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Narrative/Novel D&D...ND&D. Imagine if the game played just like the D&D novels?
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<blockquote data-quote="Travis Henry" data-source="post: 7622244" data-attributes="member: 6985696"><p>Okay. Now I feel heard. Thank you Arilyn, LordE, and to the others who responded. And to Bobble and LordE for the laughs. (What's wrong with Kindergarten Storytime: The RPG? haha)</p><p></p><p>I admit I hadn't thought it all through from start. And even my own parameters have continued to shift. I do believe a very fun game could be made along the lines I'm envisioning. And that even with a "novellic" or "cinematic" system, a sweet spot could be reached which made space for a resourceful DM to improvise in response to player agency.</p><p></p><p>My initial post was fueled by four legitimate desires:</p><p></p><p>1) <strong>For the battles to be a lot quicker, yet still satisfying. And for stories/adventures to be completed in one or two sessions...including "bigger" novellic stories (not just a small dungeon crawl). </strong>I was struck by how long it takes (in Real Time) for us to run a battle in 5E versus how quick (and satisfying) the battle scenes pass in the Icewind Dale novels. AFAIR, back when I DMed BECMI, the fights and adventures were significantly quicker too.</p><p></p><p>(Along these lines, posters offered good suggestions: best practices for quickening 5E fights, and also enjoying the journey. I still hold that a much quicker system could still be satisfying, which retained full player agency. Even if it be The Black Hack. Or Mike Mearl's alleged "one-roll-per-encounter system.")</p><p></p><p>2) <strong>For all the "picturesque" moves which characters do in the novels to be fully supported by the game-system itself. Given the honed storytelling work when went into writing the novels, a lot of this stuff is an iconic expression of "D&D-ness", even though its not really supported by the rules.</strong>For example, the scene where the Companions of the Hall battle a horde of trolls, and the fire spreads from troll to troll. That was great. Yet not really supported by the Rule-As-Written (in any edition). To be specific: the D&D troll stats ought to have Fire Vulnerability, and once lit also take persistent fire damage, and also have some sort of "Troll Pack Conflagration" weakness: like, if a flaming Troll is adjacent to another Troll, the other Troll has to make a DC20 Dexterity save or be ignited, and so on. I could probably give dozens of examples from every D&D novel where the characters do awesome, picturesque things which aren't really supported by the game. It's not just a matter of having a better DM who's adept at imaginative descriptions of damage dealt. And it's also not just a matter of novel authors being too "loose" with the rules; but rather, the novels have "bested" the game on which it they were based, and raised it to a higher degree of storytelling fun...this "leading edge" ought to work back on the game itself. </p><p></p><p>(Along these lines, people suggested more "narrative", "degrees of failure/success" or "descriptive move" based systems: Feng Shui, Dungeon World, FATE, or Genysys system. I'd also add Cortex/Smallville "relationship RPG". But in any case, I'd want it to be fully immersed in the D&D Multiverse.)</p><p></p><p>3) <strong>For the picturesque descriptions of places and landscapes from the D&D novels to be included in the TRPG modules.</strong> For example, just last night, I read in the Halfling's Gem novel that Drizzt and Wulfgar visited Coneyberry and Agatha the Banshee. Which my players have recently visited in the Starter Set. Not being a FR expert, it would've been great for the Starter Set to include, say, a DC10 History check for the Coneyberry hex, which revealed a summary of that story (I guess it was over a hundred years ago), and which even pointed the DM to the novel for a more fuller description, as a flashback. </p><p></p><p>4) <strong>For someone to do groundwork research in breaking-down exactly what "Actions" are happening in the hundreds of D&D novels. </strong>And then to reverse engineer all that cool stuff back into the game...whether that be via new options in 5E, or via a new "novellic" system. Yeah, I know WotC team doesn't have the manpower to do such a project nowadays.</p><p></p><p>Well, I said my piece. Thanks again for the good ideas and laughs!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Travis Henry, post: 7622244, member: 6985696"] Okay. Now I feel heard. Thank you Arilyn, LordE, and to the others who responded. And to Bobble and LordE for the laughs. (What's wrong with Kindergarten Storytime: The RPG? haha) I admit I hadn't thought it all through from start. And even my own parameters have continued to shift. I do believe a very fun game could be made along the lines I'm envisioning. And that even with a "novellic" or "cinematic" system, a sweet spot could be reached which made space for a resourceful DM to improvise in response to player agency. My initial post was fueled by four legitimate desires: 1) [B]For the battles to be a lot quicker, yet still satisfying. And for stories/adventures to be completed in one or two sessions...including "bigger" novellic stories (not just a small dungeon crawl). [/B]I was struck by how long it takes (in Real Time) for us to run a battle in 5E versus how quick (and satisfying) the battle scenes pass in the Icewind Dale novels. AFAIR, back when I DMed BECMI, the fights and adventures were significantly quicker too. (Along these lines, posters offered good suggestions: best practices for quickening 5E fights, and also enjoying the journey. I still hold that a much quicker system could still be satisfying, which retained full player agency. Even if it be The Black Hack. Or Mike Mearl's alleged "one-roll-per-encounter system.") 2) [B]For all the "picturesque" moves which characters do in the novels to be fully supported by the game-system itself. Given the honed storytelling work when went into writing the novels, a lot of this stuff is an iconic expression of "D&D-ness", even though its not really supported by the rules.[/B]For example, the scene where the Companions of the Hall battle a horde of trolls, and the fire spreads from troll to troll. That was great. Yet not really supported by the Rule-As-Written (in any edition). To be specific: the D&D troll stats ought to have Fire Vulnerability, and once lit also take persistent fire damage, and also have some sort of "Troll Pack Conflagration" weakness: like, if a flaming Troll is adjacent to another Troll, the other Troll has to make a DC20 Dexterity save or be ignited, and so on. I could probably give dozens of examples from every D&D novel where the characters do awesome, picturesque things which aren't really supported by the game. It's not just a matter of having a better DM who's adept at imaginative descriptions of damage dealt. And it's also not just a matter of novel authors being too "loose" with the rules; but rather, the novels have "bested" the game on which it they were based, and raised it to a higher degree of storytelling fun...this "leading edge" ought to work back on the game itself. (Along these lines, people suggested more "narrative", "degrees of failure/success" or "descriptive move" based systems: Feng Shui, Dungeon World, FATE, or Genysys system. I'd also add Cortex/Smallville "relationship RPG". But in any case, I'd want it to be fully immersed in the D&D Multiverse.) 3) [B]For the picturesque descriptions of places and landscapes from the D&D novels to be included in the TRPG modules.[/B] For example, just last night, I read in the Halfling's Gem novel that Drizzt and Wulfgar visited Coneyberry and Agatha the Banshee. Which my players have recently visited in the Starter Set. Not being a FR expert, it would've been great for the Starter Set to include, say, a DC10 History check for the Coneyberry hex, which revealed a summary of that story (I guess it was over a hundred years ago), and which even pointed the DM to the novel for a more fuller description, as a flashback. 4) [B]For someone to do groundwork research in breaking-down exactly what "Actions" are happening in the hundreds of D&D novels. [/B]And then to reverse engineer all that cool stuff back into the game...whether that be via new options in 5E, or via a new "novellic" system. Yeah, I know WotC team doesn't have the manpower to do such a project nowadays. Well, I said my piece. Thanks again for the good ideas and laughs! [/QUOTE]
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