D&D General Hope and Fear In D&D

[Reynard]

On Wednesday, I ran a first session of my new monthly Daggerheart campaign. On Thursday I ran like the 30th session of my ongoing D&D 2024 campaign. One thing I really missed during the latter was Hope and Fear from Daggerheart. Not so much the metacurrency aspect, but the narrative informative aspect. This succeeded but with a complication. This failed but it presented an opportunity. Etc.

So I started to think about how to add that dimension to D&D. And really the easiest and most obvious thing to me would seem to be to determine "Hope" when a d20 roll comes up with an even result, and "Fear" when the die as an odd result. (For clarity, I mean the raw number on the die, not the total check result).

I don't really think it would be worth building a whole metacurrency system for this, or to implement it in the initiative system. If I were to do that, I would just change the campaign to run it with DH. But I do like informative dice, and I think non-binary results add something to play.

Have to implemented some sort of system that adds failures with opportunities or successes with complications? If so, what and how? Do you find that it improves D&D (especially 5E) play? If you tried it and it ended up not working or being worth the effort, what happened?

 

[GMMichael]

Have to implemented some sort of system that adds failures with opportunities or successes with complications? If so, what and how? Do you find that it improves D&D (especially 5E) play? If you tried it and it ended up not working or being worth the effort, what happened?

This is a natural consequence when you implement Pro and Con in place of Succeed and Fail. Rolled a Con? Fail with opportunity OR succeed with complication. Failing alone is just . . . not interesting.

 

[Parmandur]

On Wednesday, I ran a first session of my new monthly Daggerheart campaign. On Thursday I ran like the 30th session of my ongoing D&D 2024 campaign. One thing I really missed during the latter was Hope and Fear from Daggerheart. Not so much the metacurrency aspect, but the narrative informative aspect. This succeeded but with a complication. This failed but it presented an opportunity. Etc.

So I started to think about how to add that dimension to D&D. And really the easiest and most obvious thing to me would seem to be to determine "Hope" when a d20 roll comes up with an even result, and "Fear" when the die as an odd result. (For clarity, I mean the raw number on the die, not the total check result).

I don't really think it would be worth building a whole metacurrency system for this, or to implement it in the initiative system. If I were to do that, I would just change the campaign to run it with DH. But I do like informative dice, and I think non-binary results add something to play.

Have to implemented some sort of system that adds failures with opportunities or successes with complications? If so, what and how? Do you find that it improves D&D (especially 5E) play? If you tried it and it ended up not working or being worth the effort, what happened?

I would suggest a look at the Cosmere RPG Plot Die mechanic, because the Plot Die takes the 5E resolution mechanic and adds on Opportunity/Complication as a second axis that would be pretty easy to attach wholesale to D&D.

Essentially, if the DM calls for the Plot Die, the players rolls the d20 check as normal plus a d6 with 4 possible results:

• 33% chance nothing extra happens, straight success or failure
• 33% chance of an Opportunity, whether the d20 roll succeeds or fails something positive for the player happens too
• 16.5% chance of a Complication, with +2 to the d20 for succees or failure but either way something of a setback happens
• 16.5% chance of a Complication, with +4 to the d20 for succees or failure but either way something of a setback happens.

This could add that non-binary experience to standard 5E without needing to rebuild much of anything.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

They already have a DC, and the d20 result is already a matter of luck rather than character skill. I narrate based on how widely they beat or miss the DC. As a bonus there are substantial stretches of results where they can just sort of have a normal, unremarkable success or failure.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The simplest way to do it might be to replace the DM's d20 with this bad boy, which includes complications on the die result: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1085959696/the-fate-mill-d20-v2-a-d20-to-spark-your?bes=1

Obviously, you'd have to adjust things a bit for when a roll fails or succeeds based on DC levels.

 

[bedir than]

I'd lean into what D&D already does, and since ad/disad is frequent in 2024, use that --- but different.

Hope is when you roll with ad/disad and BOTH results are success
Fear is when you roll with ad/disad and BOTH results are failures

This could help generate more variety in success and failure if you don't want to do graduated results per @Benjamin Olson post

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'd lean into what D&D already does, and since ad/disad is frequent in 2024, use that --- but different.

Hope is when you roll with ad/disad and BOTH results are success
Fear is when you roll with ad/disad and BOTH results are failures

This could help generate more variety in success and failure if you don't want to do graduated results per @Benjamin Olson post

That's a really elegant approach.

 

[zakael19]

Let's see, DH has Crit, Full Success, Success with Complication, Failure with Momentum, and Failure with Complication. It's got a...3% higher chance to crit I think? Removing crits, the Hope/Fear outcomes are 50/50.

Could just roll a d6 split in half alongside the D20. 4/5/6, best outcome; 1/2/3, complicated outcome. Sell it to the players by saying that if they fail a skill check, on a 4+ the scene evolves in such a way that they might be able to recover?

 

[Parmandur]

Here is an example from he Stormlight Archives Handbook on how to handle the two dimensional Succes/Failure and Oppodtunoty/Complication with practical application, seems easy to add this to standard 5E or any other D20 game.

 

[Reynard]

They already have a DC, and the d20 result is already a matter of luck rather than character skill. I narrate based on how widely they beat or miss the DC. As a bonus there are substantial stretches of results where they can just sort of have a normal, unremarkable success or failure.

I personally don't like tying the complication-opportunity axis to the dice result total.