D&D General Help Me Build the D&D Game I Want to Run

[Reynard]

Fair enough, no two games are the same.

Just for the record I still appreciate your input. I didn't do a very good job of communicating my meaning, which was to say that not all that applied to my game but it's worth talking about. I shouldn't post when both tired and hurried.

 

[Flamestrike]

Thanks. A lot of that is good advice but there's also some suggestions that don't seem oriented to some of my desired outcomes. That's okay. I think there's a lot others might take from it. But I don't guess you are quite running the game I am looking to build.

Gritty realism rest variant (allow exhaustion levels back on an overnight short rest) does most of what you want it to do out the box.

Implement a rule by which if you are reduced to 0 HP, but not killed outright, you can choose to remain on 1 HP but suffer a 'lingering injury' from the DMG. Only usable 1/ short rest.

Being raised from the dead permanently reduces Con by 2, unless it's the Greater version. In order for the spell to be successful you must succeed in a 'System shock/ Survival' check (A Con ability check, with a DC of 5). Interestingly a DC of 5 gives roughly the same % chance of surviving Resurrection as you had in AD&D. Greater Raise dead gives advantage on this check.

You are killed outright if damage drops you to 0 HP and there is enough damage left over higher than your Con score.

For low magic, either ban outright casters, or ban 'flashy' schools of magic (maybe they're learnable but come with a cost? Maybe a level of exhaustion to cast one?). Evocation, Conjuration and Transmutation should be banned. Illusion, Divination and Abjuration are generally OK. Necromancy is iffy.

 

[Reynard]

I would just say that you should check with the players to get them on board. If they are expecting one thing and you nerf everything they are expecting, then the game will suck to them, even if it is great to you.

Yeah, the idea is to build a house/ground rules document for the Pitch to go along with the setting/background doc. Once I have all the pieces in place, obviously.

 

[Reynard]

Will the game be human-centric or is it “anything goes” with 5E’s myriad races? XP for gold and exploration or 5E’s default fight fight fight? (Then I’ll have more suggestion).

My knee jerk preference is humans only but that may soften depending on how the setting development goes.

 

[Reynard]

Gritty realism rest variant (allow exhaustion levels back on an overnight short rest) does most of what you want it to do out the box.

Implement a rule by which if you are reduced to 0 HP, but not killed outright, you can choose to remain on 1 HP but suffer a 'lingering injury' from the DMG. Only usable 1/ short rest.

Being raised from the dead permanently reduces Con by 2, unless it's the Greater version. In order for the spell to be successful you must succeed in a 'System shock/ Survival' check (A Con ability check, with a DC of 5). Interestingly a DC of 5 gives roughly the same % chance of surviving Resurrection as you had in AD&D. Greater Raise dead gives advantage on this check.

You are killed outright if damage drops you to 0 HP and there is enough damage left over higher than your Con score.

For low magic, either ban outright casters, or ban 'flashy' schools of magic (maybe they're learnable but come with a cost? Maybe a level of exhaustion to cast one?). Evocation, Conjuration and Transmutation should be banned. Illusion, Divination and Abjuration are generally OK. Necromancy is iffy.

I definitely plan to use long rests and probably slow healing. There won't be any resurrection magic, more because I don't like what it implies in the setting, and I plan to do some serious curating of the spell lists. I'm actually less concerned about "flashy" magic than I am magic that makes carrying rations and torches obsolete. The things that make both overland travel and dungeon crawling a fun challenge are very easy to disrupt with common magic in 5e.

 

[Flamestrike]

I definitely plan to use long rests and probably slow healing.

There isnt really a need to slow down healing once you're on Gritty realism. The PCs need literally a full week of light activities (or better yet, bedrest) to heal Hit Points back (and recover half hit dice).

Healing magic will be used a lot less as well, seeing as you need a full week to get those precious slots back.

 

[Coroc]

This is somewhat related to my recent "Let's Talk About Chapter 9 of the DMG" thread, and informed by a recent playtest I did of Five Torches Deep (which is an OSRification of 5e). Going back and forth and thinking about things, what I decided is that I want to create the game I want to run out of 5e using optional rules, house rules, 3rd part supplements and bits and bobs from other games.

So first, let me describe the game I want to run:

The aesthetic is relatively gritty and "realistic" in the sense that Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings or Abercrombie's worlds are: people need to eat, they get tired, wounds hurt and while fantastical elements exist and may even be prominent and powerful, they aren't common.

The play loop I want is a cycle of: wilderness exploration to the adventuring sight (moderate peril); exploration and problem solving at the adventuring site (high peril); return to the relative safety of civilization where character development and interaction with the world takes precedence (low peril). I use the term "peril" because I don't necessarily mean "deadliness" although that might be included; it is more about lasting negative consequences, from injury to disease to magic curses to losing what one cares about.

Although this main loop is episodic, it should support characters growing over time, discovering more, exploring farther and gaining competence, without necessarily significantly transforming over time (becoming superheroes).Long term stories should emerge from this sort of play and be largely informed by the interactions in civilization based on events that occurred out in the wild or in the dungeons.

Now, I know some folks are going to say "Use something besides 5E" and that is a totally fine suggestion, except that I WANT to use a modified 5E for this. I think Zweihander is likely a good fit for all the above, but I don't want to have to learn and master a whole new system and have to convince players to do the same (not to mention the monetary cost of everyone coming on board for a new game).

So, with all the above presented, what comes to mind for optional rules, house rules, bits stolen from other games, etc... to get 5E where I want it to be?

Thanks.

Use something besides 5e like DSA (The black eye) it is perfect for your intentions.

Nah, pun aside, you got a noble goal here, so how does one realize this with 5e?
You want to add grittiness depending on location. 5e s most cruel RAW mechanic imho is the exhaustion mechanic. Also still RAW: Use 8hour short rests and Weekend-at-the-inn long rest. Dwindling resources can add much grittiness I promise you.

What most people miss from GoT is not only the rarity of magic although very mighty magic does exist and also not the "grittiness" in form of very violent scenes and much cruelty going on, no it is rather - you will surely agree - the excessive "roleplaying" going on. So here you got another hook especially since you mentioned the story aspect:

Make the roleplaying parts of the adventure count! Put a secret favor marker with 3 to five steps on your NPCs and factions, something like enemy/hated/neutral/liked/friend. Whenever one of your players interacts, alter the status if applicable e.g. if social skill checks have extraordinary die results or if the roleplaying of your PCs would cause a NPCs reaction to shift.

What I do not recommend because imho it is a pointless bloat, is to use all sorts of grittiness system.
5e s major buff/debuff is advantage/disadvantage. The system unbalances very quick if you add on top of that, e,g, you decide to give a player a -5 AND disadvantage because he has got some injury, then every one on one could turn out deadly. If I were a player in that situation, I would abandon all save the world plans until healed up again.

Sop put the grittiness into RP and descriptions, use the exhaustion mechanic to punish the players and inhibit long rests outside of civilized areas and you should be fine.

 

[Lanefan]

I definitely plan to use long rests and probably slow healing. There won't be any resurrection magic, more because I don't like what it implies in the setting, and I plan to do some serious curating of the spell lists.

I wouldn't be on board with this one, if only because if the game's going to be potentially more lethal (which despite any best attempts it would appear that it will be) then revival magic ought to be on the table somewhere.

I'm actually less concerned about "flashy" magic than I am magic that makes carrying rations and torches obsolete. The things that make both overland travel and dungeon crawling a fun challenge are very easy to disrupt with common magic in 5e.

Now here you're bang on!

Everyone picks on the blast mages when looking to rein magic in because they an easy target, but it's the utility mages who step on everyone else's toes.

As for things that get around carrying rations and torches, it depends on whether you're planning on running long underground dungeon crawls (particularly if there's no access to a resupply point) as to whether there needs to be a workaround for torches or lanterns; because if they run out in mid dungeon the whole thing will grind to a halt.

For rations, maybe restrict any food creation spell such that it only gives enough to feed the caster for a day and won't help anyone else at all.

On a broader scale, one thing you'll probably want to get your players to buy into up front is a generally slower pace of play; where tracking resources, mapping, information gathering and so on gain more focus (and thus take more time) than in what seems like a more typical group today.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Here are the things I think you are going to need to do to get this game to work the way you want it:

First... only have four players. Any more than that gives you rising numbers of hit points and abilities and class features that exponentially add to the group's survivability. More players, more targets, more hit points, more curative magic. Don't let that happen. Stick with four.

Second... go Basic Rules only and curate the cleric's and wizard's spell lists. With only four players you can go Core Four and have a better chance of classes not synergizing with each other to make the PC's functionality get too good. And if you curate the two spell lists... you can remove from them the spells that eliminate the challenges that come from exploration as well as removing negative status effects. Now granted... by not allowing rangers, druids, and paladins you will already be removing spells and features from the game that help with those things (no more immunity from disease from Lay on Hands, no more food from Goodberry, no more "can't get lost" from Natural Explorer etc.), but there are still things in the spell lists that can remove those challenges (Lesser Restoration, I'm looking at you!) Do it.

Third... if you ignore Rule #1 above and decide to have more players than four, then for goodness sake DO NOT give PCs hit points for leveling up. They get their HP totals for 1st level and that is all they are going to get. Ever! No more hit points unless their CON score/modifier raises through ASIs or magic items. People have and will throw out all the different ways to do "gritty" via changing rests times, changing hit dice spending/recovery, adding exhaustion etc. etc. I've done all of them, and I can tell you... when you have 6 or more players none of them work! When your table is too big, the pool of hit points you as DM have to go through to challenge them is too large, and the amount of actions the PCs have to heal each other, rescure each other, and stabilize each other during combat makes any other "gritty" rules pretty much useless. So instead... the only way I've found to really make things gritty for a table of 6 or more players is to drastically reduce the number of hit points they each have. If each of them only has 8 to 12 hit points for an entire day (plus healing, short rests and spells that grant THP), it makes them think about challenges differently. They don't have the stamina to just keep going, they have to find shelter. You also get the bonus of being able to use cool solo monsters of only around CR 5 or so and have them actually be a challenge to the group. Now, you'll probably still end up with the 5 Minute Work Day... but it won't be because of the casters going nova... it'll be from everybody getting their asses kicked after facing off against a half-dozen goblins. That is a GOOD thing, in my opinion. But in truth... just go with Rule #1 instead and not have to worry so much about it.

 

[aco175]

Third... if you ignore Rule #1 above and decide to have more players than four, then for goodness sake DO NOT give PCs hit points for leveling up. They get their HP totals for 1st level and that is all they are going to get.

I kind of like this. I'm a bit soft so I may give the PCs 4e hit points where they add their Con score at first level to give everyone 20-30HP. Maybe add 1 per level as well. This way they can eventually fight a dragon when they reach 10th level.