99 SAN PC with a mind like a rock is living on borrowed time there (though he'll probably get eaten by something before he goes bonkers).

I suppose you could simply model it as increasingly acquiring quirks and phobias and whatnot until your character is useless, but the numerical approach is fun because it actually produces some good player motivations. "I'm closing my eyes and running away, while putting my fingers in my ears!" is a move I remember one PC making. The player's motive and decisions in this case meshing perfectly with what a character might do in such a situation.

It is interesting though that the new Ravenloft book will have Fear (mostly roleplay) and Stress (similar to CoC sanity mechanics) rules in it. I don't run a lot of horror, but I am curious about the simple approach WotC will undoubtedly take to these mechanics.

I would think that Fear is pretty much going back to the concept of 'morale' in D&D, plus various fear effects that have existed in most editions, and Stress is more than likely a borrowing of at least terminology if not mechanics from things like FitD. However, FitD stress is in some ways an analog of SAN in CoC.

 

[dave2008]

Perfect summary of what the OP had been doing.

I told the OP he was taking very "heads I win, tails you lose" positions in his arguments earlier in this thread. But your motte and bailey description is way better.

If you use this tactic, eventually you are going to contradict yourself.

And when people pointed out those contradictions using the OP's own quotes - he did not like it very much. Which is why myself and others made the OP's ignore list.

Except the poster noted they are using the narrower argument in the OP. They did not fall back to the bailey - they started there.

For reference:

What's more, I generally don't want to play a campaign of heists, or a campaign of city building, or a campaign of building a revolution. I want to use those elements within a larger campaign that features those things and more. When my Eberron group did a heist to keep a powerful artifact from being purchased by Emerald Claw terrorists, I stole mechanics and ideas from indie RPGs and from movies and tv shows. If it was a broadcast game, I'd have credited them in the show notes, but I certainly wasn't going to tell my group to remake their characters in Blades in The Dark, expect everyone to learn that system in order to participate in the next story arc, and then go back to DnD when we were done with that job.

So, for me, "you'd be better off playing a game that is made for that" usually rings hollow. What about you?

The OP's viewpoint from the beginning was the narrow perspective.

 

[dave2008]

I always thought SAN was one of the most dead-on mechanical particularizations of a genre trope that has ever appeared in RPGs. Lovecraft and Co are FILLED with scenes where characters are reduced to gibbering idiots or rendered utterly helpless by the sheer mind blowing experiences inherent in the mythos. I mean, I'm sure there are other ways to handle it than a discrete specific SAN attribute, but I liked that there was this feeling of inevitability, sooner or later you WOULD go mad, it is only a matter of time. Even a 99 SAN PC with a mind like a rock is living on borrowed time there (though he'll probably get eaten by something before he goes bonkers).

I suppose you could simply model it as increasingly acquiring quirks and phobias and whatnot until your character is useless, but the numerical approach is fun because it actually produces some good player motivations. "I'm closing my eyes and running away, while putting my fingers in my ears!" is a move I remember one PC making. The player's motive and decisions in this case meshing perfectly with what a character might do in such a situation.

I understand others don't see it my way, and that is OK. But that was not how I experienced HPL's stories and the least enjoyable part of CoC for me. I could have used a Sanity mechanic in my Cthulhu Horror, but it didn't do for me, what it apparently does for others.

I would think that Fear is pretty much going back to the concept of 'morale' in D&D, plus various fear effects that have existed in most editions, and Stress is more than likely a borrowing of at least terminology if not mechanics from things like FitD. However, FitD stress is in some ways an analog of SAN in CoC.

Fear replaces the quirks and bonds, IIRC, and it mostly a roleplay device. That requires player buy-in and with the right group can be very effective. That is not my group.

Stress is mechanic that on the surface sounds very similar to sanity points in other games. You have a number of sanity points that slowly gets worn away over time.

This is based on what i have read in some reviews, I have not seen the mechanics yet. I have to wait until tomorrow I guess!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think a big issue has been people saying they want to borrow genre bits for their game and other people assuming they want to change the genre of the whole game/campaign when that is not what the suggested.

However, I also think there are others who are completely fine with changing the genre and are simply confused that some cannot understand that. There are also those that have a different understanding of what constitutes a particular genre. I personally don't think sanity rules are important for cosmic horror, but several others seem too; my idea of low magic is not the same as @Hussar's;etc. I can change 5e to make it what I want in low magic, gritty realism, or cosmic horror fairly simply. It may not meet someone else's definitions of those genres and they may even dismissed as not 5e anymore, but to me and my group it is a 5e genre swap and that is all that really matters.

OK, but FOR ME, I don't see how 5e maps well to Mythos cosmic horror for instance. PCs are powerful competent adventuring 'heroes' in 5e. I mean, aside from being level 1-3 they are pretty potent, always have a lot of resources to call on, magic, etc. They aren't really easily going to feel threatened. Obviously you could just make all the Mythos horrors level 15+, but that just makes the problem worse, because the PCs won't really face them until THEY are up to high levels, at which point they are even less like a typical Mythos protagonist. Its also a bit hard to see how most/many PC class characters are going to be surprised and horrified by cosmic secrets when they are already wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, eldritch knights, etc. Mythos magic is very different in feel from D&D magic too.

I mean, I think you can do something that can be qualified as 'Cosmic Horror in D&D genre', but it will lack signature elements of classic CH genre material. OTOH it isn't like HPL is the last word in the genre. Even stuff that references the Mythos, like Laundry Files, does spin it a bit different in some respects (the Laundry Files protagonists are certainly a lot more competent and successful than any HPL character, though August Derleth did presage this sort of scenario a bit).

I guess I'm saying I have mixed feelings about what to even call it, and there are MANY systems I would base a Mythos game on long before I would pick 5e.