D&D 5E D&D compared to Bespoke Genre TTRPGs

[Minigiant]

I wonder if similar arguments would be made if Traveller, or the World of Darkness, or Call of Cthulhu happened to be the 800lb gorilla in the room. Because arguments in this vein often seem to have an element of arguing in favour of the status quo itself, rather than arguing D&D's specific merits. I wonder to what extent is this a defense of the market leader due to its ubiquity and cultural penetration, and the same formulations of the same argument would be made no matter who held the top spot in the RPG market.

They would.
Look at video gaming. Almost every genre creating or genre defining video game is criticized for its lack of malleability after a while. ESPECIALLY RPG and Strategy games.
WOW, Hearthstone, FF, SF, DOTA, Civ, Madden...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think it depends. “You’re better off playing a game made for heists” is true if what you want to do is play a game about heists (or whatever). But as you say, you don’t really want to play a game about heists. You want to play a game that includes heists, among other things. Things for which a game made for heists may be ill-suited, or at least, less well-suited than D&D.

Sure, and this is why 3pp supplements can be so valuable. Because if I’m gonna play a game about heists as anything more than a limited run story, it’s gonna be either a fantasy heist game or a fantastical sci-fi heist game, and so if there is a 3pp book that adds heist genre mechanics and player options to D&D, I’ll just use that.

I think the core message is that system matters, and it is generally a good idea to pick a system that is well-suited to your purposes. Sometimes that means a bespoke system that was purpose-built to do exactly the thing you want (this is often especially true for one-shots). Sometimes it means a general system that handles most things well enough and can be added to as needed.

I think D&D’s biggest strength is in its recognition. Most people who play RPGs are familiar with it, so it’s very easy for most players to jump into, and they’re usually comfortable enough with it to be willing to push it to do things it wasn’t necessarily built to do, in ways they might not be comfortable doing with a less familiar system.

This dynamic is a big deal.

I do definitely hate it when people say "Just play X" This goes for both systems and classes/class combos when someone has an idea for a new class. DnD might not be have systems set up for a certain playstyle so you might need to create them yourself, but I do think it is still largely doable.

Same.

That said, I do think that there are systems out there which are better suited for certain styles of games because they have been built for it from the ground up. In this case they are much like DnD, they do their style of game well but a dungeon crawl probably not so well, and any changes to play style are largely going to have to be homebrewed because the system can't handle it natively.

I’ll disagree a bit here, because D&D is definitely not as narrow in focus as most bespoke genre games, or even some other general fantasy games. Most people I know hardly ever use a dungeon at all, for instance.

Im one foot into agreement on this and one foot out. I did quite a bit enjoy the Paizo adventure paths during the first edition run. They added a lot of mechanical elements such as kingdom building, romance, political intrigue, etc into the game. I think things that move the D&D needle off dungeon crawl and expand the experience are great. The results were very hit and miss, and often the mechanics made the elements hard to immerse oneself in, though I loved the effort.

Yeah, one reason I prefer to homebrew is that I can more easily adjust the mechanics I’ve added on the fly.

That said, I also am not a believer in universal or generic systems. I like using PF/D&D for fantasy, and Call of Cthulhu for horror, and Traveller for sci-fi. I like exploring systems beyond my wheel house. You can't knock it, until you rock it, I always say. Also, sometimes what im looking to run needs less weight than a D&D rule system offers. Sometimes though, re-flavored D&D just feels like D&D when you dont want that.

I think my group is lucky in that we don’t really experience Space Fantasy! Feeling like D&D, or perhaps we do but in a good way? Like, it’s space D&D, but we are playing the kinds of characters we would play in Star Wars, and telling similar stories (kinda, the Galaxy is pretty different from Star Wars).

D&D is a bespoke genre game. It's just one you are really use to.

Nah. Fantasy is too broad to count for the genre part of that, and it doesn’t have any of the types of mechanics that directly reinforce a more specific fantasy genre tropes beyond some subclasses. If D&D is bespoke, every game that isn’t GURPS is.

Actually, there's a perfect example.

D&D does TERRIBLE at handling larger scale ... well... anything. Any time you have more than about 20 combatants, D&D just doesn't work worth a damn. It's horribly slow and boring. Don't believe me? Try giving your PC's a troop of about 20 men at arms, just bare bones Monster Manual Guards, vs a band of, say, 20 bandits and a Bandit Captain. Your PC's are, say, 3rd or 4th level. Just for S&G's, we'll say that everyone is mounted.

I'll see you in a couple of hours by the time you manage to resolve that. And those are as bare bones as you could possibly make them. No multi-attacks, no bonus actions, no reactions (except from the PC's and the Bandit Captain).

This is why ship combat is so difficult in D&D. When you have around 100 combatants, give or take, total, D&D, any edition, just totally breaks down.

I’ll let my group know that out mass combat and ship combat experiences didn’t happen!

I can generally run with an adventure arc within an ongoing campaign without needing to add rules. I'm not going to switch over to the Gumshoe system just so the D&D party can investigate a murder. Come to think of it, the AD&D module The Assassin's Knot was probably the first time I ever ran through a murder mystery in an RPG. But if I were going to play a game that revolved around solving mysteries then I'm more likely to use Gumshoe than I am D&D.


I feel that the D&D rules really lend themselves to adventures that involve heroic characters, copious amounts of violence, and the accumulation of an obscene amount of treasure.

The treasure part is purely genre convention and expectation, at this point. Not giving copious treasure doesn’t even involve houserules or homebrew.

And very often players have a D&D mindset because the rules push them in that direction which I don't think is appropriate for every game. So if I want to play a game where the typical D&D mindset would be inappropriate then I'm better off switching to another set of rules.

Not my experience, but fair enough.

I wasn't a fan of 4th edition but I didn't find it any more or less immersive than other editions of the game. I mean, we're talking about role playing games. I think it should be expected that the mechanics should support whatever gaming goals the author(s) have. Am I aware of the Hunger mechanics in Vampire 5th edition? Yeah. Just as much as I'm aware of needing a short rest in D&D. Neither one is particularly breaking immersion for me though. Although I don't mind being reminded that I'm playing a game not living a fantasy.

My original point wasn’t just about immersion. It was about mechanics that interrupt play, IME. Using mechanical resolution to determine my emotional state is just a play experience I don’t ever want, and I’ve never enjoyed in any of the games I’ve experienced it in.

 

[Umbran]

What I mean by that is, if I want to have mechanics relating to morale and the bonds formed between PCs and their closest NPCs, or with a community, etc, I can just add rules for that to D&D 5e, and D&D 5e absolutely can handle them without any problems.

Theoretically, sure. But that takes work.

It also cuts both ways - If I want to have mechanics relating to morale and the bonds formed between PCs, etc., I can find a game that does that natively, and then add D&Disms to it.

What's more, I generally don't want to play a campaign of heists, or a campaign of city building, or a campaign of building a revolution.

So, I think you may have missed or left out a significant part of the thing you are responding to.

If someone wants some non-D&Disms to be primary elements or focus of play, they probably should use a system that has what they want natively. You don't seem to want any such as a primary element, so the point doesn't really apply to you.

So, for me, "you'd be better off playing a game that is made for that" usually rings hollow. What about you?

See above - it is about what's most important at your table. Pick a game that does what is most important really well, natively. Change it to handle secondary concerns.

 

[Campbell]

@doctorbadwolf

Basically no one who has ever played a lengthy game of Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, Burning Wheel, Sorcerer or a plethora of what you would call bespoke genre games would claim that they are more narrow in focus than D&D. I think you and many other people who make that argument greatly misjudge the flexibility of other games and carry a lot of unspoken assumptions about what all RPG play must look like. Basically your understanding of RPG play is defined by D&D and other games that are almost carbon copies of it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Theoretically, sure. But that takes work.

It also cuts both ways - If I want to have mechanics relating to morale and the bonds formed between PCs, etc., I can find a game that does that natively, and then add D&Disms to it.

You could, but it’s gonna be a lot more work, IMO, to get a satisfying result. It took me less than 1 hour to make D&D do heists. I ran a fairy tale arc in the same campaign, and I really didn’t add much, I just had a character grow treant armor while defending a dryad grove and its ancient sentient Nemeton tree, and used some opposed success-ladder rolls when the ranger got turned into a stag in order to symbolically fight the Night Stag so it could turn into the Dawn Stag and allow spring to come.
Same campaign, they explored an abandoned Wizard tower with moving rooms and other similar stuff, and I put together some simple mechanics to model them figuring out how to control the tower and use it to help defend against a horde of dolgaunts.

So, I think you may have missed or left out a significant part of the thing you are responding to.

If someone wants some non-D&Disms to be primary elements or focus of play, they probably should use a system that has what they want natively. You don't seem to want any such as a primary element, so the point doesn't really apply to you.

You’ve described part of the point of the thread, yeah.

See above - it is about what's most important at your table. Pick a game that does what is most important really well, natively. Change it to handle secondary concerns.

Absolutely.

 

[Blue]

So, there is a lot of traffic on the internet dedicated to the idea that DnD is a very limited game, and if you want to run a heist or have romantic fantasy narratives, or even just play a game where bonds with other people is very important, then you should play some indie game that is built for that thing, rather than D&D.

I disagree. I play other games sometimes, to tell short stories with my friends, or to explore and learn different ways of running and constructing a game. For my regular game, I'd almost always rather play dnd. Not only am I so familiar with it that I don't need to think about the rules to use them, but it is a game that is very easy to add to.

What I mean by that is, if I want to have mechanics relating to morale and the bonds formed between PCs and their closest NPCs, or with a community, etc, I can just add rules for that to D&D 5e, and D&D 5e absolutely can handle them without any problems. I have used "act now, plan later" mechanics in 5e. Nothing about 5e prevents or even mildly works against doing so.

What's more, I generally don't want to play a campaign of heists, or a campaign of city building, or a campaign of building a revolution. I want to use those elements within a larger campaign that features those things and more. When my Eberron group did a heist to keep a powerful artifact from being purchased by Emerald Claw terrorists, I stole mechanics and ideas from indie RPGs and from movies and tv shows. If it was a broadcast game, I'd have credited them in the show notes, but I certainly wasn't going to tell my group to remake their characters in Blades in The Dark, expect everyone to learn that system in order to participate in the next story arc, and then go back to DnD when we were done with that job.

So, for me, "you'd be better off playing a game that is made for that" usually rings hollow. What about you?

Have to disagree.

1. Many of the other games I like are lighter than D&D. Subtracting too much and D&D isn't an interesting shell.
2. Something as straightforward as a different magic system would be a huge change for D&D, not just a lift and shift. The amount to import it and balance I'd rather put towards play.
3. Many of the other games I'm looking for have distinctly different dynamics - that's why I'm looking at them. For example, Fate's economy is solely powered by accepting Fate points for my Aspects being used in negative ways. Would I want to rip all resource management out of D&D? Why? Don't Rest Your Head has a die pool mechanic that includes where the highest die came from being important, even critical. How would I graft that onto D&D?
4. Many games have very different character creation and advancement. Look at Hero System. I'd never be able to graft on that to D&D and still have it feel and run like D&D. Shadowrun (well, I haven't read 6th) had a priority system and different tracks. Many games aren't zero to hero.
5. D&D has a lot of combat focused rules, and some of the games I want to play have very different focus. I don't want that overhead.
6. D&D 5e is my favorite edition of D&D, and I've been playing since Red Box Basic, but it's not even my favorite D&D-like game. That's the d20 game 13th Age. I play more D&D because there's more players, but once I'm looking at heavily customizing the rules I lose all that and might as well start with the game system I want.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

I know some folks claim that D&D doesn't handle other genres well. My experience is different. I've run every version of D&D from ODD to 5e and pathfinder. I hate dungeon crawls with a passion and stopped running them back in high school (around 1982).

I've been running a consistent modern arcana game in 5e since I stated running the game. The setting has strong Lovecraftian horror elements as well (in a more dark fantasy mode than insanity-death spiral mode since that's my least favorite part of CoC). The game is a lot of fun for me and the players.

Sometimes I run two different chronicles, one D&D and the other BRP/HERO with current sets of characters and stories in the same setting at the same time (alternate days of course)

I've also been giving out about 1/10th the treasure since the mid-80s.

The only argument that works for me about 5e inadequacy to these genres is the skill argument. When I want to run a skill heavy game I use HERO or BRP or my own bastardized system that adds the BRP skill system to the HERO chassis (I loathe 3d6 rolls for skills).

This doesn't come from a point of ignorance. I've also run BRP, HERO and GURPS from the first published edition. I used to be the guy who organized GURPS play at conventions in Tucson.

I'm also running Age of Worms for my kids in BRP. It hasn't changed the enjoyment of the game at all.

Folks should just run what they like. I get tired of folks claiming that BRP doesn't work for dungeon adventuring and that D&D didn't work unless it's all about treasure and dungeons. People have been running mysteries, horror, science fantasy and social interaction games in D&D since it was first published.

I've never had a shortage of players and currently have a waiting list about 5 deep of folks who want to join the games I'm running.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

@Hussar By the way, there are many easy ways to run big encounters, using mechanics that already exist in D&D.

The simplest is to treat groups of NPCs as “legendary” creatures that deal AoE damage on their single turn, and can move and do simple tactical stuff as legendary actions.

Another way is to narrate what the PCs aren’t directly involved with. Which is simply an extension of 5e’s dynamic of not rolling for stuff that isn’t in question. Let the PCs results in their turns determine your narration of what those hordes of NPCs do and what happens to them.

If you are going to make such scenarios a big part of the campaign, it’s worthwhile to look into 3pp solutions or to build a system for it that engages the players without slowing things down. If you aren’t going to make it a focus, you can easily wing it.

 

[MGibster]

The treasure part is purely genre convention and expectation, at this point. Not giving copious treasure doesn’t even involve houserules or homebrew.

The basic game rules include tables to roll on for random treasures with more challenging monsters providing more treasure. Copious treasure is built right into the game.

Not my experience, but fair enough.

So what's the purpose of this thread? Your initial question was interesting but now we've switched over to debating our preferences. Which is fine I suppose but ultimately fruitless as I've got not interest in persuading you to stop your current practice. If you prefer using D&D for the majority of your gaming purposes then more power to you. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Have to disagree.

1. Many of the other games I like are lighter than D&D. Subtracting too much and D&D isn't an interesting shell.
2. Something as straightforward as a different magic system would be a huge change for D&D, not just a lift and shift. The amount to import it and balance I'd rather put towards play.
3. Many of the other games I'm looking for have distinctly different dynamics - that's why I'm looking at them. For example, Fate's economy is solely powered by accepting Fate points for my Aspects being used in negative ways. Would I want to rip all resource management out of D&D? Why? Don't Rest Your Head has a die pool mechanic that includes where the highest die came from being important, even critical. How would I graft that onto D&D?
4. Many games have very different character creation and advancement. Look at Hero System. I'd never be able to graft on that to D&D and still have it feel and run like D&D. Shadowrun (well, I haven't read 6th) had a priority system and different tracks. Many games aren't zero to hero.
5. D&D has a lot of combat focused rules, and some of the games I want to play have very different focus. I don't want that overhead.
6. D&D 5e is my favorite edition of D&D, and I've been playing since Red Box Basic, but it's not even my favorite D&D-like game. That's the d20 game 13th Age. I play more D&D because there's more players, but once I'm looking at heavily customizing the rules I lose all that and might as well start with the game system I want.

Well, I wouldn’t advise porting over any mechanics from other games just because you like those mechanics.

I also suspect that replacing D&Ds magic system would be pretty simple, as long as the new system is, itself, simple. You don’t even have to replace classes if you keep either spell slots or spell points as a limiting resource.