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Tabletop Games are RADch

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  • Der Waffle MousDer Waffle Mous Blame this on the misfortune of your birth. New Yark, New Yark.Registered User regular
    Zweihander's a weird inclusion since OSR is more or less defined by being based off of old D&D while it pretty much wears its WFRP influences on its sleeve.

    Steam PSN: DerWaffleMous Origin: DerWaffleMous Bnet: DerWaffle#1682
  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    I have very little interest in arguments about what is and isn’t OSR, but Zweihander is a retroclone and that’s good enough for me to use the blanket term.

    Stars Without Number has as much in common with Traveler as it has with OD&D.

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    I've just had an idea for how to engage one of my players that's so perfect I can't even believe how perfectly everything is fitting together.

    - My campaign is set in the world of Exandria, the setting of Critical Role. One of my players is a really big fan.
    - Using a character background inspiration tool I provided she got a result that her character, a 20 year old dwarf bard/cleric, was taught by legendary figures. She chose two of the main characters of Critical Role's first campaign, the gnome bard Scanlan Shorthalt and his wife Pike Trickfoot, a gnome cleric of the goddess of redemption Raei.
    - Earlier while looking through the Tal'Dorei setting guide I noticed a suggested hook of a lost young duergar princess. During the first campaign of Critical Role (which took place 20 years prior to my campaign) the king and queen of the duergar city of Emberhold were slain by the heroes and a duergar warlord took over, one who doesn't want the princess to be found. I decided that this princess was assigned by the warlord to be taken to a distant outpost so she'd never know the truth of who she truly was, but a devil recently contacted her and told her she was the lost princess of Emberhold. She's now become a devotee of Asmodeus and plans a coup against the leader of the outpost she's at before one day returning to Emberhold to claim her place as queen. I intend for the players to meet her and possibly lend her aid with this coup.
    - The goddess Raei, who my player's character worships, was tricked by Asmodeus 800 years ago, an event that somehow nearly annihilated all of her worshipers and signs of her existence. She's only now rebuilding her church and following.
    - After doing some research into the relevant episodes of Critical Role concerning Emberhold, what should I discover but the fact that the duergar king was killed by Scanlan Shorthalt, my player's character's mentor.
    - Whereas my player's character is a young dwarf worshiper of Raei who was trained by the legendary Scanlan Shorthalt, the princess is a young duergar worshiper of Asmodeus whose father was decapitated by the legendary Scanlan Shorthalt.

    Now I'm imagining a scenario where the duergar princess is told by her devil ally about the PC's connection to both her father's killer Scanlan and to Pike, a cleric of Asmodeus' enemy Raei. The princess could keep her true identity secret, pretend to seek the PC's help in turning from Asmodeus and finding redemption in Raei, and ask the PC to let her visit Pike, the legendary cleric of Raei, for help, secretly planning to decapitate Pike to both kill a famous follower of Raei in Asmodeus' honor and to get revenge against Scanlan for killing her father and changing her life forever. Of course the princess would fail in attempting to kill Pike, seeing as the cleric and her husband are both legendary heroes who once helped defeat Vecna.

    The only problem is that I'd have to try and convincingly portray two of the main characters of Critical Role, a show performed by professional voice actors that my player is much more well acquainted with than I am.

  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    Maddoc wrote: »
    D&D is good at being D&D, and that's fine

    It's just rubbish at being anything else
    It's also rubbish at teaching you to play anything else.

    Which is why it's bad for D&D to be people's first roleplaying game.
    Hey, I resemble this remark!

    I own a bunch of fascinating settings I would love to DM, but because my own experience is 99% D&D I'm finding it very difficult to wrap my head around the mechanics that don't fit the D&D mold. Like the card combat in Mouse Guard, I can't tell if the mechanics are purely ornamental and the players are meant to be roleplaying their choices, or if there's a puzzle there to solve and I'm just not seeing it because I've not experience with the system. Or all the different "success in this range results in compromise instead" systems. How do I gauge what a fair compromise is?
    I'm too used to combat being a binary and have nothing to draw upon to gauge how it should work otherwise.

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Maddoc wrote: »
    To put it another way, in that example of FATE's handling of it vs D&D

    Fate gives you the mechanical resolution, and leaves you to provide the narrative resolution

    D&D leaves you to handle both the mechanical and the narrative resolution

    Where I see this differently from the majority here is that I don't see this as a problem or a fault of the system. I don't think running a game of D&D with a narrative flair and handing out advantage/disadvantage based on the situation to not be engaging with the rules. I think it engages with the 5e rules as intended. I don't think resolving things outside of an attack roll or dealing fireball damage such as adjudcating the results of an illusion spell is "recognizing that I'm not playing D&D anymore"

    The core mechanic of D&D is not shaving HP off a creature: Its rolling a D20+modifiers vs a target number to attempt something. The DM determines the target numbers and the results of the roll on a pass/fail mechanic. Arguments against a simple pass/fail single dice roll mechanic are fair. Arguments against the D&D ruleset being more combat oriented than narrative oriented are entirely fair. Saying that the DM is asked to do too much in D&D may be fair as well.

    Saying that a DM having to make a call on the mechanical results of loosely defined action, be it a spell or trying to swing from a chandelier, as not partaking in the rules anymore is an intolerant(? I don't know if that's the correct word I'm going for) criticism of the system.

    Steelhawk on
  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    Working on Version 4 of my Grand Beast Generator.

    Big revisions! Biiiiiig Revisions.

    Sizes has been expanded to go Small, Medium, Large, Huge, Gargantuan and Colossal. I'm probably going to drop rolling for size, and just have a section talking about each size and what that might mean for using the monster - Colossal creatures would practically be an eco-system unto themselves, while a small or medium creature could be a meance in a village, and a large one could hide in the sewers (As we all know, TTRPG Cities have spacious sewers suitable for cults, body disposal, secret bases and giant monsters). Stuff like that!

    Namely, Body plan has been split up - There's now a table for # of limbs (Weighted to give four limbs most often, but with the possibility to do all the way up to a 100 for all your players screaming in horror needs), and a table for locomotion. So now you can get stuff like 0 Limbs, Rolling locomotion. or Six Limbs, Lumbering locomotion. 50 limbs, limited bipedalism is totally an option and sounds horrifying.

    There is one possible awkward combo in there - 2 limbs, Limited Bipedalism. Not sure what that looks like. Probably suggest the creature uses it's forelimbs to crawl around, but can rear back and move just on it's snakelike back for a while?

    Insectile as an aesthetic has been split up into Beetles (might strech to include grasshoppers etc if i can find a better name) and Other (So your bees, moths, etc fit in here). Canine and Feline have been combined into a Predatory Mammal Aesthetic. Mollusks as an aesthetic are back in, because squishy celphaods, slithery slugs and bulwarking barnacles are just too good to leave out.

    I'm working on giving each aesthetic section a general write up of traits, behaviors, etc to help better visualize things. Here's the intial version of the predatory mammal, for instance.

    Predatory Mammal:

    The creature is built like a cat or canine overall - lean, built for speed and bringing prey down fast. It’s likely stealthy, aggressive and carnivorous. It most likely has a tail, and powerful jaws. It may or may not have claws as well. It almost certainly is covered in short fur that helps it blend into the local terrain. Eyesight, scent and hearing will be favored senses for it.

    Planning to do that for all 20 aesthetics, though obviously Chimeric is going to talk about how they might combine.

    The next big change is the d100 special spice list. That's gone.

    Instead, there's going to be 3 d100 tables, each subdivied into 5 D20 tables. With the idea being you'd roll 3d6 (on a 6, roll 2 more d6s!) for each list, and use that to figure out which subtables you're looking at.

    So you've got Physical Weaponry, which then subdivides into Head, Limbs, Body, Tail, Projectile. You've got Utility, which is subdiving into Defensive, Movement, Senses, Other (For stuff like "It carries eggs ready to hatch", and Flavor (for things like It's missing an eye/limb etc, it's hide has broken weapons stuck in it).

    So, just by way of example: rolling 3d6 for physical weapons quickly turns up 5,5, 4. So i'd roll twice on the projectile table and once on the tail table. This creature as no notable weapons on it's limbs, mouth or body... but can probably do things like vomit torrents of mud or expel rocks it stored in it's gullet, and might have a prehensile tail, or maybe just a big ol sword tail. Or maybe you dont like the idea of having two projectile attacks, so just pick out that you wanna roll on the limbs or head.

    Still thinking this through - I'm happy wiht the physical weapon spread, i'm not sure about the utility spread. I might drop flavor for a Behavior table. O maybe just flavor should be it's own crazy d100 table or something. Who knows!

    The final table is going to be Supernatural - i'm still working out the sub tables for this. I know one is going to be Weather. maybe a Plauges table. probably a supernatural weapons - things like Godzilla's atomic breath, or Teostra's Super-Nova . Stuff like the it only exists at night would be here, so on, so forth. The supernatural table is meant to be one you pick out rolling on if you need to really get ookyspooky with your critter.

    If people have cool ideas for tail weapons, body weapons, projectiles or similar stuff, sing out - even if it's just "hey, you should look at X natural creatures, they do some crazy stuff"

    Goal of this iteration is to a: create crazier, werider and more fantastical monsters than ever, and b: give a bit more control over things when people are creating stuff. The whole point of this project is to be a way to help jog the creative juices for making cool gribbly monsters, so i figure having the option to go "You know, i want it to have a cool thing to do with it's head. *roll* 18 - Prehensile trunk!" is pretty helpful.

    the other thing i want to do as part of this project is have a big section on rewards and equipment derived from the monsters - really wear the monster hunter inspiration on it's sleeve. But also i think that'd be a useful thing to talk about how you can use this to inspire "magic" items, or cool and unique loot. I've always liked the idea of such equipment as drawing power from whatever you brought down. And, in turn, unique plot hooks - rumors abound of a beast who's tusks are made of diamond! see also: White stag hunts, or simialr stuff.

    Hopefully eventually once i get this done further, i can write up some demo monsters from it, hire an illustrator or something ,and figure out publishing it? That's the long term goal.

    Ideas hate it when you anthropomorphize them
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  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Saying that a DM having to make a call on the mechanical results of loosely defined action, be it a spell or trying to swing from a chandelier, as not partaking in the rules anymore is an intolerant (? I don't know if that's the correct word I'm going for) criticism of the system.
    Would you mind elaborating on this a bit more? To me, it seems like if there is no rule defined for a situation, and a DM has to make their own decision on how to handle it, then they are by definition not partaking of the rules anymore - there are no rules to partake of!

    No game is going to cover 100% of what comes up at the table, but some omissions are more impactful than others. In a game about swinging swords and casting spells to clear out monsters from their lairs, I think it's more glaring that there are no resolution rules for a category of spells than that there are no rules for swinging from chandeliers.

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Delduwath wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Saying that a DM having to make a call on the mechanical results of loosely defined action, be it a spell or trying to swing from a chandelier, as not partaking in the rules anymore is an intolerant (? I don't know if that's the correct word I'm going for) criticism of the system.
    Would you mind elaborating on this a bit more? To me, it seems like if there is no rule defined for a situation, and a DM has to make their own decision on how to handle it, then they are by definition not partaking of the rules anymore - there are no rules to partake of!

    No game is going to cover 100% of what comes up at the table, but some omissions are more impactful than others. In a game about swinging swords and casting spells to clear out monsters from their lairs, I think it's more glaring that there are no resolution rules for a category of spells than that there are no rules for swinging from chandeliers.

    That's correct. No game ruleset is going to 100% of what comes up at table. So why does D&D get deuces dropped on it, and other systems don't?

    Someone above spoke to Dungeon World, and while there was not a Major Image equivalent in that game if there was that they would handle an illusion pretty much the same as in D&D. Determine an appropriate mechanic that already existed in the game that would fit the situation and apply it here. Does that mean one is no longer engaging in the Dungeon World ruleset and is now improvising? I would say no, but some in this discussion should be saying yes.

  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    Thinking more about what I would like illusion magic to be.

    And I think what I've settled on is that casting an illusion would give you the opportunity to make an appropriate skill check using your spellcasting bonuses instead of your regular skill modifier. So making a big dragon to scare off some goblins is an intimidate check, using an illusion to disguise yourself as a barrel is a stealth check, entertaining a crowd is a perform, that sort of thing. Situational modifiers are essentially treated as if the illusion were real - creating an illusion of a barrel in an empty room isn't going penalize your stealth check because the room is empty, but creating a dragon to try to scare off a professor of draconic anatomy and physiology might be a bit more difficult than if you'd just chosen to do a manticore or whatever.

    Of course this would probably require a better skill system than D&D frequently has, and still ends up putting a fair amount into DM fiat there, but it's a start.

  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Delduwath wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Saying that a DM having to make a call on the mechanical results of loosely defined action, be it a spell or trying to swing from a chandelier, as not partaking in the rules anymore is an intolerant (? I don't know if that's the correct word I'm going for) criticism of the system.
    Would you mind elaborating on this a bit more? To me, it seems like if there is no rule defined for a situation, and a DM has to make their own decision on how to handle it, then they are by definition not partaking of the rules anymore - there are no rules to partake of!

    No game is going to cover 100% of what comes up at the table, but some omissions are more impactful than others. In a game about swinging swords and casting spells to clear out monsters from their lairs, I think it's more glaring that there are no resolution rules for a category of spells than that there are no rules for swinging from chandeliers.

    That's correct. No game ruleset is going to 100% of what comes up at table. So why does D&D get deuces dropped on it, and other systems don't?

    Someone above spoke to Dungeon World, and while there was not a Major Image equivalent in that game if there was that they would handle an illusion pretty much the same as in D&D. Determine an appropriate mechanic that already existed in the game that would fit the situation and apply it here. Does that mean one is no longer engaging in the Dungeon World ruleset and is now improvising? I would say no, but some in this discussion should be saying yes.

    I feel like improvising an answer because the spell doesn't exist in the game is a very different situation to improvising an answer to a spell that exists in the game already.

    Like, if you want, I can write out a full Dungeon World spell description for you. It will still be homebrew, of course, which is its own form of improvising an answer, but if you want a complete version of it instead of me just talking about how rule structures work for illusions in that game, I can do it.

    Edit: actually hell, here you go. It's not a spell, it's an alternate class ability for the wizard, but close enough.

    Illusionist
    When you craft a magical illusion to deceive your enemies, you may roll Defy Danger with your intelligence modifier as opposed to the modifier called for by the situation. While you are maintaining this illusion, you are unable to cast spells.

    Straightzi on
  • WhelkWhelk Registered User regular
    This is one advantage games that treat combat checks as skill checks have. I've always thought it might make DND a little more palatable if you swap base attack bonus for something like a swords skill. That's a while other conversation, though.

    Really the game just needs a framework for adjudicated effects. Advantage/Disadvantage is nice, but I've always imagined illusion magic as just the magical version of a skill stunt. It's the same as that guy hanging from a chandelier. I'd like something slightly more granular than "feel free to roll more d20s at these issues."

  • MahnmutMahnmut Registered User regular
    admanb wrote: »
    OSR kind of just goes on and you usually only hear about it when one of the bad actors in the movement does something bad, which is why it hasn’t really come up since ZakS... well, y’know.

    The current slate of games I’m running has two OSR games (Stars Without Number and Zweihander) and no PbtA or Forged in the Dark games! The last game is Burning Wheel.

    I love playing PbtA/Forged games but I don’t feel like running them these days. Probably because I’ve run 90+ sessions of Blades and a bunch of PbtA but there are definitely common themes between the games I’m running that don’t work with PbtA/Forged.

    Right now I'm running Ultraviolet Grasslands, which is very OSR! (I am running it with Quest RPG, which is not particularly OSR)

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  • TallahasseerielTallahasseeriel Registered User regular
    I think I decided I want to do an online dungeon world over discord with some of y'all

    Anyone interested?

    Also who of our dungeon world pbta experts would be available for me to bounce ideas off of in pms on occasion as I learn the ropes? I still gotta read through the book and unofficial guide again first but it'd be cool to feel like I can run my prep by somebody before sessions to get my legs under me.

  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    Uriel wrote: »
    I think I decided I want to do an online dungeon world over discord with some of y'all

    Anyone interested?

    Also who of our dungeon world pbta experts would be available for me to bounce ideas off of in pms on occasion as I learn the ropes? I still gotta read through the book and unofficial guide again first but it'd be cool to feel like I can run my prep by somebody before sessions to get my legs under me.

    I'm not available to play, but feel free to toss questions at me.

  • TallahasseerielTallahasseeriel Registered User regular
    Straightzi wrote: »
    Uriel wrote: »
    I think I decided I want to do an online dungeon world over discord with some of y'all

    Anyone interested?

    Also who of our dungeon world pbta experts would be available for me to bounce ideas off of in pms on occasion as I learn the ropes? I still gotta read through the book and unofficial guide again first but it'd be cool to feel like I can run my prep by somebody before sessions to get my legs under me.

    I'm not available to play, but feel free to toss questions at me.

    Thanks I was hoping you would say so!

  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    Straightzi wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Delduwath wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Saying that a DM having to make a call on the mechanical results of loosely defined action, be it a spell or trying to swing from a chandelier, as not partaking in the rules anymore is an intolerant (? I don't know if that's the correct word I'm going for) criticism of the system.
    Would you mind elaborating on this a bit more? To me, it seems like if there is no rule defined for a situation, and a DM has to make their own decision on how to handle it, then they are by definition not partaking of the rules anymore - there are no rules to partake of!

    No game is going to cover 100% of what comes up at the table, but some omissions are more impactful than others. In a game about swinging swords and casting spells to clear out monsters from their lairs, I think it's more glaring that there are no resolution rules for a category of spells than that there are no rules for swinging from chandeliers.

    That's correct. No game ruleset is going to 100% of what comes up at table. So why does D&D get deuces dropped on it, and other systems don't?

    Someone above spoke to Dungeon World, and while there was not a Major Image equivalent in that game if there was that they would handle an illusion pretty much the same as in D&D. Determine an appropriate mechanic that already existed in the game that would fit the situation and apply it here. Does that mean one is no longer engaging in the Dungeon World ruleset and is now improvising? I would say no, but some in this discussion should be saying yes.

    I feel like improvising an answer because the spell doesn't exist in the game is a very different situation to improvising an answer to a spell that exists in the game already.

    Like, if you want, I can write out a full Dungeon World spell description for you. It will still be homebrew, of course, which is its own form of improvising an answer, but if you want a complete version of it instead of me just talking about how rule structures work for illusions in that game, I can do it.
    Yeah, this was the thing that occurred to me right after I wrote my previous post and went to shower.

    I could be mistaken, but I don't think D&D defines an action "Swing from the chandelier". If I'm correct, and this is something that the players bring to the table, then I think it absolutely makes sense that the DM has to make a judgement call on this, and doesn't impugn on D&D's rule design.

    On the other hand, D&D defines spell-casting as an entire mechanical system. It defines illusion magic as a whole school of magic within that mechanical system. (It's not really relevant to modern D&D, but old D&D editions even treated the illusionist class as being distinct from the wizard class.) It explicitly defines Major Image as a spell within that mechanical system. D&D brings this to the table, so I think it's fair to expect D&D to tell me how to handle it.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Glal wrote: »
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    Maddoc wrote: »
    D&D is good at being D&D, and that's fine

    It's just rubbish at being anything else
    It's also rubbish at teaching you to play anything else.

    Which is why it's bad for D&D to be people's first roleplaying game.
    Hey, I resemble this remark!

    I own a bunch of fascinating settings I would love to DM, but because my own experience is 99% D&D I'm finding it very difficult to wrap my head around the mechanics that don't fit the D&D mold. Like the card combat in Mouse Guard, I can't tell if the mechanics are purely ornamental and the players are meant to be roleplaying their choices, or if there's a puzzle there to solve and I'm just not seeing it because I've not experience with the system. Or all the different "success in this range results in compromise instead" systems. How do I gauge what a fair compromise is?
    I'm too used to combat being a binary and have nothing to draw upon to gauge how it should work otherwise.

    Mouse Guard is a simplified variant of Burning Wheel and while I've heard fantastic things about Burning Wheel I also hear that it takes a good dozen sessions to actually grok how the things do what.

    If you want suggestions for roleplaying games with settings or mechanics, however, this is the place to do it, friend.

  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Delduwath wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Saying that a DM having to make a call on the mechanical results of loosely defined action, be it a spell or trying to swing from a chandelier, as not partaking in the rules anymore is an intolerant (? I don't know if that's the correct word I'm going for) criticism of the system.
    Would you mind elaborating on this a bit more? To me, it seems like if there is no rule defined for a situation, and a DM has to make their own decision on how to handle it, then they are by definition not partaking of the rules anymore - there are no rules to partake of!

    No game is going to cover 100% of what comes up at the table, but some omissions are more impactful than others. In a game about swinging swords and casting spells to clear out monsters from their lairs, I think it's more glaring that there are no resolution rules for a category of spells than that there are no rules for swinging from chandeliers.

    That's correct. No game ruleset is going to 100% of what comes up at table. So why does D&D get deuces dropped on it, and other systems don't?

    Someone above spoke to Dungeon World, and while there was not a Major Image equivalent in that game if there was that they would handle an illusion pretty much the same as in D&D. Determine an appropriate mechanic that already existed in the game that would fit the situation and apply it here. Does that mean one is no longer engaging in the Dungeon World ruleset and is now improvising? I would say no, but some in this discussion should be saying yes.

    I think the answer is two-fold.

    1. The game spends so much of it’s page count lining out rules for combat that when situations come up that have no rules, or the book just says to wing it, that it feels like omission.

    2. D&D’s position in the greater culture. It has gotten itself into the position of being top dog in the mind space of folks who play or want to play TTRPGs. It is also billed as a system that can do anything. Though the only reason it can do anything is that it doesn't have rules for any of it so in a sense you can slap whatever you want on top, if you are willing to do the homebrew legwork. People are going to knock it for that, especially since Wizards doesnt seem to be interested in refuting it. Not surprisingly of course since they are a company trying to make as much money as possible.

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  • MaddocMaddoc I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother? Registered User regular
    So, swinging from a chandelier actually segues well into another concurrent point, which is that D&D teaches you specifically to play D&D or as I like to refer to it, it teaches "bad roleplaying habits"

    A new player is more likely to try and "over explain" their actions, doing stuff in a more cinematic manner. Most DMs would likely apply some sort of skill check to it, provide a bonus on success, and some kind of penalty on failure. It doesn't take an incredibly savvy player to figure out before long that taking these more elaborate actions creates a risk/reward balance that is often not in your favor by introducing multiple points of failure into your actions.

    D&D teaches players to take prescribed mechanical actions, and then apply narrative to that action (This step is optional). Which makes it more difficult if they were to move onto something like FATE or PbtA which is predicated upon the idea of describing your action, and then reaching a consensus about how it is resolved mechanically afterwards.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    Maddoc wrote: »
    So, swinging from a chandelier actually segues well into another concurrent point, which is that D&D teaches you specifically to play D&D or as I like to refer to it, it teaches "bad roleplaying habits"

    A new player is more likely to try and "over explain" their actions, doing stuff in a more cinematic manner. Most DMs would likely apply some sort of skill check to it, provide a bonus on success, and some kind of penalty on failure. It doesn't take an incredibly savvy player to figure out before long that taking these more elaborate actions creates a risk/reward balance that is often not in your favor by introducing multiple points of failure into your actions.

    D&D teaches players to take prescribed mechanical actions, and then apply narrative to that action (This step is optional). Which makes it more difficult if they were to move onto something like FATE or PbtA which is predicated upon the idea of describing your action, and then reaching a consensus about how it is resolved mechanically afterwards.

    Although to be fair, in all cases the result is the same. You describe a fictional action and then resolve it using the resolution mechanic of either: (a) 1d20 + modifiers, (b) 4dF + modifiers, or (c) 2d6 + modifiers. All three systems have prescribed mechanical actions and associated resolution mechanics.

  • TallahasseerielTallahasseeriel Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    I think the lack of a specific mixed success result in d&d really hurts the system. And the lack of an explicit fail forward idea presented in most of the books.

    But that's me. I just find the binary of failure and success to get kinda stale in d&d really quickly.

    Granted you can implement stuff like that but it's not explicitly designed for you in the book anywhere.

    Tallahasseeriel on
  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    Uriel wrote: »
    I think the lack of a specific mixed success result in d&d really hurts the system. And the lack of an explicit fail forward idea presented in most of the books.

    Agreed but the bigger issue is systemic inertia against players being descriptive first. I feel like 3.X somehow did the most damage (or maybe it was the interaction of the 3.X player base with the 4e system?)

    Twitter! | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Maddoc wrote: »
    So, swinging from a chandelier actually segues well into another concurrent point, which is that D&D teaches you specifically to play D&D or as I like to refer to it, it teaches "bad roleplaying habits"

    A new player is more likely to try and "over explain" their actions, doing stuff in a more cinematic manner. Most DMs would likely apply some sort of skill check to it, provide a bonus on success, and some kind of penalty on failure. It doesn't take an incredibly savvy player to figure out before long that taking these more elaborate actions creates a risk/reward balance that is often not in your favor by introducing multiple points of failure into your actions.

    That's another thing 4E had that 5E should have had. In 4E by the DMG2 a DM had access to sample "terrain powers" that were often single use interactions with the environment that had defined effects, like toppling over a cauldron of boiling water, pushing over a weakened pillar, or tearing down a tapestry to fall on your enemies. Since these were one-use powers they were often as good as at least an Encounter power to encourage their use.

    There was also a page in the DMG that covered improvised actions and how much damage they should do. 5E does admittedly have something similar.

    Hexmage-PA on
  • TallahasseerielTallahasseeriel Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    I wonder if 4e could have had a kinda system where the dm gets like, their own powers that trigger specificly on player characters rolling a failure or a something.

    Stuff like having a monster summon some buddies or find an opening to run away, or having the players equipment be temporarily unavailable or unusable.

    It might make combat more dynamic.

    Tallahasseeriel on
  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Uriel wrote: »
    I wonder if 4e could have had a kinda system where the dm gets like, their own powers that trigger specificly on player characters rolling a failure or a something.

    Stuff like having a monster summon some buddies or find an opening to run away, or having the players equipment be temporarily unavailable or unusable.

    It might make combat more dynamic.

    4e absolutely had conditional abilities that triggered on various player actions.

  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    Maddoc wrote: »
    So, swinging from a chandelier actually segues well into another concurrent point, which is that D&D teaches you specifically to play D&D or as I like to refer to it, it teaches "bad roleplaying habits"

    A new player is more likely to try and "over explain" their actions, doing stuff in a more cinematic manner. Most DMs would likely apply some sort of skill check to it, provide a bonus on success, and some kind of penalty on failure. It doesn't take an incredibly savvy player to figure out before long that taking these more elaborate actions creates a risk/reward balance that is often not in your favor by introducing multiple points of failure into your actions.

    D&D teaches players to take prescribed mechanical actions, and then apply narrative to that action (This step is optional). Which makes it more difficult if they were to move onto something like FATE or PbtA which is predicated upon the idea of describing your action, and then reaching a consensus about how it is resolved mechanically afterwards.
    I think that depends on what you want at the table, and what your definition of "roleplaying" is. If you want dat narrative, then I'll buy that D&D's approach can make you develop habits that might be detrimental to that goal (and D&D is not unique in this, incidentally, although obviously the biggest and most visible). If you actually just want your warrior buddy to line up some orcs so that you can then knock them down like pins, and everyone walks away with a level-up and a new sword - if you really aren't interested in the narrative - then I think those habits are fine.

    Tangentially related, I like Matt Colville's video on roleplaying, where he talks about (his own categories of) "roleplaying" and "Roleplaying", the first one being
    "making decisions about your character in a game with a persistent world where your character improves based on the decisions you made"
    and the second one being
    "the act of making decisions about what a character would do when that character would do something different than what you would do"
    I know that second definition makes it sound like if there's any overlap at all in what you would do and your character would do then that's not Roleplaying, but I think that's just phrasing. I think he means considering the character as a whole person distinct from yourself, as opposed to an uninhabited puppet that you are controlling. Anyway, the point of his video is that he feels Roleplaying is more complex, sophisticated, and meaningful than roleplaying (and he has advice on how to develop the skills on getting there), but he also doesn't think it's more virtuous, and that the people who are just pushing their minis around a grid and selecting their powers at level-up or whatever are not in any way doing it wrong.

  • TallahasseerielTallahasseeriel Registered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    Uriel wrote: »
    I wonder if 4e could have had a kinda system where the dm gets like, their own powers that trigger specificly on player characters rolling a failure or a something.

    Stuff like having a monster summon some buddies or find an opening to run away, or having the players equipment be temporarily unavailable or unusable.

    It might make combat more dynamic.

    4e absolutely had conditional abilities that triggered on various player actions.

    Yeah

    But I was thinking of if you could somehow make it it's own system that interlocks with the resolution mechanic itself.

    Like instead of just filling the xp budget of the encounter with just monsters traps and such the dm can take these powers that remain secret to the player until they use them. And they get to use them when a player rolls poorly, maybe even getting to say "you can still do your action and succeed but this dm power will trigger"

  • MaddocMaddoc I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother? Registered User regular
    It's less that they're doing it wrong and more that D&D teaches players that at any given time they have a list of Actions they have available to them, and they choose from those Actions.

    This can be a difficult habit to break when attempting to play a more narrative focused system where you are meant to describe your actions and then retroactively apply mechanics to it.

    It's very evident playing a PbtA game with someone whose primary system has been D&D, they are extremely conscious of the list of Actions as described in the handbook, and try to tailor what they are doing to those Actions rather than vice versa.

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    I've just had an idea for how to engage one of my players that's so perfect I can't even believe how perfectly everything is fitting together.
    - My campaign is set in the world of Exandria, the setting of Critical Role. One of my players is a really big fan.
    - Using a character background inspiration tool I provided she got a result that her character, a 20 year old dwarf bard/cleric, was taught by legendary figures. She chose two of the main characters of Critical Role's first campaign, the gnome bard Scanlan Shorthalt and his wife Pike Trickfoot, a gnome cleric of the goddess of redemption Raei.
    - Earlier while looking through the Tal'Dorei setting guide I noticed a suggested hook of a lost young duergar princess. During the first campaign of Critical Role (which took place 20 years prior to my campaign) the king and queen of the duergar city of Emberhold were slain by the heroes and a duergar warlord took over, one who doesn't want the princess to be found. I decided that this princess was assigned by the warlord to be taken to a distant outpost so she'd never know the truth of who she truly was, but a devil recently contacted her and told her she was the lost princess of Emberhold. She's now become a devotee of Asmodeus and plans a coup against the leader of the outpost she's at before one day returning to Emberhold to claim her place as queen. I intend for the players to meet her and possibly lend her aid with this coup.
    - The goddess Raei, who my player's character worships, was tricked by Asmodeus 800 years ago, an event that somehow nearly annihilated all of her worshipers and signs of her existence. She's only now rebuilding her church and following.
    - After doing some research into the relevant episodes of Critical Role concerning Emberhold, what should I discover but the fact that the duergar king was killed by Scanlan Shorthalt, my player's character's mentor.
    - Whereas my player's character is a young dwarf worshiper of Raei who was trained by the legendary Scanlan Shorthalt, the princess is a young duergar worshiper of Asmodeus whose father was decapitated by the legendary Scanlan Shorthalt.

    Now I'm imagining a scenario where the duergar princess is told by her devil ally about the PC's connection to both her father's killer Scanlan and to Pike, a cleric of Asmodeus' enemy Raei. The princess could keep her true identity secret, pretend to seek the PC's help in turning from Asmodeus and finding redemption in Raei, and ask the PC to let her visit Pike, the legendary cleric of Raei, for help, secretly planning to decapitate Pike to both kill a famous follower of Raei in Asmodeus' honor and to get revenge against Scanlan for killing her father and changing her life forever. Of course the princess would fail in attempting to kill Pike, seeing as the cleric and her husband are both legendary heroes who once helped defeat Vecna.

    The only problem is that I'd have to try and convincingly portray two of the main characters of Critical Role, a show performed by professional voice actors that my player is much more well acquainted with than I am.

    After further reflection, I think perhaps a more dramatic outcome (that doesn't require me trying to imitate two professional voice actors' characters) would be to have the duergar princess "befriend" the dwarf PC before privately revealing her true identity and intentions in her private chambers. The princess attempts to sell her soul on the spot to her devil ally to have Pike Trickfoot magically gated there so she can kill the famous cleric of Raei and have the PC take the mutilated corpse to her husband Scanlan, the killer of the princess' father.

    To her shock and anger, the devil refuses. He explains that Asmodeus has plans for the princess to help bring the order of the Hells to the Underdark, and that any devil who would let her sell her young soul for something so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things would face the wrath of the god of devilkind. The duergar princess protests, saying that killing a famous cleric like Pike would strike a blow against Asmodeus' foe Raei, only for the devil to reply that it would be better to let Raei's faith grow and prosper for a time before crippling it again, at which point those followers of Raei could be filled with doubt in the power of their goddess and redemption and turn to Asmodeus instead. The princess is forced to angrily admit that she's afraid Pike and Scanlan could possibly die of some other means and that she wants to be the one to make them suffer so she can get her revenge. The devil claims that as gnomes the pair likely have a long time yet to live; further, killing Pike and antagonizing Scanlan could bring the wrath of the legendary Vox Machina adventuring party down upon her when she is nowhere near ready to face such powerful foes. He chastizes the princess for letting petty vengeance cloud her judgment and says that Asmodeus expects more from her life, but that when she has matured she will sell her soul to the god of the Nine Hells for a truly worthy cause and have already acquired the means to go after Scanlan and Pike if she still desires.

    The secret meeting between the dwarf PC, the duergar princess, and the devil ends with the dwarf being angrily yelled at to leave while the princess looks for some way to vent the rage and frustration that her devil ally has unexpectedly filled her with.

    What happens next is up to the dwarf PC. Does she attempt to redeem the duergar who is only a few years her senior? Could a protege of the princess' enemies possibly succeed in this endeavor?

    Hexmage-PA on
  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    It’s taken me ages to get D&D players to describe a cool thing they do, where as with new roleplayers they’re sliding under tables to shoot a foe through the head and shooting fire extinguishers to create a blast of foam and swinging through windows and—

    It’s not always the case but predominantly D&D players take Actions, everyone else is their own personal action movie star.

  • Beef AvengerBeef Avenger Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    In DnD I'll try to describe doing something cool and then ten rounds of combat later I'm just like fuck it I hit it with a sword 7 damage, because that's all that really matters and describing superlative flips and twirls gets repetitive and affects nothing

    Beef Avenger on
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  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    So when do folks describe this stuff? Before or after you roll dice and figure out what happened?

    I'm curious what other people do.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • 3cl1ps33cl1ps3 I will build a labyrinth to house the cheese Registered User regular
    Descriptions after dice, IMO, because if you describe something amazing and then pooch the roll it's a bit weird.

  • MaddocMaddoc I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother? Registered User regular
    So when do folks describe this stuff? Before or after you roll dice and figure out what happened?

    I'm curious what other people do.

    Depends on the system

    In something like FATE, PbtA, Forged in the Dark and so on, you describe what you're trying to do first, then you reach a consensus on just what you need to roll as a part of that action.

    In D&D, I'll elaborate on what happened during the action afterward (if at all)

  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    I don’t think D&D is that good honestly. I say this as I run a game of it now and it’ll like be the third and final game I’ve ever run of it, in comparison to the countless Apocalypse World derived games (which while not perfect I don’t like, hate them) and other systems.

    Every time I have fun in D&D it’s because I’ve changed something fundamental. Usually by giving enemies 1/4 HP for a start.

  • SCREECH OF THE FARGSCREECH OF THE FARG #1 PARROTHEAD margaritavilleRegistered User regular
    d&d is the microwave chicken nuggets of ttrpgs

    gcum67ktu9e4.pngimg
  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    d&d is the microwave chicken nuggets of ttrpgs

    Yeah but at least 4E was shaped like dinosaurs

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    If D&D is chicken nuggets, 4E was totino's pizza rolls. Yes it's still a microwavable snack, but at least it recognizes it and tries to do something good.

  • Der Waffle MousDer Waffle Mous Blame this on the misfortune of your birth. New Yark, New Yark.Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    admanb wrote: »
    I have very little interest in arguments about what is and isn’t OSR, but Zweihander is a retroclone and that’s good enough for me to use the blanket term.

    Stars Without Number has as much in common with Traveler as it has with OD&D.

    SWN (or at least the version I own) is literally B/X but in space.

    Der Waffle Mous on
    Steam PSN: DerWaffleMous Origin: DerWaffleMous Bnet: DerWaffle#1682
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    Maddoc wrote: »
    It's less that they're doing it wrong and more that D&D teaches players that at any given time they have a list of Actions they have available to them, and they choose from those Actions.
    What I find amusing is that when 4th Ed officially recognized this tendency and codified it in the rules in a coherent and ergonomic way, the old guard rose up and declared with thunder and fury that what they want is a Highly Narrative Game, Actually.
    This can be a difficult habit to break when attempting to play a more narrative focused system where you are meant to describe your actions and then retroactively apply mechanics to it.
    Sure, it's a problem - when attempting to play a more narrative focused system. I think that for some folks, that kind of system isn't exciting, and I imagine that for some folks, not having a list of concrete Actions would be nerve-wracking and exhausting. I mean I agree with your core observation that D&D makes you develops habits that make it harder to switch to games of a different style, I'm just not sure that this makes them bad habits. Do you think that players who entered the hobby with PbtA can switch to D&D without friction?

This discussion has been closed.