Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Skills in 5e
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 6096784" data-attributes="member: 6688937"><p>Just picking this as a good paragraph to drop in my thoughts.</p><p></p><p>I've noticed the gritty/gonzo problem quite a bit. Its one of the things that keeps most of my campaigns relatively low level. I think basically it comes down to a fundamental problem with the D&D way of doing things (perhaps leaning on Sim too much). In particular, looking at the fiction, movies, etc....gonzo-ness (gonzocity?) seems to correlate with narrative causality (as Terry Pratchett would put it) rather than anything akin to "realism". Supers being the prime example of high-gonzocity and...well I guess history books being the low end? I think that's important, because you <em>need</em> narrative motivations and the like to reign in the gonzo stuff: "Why doesn't Superman just <do X>?"</p><p></p><p>IME, the rules that handle truly gonzo stuff well are almost all very lightweight and narrative compared to D&D. Can it be detailed and full of fluff and fiddly bits? Maybe, I'm not sure. There are two mechanical functions that the best (IMO) gonzo-handling games have, and that D&D lacks:</p><p></p><p> The first is some narrative motivational driver beyond just "whatever the player wants at this very moment" or "more loots". Some hook, driver, or limiter to answer "Why doesn't Gandalf just <do X>?" This doesn't have to be very rigidly structured and at least (basic) FATE let's you avoid it depending on your choices for aspects. Capes, on the other hand, dictates the format of the sentence that describes your heroes motivations. (<em>I love</em> Mary<em>, but </em>being seen with her puts her in danger!)</p><p></p><p> The second is a unified free-form method for generating narrative tags with mechanical impact. By socketing skills, powers, and whatever else into that system, you can get a handle on all of them at once. This is the one that may limit the rules to being lightweight, because having this really cuts down on the need for things like power lists. Again, Capes and FATE are at the opposite ends (AFAIK). FATE has explicit rules for creating and using temporary aspects which involves them in the FATE point economy of the game. Capes does it implicitly by making the fiction players generate non-negotiable (In Capes, if she said it, it happened. Although there are rules limiting <em>what </em>you can say.) MHRP does it too, in very FATE-like fashion: called Assets, Complications, Stunts, or Resources depending on how you create them.*</p><p></p><p>So D&D fancies that it will take you from zero to hero over the course of your career, cranking up gonzocity as you go....I think that's a very hard task for any set of rules. D&D (3e is the poster child and 4e the outlier) starts you out (in terms of mechanical weight) barely better than the farmhand off the field. Therefore at the start, mundane skills and their functioning is fixed so that these characters have a chance of doing <em>something</em>. Even without a skill system, consider how much early-level old-school games revolve around character/player cleverness, rather than their mechanical abilities. But then you've got a very un-gonzo mechanic set up. How to add gonzocity? D&D does it by adding less<s>non</s>-negotiable scripted gonzo elements (most often called spells.) Slowly transferring bits of narrative authority to the players (at least the spellcaster players). However, gonzocity starts to run wild with the rest of the game (still structured around the early non-gonzo levels) and thus...LFQW <em>and </em>@pemerton's issues above. Of course, as he mentions, this is also something of a taste issue, and others won't think twice about it.</p><p></p><p>*Since I've prattled on about them, I should say that FATE can handle almost any degree of gonzocity with just a few easy tweaks. MHRP uses a rather odd system called Cortex Plus, which seems to be fairly flexible as well, but requires (I think) more effort to bang it into odd shapes. However, those shapes seem to be capable of directly reflecting certain narrative formats (Leverage, for example.) Capes (a little-known indie game) handles gonzo supers very well. Even though it might work mechanically, I can't imagine trying to handle a low-gonzocity setting with it. One of its design premises is "You've got power, do you deserve it?" and it does well with making that central. Hardly an issue when the characters don't actually have power. Could easily see it doing mythology-style stories, though.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 6096784, member: 6688937"] Just picking this as a good paragraph to drop in my thoughts. I've noticed the gritty/gonzo problem quite a bit. Its one of the things that keeps most of my campaigns relatively low level. I think basically it comes down to a fundamental problem with the D&D way of doing things (perhaps leaning on Sim too much). In particular, looking at the fiction, movies, etc....gonzo-ness (gonzocity?) seems to correlate with narrative causality (as Terry Pratchett would put it) rather than anything akin to "realism". Supers being the prime example of high-gonzocity and...well I guess history books being the low end? I think that's important, because you [I]need[/I] narrative motivations and the like to reign in the gonzo stuff: "Why doesn't Superman just <do X>?" IME, the rules that handle truly gonzo stuff well are almost all very lightweight and narrative compared to D&D. Can it be detailed and full of fluff and fiddly bits? Maybe, I'm not sure. There are two mechanical functions that the best (IMO) gonzo-handling games have, and that D&D lacks: The first is some narrative motivational driver beyond just "whatever the player wants at this very moment" or "more loots". Some hook, driver, or limiter to answer "Why doesn't Gandalf just <do X>?" This doesn't have to be very rigidly structured and at least (basic) FATE let's you avoid it depending on your choices for aspects. Capes, on the other hand, dictates the format of the sentence that describes your heroes motivations. ([I]I love[/I] Mary[I], but [/I]being seen with her puts her in danger!) The second is a unified free-form method for generating narrative tags with mechanical impact. By socketing skills, powers, and whatever else into that system, you can get a handle on all of them at once. This is the one that may limit the rules to being lightweight, because having this really cuts down on the need for things like power lists. Again, Capes and FATE are at the opposite ends (AFAIK). FATE has explicit rules for creating and using temporary aspects which involves them in the FATE point economy of the game. Capes does it implicitly by making the fiction players generate non-negotiable (In Capes, if she said it, it happened. Although there are rules limiting [I]what [/I]you can say.) MHRP does it too, in very FATE-like fashion: called Assets, Complications, Stunts, or Resources depending on how you create them.* So D&D fancies that it will take you from zero to hero over the course of your career, cranking up gonzocity as you go....I think that's a very hard task for any set of rules. D&D (3e is the poster child and 4e the outlier) starts you out (in terms of mechanical weight) barely better than the farmhand off the field. Therefore at the start, mundane skills and their functioning is fixed so that these characters have a chance of doing [I]something[/I]. Even without a skill system, consider how much early-level old-school games revolve around character/player cleverness, rather than their mechanical abilities. But then you've got a very un-gonzo mechanic set up. How to add gonzocity? D&D does it by adding less[s]non[/s]-negotiable scripted gonzo elements (most often called spells.) Slowly transferring bits of narrative authority to the players (at least the spellcaster players). However, gonzocity starts to run wild with the rest of the game (still structured around the early non-gonzo levels) and thus...LFQW [I]and [/I]@pemerton's issues above. Of course, as he mentions, this is also something of a taste issue, and others won't think twice about it. *Since I've prattled on about them, I should say that FATE can handle almost any degree of gonzocity with just a few easy tweaks. MHRP uses a rather odd system called Cortex Plus, which seems to be fairly flexible as well, but requires (I think) more effort to bang it into odd shapes. However, those shapes seem to be capable of directly reflecting certain narrative formats (Leverage, for example.) Capes (a little-known indie game) handles gonzo supers very well. Even though it might work mechanically, I can't imagine trying to handle a low-gonzocity setting with it. One of its design premises is "You've got power, do you deserve it?" and it does well with making that central. Hardly an issue when the characters don't actually have power. Could easily see it doing mythology-style stories, though. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Skills in 5e
Top