TTRPGs & D&D

[Fletch]

I like a lot of modern games (by a certain definition of modern), but I'm old enough to feel nostalgic for when D&D was set up for different jobs requiring different classes. Back when success was measured by recovering treasure, you could have a class that just fought or one that just picked locks and so on. I think once we started measuring classes solely by how well they killed, we lost a lot of that distinction.

And as long as I'm being crusty, I think once the market realized you can sell 4x as many books if they're targeted for players, the boom in character options did a lot to de-specialize the classes too.

 

[Damien]

I like a lot of modern games (by a certain definition of modern), but I'm old enough to feel nostalgic for when D&D was set up for different jobs requiring different classes. Back when success was measured by recovering treasure, you could have a class that just fought or one that just picked locks and so on. I think once we started measuring classes solely by how well they killed, we lost a lot of that distinction.

And as long as I'm being crusty, I think once the market realized you can sell 4x as many books if they're targeted for players, the boom in character options did a lot to de-specialize the classes too.

Yeah, the plethora of options don't help. There's so many feats and abilities available to players (and sub-classes) that you can sort've do anything from any starting point. And as you said - right or wrong - D&D IS a game about killing monsters and getting treasure. Which means they needed to balance the game for loot goblins and murder hobos. Which means everyone is just a different kind of combat class (ironically, this makes the actual combat classes the worst at combat - go figure).

But I get it. The other option in a game that's typically 75% combat is for everyone to watch the party Barbarian and Fighter wreck shop while they wait for their turn to read a magic book or open a door.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

(The latter has a fantastic worldbuilding/intrigue system, but it's combat system is basically pew pew back and forth til someone's defeated, and it's just not cinematic or dynamic enough for the folks I roll with. I kinda want to bolt a better combat system onto its social system.)

You can definitely do this. I might wind up doing it with my upcoming sci-fi campaign. I just bought Traveller and Stars Without Number. I haven't read either book yet, but I'm planning to run a combo of both. Likely SWN's combat and leveling system and Traveller's everything else.

I can run a really bonkers 5e campaign with minimal prep now because I know the system like the back of my hand, and I improvise story beats in a way that has the players thinking I planned it all out months ago

A few YouTube DMs I watch recommended this to strengthen your improv muscle. I'm confident I could do it, but I'd be sweating bullets the whole time.

I think if a table of folks all agreed to learn the rules together I could do it, but, again, love my players, they never opened the player's handbook, and they aren't going to start now, and that goes for new games, too. It's all on me to onboard them.

My players dislike my penchant for new game systems, but fortunately, most of them dive head-first into the book when I force it on them. I have two mini-DMs sitting next to me by the time I start the game.

I like a lot of modern games (by a certain definition of modern), but I'm old enough to feel nostalgic for when D&D was set up for different jobs requiring different classes. Back when success was measured by recovering treasure, you could have a class that just fought or one that just picked locks and so on. I think once we started measuring classes solely by how well they killed, we lost a lot of that distinction.

I'm a known D&D 5e hater. I like the built-in flavor that comes with modern D&D classes and subclasses, but you and Damien are right that the classes have become samey. You need a rogue to pick locks for you. Unless you have a bard. Or a ranger. Or any other class with proficiency. When everyone's a specialist, no one's a specialist.

The long-term campaign my group wrapped up last month had five players, and four of them could've been the "face of the party." We had a warlock, bard, paladin, and charisma-based rogue (me). When literally 80% of the party can serve as the charismatic frontman, something might be wrong with your game system.

There's something to be said of OSR. If you need a sneaky guy, you need a rogue. The rogue couldn't double as the party tank—something I often did in that long-term campaign, by the way. I had more HP than our fighter.

 

[Fletch]

Yeah, I don't think the evolution was wrong. I know my friends and I were more about who got in the final blow than who spotted the tripwire. I'm just nostalgic for the type of adventure where you need someone to watch for tripwires, if that makes sense.

D&D 4th did a lot of work on homogenizing the classes by giving them all the same attack patterns and routines, but credit where due, I really liked having a specific role again, even if it was all combat-based.

 

[docsilence]

I actually agree with the too-samey-ness part of 5e, but a counterpoint: I can run a game for six rogues if I have to now. I worry less about a dedicated healer not showing up. But I also think it's HILARIOUS if a group dump-stats charisma or refuses to have anyone along who can disarm a trap just to see what happens when they discover they have a missing specialist. I love specialization and variety, but not requiring someone to be the party mom and play a cleric has been nice.

A few YouTube DMs I watch recommended this to strengthen your improv muscle. I'm confident I could do it, but I'd be sweating bullets the whole time.

I honestly have more fun if I prep less now. My group had their nightmare fuel in a bar full of sentient puppets and I just riffed the entire thing, completely freeballing a three hour RP session. Prep a little more for big fights but only because they're really good at tactics now so I want to scare them. (Did I almost accidentally TPK a group with a single mindflayer on Saturday? Yup! On purpose? NOOOPE.)

My players dislike my penchant for new game systems, but fortunately, most of them dive head-first into the book when I force it on them. I have two mini-DMs sitting next to me by the time I start the game.

Envious of that. I think if I pushed hard enough I could drag them along with me, but like, I give them copies of the books for free and they never give it a second glance, so... eh. I mean, no one's even shown an interest in learning D&D 2024 /5.5 yet.

Part of it is my own fault, though. I DM for about 18 different people at a given time, so finding the energy to push for a new system is something I struggle with myself.

(I've kind of resigned myself to the fact that I'll run a few multi-year, 1-20 campaigns at any time, but will never find a group where I get to be a player with the same experience. Any time I get to be a player, the group falls apart due to lack of commitment to showing up for the story. I might get to join in on a two-episode game of Mothership but that's about it.)

 

[docsilence]

Totally sensible. No shade on your players at all, but I could not play with people like that. It drives me crazy to have players that kind of treat the DM as if he's a television or a game console; just there to do all the work while they just get to be entertained. It's already hard to get into a whole new game when you're all adults with full lives. It would be basically impossible to do so when only one person in the entire group is willing to do any work.

I will say: I've run groups where I feel like the entertainment and I end those. The ones that last, they get good at THIS ONE GAME, and no longer need my help, and then they bring creative energy I can play off of I've become SUPER intolerant of players who feel like they want me to do all the work. Getting them to learn a new game feels impossible but I think that's because they got good at one game and don't have the time to learn another.

I usually bow out gracefully for the bad groups, but probably should be more blunt, because inevitably a year later they'll come around again... "hey, got any openings in one of your games? I'm missing D&D."
Me: Well, not for you I don't, Mr. couldn't find your hit points on your character sheet eight months into the campaign...

 

[Damien]

I actually agree with the too-samey-ness part of 5e, but a counterpoint: I can run a game for six rogues if I have to now. I worry less about a dedicated healer not showing up. But I also think it's HILARIOUS if a group dump-stats charisma or refuses to have anyone along who can disarm a trap just to see what happens when they discover they have a missing specialist. I love specialization and variety, but not requiring someone to be the party mom and play a cleric has been nice.

This is something I loved and hated about the Mongoose d20 Conan game. It was sort've 'balanced' with the assumption that the GM was going to figure out what challenges were appropriate for the party and run with it. But within that, it didn't really assume the party had X or Y beyond having 'guys that can hit stuff hard.' I'd say the only thing you probably would really struggle to run in that system is a party that only consisted of scholars and/or temptresses. Temptress probably shouldn't have even really been a player class for a game like that and I don't know of anyone ever playing one. And magic in Conan was more thematic and mysterious, so scholars were so squishy that they weren't really fun to play, in my opinion.

But besides that, every other class was a heavily martial..ized... version of a regular D&D class or class role. You were largely expected to be fielding all or mostly a party of guys that just hit stuff with weapons. And there weren't really any magic items to rely on either. So you just had to figure out what your players could handle almost on the fly. That part sucked, but at least you never really had the 'oh boy, they don't have a Paladin and this adventure is a lot of chaotic evil demons' problem.

 

[docsilence]

Figuring out on the fly what players can handle is probably why I over-rely on the couple of systems I consider having mastered. I'm starting a new campaign on Sunday and I've got a fighter, ranger, and monk so far and no idea who the other two will be yet, but I'm not worried since I know how all the dials work. I don't know that I'd feel this relaxed if I were kicking off a game of Daggerheart instead.

Unrelated, I just painted a ton of Reaper Chronoscope minis and now I feel obligated to run something Call of Cthulhu-ish. Haven't done that in a dog's age.

 

[altcunningham]

Critical Role's attempt at a competitor for D&D.

I find it a little fiddly and the marketing originally was too twee for my tastes, but people seem to be digging it. I actually liked CR's attempt at a horror game, Candela Obscura, but my groups keep going back to D&D because they know the rules in their sleep so it's less stress.

Best thing I heard was it was a TTRPG designed by and for Theater Kids.

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So, are we doing an AT online group?

 

[TheSameIdiot]

I'd be down for that, actually.

 

[Fletch]

So, are we doing an AT online group?

I was scrolling back through the pages looking for what game you were referencing with the initials "AT."

 

[docsilence]

Best thing I heard was it was a TTRPG designed by and for Theater Kids.

-

So, are we doing an AT online group?

Honestly? I'd GM a game for y'all.

Just got roped into DMing a group for my partner's friends because her BF's husband hasn't been able to find a group that has been chill to play with in years. I set up a "fight vampire nobles in a kingdom run by bloodsuckers" allegory for... y'know, reality. The husband shows up with a low key, very efficient human fighter/vampire hunter. Perfect for the story, good to get his feet wet playing after years away. His wife shows up with a ratfolk based on pizza rat, my partner betrays me by creating an angry rabbitfolk monk, another friend shows up with an elderly gnome warlock named Ethyl who isn't sure why she's here, and his wife brought a half-vampire who gets nauseous at the sight of blood.

I told the first guy he's the only human in a muppet movie and I am so sorry. (This group I just let be idiots because I know them so well. I usually actually prefer "real characters who can be funny" over bits, myself.)

Someone in my group that always shows up with characters perfectly designed for my story pitch, however, sent me a gift in the mail that is a "Dungeon Daddy" tee shirt. No one will admit they sent it. Did I almost accidentally wear it on a work cal today? YUP

 

[altcunningham]

I was scrolling back through the pages looking for what game you were referencing with the initials "AT."

Arcane... Treasures... Yeah...

 

[Fletch]

he's the only human in a muppet movie

Not intended as shade toward anyone, because I'm certainly not the guy to tell anyone they're having fun wrong, but this is kind of why I'm reluctant to try gaming in the 21st century.

In really broad strokes, I like stories about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. So my adventure gaming preferences are the zero to hero type campaigns. I bring my human wizard, ready to set out into the world with his  sleep and dancing light spells, and I sit down next to a tortle ninja named Raf Ayel, and an edge-lord necromancer with a full-body skeleton tattoo and a raspy voice nobody can understand.

It ties into what I commented on before about how TTRPGs started marketing for players. Play became about how special your character was rather than meeting the challenges of the adventure. More time spent planning your character progression than engaging in the game itself. Does that make sense?

Again, just my old man attitude talking here. I don't disparage anyone who *wants* to play a ninja turtle, but it's not an inclusion I personally enjoy.

 

[Damien]

I'm good with a goofy game, but I need to know it's that going in. Not to sound like the worst player in the group - but if I walked into a game like Doc described with a 'serious' character, I'd leave. Or, minimally, have to sit and make a completely new character and change all my expectations. While I do tend to prefer high action, high drama type games, I can enjoy silly games too. It just requires more for me to get in the mindset for them.

I find it's easier as a player to mix things up. The worst feeling, for me, is taking tens of hours to put together a game where you have some really cool NPCs and monsters, and great ideas for dramatic happenings and all this - only to have half of the players show up and start playing their Furry Monty Python characters. But even as a player it can be disappointing if you've been amped up for the last month to get into this LotR-style game only to show up and it's more like Medieval Seinfield. That can be a bummer.