Narrative Ruleset For 5e - First Draft

[Omry Bass]

Hi all!

I'm currently writing a small but hopefully good addition of narrative rules for D&D 5e which are mostly adapted from SWRPG and WFRP3.

My first attempt is by trying to emulate the "success / failure / boon / bane" dice system and by that adding some flavor to d&d while trying to keep the system's elegance and tactical aspect as intact as possible.

I would be pleased if you download , read and hopefully review and even playtest with my rules for a game session or more and would gladly answer all questions / arguments which will rise.

In case anyone will want to attempt using the rules, please pm me. I would really like to provide you with a couple of feedback questions to answer after the game.

Summery - what does the rules include
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1. Adding an additional d20 die to each d20 roll (Attack, skill, saving throw) which symbolizes a beneficial / detrimental side effect
2. Changes to advantages / disadvantages in accordance to 1.
3. Detailed explanation about side effects, include some tables for reference with examples
4. Changes to criticals / fumbles.

Hope you'll enjoy reading it

 

[Shardstone]

While interesting, these rules effectively remove a lot of why 5E is 5E. Looks as if you are trying to create your own edition of D&D. While I don't judge you for doing so, many of these rules slow down the game tremendously with many extra rolls. Some of them are complex as well--the basis of the success and boon dice are confusing at a glance and require some logical loops to decipher. Overall, I think these rules are better suited to an edition of D&D such as 3.5 or going to Pathfinder, as they go against the streamlined design pathos of fifth edition.

 

[Afrodyte]

I agree with PointofInspiration in general, but to help you refine your system, I'll offer a few pointers.

I play a lot of narrative games, so a more narrative approach to die roll results definitely appeals to me, and I incorporate it into my games when I have the right group (ie, open to doing some of the work of narrating results).

Instead of super-complicated lists and multiple die rolls to resolve an action, there are essentially 4 outcomes of a die roll:

• Yes, and...means success and a little something extra
• Yes, but...means success with a minor setback or consequence
• No, but...means failure with a tiny benefit
• No, and...means failure and an additional setback or consequence

There is no flat success or failure because every die roll should have something interesting or unexpected happen.

How you assign those 4 outcomes is up to you, but intuitively, here's what makes sense to me:

• Critical success = "Yes, and..."
• Success = "Yes, but..."
• Failure = "No, but..."
• Critical failure = "No, and..."

To incorporate your suggestion for making it matter just how high a player rolls, you can have something like this:
Critical success = 10 higher than DC or natural 20
Critical failure = 10 lower than DC or natural 1

All that is pretty much a more streamlined version of what you have in the file. But here is where we differ: allow players to narrate success while you (the GM) narrate failure. Something I did with my players is that when they succeed on a roll, I'm like, "Tell me what kind of clue you find to track the NPC" or "Tell me how your attack connects but doesn't kill the creature."

It was a lot of fun for them, and it eased up the pressure of GMing after not being in the chair for a long time.

 

[JesterOC]

Instead of super-complicated lists and multiple die rolls to resolve an action, there are essentially 4 outcomes of a die roll:

• Yes, and...means success and a little something extra
• Yes, but...means success with a minor setback or consequence
• No, but...means failure with a tiny benefit
• No, and...means failure and an additional setback or consequence

The problem with doing all those with a single d20 is that the Yes, and... and the "No, and..." don't happen often enough, while the "Yes, but..." and "No, and..." happen too often. Oddly enough the better the character, the more often they will get a "Yes, but..."

Omry's first pass handles it quite well, though the Boon severity chart is a bit hard to scan. Might I suggest switching to a system closer to Fantasy AGE's stunt system. I would suggest having a limited number of actions that can be "purchased" by the player (or DM if it is a negative rating).

 

[jodyjohnson]

I thought the pattern was supposed to be:
'Success plus' on a roll that exceeded the DC by a lot.
'Success' for normal successes
'Success but' on almost success (technically failures)
'Failures'
'Failures and' for those really bad failures.

And I would ignore the '1' or '20' aspect because it doesn't take actual skill into account.

The mixed resolution system of "DM or the Dice" decide can also skew things so the DM could decide that only the top half (DM assigned success) or the bottom half (DM already assigned failure) could happen.