Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Fun & Engaging House Rules
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7299961" data-attributes="member: 20323"><p>Thanks, I do have a pretty clear DMing style. It may look like extensive house ruling, but in actuality it's mostly tweaks done behind the DM screen that players are none the wiser about.</p><p></p><p>So they actually are "soft" or "invisible" changes (for the most part) that end up giving a certain feel to the game...though I'm hard-pressed to pin down that feel to a concise sentence. </p><p></p><p>I get why you ask about 13th Age – minion groups and all – but I didn't care much for that system as it retained the abstracted powers of 4th edition that I noticed contributed to my players' hyper-focus on mechanics at the cost of description & role-playing.</p><p></p><p>I've tried and enjoyed several other systems including all editions of D&D, True20, Pathfinder, 13th Age, Dungeon World, Beyond the Wall, and several other OSR games. And I've found elements I appreciate in all of them. For instance... </p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">True20's power system is fantastic at modeling magic in fantasy literature. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Pathfinder lets you customize your PC to the Nth degree, creating just the character you want. But there's way too many fiddly modifiers and abilities with uses/day to track, and the system suffers from spellcaster dominance much like 3e/3.5e.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">13th Age brilliantly incorporates the Icons into each character's background, and has several cool innovations or adaptations from others games like "minion groups" and "one unique thing." However, it retains artifacts of 4e that abstract key play elements, creating a narrative dissonance.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dungeon World is great at incorporating degrees of success/failure into checks, and making those meaningful in the narrative. However, there is bit of a learning curve and lots of unnecessary lingo that Dungeon World uniquely uses.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Beyond the Wall has brilliantly streamlined yet evocative character classes, highly useful playbooks, and magic that feels more magical and folkloric than most D&D clones. But it retains many OSR quirks that feel nonsensical to many newer gamers such as saves vs. poison, death, spells, etc.</li> </ul><p></p><p>5e comes pretty darn close to perfection for me, probably because my fondest memories are of games I played in or ran during the AD&D era, as 5e harkens strongly back to AD&D. I recall making many changes behind the scenes of my 4e games, and my AD&D games certainly had tons of house-ruling (which was the norm at the time), so it's not unique to 5e for me to be implementing house rules.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 7299961, member: 20323"] Thanks, I do have a pretty clear DMing style. It may look like extensive house ruling, but in actuality it's mostly tweaks done behind the DM screen that players are none the wiser about. So they actually are "soft" or "invisible" changes (for the most part) that end up giving a certain feel to the game...though I'm hard-pressed to pin down that feel to a concise sentence. I get why you ask about 13th Age – minion groups and all – but I didn't care much for that system as it retained the abstracted powers of 4th edition that I noticed contributed to my players' hyper-focus on mechanics at the cost of description & role-playing. I've tried and enjoyed several other systems including all editions of D&D, True20, Pathfinder, 13th Age, Dungeon World, Beyond the Wall, and several other OSR games. And I've found elements I appreciate in all of them. For instance... [list][*]True20's power system is fantastic at modeling magic in fantasy literature. [*]Pathfinder lets you customize your PC to the Nth degree, creating just the character you want. But there's way too many fiddly modifiers and abilities with uses/day to track, and the system suffers from spellcaster dominance much like 3e/3.5e. [*]13th Age brilliantly incorporates the Icons into each character's background, and has several cool innovations or adaptations from others games like "minion groups" and "one unique thing." However, it retains artifacts of 4e that abstract key play elements, creating a narrative dissonance. [*]Dungeon World is great at incorporating degrees of success/failure into checks, and making those meaningful in the narrative. However, there is bit of a learning curve and lots of unnecessary lingo that Dungeon World uniquely uses. [*]Beyond the Wall has brilliantly streamlined yet evocative character classes, highly useful playbooks, and magic that feels more magical and folkloric than most D&D clones. But it retains many OSR quirks that feel nonsensical to many newer gamers such as saves vs. poison, death, spells, etc.[/list] 5e comes pretty darn close to perfection for me, probably because my fondest memories are of games I played in or ran during the AD&D era, as 5e harkens strongly back to AD&D. I recall making many changes behind the scenes of my 4e games, and my AD&D games certainly had tons of house-ruling (which was the norm at the time), so it's not unique to 5e for me to be implementing house rules. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Fun & Engaging House Rules
Top