Why do you play games other than D&D?

[Fenris-77]

Brindlewood Bay gets a lot of press for trying something new for the whole investigation mystery process. I think it fails utterly to deliver on both. But the idea they were onto did spawn what does work = and that came from Apocalypse Keys.

ApocKeys went away from "letting the dice decide the truth" of the mystery, back towards "the GM decided the truth when they made the mystery", but they let the "we found a clue" be organic instead of planted by the GM. This solves problems while retaining the process of a mystery uncovery.

Now the GM need only focus on the mystery its self, and then when a CLUE pops up, they can look at their mystery aspects and define the clue at that point in time and place and circumstance. No more very very frustrating "well, i never thought a clue would be in a breadbox" or "i had to spend three weeks guessing where players might look for clues" or "i didnt know that the sailor talking about pudding was a clue" = so awful and frustrating and game breaking and exhausting!!

Once the players have enough CLUEs they can roleplay to discuss their clues, and then roll to address the mystery. on success, the GM tells them where to go based on their discussion roleplay so they can confront the mystery and they are prepared. on fail, its the same but the mystery has the upper hand. on fumble, the mystery gets away with some of it and can't be 100% resolved. on critical success the characters are prepared and have a bonus to aid them in the confrontation.
It's all still GM mystery ideas, its all still part of their plot. No dice roll just blurts out "yeah, i guess that lame idea was right" like BB does.
You still have to roleplay to find out what happened and to resolve it (final battle, race for time, escape in time, whatever the mystery finale is)

To me, this means that we there are very strong differences in how mechanics drive emergent gameplay - and its those mechanics that drive me away from D&D and towards other games. And not all of those other games get it right either...

I don't disagree that Apocalypse Keys has some strong mechanical design, it does indeed. I do disagree that BBay 'fails to deliver' and that a die roll 'blurts out lame theories'. The latter especially is a pretty strong mischaracterization of how the mechanic functions. If the theory is lame it's because the players had a lame theory, which might either be well or poorly supported by the available clues. Don't blame the mechanic for the lameness though. It's also the case that if the players are patient, and bide their time and uncover lots of clues, that there is only a small chance that their theory will be wrong and an increasing chance that it won't be lame. How ultimately satisfying that theory is, and thus how satisfying the ending of that arc is, relies completely on the players to uncover clues and weave them together with the diegetic elements revealed by play, and for the GM to positively scaffold player choices during play. Lots of people find this immensely satisfying. Other don't, which is fine, we all know that no one game pleases everyone.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I don't disagree that Apocalypse Keys has some strong mechanical design, it does indeed. I do disagree that BBay 'fails to deliver' and that a die roll 'blurts out lame theories'. The latter especially is a pretty strong mischaracterization of how the mechanic functions. If the theory is lame it's because the players had a lame theory, ...

Let me clarify my post: Brindlewood Bay is assumed to have a type of play that is not actually what it delivers on. And my post was an example of what people think it does, and what game actually does do that. BB is fine for a 'make it up guessing game' kinda fun. But it's not a bespoke mystery game.

In the end, any given result of a dice roll determining the end of a mystery is no longer uncovering a mystery. It's a guessing game with random determination. While that may be fun - it does not deliver on any aspect of "there was an actually truth and we uncovered it". Because factually by the rules, that's not how BB mechanically works. There was no actual truth to uncover because it was all made up as it all went along.

And Knives Out proves that even great and likely supposition of a mystery's clues = do not make the hypothesis true.
So no matter how many ideas we feel fit the clues, it never really matters in BB... and that shows.

That is why i see value in letting folks know "Oi, BB isn't going to do X for ya...look elsewhere"
...

Let me put it another way = food recommendation. if someone wanted a great meal that was cleverly made and presented, i would not send them to a build-your-own buffet/cook your own meal place. (even if that place was really good food!) because its not the experience they requested. It is different.

So we note the difference.

Brindlewood Bay = does a roll to generate/make up a plot, and roll to random resolve.
I am not going to recommend that to someone looking for a game that is about building bespoke plots/mystery. It is different.
it will not deliver on that type of game. and it can be easy to assume it does. so FYI, in case someone wants different, try ApocKeys...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've been thinking more on this. Over the years, our games have become so RP focused that the specific system we use has way less impact than it used to. Genre features definitely affect the kind of evening we will have, but rules systems not so much, unless they profoundly affect the DM/Player relationship (c.f. Fiasco) or are radically unique (c.f. Dread). Because the rolls and math are generally the least interesting part of our games, and I'm loose enough with the rules to make any system work with what the players want to do.

I'd venture to guess that your 'any' is a pretty narrow range of the full diversity of what is out there. Like, if you include 5e, BitD, Dungeon World, Agon, and say 1000 Arrows and Ironsworn, in that any, then such a position becomes untenable.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The same reason I eat foods other than tacos.

Tacos are great -- probably one of the best foods ever -- but it can't encompass everything.

Sometimes, you want a pizza. Sometimes you want a soup dumpling. Sometimes you want ice cream or pecan pie or spaghetti carbonara.

D&D is great. But it doesn't encompass everything -- or rather, trying to get it to encompass everything means making choices that might get you a decent way towards that experience, but won't be quite as good as a more specialized game.

But this isn't a knock on D&D, any more than wanting sushi is a knock on tacos.

None of this has to do with anyone else's choices, of course. I have a boss who ate the same Subway sandwich every week day for more than a decade before his doctor ordered him to stop. (Man was not meant to eat that much low-grade tuna.) It worked for him and all D&D might work for others. But not for me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Brindlewood Bay = does a roll to generate/make up a plot, and roll to random resolve.
I am not going to recommend that to someone looking for a game that is about building bespoke plots/mystery. It is different.

How do you feel about the Gumshoe system?

 

[Fenris-77]

Let me clarify my post: Brindlewood Bay is assumed to have a type of play that is not actually what it delivers on. And I my post was an example of what people think it does, and what game actually does do that. BB is fine for a 'make it up guessing game' kinda fun. But it's not a bespoke mystery game.

In the end, any given result of a dice roll determining the end of a mystery is no longer uncovering a mystery. It's a guessing game with random determination. While that may be fun - it does not deliver on any aspect of "there was an actually truth and we uncovered it". Because factually by the rules, that's not how BB mechanically works. There was no actual truth to uncover because it was all made up as it all went along.

And Knives Out proves that even great and likely supposition of a mystery's clues = do not make the hypothesis true.
So no matter how many ideas we feel fit the clues, it never really matters in BB... and that shows.

That is why i see value in letting folks know "Oi, BB isn't going to do X for ya...look elsewhere"
...

Let me put it another way = food recommendation. if someone wanted a great meal that was cleverly made and presented, i would not send them to a build-your-own buffet/cook your own meal place. (even if that place was really good food!) because its not the experience they requested. It is different.

So we note the difference.

Brindlewood Bay = does a roll to generate/make up a plot, and roll to random resolve.
I am not going to recommend that to someone looking for a game that is about building bespoke plots/mystery. It is different.
it will not deliver on that type of game. and it can be easy to assume it does. so FYI, in case someone wants different, try ApocKeys...

Well, we clearly disagree in detail about BBay, what it does, and the extent to which is successful. If this were a thread about BBay, or even about mystery games, I'd happily dig into the nuts and bolts, but I think that may be drifting far afield from the actual point of thread. Suffice to say we both think we have excellent reasons for thinking the other mistaken. Cheers.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

How do you feel about the Gumshoe system?

IMHO, Gumeshoe is a masterclass in how to handle clues - and as a bonus it works in any given game system.

There are things that are just frustrating FAR MORE often than they are fun...

• Creating and planting clues as a GM
• Finding and knowing what a clue is as a player

• resolving a mystery/intrigue.

• assaulting a stronghold
• performing a heist

• buying goods and services

= These are all heartaches for all involved. So much prep, so much guessing, so many assumptions. so many ways for it to just get missed, wrong or confusing.

And there are games that have done a wonderful job at not only making these easier for prep/play, but also making them fun to engage with!

• Creating and planting clues as a GM = gumshoe
• Finding and knowing what a clue is as a player = gumshoe

• resolving a mystery/intrigue. = apocalypse keys

• assaulting a stronghold = blades in the dark
• performing a heist = blades in the dark

- buying goods and services = I forget where I saw this first (so i will just state its in my World of Darkness Core rules I made on my itch.io site), and versions of it in my Cortex Cyberpunk rules too.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's a thing that can happen, but if I feel a dead end would be a problem then I simply won't gate critical information behind a roll that that can fail. That's perfectly easy to do with a traditional system.

"Don't ask for a roll if you're not prepared to deal with the consequences of failure," is pretty standard and accepted advice.


Well, that Chill option is easy enough to do with HERO as well, and is pretty much just a minor variant on "don't gate critical information".

I think it worked better with Chill because it had multiple degrees of success, so you could regulate not just whether they got information, but how much. As a default, Hero only had success/failure; Chill had five cases (even the optional rules for Hero only gave four, and I think the extra two were only discussed in terms of combat).

I mean, yes, its not a terribly difficult thing to bolt on--that's one of the things I like about it--but to get full value you have to at least first bolt on the degree-of-success, and that may require more thought than just using a system already written with it in mind.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Speaking of being able to drive nails with anything if it's heavy and hard enough:

You can use Cortex Prime to build an incredibly traditional old school game, like a cross between Runequest or Pendragon and The BoL Hack.

The only issue I'd suggest is that Cortex really, really wants to compress scope more than those games do. Whether that's significant is in the eye of the beholder, of course.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not completely convinced about the separation between 'solving a mystery' and 'telling the story of solving a mystery' as usefully distinct terms.

I think they can be.

If you are solving a mystery, then, you, the player, put the information the characters have found together, and follow their implications to a conclusion of who in the fiction did the deed.

If you are telling the story of solving a mystery, you, the player, need not actually figure out who did the deed. Who did the deed need not be determined before play begins. The process of play can generate the result, without the players having ever solved a puzzle.