Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aluvial" data-source="post: 5527205" data-attributes="member: 6862">But I get the OP's intentions.  He wants something more realistic, in terms of the D&D multiverse...  which is a tall order.  But I get the "more real" aspect of what he is shooting for.  He doesn't want to play game X, he wants a realistic D&D game.  I agree that is tough to produce without a few (or more than a few) house rules.  But I don't really like games that follow the RAW to the letter; I have to tinker with them.   Changing the rules to suit your style is just good being a good DM.  You want a particular world, you are putting the bulk of the time into it, and you can have the rules reflect whatever you want your world to be.  I don't have players who spend time outside of the game on game things (yet I have players who have been coming to the same table, every week, for over 20 years) like I spend on designing the world that they are in.  If you want it this way, then that's a good way to make it.  The players will bend to the system that you set for them because they want to see what you can do. The OP wants a "realistic" world.  I like that too.  Sure, realism immediately deflates in a world with just one, say mind flayer, in it, but "realism" to me, means something a bit more difficult than the average D&D rules.  You can adopt rules that make the average person, well... less than the normal average. Here's the other thing.  Roll the characters up this way... if you are striving for realism and the problem is that they are steamrolling the challenges (I think that might be what you are worried about)... then just up the challenges a level.  Your group is ECL 6, so you start by throwing 7's at them.  They are walking over those... then give them 8's.  Don't give them credit for 7's and 8's, give them credit for 6's.  Eventually, you up the challenges until you kill someone.  That's a good thing.   Always kill a charcter before they hit 4th level.  I like killing a guy at 3rd level.  Then, he's not too far behind the others when they roll up a guy one level lower then the party average (that's how I handle that).  Hell, kill the whole group... but then just story it away later...  That is D&D realism.  The fact that there is Wish in the game just means to me that anything in a D&D world is possible, you just have to accept that realism for D&D is death for the PC's.  PC's should die more often.  For whatever reason, my 3.x games don't result in much death.  Not nearly as much as my 2nd edition games did.  I never really noticed until I looked at game reports that I wrote 10 years ago (still playing 2nd for a bit before we moved over kicking and screaming into 3rd).  I was killing guys weekly back then. Try this.  Overchallenge the party.  Kill them.  Then have them roll up new characters with an even tougher rule set.  They whine.  That's ok.  Then have the newest batch meet the old batch (who are still alive for whatever reason).  Perhaps they were all raised by the BBEG and have even regained the level back.  The new group rescues the old group.  Then ask them.  Which character do you want to play?  Your old guy (with a sligtly more favorable rule set) or their new guy (with your even more realistic (meaning tougher) creation rules)?  Maybe you'll be surprised.   I see "realism" as PC death.  Kill a few PC and the players will think your world is more "real" too.  Monsters should eat PC's.  If a world with magic and monsters doesn't have a high death count, then something is a bit wrong.  Always describe death as close as you can to real world approximations as you can.  A character who is bleeding to death (house rules of some kind) because his arm has been torn from its socket, should die.  What good is a death trap if it doesn't kill something?   Am I ranting on and on?  Hmmm, maybe somebody will read this... Aluvial</blockquote>

Verification