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

[loverdrive]

Could you give some details on how you used the rules? I gave a breakdown earlier in the thread I'd be interested in something similar from you... I'd really like to understand better, from a play perspective what went wrong when you used them.

I was there as a player, it was a delve into a mad wizard's tower, where he tried to summon otherworldly horrors.

Each time an eldrich horror appeared, the GM called for a sanity save. On a fail, a player rolled on madness table. I suspect the severity was tied to "powerfullness" of an eldrich horror, but I don't know that for sure.

The GM did a very cool job with descriptions and tension of not knowing what's lurking beyond reality and never being sure that the aberration we killed will stay dead, but madness rules didn't add anything to it, and one instance, where a fighter rolled naughty word-eating on a short-term table actively detracted from, well, horror.

Yep I created the rules for sanity, the charts I rolled on, the mechanics for madness... wait no I didn't.

Did these rules create the horror? Did you just threw'em into the game, followed them and got a cosmic horror game out of the box? Or did you put significant effort into doing horror and sometimes used the madness tables?

PtbA games like BitD, for example, in my experience, generally do not offer options, or offer a very narrow selection of them (Legacy: Life in the Ruins comes to mind). This is an honest question, btw, not trying to "catch you out", I'm just struggling to think of them.

I was going to start talking Blades again, but they were discussed to no end in this thread.

So I'm gonna go with Dungeon World. In Dungeon World, you have a lot of knobs to turn, and as long, as you follow Agenda, Principles, and making Moves that follow, the system will still work -- whether you're playing a fairy tale, or Conan, or LotR, or Warhammer, or even Shrek.

But with something like FATE, or SWADE, or SR or even various editions of Star Wars, you're likely going to need a lot more information to get a handle on how the game will actually be played. Or do you mean something different?

Using Fate is going to produce very Fate-esque games, no matter what kind of genre we're playing -- a game, where we focus on narrative and characters, said characters are dramatic and interesting and the players have a lot of control over what's happens on screen.

I haven't played a lot of games, but that was the same impression I had of CoC. The game didn't make it horror, the players and I (the GM) did.

Honestly, I can't think of how a TTRP can do horror through mechanics only. You really need group buy in. I mean, if my character dies or goes insane or looses a leg, so what. It is a piece of paper. You always need significant group buy-in to make horror work, not rules.

Well, yeah, because CoC sucks cocks. It has very good adventures, though.

As for creating horror through mechanics, Dread and Ten Candles do create tension with their mechanics alone, but that's not what I meant. What I meant is, did rules create a cosmic horror story?

Ok, to hell with Ctulu. If I was designing a stupid teenage slasher flick game, I'd create rules that guarantee that:
a) There's gonna be the Jock, the Bitch, the Nerd and the Virgin
b) You can run, but you can't hide
c) Everyone but the Virgin will die, no matter what
d) Sex = death

Can I run such a game without such rules? Sure. But then I'll be doing all the job at maintaining the genre and invoking tropes. But the system is either going to remain silent, or, worse, get in the way.

 

[dave2008]

I think this isn't obvious.

Here is the second paragraph of The Call of Cthulhu:

Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted at strange survivals in terms which would freeze the blood if not masked by a bland optimism. But it is not from them that there came the single glimpse of forbidden eons which chills me when I think of it and maddens me when I dream of it. That glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated things—in this case an old newspaper item and the notes of a dead professor. I hope that no one else will accomplish this piecing out; certainly, if I live, I shall never knowingly supply a link in so hideous a chain. I think that the professor, too intended to keep silent regarding the part he knew, and that he would have destroyed his notes had not sudden death seized him.​

And here is the second-last paragraph:

That was the document I read, and now I have placed it in the tin box beside the bas-relief and the papers of Professor Angell. With it shall go this record of mine—this test of my own sanity, wherein is pieced together that which I hope may never be pieced together again. I have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me. But I do not think my life will be long. As my uncle went, as poor Johansen went, so I shall go. I know too much, and the cult still lives.​

This is someone who is noticeably worse off, in my view.

I agree, he is justifiably paranoid (I mentioned that in another post). The point to me is he has evidence that cultist will track you down and kill you. He has a concrete reason to fear for his life. It is not the knowledge itself that is a threat, it is the fact the cultist will kill him because he has this knowledge. However, I can see it being understood differently.

These paragraphs are from the closing pages of At the Mountains of Madness:

If the sculptured maps and pictures in that prehuman city had told truly, these cryptic violet mountains could not be much less than three hundred miles away; yet none the less sharply did their dim elfin essence appear above that remote and snowy rim, like the serrated edge of a monstrous alien planet about to rise into unaccustomed heavens. Their height, then, must have been tremendous beyond all comparison—carrying them up into tenuous atmospheric strata peopled only by such gaseous wraiths as rash flyers have barely lived to whisper of after unexplainable falls. Looking at them, I thought nervously of certain sculptured hints of what the great bygone river had washed down into the city from their accursed slopes—and wondered how much sense and how much folly had lain in the fears of those Old Ones who carved them so reticently. I recalled how their northerly end must come near the coast at Queen Mary Land, where even at that moment Sir Douglas Mawson's expedition was doubtless working less than a thousand miles away; and hoped that no evil fate would give Sir Douglas and his men a glimpse of what might lie beyond the protecting coastal range. Such thoughts formed a measure of my overwrought condition at the time—and Danforth seemed to be even worse. . . .​

​

Danforth, released from his piloting and keyed up to a dangerous nervous pitch, could not keep quiet. I felt him turning and wriggling about as he looked back at the terrible receding city, ahead at the cave-riddled, cube-barnacled peaks, sidewise at the bleak sea of snowy, rampart-strewn foothills, and upward at the seething, grotesquely clouded sky. It was then, just as I was trying to steer safely through the pass, that his mad shrieking brought us so close to disaster by shattering my tight hold on myself and causing me to fumble helplessly with the controls for a moment. A second afterward my resolution triumphed and we made the crossing safely—yet I am afraid that Danforth will never be the same again.​

​

I have said that Danforth refused to tell me what final horror made him scream out so insanely—a horror which, I feel sadly sure, is mainly responsible for his present breakdown. We had snatches of shouted conversation above the wind's piping and the engine's buzzing as we reached the safe side of the range and swooped slowly down toward the camp, but that had mostly to do with the pledges of secrecy we had made as we prepared to leave the nightmare city. Certain things, we had agreed, were not for people to know and discuss lightly—and I would not speak of them now but for the need of heading off that Starkweather-Moore Expedition, and others, at any cost. It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.​

While it is Danforth and not the narrator who goes mad, the narrator is clearly disturbed. And seems to think that he is worse off for his knowledge, which he shares only to head off the new expedition.

There is a consistent theme of being "damaged" by knowledge that reveals some horrible truth about human history and culture and its relationship to the universe as it really is.

I agree, I just think a sanity mechanic it a bad method to reflect that type of damage. It feels hollow in play (to me and my group at least). We prefer to take it upon ourselves to roleplay that type of "damage" mostly.

Again, we are playing the narrator, not Danforth. The narrator went the same places as Danforth and I agree he was disturbed, not debilitated, and that effect and the knowledge he gained on the expedition actually helped him to warn others - don't go! That is a positive IMO.

It is all an issue of perspective really. Do you see the glass half empty or half full or both or neither

 

[dave2008]

I think at this point it just becomes a Sanity point loss system. Truth at this point I'm seeing a alot of broad, preference statements about the madness rules (I don't like this particular madness result) which is cool but nothing that seems wrong with the actual mechanics of it.

Agreed.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, fair enough. Yeah, I would actually agree that no-win isn't quite the right characterization. Mythos characters "win" in the sense that Cthulhu doesn't come out of the sea and destroy the Eastern seaboard. Or they stop whatever is about to happen. So, in that sense, they "win".

What they don't do is win at no cost. They always lose something in the process, as you nicely point out. And, again, I would say that it's a pretty essential element of Mythos stories and especially games based on them, that your character will always, in the long run, lose. Or, to put it another way, if you played a year long, weekly campaign in a Mythos setting (regardless of system), and your character isn't a twisted wreck, drooling in the corner, you're doing something wrong.

Just a note: this is true of Lovecraft's stories; other writers playing in that pond have been different, even while Lovecraft was still alive.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thanks! If that is the case I don't remember it well enough! When did that happen? I don't remember anyone going insane from simple reading the history. I thought some people where distrubed by the mutilation caused by the elder thing or possible the shogoth, but I couldn't remember clearly if it they truly went "insane." I.e. I think the insanity was less a cosmic knowledge horror and more body horror / threat induce psychotic break. But again I don't really remember clearly.

CoC doesn't actually distinguish. Anything traumatic is potentially worth some SAN loss. That being said, the losses for fairly mundane 'icky' stuff are not incredibly severe. A normal human with a sound mind (lets call that 50 SAN) would, for example, when unexpectedly encountering a mutilated dead body make a SAN check, at say 0/1d6 or something like that, maybe even less if the situation is not too trying. That means 0 SAN loss on a success (IE rolling under your current SAN), and 1d6 points if you fail. A loss of some amount, I'd have to go back and check the rules, but it is something like 10% can induce temporary insanity. Temporary insanity is somewhat debilitating and can require treatment (counseling, institutionalization, medication) but the character recovers after some down time.

Honestly, its a crude model of ACTUAL mental trauma, but no worse than hit points is a model of physical trauma. If you have been acquainted with service people who have experienced combat, etc. you might recognize some truth to the idea that bad stuff takes a mental toll, and ENOUGH bad stuff can break people. I'm not so sure that the '0 SAN you are gone forever' rule is very realistic, nor that the actual EFFECTS of mental trauma in CoC are super accurate, but it still captures some of the reality of the thing in a highly gamist fashion that is playable, follows genre logic, and isn't so far out there that it cannot be swallowed for purposes of play. Obviously you could probably include additional realism in the model, but I'm not sure how that would make it a better game.

As for any other Mythos games, I cannot really say, as I haven't played them. Perhaps they have improved on this. All/most of them AFAIK do have some sort of mechanic that models the mental effects of the Mythos.

 

[Imaro]

I was there as a player, it was a delve into a mad wizard's tower, where he tried to summon otherworldly horrors.

Each time an eldrich horror appeared, the GM called for a sanity save. On a fail, a player rolled on madness table. I suspect the severity was tied to "powerfullness" of an eldrich horror, but I don't know that for sure.

The GM did a very cool job with descriptions and tension of not knowing what's lurking beyond reality and never being sure that the aberration we killed will stay dead, but madness rules didn't add anything to it, and one instance, where a fighter rolled naughty word-eating on a short-term table actively detracted from, well, horror.

See my players would have been disgusted by this... it would have invoked horror in its grotequeness. But I also would have buy in that we are doing horror from my players. Honestly I have had this problem with another game... Shadow of the Demon Lord which outside of it's gross out horror/humor elements is a really good horror game... the game made me realize that how something is described and/or roleplayed is key to setting mood and theme.

I'm curious why is someone eating feces (or dirt or slime which are also suggestions) came off...funny to your group as opposed to weird, alien or grotesque. Did the rules make it funny, and if so how?

Did these rules create the horror? Did you just threw'em into the game, followed them and got a cosmic horror game out of the box? Or did you put significant effort into doing horror and sometimes used the madness tables?

Yes... my players feared loosing sanity, and madness was looked at as something strange, detrimental to their characters and the world as a whole...to be avoided if possible but again learning about the Stygia and what it is and how to combat it lead to more chances of insanity and madness... It was a cycle I and my players felt was very reminiscent of Cuthulu-esque horror

 

[dave2008]

As for creating horror through mechanics, Dread and Ten Candles do create tension with their mechanics alone, but that's not what I meant. What I meant is, did rules create a cosmic horror story?

Ok, to hell with Ctulu. If I was designing a stupid teenage slasher flick game, I'd create rules that guarantee that:
a) There's gonna be the Jock, the Bitch, the Nerd and the Virgin
b) You can run, but you can't hide
c) Everyone but the Virgin will die, no matter what
d) Sex = death

Can I run such a game without such rules? Sure. But then I'll be doing all the job at maintaining the genre and invoking tropes. But the system is either going to remain silent, or, worse, get in the way.

OK, I do not want such specific and constraining rules in the games I play. What you are really asking for is rules for one type of slasher film and I would prefer rules that accommodate many types of slasher fills. Or better yet, few rules and mostly just guidance.

I game so tailed for Cosmic Horror is likely to miss the mark for me (and others) because, as this thread has shown, different people have different ideas on what makes Cosmic Horror, or Slasher horror, or whatever genre. And mostly I don't want rules to create a particular genre story. I want the freedom to make my stories in a particular genre.

 

[dave2008]

CoC doesn't actually distinguish. Anything traumatic is potentially worth some SAN loss. That being said, the losses for fairly mundane 'icky' stuff are not incredibly severe. A normal human with a sound mind (lets call that 50 SAN) would, for example, when unexpectedly encountering a mutilated dead body make a SAN check, at say 0/1d6 or something like that, maybe even less if the situation is not too trying. That means 0 SAN loss on a success (IE rolling under your current SAN), and 1d6 points if you fail. A loss of some amount, I'd have to go back and check the rules, but it is something like 10% can induce temporary insanity. Temporary insanity is somewhat debilitating and can require treatment (counseling, institutionalization, medication) but the character recovers after some down time.

Honestly, its a crude model of ACTUAL mental trauma, but no worse than hit points is a model of physical trauma. If you have been acquainted with service people who have experienced combat, etc. you might recognize some truth to the idea that bad stuff takes a mental toll, and ENOUGH bad stuff can break people. I'm not so sure that the '0 SAN you are gone forever' rule is very realistic, nor that the actual EFFECTS of mental trauma in CoC are super accurate, but it still captures some of the reality of the thing in a highly gamist fashion that is playable, follows genre logic, and isn't so far out there that it cannot be swallowed for purposes of play. Obviously you could probably include additional realism in the model, but I'm not sure how that would make it a better game.

As for any other Mythos games, I cannot really say, as I haven't played them. Perhaps they have improved on this. All/most of them AFAIK do have some sort of mechanic that models the mental effects of the Mythos.

It was back in the 80s when I played CoC, I don't know if the rules were the same. I just remember we didn't like the sanity rules.

 

[prabe]

CoC doesn't actually distinguish. Anything traumatic is potentially worth some SAN loss. That being said, the losses for fairly mundane 'icky' stuff are not incredibly severe. A normal human with a sound mind (lets call that 50 SAN) would, for example, when unexpectedly encountering a mutilated dead body make a SAN check, at say 0/1d6 or something like that, maybe even less if the situation is not too trying. That means 0 SAN loss on a success (IE rolling under your current SAN), and 1d6 points if you fail. A loss of some amount, I'd have to go back and check the rules, but it is something like 10% can induce temporary insanity. Temporary insanity is somewhat debilitating and can require treatment (counseling, institutionalization, medication) but the character recovers after some down time.

Honestly, its a crude model of ACTUAL mental trauma, but no worse than hit points is a model of physical trauma. If you have been acquainted with service people who have experienced combat, etc. you might recognize some truth to the idea that bad stuff takes a mental toll, and ENOUGH bad stuff can break people. I'm not so sure that the '0 SAN you are gone forever' rule is very realistic, nor that the actual EFFECTS of mental trauma in CoC are super accurate, but it still captures some of the reality of the thing in a highly gamist fashion that is playable, follows genre logic, and isn't so far out there that it cannot be swallowed for purposes of play. Obviously you could probably include additional realism in the model, but I'm not sure how that would make it a better game.

As for any other Mythos games, I cannot really say, as I haven't played them. Perhaps they have improved on this. All/most of them AFAIK do have some sort of mechanic that models the mental effects of the Mythos.

I was just reading about Delta Green's approach, and it seems as though A) one keeps track of what the source of mental trauma is (though there aren't multiple tracks a la Unknown Armies) and B) one has ties/connections/bonds that one can sacrifice to mitigate the effects. This at least seems like a minor improvement. It does mean that your connections can be damaged or broken by your exposure to horrific things, but that seems both a little more realistic and a little more engaging for RP.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I was going to start talking Blades again, but they were discussed to no end in this thread.

So I'm gonna go with Dungeon World. In Dungeon World, you have a lot of knobs to turn, and as long, as you follow Agenda, Principles, and making Moves that follow, the system will still work -- whether you're playing a fairy tale, or Conan, or LotR, or Warhammer, or even Shrek.

Yeah I'm extremely familiar with Dungeon World but I think I'm being dim. What/where are the knobs? It seems to me that DW would be pretty bad at supporting LotR, for example, because the classes/monsters/moves don't align at all well with that vibe, whereas Conan would be absolutely fine, as would a Shrek-esque fairy tale (which is perilously close to D&D anyway - the first D&D adventure I wrote was based on an episode of The Gummi Bears...). Warhammer would be fine as long as you didn't want it to be old-skool WHFRP-style (i.e. "You are a gravedigger, you own rags and a shovel, you die in the first combat you get into"), and the characters were the equivalent to inquisitors, knights, low-end wizards, assorted elfs and so on.

So if you're saying "DW runs a broad swathe of D&D-esque fantasy", sure, but even with the players and DM trying to make only LotR-esque moves (which is already slightly frown-inducing), the mechanics of the game are going to make it well, play out more like the movie version of The Hobbit (and not in a good way).

LotR really feels like it would be it's own separate hack, possibly not even based on DW.

Indeed I thought I recalled one and there is one and it's even on my DriveThru RPG wishlist lol: Fellowship 2nd Edition - A Tabletop Adventure Game - Liberi Gothica Games | Fellowship Playbooks | DriveThruRPG.com

To me DW is consciously (and highly successfully) trying to emulate D&D and D&D-isms, which means using it for other things, with the best will in the world, doesn't work great.

But maybe I'm profoundly missing something.

Using Fate is going to produce very Fate-esque games, no matter what kind of genre we're playing -- a game, where we focus on narrative and characters, said characters are dramatic and interesting and the players have a lot of control over what's happens on screen.

Yup and I think it relies on the players to very much support that, which not every player is great at (there's maybe a whole separate discussion about the ease of procuring players who are able to play in different styles).

But my point was that FATE does offer actual knobs/tools for genre emulation, whereas broadly speaking, PtbA games don't. Rather each PtbA game tightly customized to a specific genre. Even one that seems superficially close to what you want may prove unsuitable because a major mechanic may revolve around something that isn't going to work in the scenario you want. This is an actual downside to PtbA's approach. I have several perma-shelved PtbA games becauses they're cool, and I got them because I thought they'd work, but in fact they had some particular major mechanic which wasn't right for what we wanted to do.