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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8085209" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I think it depends on the rules that are being changed, and the desired or expected effect. For instance, my 5E group adopted the initiative method that was used in the Star Trek Adventures game by Modiphius. There's no initiative roll, instead each side in a conflict alternates, and the members of that side decide who goes on each of their turns. Each person on one side must act before someone can act again. Once everyone on each side has gone, the round is complete. We've found this easier than tracking standard initiative, and it also has the added effect of keeping everyone engaged when it's not their turn. They're all paying attention and actively considering when it would be most advantageous to act, and so on. Instead of simply sitting back and waiting for the DM to prompt them. It also really enhances what can be done with teamwork and planning. It allows for some different strategies than a strictly queued initiative order allows. It has a few odd effects when it comes to the timing of things that last "till the end of your next turn" and the like, but these aren't so significant, and also factors in to the decision of when a PC may go. So for us, it works well. I'm sure there would be other groups that look at this and can rip it apart with reasons that it wouldn't work for them. It will always be the case in these kinds of matters. That's for a specific rule. When we instead start to look at approaches of play, it's just as possible to alter things to suit a preference.I'm a big fan of Blades in the Dark, which eschews almost all of the standard prep assumed by D&D. There are no stats for enemies, location details are sketched at start and then fleshed out in play, PCs are more able to learn information as a result of action declarations, the GM is more constrained in how they determine the "facts" of the world. This has flavored my approach to 5E D&D in that I don't commit to a lot of prep. I tend to sketch a list of possible bullet points of what may happen in a session based on what's gone before, and not much further out. The players are driving the fiction by deciding what they want their goals to be, and these are largely based on their own ideas rather than accepting hooks that I've thrown out into the game. Not to say I don't add some hooks for them, but it's very far from the main way that play proceeds. D&D won't work without stats, so obviously that's not something I've carried over whole cloth. But I've let go of the way I would cling to NPCs....usually "important" villains.....and instead I just let things play out as they will. I don't steer the results of action except with a mind to challenge the PCs in interesting and hopefully meaningful ways. As a result, my 5E game plays very differently than standard D&D would. So much so that we've placed the game on hiatus during the pandemic because it simply doesn't work the way we want it to online. Online play requires far too much prep in advance to allow for the flexibility we want.</blockquote>

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