TTRPGs & D&D

[TheSameIdiot]

To me, this is the most exciting element of Draw Steel:

“Heroic resources are the first mechanic that we came up with,” Introcaso said. “We want the battle to get more interesting rather than at the beginning of the battle, I do my cool thing, and now I just shoot fire bolts for the rest of the battle because I don’t want to waste the rest of my spell slots. [...] What if instead you had to build up like a Street Fighter game?”

Rewarding heroic resources based on victories means fights get more intense as the adventuring day goes on. Directors gain their own resource, dubbed Malice, that they can use to empower villains. Malice also builds over the course of a combat, so that fights don’t become a forgone conclusion halfway through the battle as enemies are taken down. Colville notes that fights instead obey the Conservation of Ninjutsu trope.

“It's right out of every Marvel movie, every John Wick movie: the fewer the bad guys are, the more dangerous they become,” Colville said. “Usually fights in our game last about two and a half rounds. It's the third round of combat, and there's only one goblin left, and the director gets 12 malice, and the players are like, ‘Oh my god, what is this goblin gonna do?’ That feeling is amazing.”

TTRPG combat tends to get less interesting the longer it goes on. It becomes an exercise in slowly reducing your opponent's HP. Roll dice, wait for your turn, repeat. If new powers or resources are added to the battle as rounds pass, that changes the calculus.

I'm still concerned that these combats will go on too long as a result, but it's a much-needed shakeup.

 

[docsilence]

My current pet system, 13th Age, was made by 4e developers after they left Wizards. I understand that 5e was essentially "right place, right time," but from a design perspective, I struggle to understand why people prefer it to 4e.

Yep. Misses doing damage is another 13A rule. It makes you feel like you're always making progress, even if the grand attack you planned in your head didn't come to fruition.

Yeah...



I'm running Traveller for some new people in a couple weeks and I'm very concerned about this. Traveller is extremely rule-heavy compared to what I typically run.

I swear that last bit is what puts me off of running other games. 5e I could run after coming out of surgery while still on morphine, I know it like the back of my hand. Any game with complex/convoluted systems I'd need the players to also buy a copy of the material and learn it. And when I say I've put the PDF in players' inboxes and nobody's looked at it... But that's why I ADORE the simplicity of Free League's system that is shared (with light tweaks) across all their games. I don't know it as well as 5e but it's so simple that you can pick it up by osmosis after one session. Buuuuut it sucks for long-term campaigns where you want your character to grow or expand or become more mechanically interesting. It's beautiful for like a cinematic, "this could fit into a trilogy of films" style campaign but not more than that.

Draw Steel initially took away rolling to hit at all, which I HATED. It needed something beyond "I hit it with my sword, and I never miss!" and the final variation is wildly improved from the first draft I saw. I like "I mean, I hit it, but this is how WELL I hit it" much better.

(I think 4e suffered from being TOO different from 3/3.5, and then Pathfinder being like "here's 3.75!" 5e is, IMO, infinitely easier to onboard than any variation of 3 so anyone who skipped 4 will see it as a much more efficient game than the previous iteration cos they did a standing leap over a whole version of the game. (I do find 4e a bit... video-game-y, but for the right group I think that's a perfect thing to use.)

The thing I'm not loving lately is so many games pushing for cards/physical elements. I get the tactile appeal. And I am a SUCKER for beautiful little game pieces, like I'm a danger to myself and others when it comes to buying cool stuff for the table. But games that have a phsyical element when I run 90% of my games remotely gives me agita.

 

[docsilence]

I'm still concerned that these combats will go on too long as a result, but it's a much-needed shakeup.

Y'know, I think that's the turnoff for me for Daggerheart--It's supposed to be a light, roleplay-focused, storytelling game, but I have yet to not see a combat being played that doesn't turn into calculus, with the ADDED element of "what does my collectible Magic the Gathering card say I can do with my bow?"

Although I'm also on the other side of things where I've looked at Modiphius' Dune and Star Trek games and my gawd combat is basically pew pew I hit, pew pew I miss until someone dies and is a shit system bolted on to BEAUTIFUL roleplaying/story systems. Dune has a magnificent worldbuilding/narrative engine but if your character gets into a fight, it's less exciting than a mobile game.

 

[Fletch]

There's a lot I like about D&D 4th, especially after the Essentials releases, but the system didn't do much to support play outside of combat.

The grognard in me really liked a good delve, with resource management, environmental challenges, and the like. Fourth edition just kind of hand waves you through skill challenges and heals you up fully each night. I think a 4th combat system with more meaningful "adventure" mechanics would've been closer to my sweet spot.

But not for nothing, one thing I really did enjoy about 4th was the lore. I loved the universe they set up once they got rid of the sacred cows. The world axis cosmology, corruptibility of humans, blue dragons as ocean storm dragons rather than desert, giants and titans, taller halflings, no darkvision for dwarves, and on and on. It's such a great adventure world.

 

[Jolene00Negative]

oh Magpie announced a Masks Second Edition over the weekend. Interested to see what they change if anything, because 1e is one one of my fave systems

Masks 2e Coming Soon

Magpie Games publishes award-winning tabletop roleplaying games like Avatar Legends, Root: The RPG, Masks, and Urban Shadows. Our story-rich, player-driven TTRPGs are made for GMs, storytellers, and fans alike.

magpiegames.com

 

[docsilence]

There's a now-defunct podcast that used to do deep dives into D&D lore and the running joke was "Annnnd then 4e did it completely different, but in a cool way."

The grognard in me really liked a good delve, with resource management, environmental challenges, and the like.

It's funny you mention resource management - I'm running a monthly game right now that's short of an overland dungeon delve (they're exploring a magical environmental disaster so every time they go over the border into the badlands it's a hostile environment). I recently apologized for going at them too hard with multiple fights and limited rest opportunities and one of the "been playing since 1st Ed." players was like NO, it's been years since I've been in a game I needed to think about resource management, this is FUN. Most of the groups I run aren't into that and prefer the "reboot everything after a good night's sleep" 4e used but it is fun to have players be like "thank you for making me climb uphill"

 

[TheSameIdiot]

The grognard in me really liked a good delve, with resource management, environmental challenges, and the like. Fourth edition just kind of hand waves you through skill challenges and heals you up fully each night. I think a 4th combat system with more meaningful "adventure" mechanics would've been closer to my sweet spot.

Not to keep pushing 13th Age, but they have fixes for these issues. This is a better description of it from someone who actually had experience with D&D systems prior to 5e (i.e., not me).

13th age is made by the lead guys from 3.x and 4e after they both left WotC. It uses the 3.x d20 OGL at it's core but is heavily influenced by 4e.

If Pathfinder was 3.75 then 13th age is 3.9.

So, that being said. The core mechanics are basically 3.x but everything else is a little different. The way leveling works at the macro level looks and feels like 2e AD&D but as you get into it you realize it's this odd blend of 2e through 4e. Magic is simplified. The Icon system is... odd. It takes a few tries to get used to

I like to metaphorically relate degrees of crunch to food stuffs. An all crunch system I would call Mixed Nuts and an all fluff would me Marshmellow Fluff.

13th age is a Peanut Butter Mousse pie. It's taste reminds you of crunch but it mostly fluff except for some firmness at the foundation.

While 13th Age is a Big Ass Heroes system, they encourage the DM to run four fights before allowing a full rest.

oh Magpie announced a Masks Second Edition over the weekend. Interested to see what they change if anything, because 1e is one one of my fave systems

I'm going to run Brindlewood Bay for Halloween this year. I'm nervous about it because I've never run PbtA. It seems like a lot of strain on the DM to improvise everything. I've looked into Masks and other superhero systems, including Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, and I'll probably run one eventually. I don't know about running a long-term campaign in PbtA.

I'm running a monthly game right now that's short of an overland dungeon delve (they're exploring a magical environmental disaster so every time they go over the border into the badlands it's a hostile environment)

My main table and I are starting our fourth campaign this week. My grimdark friend is running Dungeon Crawl Classics using this exact setup. I hate the idea of character death, but I'm super pumped about it anyway.

 

[docsilence]

I sometimes do run four fights between long rests and it's kind of hilarious. I don't force it - I let the players decide if they're GOING to rest, and sometimes they just have too much confidence in their own stamina.

I keep meaning to run Brindlewood Bay. It's a delight as a concept. And I do need to find the right superhero system. Maybe it'll be masks. I feel like the best thing I could do to combine my work is run a superhero actual play set in my published setting but I'm hesitant to mix the chocolate and peanut butter.

It's funny, the players I run games for who are most willing to experience character death are also the ones who build the most accidentally unkillable characters. (The thing that puts me off Shadowdark is the whole meatgrinder aspect - I tend to run games with folks who want character longevity and that's definitely a "have... several... backup characters" s a system.)

 

[TheSameIdiot]

Usually character death doesn't bother me. Unfortunately, I accidentally made my best character concept yet in a hostile game system.

 

[docsilence]

Usually character death doesn't bother me. Unfortunately, I accidentally made my best character concept yet in a hostile game system.

This is inevitable. Always the one character when you've got 100 ideas in the queue ready to go...

 

[Fletch]

I think the risk of character death makes you appreciate them more.

A gaming quote that still sticks with me from some years back was "you can kill my character, but I'll make another one just like him, and he'll hate your guts."

A joke, of course, but it pops into my head when I look at point-based build systems.

 

[docsilence]

I think the risk of character death makes you appreciate them more.

A gaming quote that still sticks with me from some years back was "you can kill my character, but I'll make another one just like him, and he'll hate your guts."

A joke, of course, but it pops into my head when I look at point-based build systems.

I almost always GM, but on the rare occasions I get to play every character is ready to jump on the proverbial grenade for the party. It's funny, there's a (kinda blah) official 5e adventure that has an ending that requires one of the players (or an NPC) to take a one way ride to their own death to save the world and as I was reading through it I'm like "gawd, someone needs to DM this for me, I've been waiting my WHOLE LIFE to do that with a character"

(Insert questions about what kind of therapy I need IRL to address that, I guess, but it is what it is)

 

[Damien]

Interestingly, I don't get the 'douche' vibe from the MCDM team at all. The only reason I don't feel like I could spend a day hanging out with Colville is because I don't think he and I have a lot in common beyond maybe base level politics and we like games. But when he goes on his big long dives into why Dune is amazing, my eyes glaze over.

To be fair, I am deeply neurodivergent and I'm fairly certain most of those guys are too. So maybe what is off-putting about them to others just isn't to me because it reads differently to me.


DRAW STEEL still sounds like an awesome system. Misses still doing something was a problem I often tried to houserule into my games because, yeah, how has base D&D NEVER dealt with the absolute fact that slogging through a 5 hour combat session where you might spend 25 minutes waiting for your turn just to do NOTHING is actually absolute and total bullshit and virtually everyone hates it?

I also like that, based on interviews/BTS stuff, they were going with a sort of cinematic idea for conflict resolution and class abilities. Do cool things, often. I like that idea because, as was being touched on above, D&D can be a slog when no one wants to use their cool stuff 'just in case' OR everyone uses their cool stuff right away and now we all just gotta roll to hit for another hour until the rest of the gnolls are dead.

I have the official MCDM stream of the 1st session of the released game queued up but haven't actually sat down to watch it yet (it's 2 hours). Looking forward to seeing how it plays. At least for people that know what they're doing.

 

[Fletch]

combat session where you might spend 25 minutes waiting for your turn

Is this normal?

My gaming days are long behind me; what's the slow-up here? Too many options or status effects?

I'm trying to think back to my old gang, and I think the biggest delays were us screwing around or when we were trying to learn a new system.

 

[docsilence]

I think too-long combat is a common problem, but I dunno... I run tables of six players plus, generally running from 7pm to 10pm with chatter at the beginning so basically 2 1/2 hour sessions, and we can get in a fight and a shit ton of story or roleplay every game, or two full fights in a single session if we're feeling spicy. I think the "five hour fight" thing is either a holdover from the old days or really inefficient tables. DM should be able to read the room and get shit MOVING if you're taking that long. Unless it's like, end of campaign, multiple weird effects, huge maps, stuff that makes it epic and overcomplicated. When I hear DMs say they had to break mid-combat I'm like, are you INSANE, nobody is going to remember where they were two weeks ago mid-fight!

I think this is why I tend to be gun shy about new systems. I've got the two hours, end on a cliffhanger, keep fights light and dynamic thing down with systems I know by heart.

(EDIT: But I've also, since the pandemic, lost the ability to do the grognard six hour game day thing anymore. If a session runs three and a half hours, I'm cooked and the players usually are too. The fun part about zoom is watching body language and seeing when it's time to cut bait.)