One thing I notice is that people claim the fact that the player or the GM "can" come up with something as a strength of the system. That you can really do anything you want because there aren't rules about XYZ. But as you implied, that's not the strength of the system, it's the strength of the GM or players. I understand the appeal of a generic system, I very much do - playing for a very specific genre or niche has never been my preference - but DnD (5e at least) is less generic than it wants you to think (it has rather specific stipulations about playing a heroic, high fantasy, combat oriented game) and as a consequence when it tries to officially add new mechanics to support other styles of play, those mechanics tend to be rather weak and inconsequential or actively clash with other, pre-existing mechanics.
This is why I left the RPG subreddit. The way people actually play D&D and all of the things they like about the games are not at all the strengths of the system. Until the invention of the milestone system (which I think is terribly flawed) the only way to gain XP is to kill things and take their stuff. Not to roleplay. Not to characterize. Not to follow your character's backstory and avenge their dead parents and free the enslaved ratkin. None of that gets XP. Advancement is gained by killing things and taking their stuff. The subreddit threw a little hissy-fit and everyone was telling me about how their DM gave great rewards for playing in character or accomplishing goals. Fine, whatever. Your DM can give you all XP for not wearing pants. That isn't what the rules say. As for the milestone system causes parties to rush through the quest hunting for the next milestone. It is quest based, not character driven, and all too often it rewards parties for staying on the DM's railroad tracks. Rules systems should provide verisimilitude. That is they should enhance the genre of story your players want to tell. Your wild west game should have rules for gunfights at high noon. Your Fantasy Game should allow your players to build their legend and slay a dragon. D&D has never been great at anything other than combat heave dungeon crawl adventures.
The problem is also that as a combat oriented game I don't think it hits the mark. It may look like you have a ton of options, but what you have are builds. Once you have made a character, the range of ways you can approach combat are limited. There is very little in terms of maneuvers and special actions with which to adapt your playstyle to the situation. Build variety is good, don't get me wrong, it's good that different characters will not play the same and that you can control what you want to play, but it's only part of the equation. It is still a level and class based game, which means that it's hard to branch out in any meaningful way. You can multiclass, sure, but unless there is some hidden synergy between classes, it's hard to start doing anything worthwhile that your character wasn't designed to do before. Even more so because the characters are designed not to be versatile.
Having a gente Is not bad.in of itself. D&D has always been about aventures and heroes. The main issue for me, Is the power curve. Noe PCs are really powerful for my liking...
@andresmicalizzi5420 there are some good systems for that. Cogent role-play is one if you can find the old combat rules. I'm sure others will have better but i had a lot of fun with cogent role play.
Gawd, all this. Everyone is so stuck on D&D that just asking to play another system will get you dirty looks. Also, and my memory is a bit sketchy on this, i think our LGS owner happened to mention in passing that if he tried selling other systems, that WotC would punish him some how. Delay shipments, poor pricing, etc.. Someone should look into that.
I think the issues are that people dont want to have to learn a new rules system or invest in different books, GM screens, etc. Ive been buying books and stuff as I can in order to try new games, but so fewpeople play them that I feel like I have to GM them for people. Thankfully more support has become available for GMs and players on vtt. Tokens, maps, etc are becoming available as smaller publishers are turning to Kickstarter to put starter sets and books out for online users.
I always find it interesting when people try to claim D&D is adaptable as if it's somehow more adaptable than other ttrpgs. Edited to add: One of the best things about showing people new rpgs is that it's so easy to blow their minds with what's possible in a game if they've only ever played D&D. Certain things that don't work well in Dungeons and Dragons are incredibly easy in other systems.
@@claudiaborges8406 Yep! And even some of those can be adapted if you're keeping within the thematic elements of it. People have weirdly narrow views of what rpgs are when they only play one game.
I have friends that throw a tantrum if the game says a low number on the dice is good (roll under rather than roll over). Claims of attempts to reintroduce THAC0 (which is not how that works at all) and superstitious nonsense thrown around how they're only good at rolling high so if I flip the numbers, they're getting "nerfed". I know they're joking and just venting the frustration of learning a new system, but it doesn't feel like it in the moment and it's exhausting and demoralizing as a DM.
@@lemongambit It gets frustrating when people put roadblocks in their own way. I've taught a lot of people new games in a lot of situations and it's generally not that difficult for players to learn how a game works if they're not finding ways to stomp their feet down.
@@improvgm8663 Very much, you can customize it sure but when one of my favorite spells is called “First I Then I” and I say this. Pick a point, anyone in X area cast fireball when they next speak. This should not be a comedy spell but it is… people know what it does because of the name before I describe it. I have twice heard people as what will trigger it after I say the word all living things because they know that what will be triggered is cast fireball I have a mage who travels with a swarm of rats because remember… any living thing. A squeak is just speaking in rat.
II. It's history and it's impact I've been trying to say for years that D&D is popular because D&D is popular. I mean, when the hobby was in it's infancy, when Gary Gygax said "the worst thing that could happen would be for people to learn that they don't need the rules", when a lot of pocket communities were saying "fuck Gygax, we don't need his stupid advice to play our D&D"? By being the first RPG to be recognized as such, D&D _immediately_ got the same privilege as Band-Aids. Gary said that about Da Rules because the mindset was already that anyone doing this role-playing thing was playing D&D somehow. Someone goes and makes their own game with a totally different ruleset? D&D with a different rulebook. The vast majority of the population does not think of "tabletop role-playing games" as a category, they just think of them as Dungeons & Dragons. Trying to tell people otherwise just confuses them. It got the hobby off of the ground and eternally cursed it to some IP rights. 9:23 Preach it! I was going to argue that no, I don't think D&D as it exists now is easy to hombrew for at all, as a game that is built around some expectation of careful numerical balance it's actually a nightmare and most homebrew, even officially recognized and published homebrew, sort of sucks. ...Of course even WotC has stated publicly that some bits of 5e were "intentionally" NOT balanced properly, despite all of the tight resource management... IDK man. I'm ranting.
I will be stealing dnd is popular because it us popular because it is absolutely true. It's crazy how much of an advantage being the first one through the door can be. (This is also true for some mid board games that are considered classics).
Yes, it’s an illustrious medieval dynasty living off the fumes of its prior rulers and successes, but decrepit and hollow. Thankfully the virile barbarians, (Pathfinder) are at the gates. I guess that’s not a perfect analogy…
Wizards is doing everything they can to help end this hegemony, and we got the upstart surrounding them to help. Pathfinder, Blades in the Dark, and Blades in the Dark's vast cohort of deciples will win the day I'm sure.
Re: D&D's customizability: I once encountered somebody that wanted to turn D&D into something to play superheroes. They didn't want suggestions for other systems (systems designed from the ground up to play superheroes) because learning a new system is scary. But the amount of work they would have to put into home brew, inventing rules, and testing out what they came up would surely be almost as much work, if not more, right? Why is picking up Mutants & Masterminds or Sentinel Comics RPG or Masks or whatever harder than completely reworking every element of a game that was not designed or intended to do that easier? Like, game design isn't easy. It's hard, actually. There are innumerable things to think about. It's not any easier to hack a game designed for one thing (heroic fantasy with a focus on killing monsters) into something unrelated, right? Some people think they have to turn D&D into something so they can play, for example, Lovecraftian horror, but surely they can just try Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green, right? I think the fact that so few people branch out is what limits the system more. They think that every other system is "just D&D" when the reality is that no, some of them are very different, approach things very differently, and might actually be more intuitive in areas than D&D. It would be like if the only board game people played was Monopoly, but instead of buying Risk or Chess or Twilight Imperium, they decide to add rules to Monopoly to make it fit.
Kids (including adult kids) play with Legos. There are Legos that come in a set designed to allow you to build specific things like a Star Wars ship or a castle or a Super Mario Level. If you buy that set, not only can you easily design what it is intended for, you can also adapt the pieces to easily make other creative things in case you get bored of the same old castle. Some dumb kids (like me) always viewed those Lego sets as "side project Legos". Not the main way to play Legos. Which was a generic bucket of basic block Legos to be creative with because your parents/adult-version-you are/is broke all the time. I could make my own x wing. I didn't need a kit designed specifically to make it easy to build a faithful model of the actual x wing. I could just make stuff fit. I would use pieces of the other kits to add to my giant bucket of assorted Legos, but I didn't keep the sets segregated. It was all just Legos to me. If you don't understand how building a Frankenstein Monster of a game out of basic clunky D&D parts is NOT work but FUN, then you don't understand a major draw in this hobby for a lot of people. Insane, smelly people, perhaps, but people. This was especially true in 3rd Edition. D&D wasn't always about playing a storytelling game with your friends. Sometimes it was just about building weird stuff with the rules by yourself. You're not wrong that it's easier and far less effort to use systems specifically designed to do what you want. But that's not what many GMs are actually interested in. I hope that sheds light on the phenomenon.
@@hallavast You say that as if there aren't also numerous generic systems designed to be building blocks either. GURPS is somewhat well known, but there's Fate, Genesys, d6 System, Cypher, Savage Worlds, Index Card RPG, Cepheus, all designed to be easily modified. Plus there are engines like Year Zero, Powered by the Apocalypse, Forged in the Dark, BRP, and Savage Worlds that are all there for some people to power their own games, with different licenses. And these are not exhaustive lists. I understand the appeal of hacking one system to a different genre, and have done so myself. I'm not saying not to do that, or to not experiment with designing your own system. But what a lot of D&D players (most commonly 5e players), which includes GMs, is go: "Gee, I'm kind of tired of this, I want to play sci-fi." But instead of trying a sci-fi game, they just try to turn D&D into a sci-fi game. Or they think: "Gee, 5e isn't doing it for me any more, I wish I had something different, better." and instead of trying something else that already exists, they just try to house rule 5e.
Or create homebrew rules in 5e only to realise that PF2E has several of those rules built in. My group is swapping to pf2e and my god is it better in so many ways. I'm even considering trying out a specific playstyle that I found to be lacking in 5e. Also the 3 action economy is just *chef's kiss*.
People will run every single possible thing using a poorly hacked dnd which will break, won't work and the flaws will show after the first session, instead of finding any other ttrpg out of the hundreds that exist.
@@FarremShamist The free ruleset using the One Roll Engine called StarORE is superior. The original West End Games D6 system was superior. GURPS Star Wars would be supeior. So you are technically correct. I just can't think of a single reason to give WotC money to play a shitty Star Wars game.
This is not a revalation, yet people always say whenever someone criticizes anything Just think for an additional second and ask yourself, why the people that are engaged in X, might dislike that X. And why they might dislike that X, more than someone that has no idea what X is besides the name "Wow the people passionate about this thing sure are passionate about it" is not a revalation
@xolotltolox7626 I know what you're getting at but it's not impossible to think of someone that hates something that doesn't do it. I hated Cyberpunk when I played it on release, and surprise surprise, I dropped it entirely. This is just as common lol. My comment is about how I don't really ever hear about people that hate DnD that stopped playing it, but rather people playing it while actively hating DnD. The closest I've gotten though is someone dropping DnD to play a different tabletop
@@kingster14444 it's usually because they are frustrated with the system, but don't have the luxury of playing anything else, because everyone only plays D&D instead of good games. And they usually prefer habging out with people and playing something, rather than nothing at all
@@kingster14444 I hate D&D. I will play it if it's that or not playing a roleplaying game, because playing any roleplaying game is preferable to not, but I have yet to play the RPG I enjoy less than D&D.
It's like the Skyrim problem: you can just mod it to make it better But I don't want to HAVE to mod it to enjoy something I bought as a full game/system During the years I really came to appreciate the Apocalypse system, it's more flexible, it's very complex in its simplicity and I find it very dynamic in its storytelling, where the dm is more like an arbiter and co-writer than a know-it-all omniscient external factor.
The d20 system isn’t a flaw, it’s a deliberate choice. The problem is the game doesn’t give you the advice or structure to properly use a binary system
It's not mutually exclusive. PF2 and ICRPG both use Fail Forward action resolution. Also, the structure of preset specific outcomes can be used to create emergent narrative through game play and allow narrative control through tactical game play and rules mastery. Games with fewer barriers to narrative control are making the argument that having to learn complex rules with many limitations is a barrier to creativity. Which sometimes it is. Some people like chocolate ice cream, some people make bad metaphores about ice cream.
@@leithmartin419 ICRPG is still binary though. That’s precisely my point. I remember reading a different game which used a plain “you do it/you dont do it” system that didn’t ask the GM to somehow move the story forward but still gave guidance to how to move the players either around that barrier or to change the situation themselves to try again. And last time I checked PF2 used a “degrees of success/failure” system which IMO places it in a different category to the plain “yes/no” of D&D. The rest wasn’t very clear to me
@@claudiaborges8406 I think we're in agreement that DnD is not the best example of a d20 game. And most RPGs use binary pass/Fail mechanics most of the time. Dice pool games have success levels but usually all you need to know is did you get enough to succeed. No? Well, if you're playing Vampire you might fail forward, if you're playing Shadowrun you failed, try again at -2 or try something else.
If you always gets a trophy you aren't special, no one is special. You have to lose to appreciate winning. Its why a system that has failure is such a good system to begin with.
32:02 generalists are sort of antithetical to cooperative game design. So I'd very much prefer people thinking of themselves as "a ranger" or "a wizard" than as a general medieval person. Some good points, but this is not one of them.
The issue is that DND doesn't encourage cooperation beyond like "everyone beat up the person who's restrained" or "don't hit the people I charmed please" I mean, it's not exactly gloomhaven or drg levels of cooperative it's more like a pvp shooter where you all do your own thing in proximity rather than working together.
Obviously a well designed game would encourage you specializing in certain things. This point is less that everyone in your team should be a generalist in terms of mechanics but instead that a class system limits the diversity of skillsets that would actually arise within a realistic fantasy world.
In D&D everyone is a generalist. In D&D everyone is a combatant. Some builds are strong in that role and some are strictly weaker. D&D is barely a game for anything outside of combat and your character does not have the option of not being geared for combat. Generalists skill wise can still fell specialized in some other way. They can have personality differences that would mean that even though they all can swing a sword or light a fire or sweet talk a barmaid equally well they will tend to approach situations differently. If you want to see some actual specializations you have to look at something like "Sagas of the Icelanders" where e.g. only the female head of the household can mechanically solve a dispute with diplomacy while all male characters have to resort to violence.
III. WotC & Hasbro's Issues The big thing about this to me is that you don't NEED a big company to make professional-quality RPGs that don't suck. There seems to be a sense of fear among a lot of D&D fans that if WotC sunk, the hobby would sink with it, when in reality the only reason for it's size is merchandising.
For as much as people claim DND is a blank canvas to work with I don't feel that is always correct because of the bounded accuracy system where numbers don't change much it can be harder for DMs to correctly judge how things stack up in their own homebrew. Personally I feel like Pathfinder 2E does the D&D theme/fantasy better than WoTC DND. I feel like it has a bit of a stigma of being overly complex due to PF1E being an extension of D&D 3.5E and it did add a bit more to the game. But PF2E I feel solves a lot of problems DND5e has. Sure it has a lot of rules but that's a good thing as in D&D5e it feels like you gotta house rule a lot because the Devs were to lazy to fill it out under the excuse it let's players do their own thing. Problem with this is that means at every table with every DM those things they didn't highlight in the rules you gotta wonder how the DM is gonna rule it. Or if you are the DM it increases your work load by making you need to remember how you house rule so it doesn't retcon how things work. When it comes to blank canvas I find it much easier to create content in PF2e because there are tons of charts on what the Averages are for monster stats, skills, and etc based on level so when designing encounters be it monsters, traps, or etc you have an idea of if it will be on the high/low side of challenge given that level. It's also easy to simply reflavor existing monsters, classes, and etc so they mechanically work the same but just have a different RP flavor given how much variety they have. On the Pass/Fail issue you have with D&D well PF2e has degrees of success which really spice things up as now adding more bonuses to armor, attack, and etc actually matter because it can be the difference between a regular or critical. Be it on offense of getting that critical hit that is rare in D&D since most times it's only on Nat 20, or on defense which could mean the difference between taking a reasonable hit and getting completely crushed by enemy. With the degrees of success system Crits are so much more common than DND5e and can make combat feel a bit more swingy but also adds more tension. On fulfilling the climb fantasy there is climb speed in PF2e and several different ways to potential get it though if it's real important you can always get DM to house rule a new feat or access to one of the existing ones that give climb speed that would normally qualify for. Like a guy in our group plays a ranger and so being able to quickly get to high ground to protect himself while still being able to launch arrows, especially in forest areas, was part of his theme and I forget what feat he took but he had climb speed which often used to get up on roof tops, trees, or simply climb cliff walls. No dice roll required to slow things down. As for class divide a lot of Martial's get various feats that they can pick which give them abilities in combat so two martial can end up having very different play styles. But the casters and Martial's also fill different roles in combat. As for combat like a Puzzle I find PF2e combat to be far more engaging than DND5e. I've seen many people stuck in the D&D mindset come to PF2e think they just need to pick the "best" ability and use it over and over but that often isn't the case. There are several videos on this topic talking about the 3 action economy and how often simply doing a 3rd attack is not a good move. But also due to the degrees of success you'll often hear people in PF2e say every +1 matters and this is true. As flanking the enemy, tripping them, boosting an allies to high chance, and so on can turn a hard/impossible fight into a moderate one. Getting in a few extra crits or preventing the enemy from getting ones on you is huge. PF2e is very much a team game as a lot of abilities give bonuses that your team mates can exploit but not you. So if you just focus on what ability seems "best" of say damage then often won't do as well as someone who also has abilities that help the team setup for success. On class system I gotta agree as far as DND5e goes because it's one thing I really hated about 5e where every player of curtain class/subclass was basically the same. However with PF2e there is so much customization that two people in the same class can be very different characters and a lot of classes can play any of the triad TANK/DPS/SUPPORT to varying degrees. PF2e is a great branch off point as I started back on D&D2e and PF2e feels more like the natural evolution that D&D should have taken rather than the abomination that D&D became with 5e and now beyond/6e or whatever they calling it. It's good branching off point because all the PF2e rules are available for free online so no "a new system cost a lot excuse" and the Devs support this. As they make their money more in Modules/Adventure packs since that's how the company started back in D&D3e but went their own way with their own system. It uses D20 system as well so D&D fans will be very familiar with a lot of the mechanics. It shares a lot of same class/monsters/etc names so it should be very familiar to people transitioning. However due to the OGL BS that WoTC pulled they were forced to make some changes and have released "Remaster" version which does rename several things and even switch up a few things like removing alignment, changing dragon types, redoing some spells effects/names, and so on. But also did some changes to various classes with everything from minor tweeks to major overhauls given player's feedback over the years. And because none of the rules or mechanics were changed you can play the original or remaster versions of a class in a campaign without any issues. Heck to show how much of a robust system it is they are working on their SciFi setting in upcoming Starfinder 2e which uses the same rules. Thus you could have gun wielding Sci-fi characters alongside your fantasy realm heroes and the system can handle it.
I'd argue that D&D's strength as a "Canvas" isn't even a strength and is giving 5e too much credit. It is a result of DM's fixing the system with duct tape and a nailgun. Instead of finding a system that actually suits their needs or fits their narrative.
I get that sentiment but I don't get why people are so unable to see past their own subjective preferences. There are innumerable GMs/players like me who enjoy the way the game was back in the original days....open ended and home-ruled to high heaven. For some of us, the game is not the published rules. The published rules are a framework, and ultimately the games I run are mine and not someone else's
@Calebgoblin Because with 5e, it never got tools that would have been incredibly useful that PF2 had early on: templates for making creatures into Skeletons and Zombies, official rules for Lich PCs, guidelines for what Deities want, and Martial features that weren't just turning them into casters. The only thing I like more with D&D when comparing it and PF2 is D&D's tool proficiency is more my style than PF2's generic "crafting" skill.
@@Calebgoblin Oh; I also feel this way comparing Cyberpunk 2020 and Red...2020 can be played out of the box; Red feels like a lemon with some of the core rules (like autofire being its own skill and costing x2 for a start)
@@littlegiantj8761 I get that for sure. It's all part of my overall point; some people are happy to tailor their answers to these questions and some people aren't. Both are valid
My thoughts as well. It’s weird how brand loyal some D&D players are. I’ve played dozens of games including every version of D&D with many people and it wasn’t until I recently said “oh, I don’t give money to WotC, and I don’t run 5e but I’d be happy to run X, Y, or Z” (one of those games was an older edition) that I first encountered a couple of players who insisted that 5e was absolutely the only game that they would consider playing, they didn’t care if it was 2014, or 2024, but that’s it. Not going to touch any other game. Super weirdly aggressive about it.
Capitalism and sunk cost fallacy. 5e is The Big Name, and people have spent a long-assed time watching 5e videos (especially all the tutorial material, which makes the claims of DnDs simplicity laughable), so the live under this weird belief that if they play a different game then they'll also have to spend several months researching how to actually play that game, regardless of how simple the system you're trying to get them to play is. But there's also weirdos who just like to make brands their entire identity.
I've had the exact same thing numerous times. "Hey guys, I'm happy to GM for you, but I won't run 5e. How about [fantasy game], [cyberpunk game] or [sci-fi game]?" and I always get turned down for some first-time GM to run an amateur 5e game that invariably falls apart before I get called in to pick up the pieces. And then the game dies altogether because either they insist on sticking to 5e and I lose motivation/interest or they put road-blocks in their own way and refuse to learn a new system.
I've always found this so incredibly frustrating. I just refuse to run 5e D&D nowadays. I'll run older editions, I'll run other systems, but I will not run 5e. I don't object to playing it, depending on the GM, but I do not enjoy running it. What I ended up doing was running one shots that could (if the players wished) turn into campaigns. Most recently, I did a one shot of call of cthulhu, which the players enjoyed, a mini-adventure of Mothership, which some players enjoyed and some didn't, and an adventure in classic Traveller, which has turned into a campaign. I'll probably end up running a 3.5 one shot reasonably soon, and I definitely want to try some people out on Chronicles of Darkness and Savage Worlds.
@@urgentfusionguy7143that's when you secretly run a new system for them under the same narrative, and throw in a big twist, like a portal that opens up and their characters are tossed into the world of your new system, and you have these "homerules" to help fit the setting
It has too many essential subsystems for it to be considered actually simple. You can’t have the whole (supposedly) intended experience of the game without those subsystems. You’re meant to dismember the game to your liking, but on its own terms, it’s NOT simple at all. New new groups *struggle* with all this stuff
5e is medium complexity with a lot of exceptions and edge cases that make it more convoluted in use than how technically complicated it is. The major point of 'simplicity' is how much of it can be carried by the DM rather than inherently by the players.
I think I'd say it's a low complexity core with too many sub-systems layered on top. In a lot of ways, the game really does boil down to roll dice. With that being said I agree that new groups really struggle with the sub systems.
@@NevisYsbryd And that is in itself, is a problem with the system it is "Simple" because it dumps everything onto the DM, D&D is miserable to run, so many times stuff in the books can be summed up with the advice of "Make it up yourself", many times that is the only advice you get as a DM in the rulebooks.
I’m about seven minutes in, and you’ve touched on something we’ve been discussing in our play group quite. D&D’s beating heart is at the intersection of sword and sorcery-Conan, etc.-middle earth, classical mythology, Arthurian legends and some real history. That’s where the game just sparkles.
That cross section of inspirations is really why I stuck with it for so long. It's like a buffet of a bunch of stuff I like. It doesn't do any of it particularly well but it has all the stuff im into.
D&D does a horrible job of simulating Sword & Sorcery or Middle Earth! The magic system is completely antithetical to both. D&D worlds are built around the mechanics of D&DS magic system and it is a very weird magic system built on all sorts of legacy going back to Jack Vance's Dying Earth books.
@angrenost1410 All alternatives you guys give #1 are just copies of DnD or #2 use rules lite BS where players have little agency and the DM fiats every rulingwithout consistency. Its power hungry "narrative" DMs who need to write a book instead of using a game to do it vs normal DMs who see it's a game with rules everybody agrees to and a story comes from that.
I also prefer non D&D RPGs. If someone other than WotC owned it, I would likely feel diff. My decision not to play D&D when available is for all the reasons you espouse - but the biggest reason is I refuse to spend a dime on WotC products. The last thing I bought from them was 3.5. I have the 5e books (they were gifts) from those who wanted me to join their games. I have and do play - but if the GM was to say that he wanted to run something else (other than PF) I'd jump on it. For me as a GM, I run several other systems and will not run D&D. I believe one of the primary reasons why people become married to D&D is the "support" the system provides. Even if it's not all that great. I run a Dungeon World campaign. I love that system. That and The One Ring are the two best fantasy RPGs IMO. But for all the love I have for DW, it is sadly under represented (I am aware of the social drama that occurred six years go with one of the writers). But the game has been out since 2012 and has not had really any official supplements for many years. I would love the game to see a re-write and re-imagining now with 12 years of feedback and stuff from players. I would love for there to have been other things released. My point is - it's EASIER to adopt a system that provides a great deal of written material vs one that requires the GM to do a lot of work themselves. The latter is preferred by me, and many of us who enjoy that task and challenge - but it is not for everyone. Many just prefer a board game like environment where the work is pretty much all already done for you ahead of time.
As someone who has played DND for a while and love to try other systems, one of the things I have noticed about the "resisting other systems" argument is one I also see in your video. People know what kind of setting DND is for the most part. *usually* it's light hearted party based high fantasy where magic is everywhere, interesting creatures can be friends or foes and you know that the heroes usually prevail. When people like you and I recommend other systems to fans of DND, we almost always recommend systems with a more niche setting. Post apocaliptic. DARK fantasy. Horror. Cyberpunk. Surrealism. DND fans are more likely to play pathfinder, gloomhaven or baldur's gate because the THEME appeals to them, and most pepole see a different rules system as an obstacle. So when we suggest new rules AND a new theme, we're losing them twice. I have had more luck converting DND players to Big Eyes Small Mouth (tri-stat) by promising "Dnd but anime" instead of shadowrun, because they don't want to play "dark and deadly cyberpunk dnd". There is an odd divide between Elder scrolls players vs Fallout players because of theme, despite the system being very similar. I think we need more high fantasy setting with ligh hearted, colorful or heroic themes in alternative systems for the higher conversion rates.
you are amazing and also is your work! it was a pleasure finding your channel! Wish you an awesome year and keep up the good work Ive learnt a lot! wishing the best!
12:39 You get to choose how to participate, because you are a private Businessperson Hasbro is a publically traded company, they are beholden to shareholders and to appease them, just make rhe number go up for them, short terms profits etc. Which is why they are not allowed to make good decisions. Stick trading is one of the worst things we have ever invented...
This is the problem. Hasbro and WOTC are beholden to "line go up". They have to increase their profits for their shareholders and figure out ways to maximize these profits. It doesn't matter if D&D stopped being a TTRPG and was turned into a mobile game, it just has to make more money. Investors have no love of the game or care what happens to it. It's the same problem with AAA video games. Why are indie games doing so well? They don't have to listen to thousands of people screaming for the line to go up. As long as they make money they keep their doors open and can continue to make the games they want to play. I remember one of the WOTC or Hasbro execs stating something like D&D is under monetized a while back. Right there that tells me she doesn't understand what D&D is.
Irony of ironies: the much maligned 4e addressed all of these problems. The class divide was virtually erased in an interesting way that still preserved unique class identities. Combat was made more strategic with limited-use powers and greater emphasis on positioning. Skill Challenges added strategic choice and narrative branching to situations calling for multiple pass/fail checks. Not to mention, in my experience it was the most modular and adaptable of all editions because the math was all completely exposed, which made house ruling easy, creating your own content easy, and creating additional subsystems easy.
People don't like 4e for 2 reasons 1.) they haven't played it and are parroting the mob 2.) they have played it, but have not played it with a vtt (the way it was intended to be played). Play it on fantasy grounds of foundry vtt and you'll see how solid the system really is.
3 everyone was deadpool wolverine. A short rest deap lacerations were healed . Not matter your species. People should take 100 days to get better from no worries. Ih and combat was slower
Eh. I liked it at first and there were some good things about it. Played quite a bit. But every class eventually overlapped too much with the others mechanically. Too many variables, reeeeally slowed down fights, when you're tracking interactions and combos. It would work better as a video game probably, with a computer keeping track of it all (not just vtt)... which was one of the primary criticisms.
@@stuartmiller2526 Well, you aren't wrong, I suppose. DMs are too dumb to keep track of those systems and the Characters. I guess this is definitive proof that VGs are superior to TTRPGs.
Honestly, I think the biggest issue with D&D combat is how it's almost always to the death, with the death of the other side being the primary (if not only) goal of each side in the combat. That's perfectly fine if the combat system is either well suited to making that fun (see 4e), or else over very quickly (see TSR editions of the game), but when combat is slow from the need to consider positioning and tactics but doesn't bring much tactical choice, it gets very dull. The introduction of terrain, innocent bystanders, and goals other than wholesale slaughter can make it far more interesting - the simplicity that makes standard combat to the death boring also makes it very easy to add those complications.
I thoroughly enjoy many RPGs, and I'm very aware of the problems that D&D has, so I have into this video with an open mind and a lot of curiosity. It really fell flat for three big reasons: 1) There's nothing inherently wrong with a d20 system, only how its interpreted (which I agree D&D does a poor job showing). You dont have to roll for everything, just things that would be impactful. If rolling to climb a cliff wouldn't contribute to the story, don't roll. 2) I think you undersell D&D's ability to provide a puzzle experience in combat, but let's set that aside for a minute. Puzzle-based combat isn’t even objectively better than any other kind of combat, thats just your preference - and hardly any grounds on which to claim that a game is objectively bad. 3) I see what you mean when you talk about confining class roles ... as long as you're only refering to Paladins ans maybe Clerics. Other than occasionally in those two classes, I've never seen this mindset before, and I've never heard anyone else that has either. This is anecdotal of course, but people are more invested in there character than their class, even with new players (in my experience, ESPECIALLY with new players, because they dont have any context for how, say, a bard, is "supposed" to act in D&D). Oh, and a bonus #4: I should have taken a drink every time you said umbrage. You use it waaay to much. How many things can one single guy take umbrage with?! Anyway, coming into the video, I was really interested in seeing a discussion of the honest shortcomings D&D has. But this just felt like someone else saying, "Other games do things different, and I don't like WotC!"
I first got into ttrpgs when i joined a friend (who was a decade gming warhamer dm) hosted a one shot for a homebrewed Cthulhu adventure where there were no charcter sheets, no stats, nothing. You only got a little paperclip with three sentences on your character and a secret. We just described what we did and if in doubt my friend the gm just asked to roll high on a d6 and thats it.. It was phenomonal. I then later hosted Call of Cthulhu tables on my own and though i applied the rules as written i always viewed them to be tools to support the theater of mind only. Never would i get complicated rules in the way of immersion and thats an approach so natural to me that i really despised all those crunchy systems like d&d with theri lengthy fights and battle maps that turn something that should be about roleplaying (for me the ideal was that roleplaying would be some kind of light improv theater) into a tactics game like some kind of small scale warhammer wargame. Today i do play pathfinder with some collegues from work but i view pathfinder, d&d and similar games as a complete different kind of game.
I firmly believe that D&D was never actually a role playing game. It started as a skirmish scale miniature wargame that is on its way to become a turn based tactics video game. And on its journey it lightly skirts the actual role playing space.
In my experience, players want to play it like a videogame, especially those who are adverse to rping. They enjoy building their character and then having control over it on a grid in play. I tried running blades in the dark and it meant very limited character creation and then not controlling their character and instead reacting and negotiating with the dm about narrative outcomes instead of having enemies in front of them with their own stats and hp was something they really didn't jive with and something that they felt made it feel out of their control and too much just make believe, same with skipping planning which was something they really wanted to do. It was also super intense to run as a dm, requiring me to constantly cone up with stuff with all that extra effort feeling wasted since they didn't dig it. And yet I'm with you on wanting a more engaging combat and skill action rolls that more directly encourages failing forward, but it's not an easy sell with systems that don't di what dnd does in these respects.
I've found narrative systems are often exhausting, both for the GM, who has to adapt and adjudicate more, and players, who don't have enough grounding or common base to know what to do. I love narrative, and yes D&D can drag that down on the opposite side, but the rules of Blades and Fate for instance I've actually found to be too player punishing (discouraging them) and sometimes actually too limited, so they become rigid and confining. The best narrative experience I had was GMing a couple sessions just diceless. We defined the characters and setting and established trust and a framework expectation of the game and just played. That way, I didn't have to interpret Genesys/SWRPG dice outcomes, or concoct a roll from some combo of Blades stats, and still figure out what happens on the 40-50% failure rate.
honestly, there is so much that i would rip out and redo from scratch in D&D, never liked Armor Class and then theres Hit Points being either real physical trauma or a vague indication of battle fatigue etc and fighters could just as easily have scaling abilities like a Mage. but it really is too much work, fixing one or two things is fine, but when you are patching all over the place and replacing multiple systems, its better to just find one that is less flawed and maybe still use the D&D setting you like.
Martials do have scaling abilities, what are you talking about? In fact, in the newest edition of DnD, most martials, ESPECIALLY fighters have more damage than casters on average. And I don't see the point of even removing AC or even HP, and you can roleplay being HP as being physical trauma and indication of battle fatigue. There is no flaws in my opinion, only how you use the tools given to you, and not to mention that, if you don't plan to even PLAY a high fantasy game, DnD is DEFINITELY not for you.
@@robertban871 yes, martials do have scaling abilities in general, like extra attacks or more features that let them be in combat more. Of course, early levels, most martials are stronger than casters while in later levels it's vice versa. This is because of how powerful spells are in general anyway, that's why most people tend to play hybrid with multiclassing.
@@gabrielvasile1360 ok sure they get those things, extra attacks etc, but the main thing they are about does not change, their damage output does not increase at all. a mage's fireball and lightning bolt will increase each level. they could be given special attacks that do significantly more damage or every certain amount of levels their weapon damage could have a extra die
@robertban871 it's basically the same thing, it's like the Eldritch blast, you get more attacks on it but it basically does the same type of damage. Monks have scaling damage because they use martial arts but a fighter can use different swords too, a longsword deals 1d10 with 2 hands, meaning that doing 4 attacks is the equivalent to 4d10 if they all hit, it's as powerful as a Eldritch Blast, not to mention that martials will most likely use magical weapons, possibly dealing even more raw power since they add their ability modifers to the attacks. If you know how to play a martial, you can deal quite a bit of damage.
Really appreciate the takes and more importantly, the passion in which you make them. I’m a pretty big DnD fan and our long running campaign has 6 PCs plus the DM. We were all new to rpgs when we started. I’ve since branched out some, but the biggest benefit to DnD is the ability for any player to take or leave basically any part of the game. We have a few that are very deep into it… and forgotten realms has existing lore on which to build a character. I understand people into table top have these takes… but those of us there to play and tell stories with friends… it’s hard to find a better substitute than dnd
And honestly man no shade to that. I loved it for a long time and it gave me some great friends, memories, and opportunities. If you're rocking with it and your group loves it keep it rolling
@ thanks! Hopefully one day we’re all table top vets and we’ll start telling stories from this TH-cam rando desksanddorks’ game ;-) And I sincerely appreciate the passion you have. It’s never a bad time to see what someone who’s passionate about something is bringing to the table. Best of luck!
Its nice to see comments like this. While I don't enjoy 5e as much as other systems it can feel like a bit of an echochamber when interacting with either side of the 5e or anti 5e.
You hit the nail on the head with the classes. A while ago I had an opportunity to run a 5e game for a couple of people in my company (we have a great community and I'm very grateful for it) and most of them never played a TTRPG, but have played video games. At one point during a conversation, one player said, "I can't trust you, you're a rogue". Funny thing is, they had no reason not to trust each other, as they were playing a group who knew each other for a long time now. Classes give you a brand and it actually hurts roleplay, not elevates it.
Go look at Dungeon Crawl Classics. They made classes have abilities that depend on player creativity to work. Fighters get something called Heroic Deeds which is a roll where you can make up some crazy combat maneuver that effects enemy combatants.
Sounds like the class gave the players a roleplaying tool that a first time player was using to roleplay with. I guess you were disappointed with the lack of nuance, but in another game the conversation could just as easily gone, "What are you playing?" "I'm a cop." "Oh, a cop eh? I don't trust you, I'm playing as a bootlegger." It's basic, but it's sound.
@@moodymacon the contrary. It was established at the start that the characters have been together for a while now and they can trust each other. It was just a "you are playing x, therefore I can't trust you", which doesn't make much sense in class context. Classes are just skillsets, not character.
@@SirWhorshoeMcGee I wasn't there, but I have a pretty low bar for first time players. I do wonder why a little game banter from a first time player becomes an example of how character classes hurt roleplaying. "Classes are just skillsets, not character." This is game breaking and a foundationally wrong approach when playing D&D I think. Bear with me please Most people just roleplay as different versions of themselves. The character class is foundational in telling us something about the character, that we can draw on as players to use to roleplay. Fighters don't mind spilling blood, they might even look forward to it, clerics are deeply religious and spiritual characters with a personal connection to some form of divinity, magicians have spent countless days of their youth studying ancient tomes under the tutelage of a master wizard somewhere honing their craft and are driven by some need to grow in knowledge and power, rogues are handy at picking pockets and locks, bluffing and cheating, honour among theves may be a thing but are they trustworthy? Race/background, character class and alignment are the basic tools we get as prompts for roleplay in D&D, and I think it's a better game when we lean into them a bit.
6:26 d&d is not inspired by Tolkien so much as it is inspired by Pulp literature that preceeded tolkien. The Idea that D&D drew significantly from LoTR is largely a myth.
Just a few minutes in, but my guy you continue to impress. So well measured well articulated; and as always, presented with empathy and eloquence. Edit: farther in so I'll comment on the text. Agree with everything said about Hasbro and D&D as a whole. ShadowDark had been so exciting for me in tone, design, and the principles of it's creator Kelsey. Excited to try more systems from folks who work for the love of the game, such as 2e of your RPG, Draw Steel, Knave 2e, Into the Black, and others as well.
Really appreciate the compliment and am glad to know the extra work on the video and script was noticed. I actually re-recorded and scripted about 70 percent of the video, and I added new stuff because I wanted to approach the subject matter with as much oomph as I could. I'm so happy it was noticed.
Fifth edition, at least, is NOT adaptable. Sure, you can house rule anything you like, but the math is so optimized that any change one makes to fix a perceived flaw causes at least a half-dozen problems in related systems that were carefully calibrated around the original rules and premises of high medieval/iron age fantasy.
I feel like all the points you brought up as D&D's strengths - intuitiveness of rolling high being good; customization and house rules; being a canvas - apply just as much to the vast majority of all TTRPGs, and apply much more to some than to D&D.
13:10 Would love to see a video by you discussing options for first time and cash-strapped creators in the TTRPG space. I personally have noticed that finding things such as royalty free and public domain art has become a lot more difficult in the age of AI, as a lot of the good, accessible art gets buried under a mountain of AI generated slop.
Been getting really into Lancer specifically and I think part of why is that it seems pretty easy to onboard for DnD players who enjoy the more crunchy parts of tactical combat. The systems are pretty similar (d20 with modifiers), but levels and damage is pretty static throughout, and it's REALLY easy to sell players on the concept of "you're a badass mech pilot" that offers a similarly strong power fantasy as DnD but in a totally opposite genre.
The worst thing about this (which we can already see in these comments) is that the people who are happy with D&D won't even _listen_ to this. Believe me, I've tried. I _try_ to show people that there are other games they could play that they would ultimately enjoy _more._ Like, objectively, there is absolutely a better game out there for them. I'm gonna actually have some stuff to say about this video...
You're almost talking about me. I'm listening to this and I love D&D and to have a great time playing it. But you will never catch me DMIng anything other than dungeons and dragons. Why not because there's anything wrong with anything else. It's because why should I I'm having fun, The people I play with are having fun. None of us feel the need to do anything else because we are having fun.
@coonhound_pharoah it's not elitism, there's just no point and playing multiple ttrpgs when we only meet up to play twice a month. No one goes around calling anyone an elitist for playing MTG but not playing Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon. You can only have so many hobbies.
34:31 Thank you for having your content be accessible like that. For someone to fight you on your content, there are so many people rapping about DnD on TH-cam like literally watch anywhere else.
The whole "I won't play anything that isn't...(insert whatever game here)" hit me in a way I really didn't expect. I tried to pitch playing a session of Ex Novo as a means to jointly create the starting area for a new fantasy game... And got no interest from players that are generally really into playing Pathfinder, D&D, and VtM. Someday, I will find a group that is willing to do that At least I hope to, because it just seems like it would be fun and provide an environment the players would already have a base of knowledge around which to design characters.
I was thinking about why it's so hard for players who've long been devoted to any single system (most often D&D, but in my case its PF1e) to learn new systems... And I think the most common trap is that people *forget* how they first learned D&D, or whatever their first system was... Whats the most common reason players give for not wanting to play a new system besides the cost of new books? "I don't want to spend all the time it'll take to read a whole book to learn how to play." It's like people think the only way to learn and start playing a game is to literally reas the rulebook, cover to cover, like its a textbook for a college course! But while I'm sure there are some small number of people out there who genuinely got into TTRPGs from reading a rulebook, I'm willing to bet that the majority of us, as younger players, just started playing the game and learned as we went along, and most importantly we *werent afraid to make mistakes!* Think of the first game of D&D you ever played, it was probably some lf the most clownshoes dysfunctional roleplaying you've ever done in your life! But it was fine, its how you started learning, you probably had a lot of fun! You were willing to just play through any screw ups and fix things when you realized you werent following the rules. At my table, we all started as High School Sophomores, we played for an entire year before we realized how pointbuy worked! We thought that each stat increase only cost one point! Our characters were broken as hell, but did it stop us from having fun? No! And when we found out, we just fixed things next time and started following the rules more closely. But people are so concerned with the idea that you have to play a new game "properly" and that the only way to do that is to understand each and every rule and mechanic from Session 1 that we talk ourselves out of the game before we ever even give it a chance, completely forgetting that once upon a time we were willing to experiment, and to learn through doing instead of just through reading.
I spent years cramming hacks and fixes on to 5e trying to make it do what I wanted it to and it was just not worth it. So many times looking at interviews about 5e is so burdened by the weight of the DnD name and the wargaming traditions that spawned it that it really limits what it is able to do. Just getting out of the bubble of 5e is so damn freeing, I got really lucky that my play group really embraced my game when I started testing it.
My biggest gripe with DND since day one has been how everything has so much lore and flavor text attached to it. I wish I could just plug and play without having to deal with assumed lore from the monster manual or one adventure published 5 years ago .
To me, this is how it actually makes players bad. The key to people getting on board to my GM style is that I change how things function. Trolls? Yeah, fire actually just gets them drunk and they take no damage from it. They are now just likely to miss but if they hit 15-20, they are all crits now while a 1-10 miss. That's just how trolls roll, all my monster are like this and people can get used to that or find a new GM. I even have an in world explination of a travler who has been to the void and seen the multiverse if I have players meta game too much he will just tell them this. Also no they can not go to the multiverse... well they don't want to. It prevents you from returning to your universe for 1500 years and travel is only easy one way, if you leave you better have wanted to do so.
@codylarson I meant more in the sense that If I saw demon there is going to be the baggage of Devils vs Demons war, Orcus and pals and Tiamat. I heavily homebrew and mix and match monster parts so the "gameplay' ain't the issue, it's the lore baggage attached to thing within the D&D space.
@@3l_Raro Ah, I totally agree with this. It's so frustrating to explain no, there's no gods in my world, no planes, no evil/good are not fundamental forces in my setting. Tldr: I just wish I didn't have to explain to my players that my setting isn't the forgotten realms with a new coat of paint
III. The System Sucks for Roleplaying Y'know, we get to the meat n' potatoes and I'm a _little_ disappointed. I don't believe that D&D leaving role-playing itself entirely up to it's players is a _fundamental_ flaw. D&D was, from the beginning, not really conceived as a game about _embodying_ your characters, that was more of a side-effect that blossomed into the sort of games you talk about in this section. And I love those games, especially Fiasco! They're all very clever and good at what they do. But D&D itself? That it doesn't really ask anything of it's players in terms of, y'know, roleplaying, that's just a choice, really. I don't think it's a _bad_ choice because it sort of takes that pressure away, and some people just want to play, in essence, the tabletop equivalent of Rogue plus some Desert Island style "what would you do about this?" puzzling. I do believe that D&D is fundamentally flawed in the sense that it isn't even very good at achieving it's own goals, because modern D&D doesn't seem to have any. It wants to pretend to be a game _about roleplaying_ when it obviously is not. It uses that as an excuse to say "well, we don't need to balance things or give you particularly good advice, because that's not the point!" when everything about how the game is designed screams otherwise. It tries to please the old-school crowd, the 3rd Ed build-crafters and to pay lip service to the indie role-playing darlings (with the Inspiration mechanic) and it would be far better for just picking a lane and doing it well.
Your cup of scissors in the back gives the space classroom vibes and that's fantastic Also you have made very excellent points. And despite the fact that I still continue to predominantly (not exclusively) play a system based on 5E, I think all your points are valid. From my perspective there's simply isn't a right or wrong answer here, the people who is still like 5e for what it is are valid from an (ironocally) old school perspective. The game rules we're extremely open-ended back then and everybody made it their own. I do that with 5e because that is what I like to do. I run a system that is pretty much uniquely my own. I play different games/systems and collect the ideas that I like to add to my own. At the end of the day I do not want a game system that tries to tell me exactly how to do everything right (looking at you, PF2E) and I don't have to want that. At the end of the day I'm comfortable with the fact that my personal ideal of fun is not the golden standard of fun that the gaming community at large Must Agree With. Anyway, sorry for the rant... loving your content as always! Nice desk (probably)
Oh I also need to add, to your point about wotc being odious (literally true) is that while I will gladly save and spend money on respectable publishers such as your fine self, I've proudly never given wotc a dime of my money in my many years of running my own personal d&d. Aaargh even pirates have standards
I love that point about the customization being what keeps you because at the end of the day I really respect that (even if I've found that same customization and personalization in other games). There's something to be said about dnd being something that just let's gms paint that makes it have such longevity. Also I used to not mind spending money with them. There was a time where they were really supportive of the eco system they helped foster. Also glad you loved the pencil cup. It's an old carryover from my time in a real classroom!
"Loved" - past tense. Yep, I totally get this. It's a lot of work for me to massage the current rules into a game I enjoy. Fun is the goal. Play what is enjoyable, seems like a good strategy to me. Cherrs!
I was reading a book yesterday called “The Courage To Be Disliked.” There was a point around the tenth or eleventh chapter where the philosopher character mentioned “Agathos” and “Kalos” as the Greek words for “good” and “bad.” But what was most interesting is how these two concepts were better interpreted as “Beneficial” and “not beneficial.” After what you’ve said about the pass/fail dilema of DND, I’m thinking about trying to fundamentally change how I perceive the pass and fail of the D20 rule. I might make some radical fundamental change that will allow the game to have that “theme,” or core mechanic so many other TTRPG’s have. I need to do some THINKING!
Very enjoyable discussion! I came to similar conclusions over the years. My favorite solution has so far been D&D 😅 OSR, old school style systems with some of the philosophies, realizations and interpretations of the OSR community. Eg. Not resorting to dice rolls so the time, especially when the core fantasy (I think this was the expression used in the video) of the character is in question, or the players come up with interesting plans that make sense, possibly using items they have and/or the environment etc. It could be seen as opting to go around the rules, but I see it a lesser issue in old school games than in 3e-5e (or non-issue if done meaningfully). Also having characters face opponents they can't expect to level-appropriately bash makes the players have to solve situations a bit more like puzzles but ones that don't have a preset solution. In any case I heartily agree that is good for people to try rpg's with completely different design philosophies.
I'm working on a TTRPG that could be described as DnD 5e lite with emphasis on class balance, build diversity, and roleplay over roll-play. It's simple in that any given character only has 5 to 10 abilities (spells/attacks) based on their level (1-5), but I often think that it may be too similar to DnD and prone to the same issues. Your video has given me a lot of insights on these pitfalls. Thanks so much!
Excellent video. I have been looking to leave D&D behind because of the same issues. I also like so Monty Cook games as they focus on either success, succeed with issues, or fail with issues to allow for more directions. It's good to hear other game designers are looking at ways to give the agency to the players rather than the dice.
The influx of Giving Up D&D/Finding Better Alternative videos has been such a wonderful thing to see. The gaming world is all the better from embracing the wider diverse world of options out there. IMO, the biggest flaws of D&D are sparked by WotC/Hasbro. Is TSR D&D a great game? Kinda. It has a lot of cool things going for it, many missing in the editions after that. But, there's a massive amount of clunk still, especially when other things exist in that "old school fantasy" space too.
I appreciate that you dive into what you think about the system and what you're looking for in a game. It makes this video so much better and thought provoking than some "hot take" or performed outrage. The George RR Martin-ian description of desserts killed me 😂.
I originally had a much more tongue in cheek hot take kind of a video but I thought that kind of analysis didn't do anyone any good. Glad I made the right call!
@DesksAndDorks I liked it! For designery-minded people, which I imagine make up a lot of your audience, this is a cool start point for a lot of talk on elements you bring up. You got my mind going on barely-there systems (like the What's so Cool About- games), amounts of simulation in a system, concreteness vs boardgamey-ness, genre emulation, and systems pushing hard to do a certain thing (Burning Wheel, etc). Also I can never begrudge anyone calling out Wotc/Hasbro for business shittiness.
I've got two thoughts on this one: Having studied games of all shapes and sizes, I've noticed that the biggest winners are the ones with the highest degree of player expression. This is more noticeable in video games, where the biggest winners are games like Minecraft and GTA (the games with HUGE modding scenes) or Fortnite and Valorant (the games where hopping in Discord/Xbox-chat with your schoolyard friends is the recommended way to play), but DnD has been leveraging it for decades. DnD is a comfortable environment taking mechanics you already understand and using it to express yourself in new ways. You rag on the massive spell list, but that enormous size is a feature to the players, not a problem -- I've seen people spend hours and hours on builds when the time between actual sessions is measured in years. Sure anyone can go out and make their own game, but then they're not a player expressing themselves, they're a designer. Has DnD been relying on that as a crutch? Oh absolutely. But it's strong enough to BE a crutch in the first place And regarding "please try another game." I picked up a neat little gamebook called Heroines of the First Age a year or so back. It advertises itself less as a game and more as a collaborative storytelling prompt. It's a system that explicitly -- written into the rules -- uses near misses and barely-there successes as chances for storytelling rather than a binary pass/fail system. In fact, it's so committed to this vision that it's actually really bad at explaining the few explicit rules it does have. As one example, the hit point system is treated as a superfluous secondary stat and I genuinely cannot tell if some of the things it instructs you to do actually matter (all characters have six health point "stars" in a "constellation" that the game instructs you to connect with lines... but taking damage fills in the stars with "marks" like a checkbox, and the connecting lines don't represent anything). It is a neat little book and I'm not giving it a bad review, but I think it went a little TOO far in the opposite direction from DnD in some respects
Firstly, I congratulate your candour. There's a lot of well reasoned critiques and criticisms here. Alas, I do think that your conclusion is flawed. I'm an old 53 year guy still running a 30+ year 2E campaign. And as a group, we've played at least 16 different TTRPG systems. I think the problem here is that there's an implicit premise assuming that there's such a thing as a perfect system. But that can't be. The criterion of success for a given system is how well it serves the particular group of players, not how well it serves any player. The system is meant as a means of action resolution, and nothing more. But the game isn't about action resolution, otherwise one might as well play chess or Monopoly. The game is about roleplaying. I was on the alpha test group for D&D 5E back in 2012. I dropped out during arguments as it became clear to me that there was a big push to implement/encode what we old timers called 'min/max'ing'. They pushed that aspect through with the ridiculous myriad of power stack feats and abilities that characters could acquire. Essentially, turning the game into an antagonistic, as opposed to cooperative enterprise. Now, there's nothing implicitly wrong with anyone wanting to play that way, but codifying it into the rules is just inherently problematic. Thus, 5E ended up being a 'roll-playing' game, and not a 'role-playing' game. I know you brought it up but, at the end of the day, as the administrator, it is up to the DM to be the arbiter. D&D as a game is ultimately supposed to be a shared creative storytelling act, not a game where one wins or loses. Given the impossibility of a perfect system, the game is dependent upon the players. The specific architecture is secondary. To this end, in my group at least, 2E represents the optimal structure for us. And so we game on...
I grew up in 2e, loved digging into the myriad products and systems. I would say there's still system mastery and min maxing there. 3e went nuts with it. 4e overdid rebalancing but still flooded itself into a giant soupy mess. 5e I think they actually did a comparatively good job of limiting sprawl over 10 years & learning the other lessons, with nice 2e reminiscent feelings thrown in. I do personally think overall it's the best D&D system. Yet, literally, like Gandalf, for me, "I once knew every spell in all the [books of AD&D2e]..." and tried to min max with them :D
@@DesksAndDorks Most welcome. Your content is universally high-quality and consistently thought-provoking. You should be reminded frequently how awesome that is. :)
I think the main flaw with D&D is the power curve. Characters are fragile at 1st and 2nd level, too simple at levels 3 and 4, but by level 5+ they can reliably trivialize any obstacle that would work in a movie or book, such as a prison cell, castle wall, death, chasms, etc. Every level past 5th makes the characters more and more invincible. By 11th level they are basically unkillable. As a DM who has run a long term high level campaign in 3.5, the amount of work I had to put in to let PCs use their powers and create a challenge that couldn't be trivialized, was ridiculous. Granted, I am a storyteller and my players are power gamers, so they had a great time, while I was mostly exhausted. Is there still a DM shortage? Haven't played in years. Also the company is trash, but that isn't the game.
One would hope the 2024 monster manual really buffs up the challenge, there have been previews that this is the case. We won't see until next month though. I do like the third party monsters like in Flee Mortals that bump up the challenge. At least WOTC/Hasbro released the core rules to Creative Commons, really because they had to after the OGL cluster, but they are a soulless company.
One thing that drives me crazy is when people say it's too hard to learn other games, ir two much time. Like, I have played so many games where everyone learned the rules right before the first session and during
I guess people in this hobby tend to fall down rabbit holes and are afraid that anything you play with them would be another one. So they tend to stick to their first one.
Player resistance is real. Since the OGL (I have similar feelings about WotC) I branched out into the OSR scene, and just having players move to a simpler version of what they are already playing has been a struggle (5e to shadowdark in this instance). This transition has been mind blowing for me as a GM and player, and eventually my players have that same epiphany, but getting them to take the fist step is frustratingly hard. However, getting some players take a jenga tower, or snuffed candle seriously,...forget about it, but... I will endeavor to try. The reality is: It is hard to be a GM who is always trying to introduce new stuff to my players (games I want to play), but never get to be a player as a result.
imo, it's far easier for most people to customize a system if it's just a zine book. You can literally take the system apart and mod it. Try doing that with a 500 pages book.
This might not be "branching out" enough for your liking, but I once fell in love with an alternative spell casting system to 3.x DnD called "Elements of Magic". (Actually, "Elements of Magic: Revised Edition", because there were three version: EoM, EoM revised, and Mythic Earth, but revised is the best by far) However I couldn't get anyone to ever actually play the damn thing, not in my game store and not in my friend group a few years back. And this was back when 3rd edition was in vogue. People just don't want to give you even a little hope if it means reading a rulebook at the table at the end of it.
Goated content as always; I like that it's straight-forward enough you don't need more than one watch to get most out of it, but that it has enough concepts I'll watch it again to fully think about them I love the "just change it" bit. I'm a fan of modding, but if I proposed to play Catan and somebody told me "oh but the initial placements determine the outcome, let's change the rules", that does sound interesting, but also, let's also just play something else right now, no? I don't know if dnd really does lend itself to modifications that naturally; maybe that's just a staple of the TTRPG genre. My gut feeling is a more stripped down system like OSE is more naturally suited for additions. What do you think? Oh and btw, I found the audio was a smidge low; if you right click the video and click on stats for needs, Volume / normalized bla bla is at -14.7; my understanding is this should ideally be a negative number that's as close to 0 as possible (so this video could be 14db+ louder). At work I've found videos that do this do perform a bit better
I recently have switched from D&D over to Dungeon Coaches DC20. If you haven’t already checked it out I would suggest you do. DC20 fixes (or at least begins to grapple with) many of the issues you have with D&D. It implements a multiple successes/failures system to fix the D20 and roleplay (although I do not think it goes far enough in this regard). It switches over to a 4 action system, granting all Martials “Stamina Points” to match the Spellcasters “Mana Points”. It also seems at first glance to be run in a more respectable manner. Regarding you problem with Classes as a whole, they have introduced a really interesting multiclass system with Classes really only being relevant up until level 10 after which your character’s Class falls away, the handrails being no longer necessary. I personally prefer something of that nature than many of the more open ended systems out there which often leave me feeling unsupported in character creation.
@ I disagree completely. For one, your statement that DC20 is “too similar” to 5e just indicated you’ve never played it. Similarly if it is “just a 5e hack” then so is Pathfinder. DC20 uses some similar innovations, but they are only similar and not the same. For example: Pathfinder: 3 Actions 1 Reaction DC20: 4 Actions Pathfinder: Measures movement in feet (like D&D) DC20: Movement measured in Spaces Pathfinder: Crit on 10 above/below DC20: crit on nat 20’s/1’s, extra degrees of success system for every +/-5. Pathfinder: Roll Damage System (like D&D) DC20: Static Damage System with many Damage Modifiers Pathfinder: base 20 ability scores DC20: flat modifier ability scores Pathfinder: keeps Paladin (renames it) DC20: splits Paladin into Spellblade and Commander Pathfinder: 6 ability score system (like in 5e) DC20: 4 ability score system Pathfinder: D&D style AC system DC20: Split of AC into Physical and Mystical Defense, make Damage Reduction a big part of Armor (heavy armor) Pathfinder: Fortitude Reflex & Will DC20: Ability Score Saves + Grit System Pathfinder: Modifier Only System (no adv/disadv) + Fortune System (Single Advantage System like in D&D) DC20: Stacking Advantages System + Modifiers Pathfinder: TEML Skill System + add character level to skills DC20: 5 Tier Skill System (very similar here) Pathfinder: Powerful Ancestry System that sets many stats (such as base HP). Heritages & Ancestry Feats System DC20: Point Buy Ancestry System + all ancestry abilities Modify, they do not set. I could go on and on. Suffice to say DC20 is its own game. Not to dis on Pathfinder 2e, but it is far more similar to D&D than DC20 is. I am not out here to call Pathfinder a clone however, like almost every board game on the market its creators have agonized over most every detail of their game and with Pathfinder it shows. All I am saying is this. Stop being a dick and putting down other systems. You know, that was kinda the whole point the creator of this video was trying to make.
@@alexnikols8996 DC20 IS another rubbish D&D no D&D like 4E, ,5E, Featfinder and Featfinder 2. Another MMORPG emulator for people wanting to play superhéroes in a pseudo medieval setting. If you build a PC instead of crearing It, min maxing stats, feats, skills, etc, it's a MMORPG emulator. Actions, reactions, triple actions, multi actions, bonus actions, all in 6 to 10 seconds 🤣🤣. More rubbish based on D&D that's not D&D.
@ I literally cannot read whatever you just wrote. It’s indecipherable. Something about DC20 being a game where you play as a Hero? I think you’re also saying all other classic Fantasy TTRPG’s are also bad because you dislike the genre? I mean, you can have whatever opinion you’d like on the Fantasy Medieval Setting and the Power Fantasy of the genre. I like it. I actually have a lot of fun with a good old Sword & Sorcery. Obviously that’s not your kind of TTRPG, so what is? Are you a Sci-Fi guy, or maybe a Modern Fantasy enjoyer?
V. Combat Sucks Not a ton to say here, it's just true. It sucks. So. Much. The breaking point for me was the start of a Curse of Strahd campaign in which my players stood in a circle around an immobile pile of jelly, smacking it over the "head" for several minutes straight accomplishing almost nothing because it's AC was so high. My god, it is so bad. I'll just get preachy about Mythras and say that it somehow manages to be all of these things at once: - Quick (once you're used to it), it can actually scream right along, partially because it's _over_ quickly and partially because it's surprisingly intuitive for what it is. The specific order of operations prevents people from getting into analysis paralysis _before_ accomplishing nothing, too, and despite the simulationism there's hardly any math and the few tables that exist are really just there for clarification, not because you'll need to check them. - Realistic in a "cinematic" way. It is easy to visualize exactly what these characters are doing because the specifics of what they're doing matter mechanically. People have turned movie duels into Mythras fights. - Functions *as a game* with interesting choices. Plenty of systems have tried to do "realistic melee combat" or whatever but Mythras is the first I've played where it feels truly gameified, like, there's risk-reward decisions to make that change depending on what you're fighting, there are pretty deep rock-paper-scissors mindgames that can happen. - Doesn't lead to "whoops, you're dead" scenarios, believe it or not. The way damage is modeled is very believable, but it's surprisingly hard for you to just drop dead and there isn't much of a "death spiral" either. - Actually lends itself to roleplay. This is the sum total of what I've said so far. Mythras combat naturally encourages *reluctance* (the character who dives in first is risking a lot to do so, if their opponent is smart), *surrender* (like I said, you can see your death coming long in advance) and *mercy* (on the flipside, opportunities to stop and let opponents wave the white flag). It does a good job of putting players in the mindset that human life is valuable, and that it takes a great deal of hatred or desperation for someone to really, really want someone else dead.
My group switched to D100 with Magic World about 10 years ago and we are now using Mythras. The combat system is quite a bit of fun and the system keeps characters from becoming ridiculous over time.
@archersfriend5900 I know what you're trying to say I think ("Use the enviroment! Swing on chandeliers!") but ultimately you're going to step up to the enemy and go "...I swing my sword" regardless. D&D players gaslight their GMs into thinking that if only they can make cooler scenarios the "I swing my sword" bit will somehow get less boring. In Mythras, so long as you succeed your roll and your target doesn't, you get to incur some sort of actual mechanical penalty on them _on top_ of the damage rather then needing to _forego_ damage. Make them bleed, shove them, swing for their head specifically, crush their armor, catch their leg with your billhook to trip them next turn, etc... The catch is that there are saves on some of those effects and many of them rely on dealing damage, and you haven't rolled for that yet. They didn't parry but their shield or armor might save them. They might resist the bleed. It's a _gamble_ and the safer thing is to just give yourself an advantage by picking something that gives you an AP advantage. Meanwhile, if the defender rolled better? They'd be able to screw _you_ over. ...And there's ways of countering each other if you can guess what they'll do. None of that is stopping you from hopping on that chandelier, it'll just be _cooler. _
This is a great video, and I do agree with most of it's points, as a 5e DM and a player for like 5 years. Here are my personal reasons why I keep on playing it till this day. 1) I did try several other systems. Both editions of Pathfinder, Fabula Ultima; and I did read some other rulebooks on the matter. And yet nothing tops 5e for me in terms of mechanics and the general vibe. Also (maybe it is a neurodivergent thing) I find it really hard to learn other systems, unless I hyperfixate on something related to them. For D&D it was Critical Role, that amazing world with vibrant characters, and I used to be a part of their fandom for quite some time. It is really hard for me to focus on a learning process; every single time it feels like a chore just to stare in these walls of texts. And I do feel like lots of 5e community folks also have this problem (it is also important to note that lots of these people do have ADHD or similar issues). Again, I'm not speaking for all ADHD folks, it's just my personal experience. 2) The other reason is quite simple. 5e is my comfort zone (which you gotta leave one day, which I do acknowledge) and do consider myself a very good 5e GM. You know what they say, "jack of all trades, master of none", and this is precisely what I DON'T wanna be if I spread my attention and try to focus on other systems (yeah, again, not the best learner - I've mentioned it before). I would rather provide a good D&D experience than some mediocre one with other system. That being said, I don't agree with the "D&D doesn't facilitate good roleplay" argument, but other replies did much better job deconstructing it.
Same wavelength on class systems, it pigeonholes players too much. I like this analysis, it is quite respectful though I do have a hot take on this. D&D the system is a toolkit, not a game. There's a whole lot of missing stuff you need to add to make it a game, not least of which is a setting; part of the reason it **has** to be vanilla is because it needs to be adaptable to any setting and vibe, so it can't be great at any of them. I wonder, would people who only play D&D enjoy playing 2e Dark sun? I meaaaan... It *is* D&D.
The more I need to create house rules the more flawed the main rule system is. Any solidly built rule system will only need light house rules or none at all.
@@andynonimuss6298 yep, totally! House rules are meant to be tweaks, not a crutch for holes in the system. If you find yourself duct-taping a whole lot of them together to keep the game going, you should definitely be looking at other systems that fit the experience you want.
This is inspiring me to not only continue my homebrew but to adventure more rpgs to understand mechanical systems that make these other games very enjoyable.
I've actually started to get tired of 5e, I've been wanting to try a new system. Pathfinder 2e caught my eye, and so did Zwiehander. How can I get my stubborn play-group to dip their toes into the water of a new system, and what can i do on my end to understand them better? Big fan of your channel btw.
Both of these are great questions. One is to simply ask. It's the most direct approach, sure, but it let's you know up front. If you suspect that approach will go poorly (or be met with outright hostility) I would suggest baking mechanics of other rpgs into your dnd sessions or having shorter rpgs you can play in between your games or while you're waiting for folks to arrive. If your players like these enough they may ask to run an additional game or two and then you've got them. Another thing you could try is if a person from your group wants to gm you can always encourage them to try their first time gm'ing using a rules light one shot like lasers and feelings. Hope this helps!
LOL, Featfinder is bad D&D, like 5E, but is still D&D, like Shadowdark is D&D and LOTFP is D&D. And if you think it´s not adaptable, just look for Stars Without Number, Godbound, Worlds Without Number or Cities Without Number, from Kevin Crawford. They are all D&D. Another great error is that D&D is based on Lord of The Rings LOL, as it´s origins were those of Sword & Sorcery, pulp books and comics and Sci Fi. They only added the races because they were popular. And if you think D&D is not adaptable to the superhero genre just look at 5E, where you are playing Superheroes in a "pseudo" medieval setting. And yes, 5E rules are bad, really bad, but D&D is a great game but most of you are playing the worst kind of D&D, like 4E, 5E, Feat Finder and all those "easy mode" D&D adjacent products trying to emulate MMORPGs.
@@ricardojuanlopeznaranjo6651 "superhero" is used too broadly here. Mechanics of D&D 5e aren't really made to enable playing as high-flying comic book heroes.
@adzi6164 Yes they are. You start like the Teen Titans and level Up until you become the Justice League. Just watch the VOX Machina series, most of the CR adventures, etc. Remember The Punisher IS a Superhero too.
A lot of games out there do a fantastic job in making a simple system that fits what it is conveying perfectly. Blades does heist very well and Alien RPG's movie mode captures the essence of Alien(s) very well. I don't understand people's hesitation on different systems. We picked up Runequest in the late 90's after playing D&D 1st and AD&D and ever since then I have been a connoisseur of systems. I occasionally still play D&D, CR2020 and WOD games, but our group runs a lot of like 3-10 session campaigns with different systems. I am not going to lie. The money we spend on books (or PDFs) is quite a lot.
I'll never be on the same page as these "only D&D" folks. In the early 90s I was buying AD&D2E and World of Darkness books to read before I ever knew I'd have anyone to play with. When I found my group a couple years later, there was never any notion of playing one system; I was immediately introduced to Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Star Wars D6, and some lame post-apoc game I can't even remember. Over the next few years we added L5R, RIFTs, Deadlands, Champions: New Millennium, and many others. There's no way in hell I would have stuck with the hobby if we'd limited ourselves to just being a D&D group, especially in that era. We were doing this in high school, and we *still do it* well into our 40s+, so I honestly don't buy it when people tell me it's some great labor to try out a new system.
That's awesome! I was fortunate in that some of my core gaming group wanted to try new stuff, and it's been really good. Sounds like you've got a good group!!
After starting with DnD because of MCDM, I switched to to WHFRP shortly after. I had some real fun with this one. Now I want to introduce some youngsters to the hobby and will use Shadow of the Demon Lord for a short campaign. Thanks for introducing me to this game. It looks like a lot of fun. I enjoy your videos a lot. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with most of the points except when it comes to the actual combat mechanics. Starting at about 29:00 where you mention how characters will basically default to using their best attack over and over again as being a solution, and the issue is far more nuanced and complicated than was really discussed here. First, we have to understand that characters will default to using an ability that works best in the situation they're in. A fireball is a tool used for clearing encounters with multiple enemies, but it's notable that a fireball cast is also a resource that has to be used. Wizards have a burden of having a full array of abilities they'd like to use but only being able to use a small amount of them. A wizard who memorizes all 3 of his 5th level spell slots (4 if he specialized, trading versatility for extra resources) as fireballs will perform better in combat, sure, but he will also have far fewer options to engage with other situations. Something that has been lost as players have modernized and become frankly far lazier with the game is that dungeons are supposed to be long and taxing on the party's resources without overwhelming them at once. If a wizard never has to make a painful choice about casting a fireball in terms of it being 'worth it' compared to potential power later in the dungeon, then the dungeon design has failed to properly challenge the players, and in situations like that it will always seem like the best solution to simply cast fireballs endlessly. A great issue D&D 5e has with the caster/martial divide is that in terms ofh ow most martials work, they are primarily what we'd call in computer RPGs an "auto-attack" build with different flavors. Even Rogues primarily deal damage by doing a modified version of a standard attack action vis a vis sneak attack. Rangers get favored enemy, barbarians modify theirs with Rage, and so on. But ultimately how they all work is just adding bonuses to the Attack action. This is a very archaic design that, while easy to understand, runs into the issue that most auto attack builds don't have any utility. As such, since auto attacking is always available, most martial characters worry most about HP as their primary resource, since their auto attack will never run out entirely, just their bonuses. Modern RPGs usually involve martial type characters using a rotation of abilities for combos, or giving them multiple options for different but potentially useful actions. Knocking a character prone with a Trip action will rob them of their turn for example, or a character might have a standard attack with a chance to inflict a debuff, at which point they can activate another ability that does extra damage to targets with said debuff. D&D has very little of this, especially contained within a single character. In a nutshell, most martial characters are boring DPS/tank hybrids in D&D while spellcasters get access to most of the cool toys and utility that should be spread more evenly across the party. tl;dr too easy of dungeon design doesn't test player builds properly in terms of taxing player resources and martials are designed poorly which contributes to the problem of them not feeling like they can do anything other than Attack actions. D&D's d20 combat system works fine, the flaws lay within the balance and design of the player characters themselves
My biggest gripe with 5e and on is that something like True Strike used to give you +20 to hit, making it practically impossible to miss outside of fate. Changing it to advantage removed the stability that True Strike used to provide. It went from the most powerful to the least powerful spell
while I'm pretty much against DnD as a system because it is poorly done and all the corporative aspects of it being primarly a product without actual care for the art behind designing an RPG makes it have fundamental flaws that WotC simply can't address even if they wanted to (which obviously they don't), I also think that comparing a system like DnD with more narrative-oriented games is a flawed comparison because RPGs like DnD are not about the story but about immersive open ended choices and consequences, while narrative games (that at least for this video seems to be your preference) focus on how you would develop a better overall story, RPGs like DnD care more about you having choices and those choices having consequences, and the story happens after-the-fact, so the point about roleplay I think kinda misses this difference. that being said, DnD does this poorly also from the perspective of choice-consequence-immersion, so fuck DnD; and yeah, d20's binarity is bad, but I think not because you can simply fail or succeed but because it is too simple so many secondary mechanics end up lacking depth; and yeah ffs DnD combat sucks and the fact that ppl NEED to homebrew it for it to be tolerable, combat being the whole focus of DnD as a system, should be enough to assert how bad DnD is. but my point is that I do think you are coming with a very story-oriented mindset that is not the main goal for systems like DnD
Yeah, that and the argument that the d20 system is fundamentally bad is just proof that he just doesn't like the type of game 5E tries to be This is like saying Mario Party 10 is bad, because it is a terrible racing game. Like, that is not what the game is trying to do, it is bad on its own merits. MP10 sucks as a party game and especially as a Mario Party game
@@xolotltolox yup, exactly this. I do think DnD is a bad game, but not because it is a bad storytelling game, cause it doesn't aim to be that. but because it's very shallow in the choice-consequences mechanics, it struggles a lot with immersion given the corporate mindset of "give them a kitchensink to sell stuff" and for a combat focused power fantasy RPG, its combat is mind numbingly boring without many homebrews (and I do agree that by which point how much is it the system's merit or just other people's efforts) and higher levels that should feel just powerful are broken and unwieldy to play. but to say things like DnD doesn't have mechanics to create better stories. yeah, of course it doesn't, 'cause that's not the point.
Been saying this for years (at least since the 4e days), but it's good to see the opinion reiterated again and again so it doesn't ever die out. Everyone's welcome to like whatever they like, but please, please, just TRY anything that isn't D&D every once in awhile. If only for the novelty. It can only make you a better player and GM.
I feel like the people who have most loved the system, who have gotten the most into it will also eventually grow the most disappointed and frustrated with it. At least that's what happened to me, and it kind of sounds like what happened to you too. Those less immersed in the system will still be happy with it for a long time and have a hard time understanding the source of our discontent even when well articulated since it just doesn't resonate with them, or the answers seem simple to them (like the common "just house rule it", or "flavor is free, just reflavor the classes to fit your theme"). But the problems run too deep, and these are just bandaids. They will help a little, until the bleeding wounds under can no longer be contained. That was unexpectedly dramatic and I didn't intend it but I'll leave it as it is.
I'm one of those people too. My 3 year, 65 session campaign took me from love to disappointment to hate when it came to DnD (the campaign itself was good, I have a lot of great memories from it, but DnD as a game just got in the way).
I am unabashedly one of those people who deeply loved the game and has so many fond memories of my time with it. It's something I'll always treasure and something I remain grateful for but it's definitely left me with an understanding of how flawed the game is at a pretty deep level.
I would also like to add that upon reflection my fond memories of the game have nothing to do with the system and everything to do with the people I played with.
Well-structured critique, cogent and resonant with the small but growing vocal minority of role-players begging the community to branch out from the bog-standard. But yes, 33:33 - like the brand loyalty that keeps people buying ugly cars or shopping at chains that regularly rip them off, D&D remains the accessible touchstone. Anchoring bias and neophobia is a potent cocktail, and it is such a pity. Would love a follow-up exploring strategies employed by alternative roleplaying system developers to bridge that gap for players whose timorous hobbitism once held them back from new experiences. Some designers really broke through the barrier, like Evil Hat with Blades in the Dark, and that's not by coincidence.
I like your comments about the strengths and simplicity of D&D. In my case, those are the same reason I use GURPS. Some of the core parts of the D&D system are why I switched in the late 1980s. I do run and play in D&D (the former cos I got asked to, and I've stuck with 4E for it; the latter is Level Up not D&D 5E), so I've kept track of the changes.
Path finder has a system called take 10 and take 20 which allows players to take extra time to complete a goal. This makes the d20 more of a chance system designed specifically for combat or intense situations. I think that is a great addition to the d20 system that helps mitigate that issue.
100% agree on the class limiting your thinking shenanigans. I actually came into role playing through CRPGs like Ultima, where in the latter ones the player had not class. You just did stuff, and got better at it as you practiced. I thought that was a much better way of doing things. I did tend to not have more skills in some arias than others, but that is just my personal play style
I really resonated with your final couple points. I feel like D&D, as well as other d20 titles, fail in that they don't choose a theme to promote but instead try to be everything to everyone. Because of that, they just lack a certain thematic wholeness or integrity.
About the D20 dice: To be fair the dice is less the problem and more the fact that by default without any homebrewn concoctions by the DM it is that black and white succes/fail thing in DnD and most other rpg systems. "Easy fix" is making a tabelle with different ranges of success-rates with several results enlisted for the respective check.
Derek, from Knights of Last Call has a great concept for differentiating a "true role-playing game" from other RPGs. It's if the GAME is about the RP, the rules apply to role-playing. Avatar Legends is about the characters balance, and mechanics affect RP decisions. White Wolf's WoD have some of this with its flaws and virtue and vice systems, and mouse guard and similar games incentivise using traits against yourself. DnD is more simulationist than RP, mechanically. It's a choice to use that versus a RP game. Brennan Mulligan talked about how he doesn't care about TP mechanics cause he and his players do that, he just needs a physics engine to run the stuff that's "less interesting" to him
I would argue every rpg is a storytelling game. I get that other stuff has different systems but at their core we're playing rpgs to tell a story with our friends.
D&D is NOT simulationist, D&D's lack of RP tools does not automatically make it simulationist. Simulation and role playing are not mutually exclusive, in fact they enhance each other.
@@DesksAndDorks I'm not saying it's not a storytelling game, rather than there aren't as many mechanics focused on the role play. Characters have stats and powers for combat, and there's some skills that determine how convincing a character or NPC is. But, a player could potentially play DnD with very little role play and character development and focus while using almost all the rules and the game system will be functioning, because the rules aren't really about how you roleplay. The closest the system gets is that players are encouraged to use skills their characters are good at, which does encourage certain character choices, but the system doesn't really care as much about that, and where it does (alignment and loosing powers for paladins) it feels like it kinda gets in the way of what the game is good at.
@@aaronabel4756 I'm not saying they are mutually exclusive, but games often seem to be better at one or the other (but not always, like mouse guard or torchbearer which seems to have a solid integrated system for RP and physics simulation) When I say DnD is simulation focused, I mean that most of the rules are about physics (and magical physics). How things function in the world, rather than the hearts of the characters. Playing DnD can be as RP heavy or combat sim focused as players want because the GAME rules aren't about how you play your character's . . . character. Other games have the game part be about the characters behavior and feelings and personality like Monster Hearts (from what I've seen) or L5R and Avatar where the rules don't really zoom in on how many feet you can jump or damage dice you deal
@@w4iph I understand what you are saying now. I agree with you about D&D. Take it from someone that really enjoys simulationist RPG's D&D is way too video gamey to be simulationist, especially in combat.
I'm glad more people are coming out to say the things I've been screaming from the rooftops for years. Now allow me to play a little devil's advocate... As much as I am loathe to do so. Firstly: DnD 5e does actually have rules for roleplay to facilitate it. However, many people don't realize that it's set up for a classical dnd experience. Which is to say, it's more faction based with individuals being kind of hand-waved. You can find the rules in the DMG for how rp encounters are supposed to work on the back end. I'd argue that it still fails at delivering a solid, useful product like much of the rest of 5e. However it is there. And that's really the thing people need to get through their heads. 5e was designed as a heroic fantasy game about dungeon crawling and playing a factions game. In older editions with more robust management rules for how to properly run strongholds and settlements, this would work far easier. However 5e's rules are quite punitive and obtuse, so I rarely ever see them mentioned even amongst people that know they exist (again, check the DMG). It doesn't work as a horror game, it doesn't work as a sci-fi game, it doesn't work as a modern game. It barely functions for what it was made for. Attempting to homebrew it into those things would require so much effort that you might as well just make your own system or play something else. That last sentiment is probably what's made the 5e community so resistant to change though. Because when they see a discourse about what they would like the hobby to be, basically everyone tells them that their 200-ish usd book collection is useless so now they need to buy another 30 usd of books for the specific thing they want. Not to mention putting forward the effort and passion to learn something through more than just osmosis. I did disagree with your assessments on the d20 system, but then again not everyone has my approach of "Don't always roll for a binary, roll for a gradient more often." For your rock climber example, I'd have them roll to see how well they do rather than whether they could do it or not. Their character's invested in this particular thing, they *can* do it without question. Unlike the rest of the PCs. Simple GM skill that I wish more systems made mention of. Also when to call for a roll is important. I might call for a strength check if a low-strength character wants to lift something heavy, but the average person might not even need to roll. The DC's not difficult, but the fact that they *have* to roll it means they wouldn't auto-pass like basically everyone else. Which is a character flaw informed by their choices during creation. No arguement on the combat system being weak. It's serviceable at best, but it's more let down by the designers being terrified of certain archetypes being usable and a distinct distaste for martials. Meaning the combat being weak is more derivative of the classes being poorly designed. Which is the truth of it. Something I think has come into more focus as I've played more OSR games as well as A2E dnd. Ironically making the classes as bloated as they are and sanding off the rough edges is a lot of what makes them weaker in general from a feel standpoint. Older design/jank were actually meaningful balancing points that are cast aside in modern dnd design. Sure, I don't like the RAW encumbrance rules, but they exist as a lever to try and help balance out strength vs dex. Ranged weapons needing to track/lose ammo as well as not actually having damage mods based on stats makes them more of a trade-off with melee rather than a purely better option in 99% of cases. EXP based leveling was required because it served a purpose in older editions. Classes advanced at different rates because they were designed around their lower option amounts for things like fighter and thief. Having to find spells rather than picking and choosing what you got through level up acted as a major balancing point for magic users. Actually being beholden to a deity balanced out the power behind clerics and ensured they thought about more than just the power they were getting from their choices. Alignment acts as a good metric for generally what you can expect from the player, character, or both as well as a way for the gm to politely remind players about the tone they were going for. Just... y'know, don't use it as a stick to beat your players with. That never goes well. Personally more a fan of extra XP or cool magic swag for playing to alignment. Probably the best class-based TTRPG I've found yet has been Pokemon Tabletop United. It's free, but very crunchy. As it does a good job of trying to recreate the complexity of the games with the adventurous spirit of the show. If you're fine with 3.5e dnd you'll probably not find it too bad, but 5e kids might struggle a little in adjusting. It's not complicated, there's just a lot to it. Also, complication that comes with it being a pokemon game: Basically everyone's a summoner. So larger groups may want to limit the party size of individual trainers, and rethink gym battles into more being gym challenges. Anyway, off topic, in that game your classes function more as Skill trees, of themed feat-packets you nab to help build the identity of your trainer. Want to build brok? Mentor, Type Ace: Rock, Pokemon researcher: Caretaking and Apothecary, and Chef. You've built an exceptionally skilled pokemon breeder that is adept at nurturing and tending pokemon of all types, but is particularly skilled at commanding your type of choice. Pretty much any archetype you could think of or pokemon character you could want to play can be constructed out of the combination of 4 classes and general feats.
In your Rockclimbing example, Pathfinder 2e does have an answer. At the GM discretion if there are other possible handholds the player can use their reaction to roll Grab and Edge using their Acrobat or Reflex Save which may save the player completely or partially save them. As for the fantasy of being a really good rock climber or climber in general, there is a feat that can be taken, Assurance, which ensure you never fail "easy" rolls for the selected skill, in this case Athletics. You can still fail really challenging DCs.
Great video. I feel like dnd is too noncommittal. It's not robust enough to be setting agnostic, but it doesn't commit enough to a nongeneric setting to do something interesting and have a unique feel imo. It's a mediocre combination of setting dependant and setting agnostic.
This video is very interesting, because I kinda agree with your first point, but not they way you word it. I would agree that 5e's binary pass/fail is less than interesting, and while not a problem for me personally, it is not an issue with all roll high d20 systems. Granted I cannot at this moment come up with one that does something more interesting than pass/fail, however I think we both agree it could exist. While I like the cut of your jib, I think it might help you to just double check your scripts to make sure what you mean to say, and what you are actually saying are the same thing. You did a great job cutting of criticism at the front and making sure cooler head prevail ( and at some level you will get people who don't care and levy them either way), I'd hate to see people just blanket throw your opinion out because what you said and what you meant where different, and they took issue with the former (like myself here, but with a lot more hate because they disagree with you, which again I really don't) I definitely think your issue with combat in D&D comes down to your style of paly. Matt Colville has a great video on this called "The Problem With Talking About D&D" in which he talks about how different tables see different pain points. I don't think picking the best choice all of the time is really a problem with D&D, I think it is a fundamental issue with games as a whole. Players if given the chance will optimize the fun out of a game. It's not an issue that I have personally had, but I get why you might feel that way. I think ultimately, the issue with asking people to play other games is simple, people aren't actually meeting up to paly D&D, or really any one game for that matter, they just want an excuse to meet up and hang out. Dinner parties are a dyeing art, and the only 3rd places people can meet come with a $50 price tag, and when that happens D&D becomes a great reason that people can meet up 1-4 times a month to hang out. If dinner parties became popular again tomorrow, D&D would be played less, but also the portion of tables willing to try new things would go up. Id argue that the number of tables willing to branch out is a little higher than it was in the 90s, but the number of tables in existence is much higher. I also think there is some wired social issues that prevent these games from being played, mainly I think it's the players of any given table who want to try other games (The DM tends to either be to heads down on prep to spend time learning of new games, or there is to much friction for the DM to switch systems) but that player doesn't want to ask their DM (out of a fear for being rude) but also that player doesn't feel as if they can run a game and so they don't offer, despite the fact that the DM would be more than happy to allow that if the group was interested. and If you are one of those players reading the comments, just ask your group, trust me, you already have 1 yes vote from your forever DM who would like to be a player for once, and again the players will probably say yes because they don't actually care which game they play, they just want to hang out and eat pizza. and if your worried about doing a bad job, don't be. You will do great, just grab something premade and run that, You know more about running the game than you think you do, I mean you have watched your DM do it for tens of hours, just try to be like them. and in the 1/1000 case the night goes bad, It won't look bad on you because nobody knows the game well enough to say if it was your fault or the games, but again, your players won't have a bad time so don't worry about it, just have fun.
I feel this. I've run so many amazing campaigns in 5e but I've accumulated so much homebrew that I literally just decided to make my own RPG. I was surprised how much of that process was already complete when I first sat down to work on it.
Sec. 1 "What Makes D&D Great" thoughts: I think that the d20 system has it's saving graces but simplicity isn't D&D's strength, oh no. For one thing it's very, very easy to make a game "simple" if your criteria is just "the dice mechanic is easy to understand". The thing about D&D (and D&D-like systems), though, is that their mechanics are so scattershot that it's like you're learning the game all over again every time you play a new character. Very little is unified. Personally, the only positive I could hand to D&D exists in a hypothetical. I believe that the best thing WotC could do, given the direction that D&D has gone, would be to make a "D20 Gold" book, essentially. They want people to make stuff up? Kay, make a book that strips away all of the D&D and exposes the bare-metal engine underneath. Make D&D their premier expression of that engine. There _is_ some merit to a system where your "prime attributes" are the main focus, particularly since the two big generic games, BRP and GURPS, are mostly skill-based. People like to homebrew D&D, not only because people try to fix it's limitations, but because D20 is easy to get loosey-goosey with and just wing it. It would also hopefully hep WotC create all the setting splatbooks they seem so interested in lately. I can see that you critique D20 itself later (and I can guess why) so I'm curious to see that.
Seeing the current climate around TTRPG play and D&D's hegemony over it, I feel very blessed to have entered the hobby with a d100 system (Dark Heresy). Not only is it fundamentally different from D&D - building your own class, the d100 dice mechanic, brutal combat, the skills and traits system - it also allowed me to think critically about RPGs as a medium and which fantasies we're trying to evoke.
I feel your pain, but D&D has proven to be popular, adaptable, functional and entertaining for 50 years. I realise it has been reduced to being a d20 roll high game with endless options for character building and optimising, and that gets dull sooner or later. I've put a lot of time into reading and learning other systems (there are great ones out there by the shelf load) and learned a lot by reading them, they have added a lot to my knowledge as a gamemaster and helped me improve my game. When I want to fill a table with players I click my fingers, say D&D and I have a game to run. When I switch for a season to another system I've got empty chairs. I can't keep buying rule books for games I'll never run or run once or twice with 3 people. They're just bending the bookshelf for no good reason. Game collecting leads to a weird consumer drive where we end up buying more than we can ever play. It's just titles in a file, or spines on a shelf, but the games don't get playtime at a table. It's fine for collectors, but a dilemma for people who just want to play A good enduring game. D&D has been a controversial mess of commercial greed glossed with corporate virtue signalling shenanagins since the 1980's, that is disappointing because despite all it's flaws D&D endures in popularity because it is a remarkable game that has spawned an entire remarkable genre of games.
There's is nothing D&D does that another system does not do better, but the classes are the most agregious to me. I GM Pathfinder beginner box to experience players, and they were awed at how much their classes at lvl 1 felt different from each other, how the feat system made their fantasy come to life in the mechanical sense: The ranger using his pet to get "advantage", the alchemist throwing bombs and potion everywhere, the Bard having multiple type of songs and marches for buffing or debuffing, the cleric using his spells without worrying about having enough to heal. Second is the dungeon crawling, and for this I really recommend HEART: Beneath the city. It has the most elegant system for the slowly descent into madness and stress of actually dungeon crawling, the multiple health bar for various of your stuff, mind and body is excellent, and for the first time taking damage in a game is exciting, is not a "the only hitpoint that matters is the last one"
The point on binary failures is interesting because I've been thinking about it a lot lately. One of the things I've realised about a lot of the popular d20s over the years like DnD 3.5/PF1e and DnD 5e is that a lot of the appeal is gaming out the binary check systems. Hardcore players will powergame them out through huge modifiers and buff states, while less instrumental players will demand the GM bend over backwards to ensure any fail state is removed of consequences and fun-killing moments. The thing is, binary fail states can be interesting when there are indeed consequences - and preferably consequences that simply create more tension and require response to, not that instantly kill the player or otherwise remove their autonomy - but it's very hard to codify this without having those roleplay and social systems from the sorts of systems mentioned in the video. It's doable, but requires external impetus to tell them how to make it work effectively, or the GM just figuring it out themselves with no guidance. Like take the mountain climbing scenario. Is rolling a string of checks to see if you succeed at just scaling the mountain boring? Absolutely. Now let's say you're scaling a rock face because you're being chased by a monster or pack of monsters who can climb up after you, or there's a pool of toxic water that's rising. Now you have tension and stakes. And in those scenarios, players are also more likely to be creative and consider more interesting solutions under pressure than just rolling their checks. Maybe they have a potion of spider climb they've been saving for a rainy day, or a limited use teleporting ability, spell, or item they can use if they fall too close to the danger. But I still think this comes back to that fundamental issue of engaging in that chance-based gameplay. Those solutions are still avoiding engagement with those checks. If you're just going to do everything to avoid them, there's a fair discussion to have about how much you value that binary luck-based gameplay if they're just going to be undesirable anyway. And it's surprising to me how many people I bring this up to and shirk the idea it has anything to do with hating luck or even the binary d20 roll. It seems to me a lot of people are viciously in denial how much they hate the swingy maths of the d20, let alone that binary fail state they only seem to resent when it occurs. Yet offering alternatives is like pulling teeth. They want solutions within the scope of the d20 system, without sacrificing it, despite those foundations being the core issue. And to make it clear, I say this as someone who still generally likes d20 games. PF2e is my game of choice because I like the crunchy tactics and how the scaling success does a lot to embrace the d20s swinginess rather than just trying to overcompensate for it. I also realise why a lot of people don't like the d20, but their wants and solutions always seem to be some variant of 'let's go back to DnD 3.5 or 5e' instead of even considering other system formats. To me it's less d20 is fundamentally flawed, but that it's trying to appeal to people who don't understand why their tastes are inherently at odds with it, but refuse to change while demanding that design bend over backwards to cater to them.
Great ramble, but only 1 dork and 0 desks so I'm only rating this 9 stars
Show desk
Desk! Desk! Desk!
It's an rpg. Envision the desk with your mind's eye
Ok, roll for Desk
There is a book shelf, it is desk adjacent.
One thing I notice is that people claim the fact that the player or the GM "can" come up with something as a strength of the system. That you can really do anything you want because there aren't rules about XYZ. But as you implied, that's not the strength of the system, it's the strength of the GM or players. I understand the appeal of a generic system, I very much do - playing for a very specific genre or niche has never been my preference - but DnD (5e at least) is less generic than it wants you to think (it has rather specific stipulations about playing a heroic, high fantasy, combat oriented game) and as a consequence when it tries to officially add new mechanics to support other styles of play, those mechanics tend to be rather weak and inconsequential or actively clash with other, pre-existing mechanics.
This is why I left the RPG subreddit. The way people actually play D&D and all of the things they like about the games are not at all the strengths of the system. Until the invention of the milestone system (which I think is terribly flawed) the only way to gain XP is to kill things and take their stuff. Not to roleplay. Not to characterize. Not to follow your character's backstory and avenge their dead parents and free the enslaved ratkin. None of that gets XP. Advancement is gained by killing things and taking their stuff.
The subreddit threw a little hissy-fit and everyone was telling me about how their DM gave great rewards for playing in character or accomplishing goals. Fine, whatever. Your DM can give you all XP for not wearing pants. That isn't what the rules say.
As for the milestone system causes parties to rush through the quest hunting for the next milestone. It is quest based, not character driven, and all too often it rewards parties for staying on the DM's railroad tracks.
Rules systems should provide verisimilitude. That is they should enhance the genre of story your players want to tell. Your wild west game should have rules for gunfights at high noon. Your Fantasy Game should allow your players to build their legend and slay a dragon. D&D has never been great at anything other than combat heave dungeon crawl adventures.
The problem is also that as a combat oriented game I don't think it hits the mark. It may look like you have a ton of options, but what you have are builds. Once you have made a character, the range of ways you can approach combat are limited. There is very little in terms of maneuvers and special actions with which to adapt your playstyle to the situation.
Build variety is good, don't get me wrong, it's good that different characters will not play the same and that you can control what you want to play, but it's only part of the equation.
It is still a level and class based game, which means that it's hard to branch out in any meaningful way. You can multiclass, sure, but unless there is some hidden synergy between classes, it's hard to start doing anything worthwhile that your character wasn't designed to do before. Even more so because the characters are designed not to be versatile.
Yeah, war story makes little sense when the level 16 fighter eats an artillery shell to the face.
Having a gente Is not bad.in of itself. D&D has always been about aventures and heroes. The main issue for me, Is the power curve. Noe PCs are really powerful for my liking...
@andresmicalizzi5420 there are some good systems for that. Cogent role-play is one if you can find the old combat rules. I'm sure others will have better but i had a lot of fun with cogent role play.
Biggest issue with branching out: No one in game stores ever want to try other games, even though I want to.
Gawd, all this. Everyone is so stuck on D&D that just asking to play another system will get you dirty looks. Also, and my memory is a bit sketchy on this, i think our LGS owner happened to mention in passing that if he tried selling other systems, that WotC would punish him some how. Delay shipments, poor pricing, etc.. Someone should look into that.
I think the issues are that people dont want to have to learn a new rules system or invest in different books, GM screens, etc. Ive been buying books and stuff as I can in order to try new games, but so fewpeople play them that I feel like I have to GM them for people. Thankfully more support has become available for GMs and players on vtt. Tokens, maps, etc are becoming available as smaller publishers are turning to Kickstarter to put starter sets and books out for online users.
Yes, indeed. I have tried. A lot of it is perceived cost in money or time to learn new rules.
@@echoradius2299 Oh damn, I didn't know this. It also doesn't surprise me, considering the other things I've heard of WotC.
As a solo TTRPG evangelist, have I got a solution for you. 😊
I always find it interesting when people try to claim D&D is adaptable as if it's somehow more adaptable than other ttrpgs.
Edited to add:
One of the best things about showing people new rpgs is that it's so easy to blow their minds with what's possible in a game if they've only ever played D&D. Certain things that don't work well in Dungeons and Dragons are incredibly easy in other systems.
The only games which are not adaptable are those tightly designed to create a very specific experience lol
@@claudiaborges8406 Yep! And even some of those can be adapted if you're keeping within the thematic elements of it. People have weirdly narrow views of what rpgs are when they only play one game.
I have friends that throw a tantrum if the game says a low number on the dice is good (roll under rather than roll over). Claims of attempts to reintroduce THAC0 (which is not how that works at all) and superstitious nonsense thrown around how they're only good at rolling high so if I flip the numbers, they're getting "nerfed".
I know they're joking and just venting the frustration of learning a new system, but it doesn't feel like it in the moment and it's exhausting and demoralizing as a DM.
@@lemongambit It gets frustrating when people put roadblocks in their own way. I've taught a lot of people new games in a lot of situations and it's generally not that difficult for players to learn how a game works if they're not finding ways to stomp their feet down.
@@improvgm8663 Very much, you can customize it sure but when one of my favorite spells is called “First I Then I” and I say this.
Pick a point, anyone in X area cast fireball when they next speak.
This should not be a comedy spell but it is… people know what it does because of the name before I describe it. I have twice heard people as what will trigger it after I say the word all living things because they know that what will be triggered is cast fireball
I have a mage who travels with a swarm of rats because remember… any living thing. A squeak is just speaking in rat.
II. It's history and it's impact
I've been trying to say for years that D&D is popular because D&D is popular. I mean, when the hobby was in it's infancy, when Gary Gygax said "the worst thing that could happen would be for people to learn that they don't need the rules", when a lot of pocket communities were saying "fuck Gygax, we don't need his stupid advice to play our D&D"? By being the first RPG to be recognized as such, D&D _immediately_ got the same privilege as Band-Aids. Gary said that about Da Rules because the mindset was already that anyone doing this role-playing thing was playing D&D somehow. Someone goes and makes their own game with a totally different ruleset? D&D with a different rulebook. The vast majority of the population does not think of "tabletop role-playing games" as a category, they just think of them as Dungeons & Dragons. Trying to tell people otherwise just confuses them. It got the hobby off of the ground and eternally cursed it to some IP rights.
9:23 Preach it! I was going to argue that no, I don't think D&D as it exists now is easy to hombrew for at all, as a game that is built around some expectation of careful numerical balance it's actually a nightmare and most homebrew, even officially recognized and published homebrew, sort of sucks. ...Of course even WotC has stated publicly that some bits of 5e were "intentionally" NOT balanced properly, despite all of the tight resource management... IDK man. I'm ranting.
I will be stealing dnd is popular because it us popular because it is absolutely true. It's crazy how much of an advantage being the first one through the door can be. (This is also true for some mid board games that are considered classics).
Yes, it’s an illustrious medieval dynasty living off the fumes of its prior rulers and successes, but decrepit and hollow. Thankfully the virile barbarians, (Pathfinder) are at the gates. I guess that’s not a perfect analogy…
Wizards is doing everything they can to help end this hegemony, and we got the upstart surrounding them to help. Pathfinder, Blades in the Dark, and Blades in the Dark's vast cohort of deciples will win the day I'm sure.
Re: D&D's customizability: I once encountered somebody that wanted to turn D&D into something to play superheroes. They didn't want suggestions for other systems (systems designed from the ground up to play superheroes) because learning a new system is scary. But the amount of work they would have to put into home brew, inventing rules, and testing out what they came up would surely be almost as much work, if not more, right? Why is picking up Mutants & Masterminds or Sentinel Comics RPG or Masks or whatever harder than completely reworking every element of a game that was not designed or intended to do that easier?
Like, game design isn't easy. It's hard, actually. There are innumerable things to think about. It's not any easier to hack a game designed for one thing (heroic fantasy with a focus on killing monsters) into something unrelated, right? Some people think they have to turn D&D into something so they can play, for example, Lovecraftian horror, but surely they can just try Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green, right?
I think the fact that so few people branch out is what limits the system more. They think that every other system is "just D&D" when the reality is that no, some of them are very different, approach things very differently, and might actually be more intuitive in areas than D&D. It would be like if the only board game people played was Monopoly, but instead of buying Risk or Chess or Twilight Imperium, they decide to add rules to Monopoly to make it fit.
Kids (including adult kids) play with Legos. There are Legos that come in a set designed to allow you to build specific things like a Star Wars ship or a castle or a Super Mario Level. If you buy that set, not only can you easily design what it is intended for, you can also adapt the pieces to easily make other creative things in case you get bored of the same old castle.
Some dumb kids (like me) always viewed those Lego sets as "side project Legos". Not the main way to play Legos. Which was a generic bucket of basic block Legos to be creative with because your parents/adult-version-you are/is broke all the time. I could make my own x wing. I didn't need a kit designed specifically to make it easy to build a faithful model of the actual x wing. I could just make stuff fit. I would use pieces of the other kits to add to my giant bucket of assorted Legos, but I didn't keep the sets segregated. It was all just Legos to me.
If you don't understand how building a Frankenstein Monster of a game out of basic clunky D&D parts is NOT work but FUN, then you don't understand a major draw in this hobby for a lot of people. Insane, smelly people, perhaps, but people. This was especially true in 3rd Edition. D&D wasn't always about playing a storytelling game with your friends. Sometimes it was just about building weird stuff with the rules by yourself.
You're not wrong that it's easier and far less effort to use systems specifically designed to do what you want. But that's not what many GMs are actually interested in. I hope that sheds light on the phenomenon.
@@hallavast You say that as if there aren't also numerous generic systems designed to be building blocks either. GURPS is somewhat well known, but there's Fate, Genesys, d6 System, Cypher, Savage Worlds, Index Card RPG, Cepheus, all designed to be easily modified. Plus there are engines like Year Zero, Powered by the Apocalypse, Forged in the Dark, BRP, and Savage Worlds that are all there for some people to power their own games, with different licenses.
And these are not exhaustive lists.
I understand the appeal of hacking one system to a different genre, and have done so myself. I'm not saying not to do that, or to not experiment with designing your own system. But what a lot of D&D players (most commonly 5e players), which includes GMs, is go: "Gee, I'm kind of tired of this, I want to play sci-fi." But instead of trying a sci-fi game, they just try to turn D&D into a sci-fi game. Or they think: "Gee, 5e isn't doing it for me any more, I wish I had something different, better." and instead of trying something else that already exists, they just try to house rule 5e.
@@swordbreaker9741 If it already exists, I didn't build it. The only good ideas are the ones I convince myself I invented.
@@hallavast Wow, imagine speaking a common language with me and thinking it was your idea to invent it.
@swordbreaker9741Rolemaster is surprisingly adaptable and flexible.
People will run a modded 5e star wars game instead of the actual star wars rpg that is so much better
Yes 1000 percent this
SW5e has a different feel to the actual RPGs--I do think it's fun, has a different feel and fantasy to it.
Or create homebrew rules in 5e only to realise that PF2E has several of those rules built in. My group is swapping to pf2e and my god is it better in so many ways. I'm even considering trying out a specific playstyle that I found to be lacking in 5e. Also the 3 action economy is just *chef's kiss*.
People will run every single possible thing using a poorly hacked dnd which will break, won't work and the flaws will show after the first session, instead of finding any other ttrpg out of the hundreds that exist.
@@FarremShamist The free ruleset using the One Roll Engine called StarORE is superior. The original West End Games D6 system was superior. GURPS Star Wars would be supeior.
So you are technically correct. I just can't think of a single reason to give WotC money to play a shitty Star Wars game.
I swear to god the people that hate DnD the most are DnD players
It's a trend with WOTC products for sure.
This is not a revalation, yet people always say whenever someone criticizes anything
Just think for an additional second and ask yourself, why the people that are engaged in X, might dislike that X. And why they might dislike that X, more than someone that has no idea what X is besides the name
"Wow the people passionate about this thing sure are passionate about it" is not a revalation
@xolotltolox7626 I know what you're getting at but it's not impossible to think of someone that hates something that doesn't do it.
I hated Cyberpunk when I played it on release, and surprise surprise, I dropped it entirely. This is just as common lol.
My comment is about how I don't really ever hear about people that hate DnD that stopped playing it, but rather people playing it while actively hating DnD. The closest I've gotten though is someone dropping DnD to play a different tabletop
@@kingster14444 it's usually because they are frustrated with the system, but don't have the luxury of playing anything else, because everyone only plays D&D instead of good games. And they usually prefer habging out with people and playing something, rather than nothing at all
@@kingster14444 I hate D&D. I will play it if it's that or not playing a roleplaying game, because playing any roleplaying game is preferable to not, but I have yet to play the RPG I enjoy less than D&D.
It's like the Skyrim problem: you can just mod it to make it better
But I don't want to HAVE to mod it to enjoy something I bought as a full game/system
During the years I really came to appreciate the Apocalypse system, it's more flexible, it's very complex in its simplicity and I find it very dynamic in its storytelling, where the dm is more like an arbiter and co-writer than a know-it-all omniscient external factor.
The d20 system isn’t a flaw, it’s a deliberate choice. The problem is the game doesn’t give you the advice or structure to properly use a binary system
to be fair, our culture is suffering comprehension of binary. lol
It's not mutually exclusive. PF2 and ICRPG both use Fail Forward action resolution. Also, the structure of preset specific outcomes can be used to create emergent narrative through game play and allow narrative control through tactical game play and rules mastery. Games with fewer barriers to narrative control are making the argument that having to learn complex rules with many limitations is a barrier to creativity. Which sometimes it is.
Some people like chocolate ice cream, some people make bad metaphores about ice cream.
@@leithmartin419 ICRPG is still binary though. That’s precisely my point. I remember reading a different game which used a plain “you do it/you dont do it” system that didn’t ask the GM to somehow move the story forward but still gave guidance to how to move the players either around that barrier or to change the situation themselves to try again. And last time I checked PF2 used a “degrees of success/failure” system which IMO places it in a different category to the plain “yes/no” of D&D.
The rest wasn’t very clear to me
@@claudiaborges8406 I think we're in agreement that DnD is not the best example of a d20 game. And most RPGs use binary pass/Fail mechanics most of the time. Dice pool games have success levels but usually all you need to know is did you get enough to succeed. No? Well, if you're playing Vampire you might fail forward, if you're playing Shadowrun you failed, try again at -2 or try something else.
If you always gets a trophy you aren't special, no one is special. You have to lose to appreciate winning. Its why a system that has failure is such a good system to begin with.
32:02 generalists are sort of antithetical to cooperative game design. So I'd very much prefer people thinking of themselves as "a ranger" or "a wizard" than as a general medieval person. Some good points, but this is not one of them.
The lack of role specialization is one of my larger complaints about systems with little mechanical differentiation between characters.
The issue is that DND doesn't encourage cooperation beyond like "everyone beat up the person who's restrained" or "don't hit the people I charmed please"
I mean, it's not exactly gloomhaven or drg levels of cooperative it's more like a pvp shooter where you all do your own thing in proximity rather than working together.
Obviously a well designed game would encourage you specializing in certain things. This point is less that everyone in your team should be a generalist in terms of mechanics but instead that a class system limits the diversity of skillsets that would actually arise within a realistic fantasy world.
In D&D everyone is a generalist. In D&D everyone is a combatant. Some builds are strong in that role and some are strictly weaker. D&D is barely a game for anything outside of combat and your character does not have the option of not being geared for combat.
Generalists skill wise can still fell specialized in some other way. They can have personality differences that would mean that even though they all can swing a sword or light a fire or sweet talk a barmaid equally well they will tend to approach situations differently.
If you want to see some actual specializations you have to look at something like "Sagas of the Icelanders" where e.g. only the female head of the household can mechanically solve a dispute with diplomacy while all male characters have to resort to violence.
Savage worlds is the best system but boy you have to work had not to make every character feel the same.
III. WotC & Hasbro's Issues
The big thing about this to me is that you don't NEED a big company to make professional-quality RPGs that don't suck. There seems to be a sense of fear among a lot of D&D fans that if WotC sunk, the hobby would sink with it, when in reality the only reason for it's size is merchandising.
For as much as people claim DND is a blank canvas to work with I don't feel that is always correct because of the bounded accuracy system where numbers don't change much it can be harder for DMs to correctly judge how things stack up in their own homebrew.
Personally I feel like Pathfinder 2E does the D&D theme/fantasy better than WoTC DND. I feel like it has a bit of a stigma of being overly complex due to PF1E being an extension of D&D 3.5E and it did add a bit more to the game. But PF2E I feel solves a lot of problems DND5e has. Sure it has a lot of rules but that's a good thing as in D&D5e it feels like you gotta house rule a lot because the Devs were to lazy to fill it out under the excuse it let's players do their own thing. Problem with this is that means at every table with every DM those things they didn't highlight in the rules you gotta wonder how the DM is gonna rule it. Or if you are the DM it increases your work load by making you need to remember how you house rule so it doesn't retcon how things work.
When it comes to blank canvas I find it much easier to create content in PF2e because there are tons of charts on what the Averages are for monster stats, skills, and etc based on level so when designing encounters be it monsters, traps, or etc you have an idea of if it will be on the high/low side of challenge given that level. It's also easy to simply reflavor existing monsters, classes, and etc so they mechanically work the same but just have a different RP flavor given how much variety they have.
On the Pass/Fail issue you have with D&D well PF2e has degrees of success which really spice things up as now adding more bonuses to armor, attack, and etc actually matter because it can be the difference between a regular or critical. Be it on offense of getting that critical hit that is rare in D&D since most times it's only on Nat 20, or on defense which could mean the difference between taking a reasonable hit and getting completely crushed by enemy. With the degrees of success system Crits are so much more common than DND5e and can make combat feel a bit more swingy but also adds more tension.
On fulfilling the climb fantasy there is climb speed in PF2e and several different ways to potential get it though if it's real important you can always get DM to house rule a new feat or access to one of the existing ones that give climb speed that would normally qualify for. Like a guy in our group plays a ranger and so being able to quickly get to high ground to protect himself while still being able to launch arrows, especially in forest areas, was part of his theme and I forget what feat he took but he had climb speed which often used to get up on roof tops, trees, or simply climb cliff walls. No dice roll required to slow things down.
As for class divide a lot of Martial's get various feats that they can pick which give them abilities in combat so two martial can end up having very different play styles. But the casters and Martial's also fill different roles in combat. As for combat like a Puzzle I find PF2e combat to be far more engaging than DND5e. I've seen many people stuck in the D&D mindset come to PF2e think they just need to pick the "best" ability and use it over and over but that often isn't the case. There are several videos on this topic talking about the 3 action economy and how often simply doing a 3rd attack is not a good move. But also due to the degrees of success you'll often hear people in PF2e say every +1 matters and this is true. As flanking the enemy, tripping them, boosting an allies to high chance, and so on can turn a hard/impossible fight into a moderate one. Getting in a few extra crits or preventing the enemy from getting ones on you is huge. PF2e is very much a team game as a lot of abilities give bonuses that your team mates can exploit but not you. So if you just focus on what ability seems "best" of say damage then often won't do as well as someone who also has abilities that help the team setup for success.
On class system I gotta agree as far as DND5e goes because it's one thing I really hated about 5e where every player of curtain class/subclass was basically the same. However with PF2e there is so much customization that two people in the same class can be very different characters and a lot of classes can play any of the triad TANK/DPS/SUPPORT to varying degrees.
PF2e is a great branch off point as I started back on D&D2e and PF2e feels more like the natural evolution that D&D should have taken rather than the abomination that D&D became with 5e and now beyond/6e or whatever they calling it. It's good branching off point because all the PF2e rules are available for free online so no "a new system cost a lot excuse" and the Devs support this. As they make their money more in Modules/Adventure packs since that's how the company started back in D&D3e but went their own way with their own system. It uses D20 system as well so D&D fans will be very familiar with a lot of the mechanics. It shares a lot of same class/monsters/etc names so it should be very familiar to people transitioning.
However due to the OGL BS that WoTC pulled they were forced to make some changes and have released "Remaster" version which does rename several things and even switch up a few things like removing alignment, changing dragon types, redoing some spells effects/names, and so on. But also did some changes to various classes with everything from minor tweeks to major overhauls given player's feedback over the years. And because none of the rules or mechanics were changed you can play the original or remaster versions of a class in a campaign without any issues.
Heck to show how much of a robust system it is they are working on their SciFi setting in upcoming Starfinder 2e which uses the same rules. Thus you could have gun wielding Sci-fi characters alongside your fantasy realm heroes and the system can handle it.
I'd argue that D&D's strength as a "Canvas" isn't even a strength and is giving 5e too much credit. It is a result of DM's fixing the system with duct tape and a nailgun. Instead of finding a system that actually suits their needs or fits their narrative.
"You can just fix this" is my most-hated response: I shouldn't have to fix anything.
Tasting Pathfinder made me realize how lazy WotC is
I get that sentiment but I don't get why people are so unable to see past their own subjective preferences. There are innumerable GMs/players like me who enjoy the way the game was back in the original days....open ended and home-ruled to high heaven. For some of us, the game is not the published rules. The published rules are a framework, and ultimately the games I run are mine and not someone else's
@Calebgoblin Because with 5e, it never got tools that would have been incredibly useful that PF2 had early on: templates for making creatures into Skeletons and Zombies, official rules for Lich PCs, guidelines for what Deities want, and Martial features that weren't just turning them into casters.
The only thing I like more with D&D when comparing it and PF2 is D&D's tool proficiency is more my style than PF2's generic "crafting" skill.
@@Calebgoblin Oh; I also feel this way comparing Cyberpunk 2020 and Red...2020 can be played out of the box; Red feels like a lemon with some of the core rules (like autofire being its own skill and costing x2 for a start)
@@littlegiantj8761 I get that for sure. It's all part of my overall point; some people are happy to tailor their answers to these questions and some people aren't. Both are valid
Lol, Pathfinder is just DnD with fixes.
My thoughts as well. It’s weird how brand loyal some D&D players are. I’ve played dozens of games including every version of D&D with many people and it wasn’t until I recently said “oh, I don’t give money to WotC, and I don’t run 5e but I’d be happy to run X, Y, or Z” (one of those games was an older edition) that I first encountered a couple of players who insisted that 5e was absolutely the only game that they would consider playing, they didn’t care if it was 2014, or 2024, but that’s it. Not going to touch any other game. Super weirdly aggressive about it.
Capitalism and sunk cost fallacy.
5e is The Big Name, and people have spent a long-assed time watching 5e videos (especially all the tutorial material, which makes the claims of DnDs simplicity laughable), so the live under this weird belief that if they play a different game then they'll also have to spend several months researching how to actually play that game, regardless of how simple the system you're trying to get them to play is.
But there's also weirdos who just like to make brands their entire identity.
@@dungeonsanddobbers2683 I only play 1e, I honestly dislike 5e.
I've had the exact same thing numerous times. "Hey guys, I'm happy to GM for you, but I won't run 5e. How about [fantasy game], [cyberpunk game] or [sci-fi game]?" and I always get turned down for some first-time GM to run an amateur 5e game that invariably falls apart before I get called in to pick up the pieces.
And then the game dies altogether because either they insist on sticking to 5e and I lose motivation/interest or they put road-blocks in their own way and refuse to learn a new system.
I've always found this so incredibly frustrating. I just refuse to run 5e D&D nowadays. I'll run older editions, I'll run other systems, but I will not run 5e. I don't object to playing it, depending on the GM, but I do not enjoy running it. What I ended up doing was running one shots that could (if the players wished) turn into campaigns. Most recently, I did a one shot of call of cthulhu, which the players enjoyed, a mini-adventure of Mothership, which some players enjoyed and some didn't, and an adventure in classic Traveller, which has turned into a campaign. I'll probably end up running a 3.5 one shot reasonably soon, and I definitely want to try some people out on Chronicles of Darkness and Savage Worlds.
@@urgentfusionguy7143that's when you secretly run a new system for them under the same narrative, and throw in a big twist, like a portal that opens up and their characters are tossed into the world of your new system, and you have these "homerules" to help fit the setting
It has too many essential subsystems for it to be considered actually simple. You can’t have the whole (supposedly) intended experience of the game without those subsystems.
You’re meant to dismember the game to your liking, but on its own terms, it’s NOT simple at all. New new groups *struggle* with all this stuff
5e is medium complexity with a lot of exceptions and edge cases that make it more convoluted in use than how technically complicated it is. The major point of 'simplicity' is how much of it can be carried by the DM rather than inherently by the players.
@ absolutely
I think I'd say it's a low complexity core with too many sub-systems layered on top. In a lot of ways, the game really does boil down to roll dice.
With that being said I agree that new groups really struggle with the sub systems.
@@NevisYsbryd And that is in itself, is a problem with the system it is "Simple" because it dumps everything onto the DM, D&D is miserable to run, so many times stuff in the books can be summed up with the advice of "Make it up yourself", many times that is the only advice you get as a DM in the rulebooks.
@@MrGamer-fw4hc I did not say it was good. It is way more convoluted than necessary for what it is.
I’m about seven minutes in, and you’ve touched on something we’ve been discussing in our play group quite. D&D’s beating heart is at the intersection of sword and sorcery-Conan, etc.-middle earth, classical mythology, Arthurian legends and some real history. That’s where the game just sparkles.
That cross section of inspirations is really why I stuck with it for so long. It's like a buffet of a bunch of stuff I like. It doesn't do any of it particularly well but it has all the stuff im into.
Sure, but pathfinder does it better generally?
In what way does the game sparkle at that intersection?
D&D does a horrible job of simulating Sword & Sorcery or Middle Earth! The magic system is completely antithetical to both. D&D worlds are built around the mechanics of D&DS magic system and it is a very weird magic system built on all sorts of legacy going back to Jack Vance's Dying Earth books.
@angrenost1410 All alternatives you guys give #1 are just copies of DnD or #2 use rules lite BS where players have little agency and the DM fiats every rulingwithout consistency.
Its power hungry "narrative" DMs who need to write a book instead of using a game to do it vs normal DMs who see it's a game with rules everybody agrees to and a story comes from that.
I also prefer non D&D RPGs. If someone other than WotC owned it, I would likely feel diff. My decision not to play D&D when available is for all the reasons you espouse - but the biggest reason is I refuse to spend a dime on WotC products. The last thing I bought from them was 3.5. I have the 5e books (they were gifts) from those who wanted me to join their games. I have and do play - but if the GM was to say that he wanted to run something else (other than PF) I'd jump on it. For me as a GM, I run several other systems and will not run D&D.
I believe one of the primary reasons why people become married to D&D is the "support" the system provides. Even if it's not all that great. I run a Dungeon World campaign. I love that system. That and The One Ring are the two best fantasy RPGs IMO. But for all the love I have for DW, it is sadly under represented (I am aware of the social drama that occurred six years go with one of the writers). But the game has been out since 2012 and has not had really any official supplements for many years. I would love the game to see a re-write and re-imagining now with 12 years of feedback and stuff from players. I would love for there to have been other things released.
My point is - it's EASIER to adopt a system that provides a great deal of written material vs one that requires the GM to do a lot of work themselves. The latter is preferred by me, and many of us who enjoy that task and challenge - but it is not for everyone. Many just prefer a board game like environment where the work is pretty much all already done for you ahead of time.
As someone who has played DND for a while and love to try other systems, one of the things I have noticed about the "resisting other systems" argument is one I also see in your video. People know what kind of setting DND is for the most part. *usually* it's light hearted party based high fantasy where magic is everywhere, interesting creatures can be friends or foes and you know that the heroes usually prevail. When people like you and I recommend other systems to fans of DND, we almost always recommend systems with a more niche setting. Post apocaliptic. DARK fantasy. Horror. Cyberpunk. Surrealism.
DND fans are more likely to play pathfinder, gloomhaven or baldur's gate because the THEME appeals to them, and most pepole see a different rules system as an obstacle. So when we suggest new rules AND a new theme, we're losing them twice. I have had more luck converting DND players to Big Eyes Small Mouth (tri-stat) by promising "Dnd but anime" instead of shadowrun, because they don't want to play "dark and deadly cyberpunk dnd". There is an odd divide between Elder scrolls players vs Fallout players because of theme, despite the system being very similar.
I think we need more high fantasy setting with ligh hearted, colorful or heroic themes in alternative systems for the higher conversion rates.
I switched to playing The One Ring 2e. Unlike DND, it's made by people who love their fanbase.
you are amazing and also is your work! it was a pleasure finding your channel! Wish you an awesome year and keep up the good work Ive learnt a lot! wishing the best!
12:39 You get to choose how to participate, because you are a private Businessperson
Hasbro is a publically traded company, they are beholden to shareholders and to appease them, just make rhe number go up for them, short terms profits etc. Which is why they are not allowed to make good decisions. Stick trading is one of the worst things we have ever invented...
This is the problem. Hasbro and WOTC are beholden to "line go up". They have to increase their profits for their shareholders and figure out ways to maximize these profits. It doesn't matter if D&D stopped being a TTRPG and was turned into a mobile game, it just has to make more money. Investors have no love of the game or care what happens to it. It's the same problem with AAA video games. Why are indie games doing so well? They don't have to listen to thousands of people screaming for the line to go up. As long as they make money they keep their doors open and can continue to make the games they want to play. I remember one of the WOTC or Hasbro execs stating something like D&D is under monetized a while back. Right there that tells me she doesn't understand what D&D is.
@@isaace8090 i'm pretty sure she perfectly understands what it is, but no matter what, she is still beholden to having to make the numbers go up
Irony of ironies: the much maligned 4e addressed all of these problems. The class divide was virtually erased in an interesting way that still preserved unique class identities. Combat was made more strategic with limited-use powers and greater emphasis on positioning. Skill Challenges added strategic choice and narrative branching to situations calling for multiple pass/fail checks. Not to mention, in my experience it was the most modular and adaptable of all editions because the math was all completely exposed, which made house ruling easy, creating your own content easy, and creating additional subsystems easy.
People don't like 4e for 2 reasons
1.) they haven't played it and are parroting the mob
2.) they have played it, but have not played it with a vtt (the way it was intended to be played).
Play it on fantasy grounds of foundry vtt and you'll see how solid the system really is.
3 everyone was deadpool wolverine. A short rest deap lacerations were healed . Not matter your species. People should take 100 days to get better from no worries. Ih and combat was slower
"BuH mUh lEsS eMpHaSiS oN mUH sToReH tElLiNg!"
Storycels or Grognards not touching 4e is a general boon.
Eh. I liked it at first and there were some good things about it. Played quite a bit. But every class eventually overlapped too much with the others mechanically. Too many variables, reeeeally slowed down fights, when you're tracking interactions and combos.
It would work better as a video game probably, with a computer keeping track of it all (not just vtt)... which was one of the primary criticisms.
@@stuartmiller2526
Well, you aren't wrong, I suppose. DMs are too dumb to keep track of those systems and the Characters. I guess this is definitive proof that VGs are superior to TTRPGs.
Honestly, I think the biggest issue with D&D combat is how it's almost always to the death, with the death of the other side being the primary (if not only) goal of each side in the combat. That's perfectly fine if the combat system is either well suited to making that fun (see 4e), or else over very quickly (see TSR editions of the game), but when combat is slow from the need to consider positioning and tactics but doesn't bring much tactical choice, it gets very dull. The introduction of terrain, innocent bystanders, and goals other than wholesale slaughter can make it far more interesting - the simplicity that makes standard combat to the death boring also makes it very easy to add those complications.
I thoroughly enjoy many RPGs, and I'm very aware of the problems that D&D has, so I have into this video with an open mind and a lot of curiosity. It really fell flat for three big reasons:
1) There's nothing inherently wrong with a d20 system, only how its interpreted (which I agree D&D does a poor job showing). You dont have to roll for everything, just things that would be impactful. If rolling to climb a cliff wouldn't contribute to the story, don't roll.
2) I think you undersell D&D's ability to provide a puzzle experience in combat, but let's set that aside for a minute. Puzzle-based combat isn’t even objectively better than any other kind of combat, thats just your preference - and hardly any grounds on which to claim that a game is objectively bad.
3) I see what you mean when you talk about confining class roles ... as long as you're only refering to Paladins ans maybe Clerics. Other than occasionally in those two classes, I've never seen this mindset before, and I've never heard anyone else that has either. This is anecdotal of course, but people are more invested in there character than their class, even with new players (in my experience, ESPECIALLY with new players, because they dont have any context for how, say, a bard, is "supposed" to act in D&D).
Oh, and a bonus #4: I should have taken a drink every time you said umbrage. You use it waaay to much. How many things can one single guy take umbrage with?!
Anyway, coming into the video, I was really interested in seeing a discussion of the honest shortcomings D&D has. But this just felt like someone else saying, "Other games do things different, and I don't like WotC!"
I first got into ttrpgs when i joined a friend (who was a decade gming warhamer dm) hosted a one shot for a homebrewed Cthulhu adventure where there were no charcter sheets, no stats, nothing. You only got a little paperclip with three sentences on your character and a secret. We just described what we did and if in doubt my friend the gm just asked to roll high on a d6 and thats it.. It was phenomonal. I then later hosted Call of Cthulhu tables on my own and though i applied the rules as written i always viewed them to be tools to support the theater of mind only. Never would i get complicated rules in the way of immersion and thats an approach so natural to me that i really despised all those crunchy systems like d&d with theri lengthy fights and battle maps that turn something that should be about roleplaying (for me the ideal was that roleplaying would be some kind of light improv theater) into a tactics game like some kind of small scale warhammer wargame. Today i do play pathfinder with some collegues from work but i view pathfinder, d&d and similar games as a complete different kind of game.
That sounds like an absolutely amazing thing to experience. I would have loved that.
I firmly believe that D&D was never actually a role playing game. It started as a skirmish scale miniature wargame that is on its way to become a turn based tactics video game. And on its journey it lightly skirts the actual role playing space.
In my experience, players want to play it like a videogame, especially those who are adverse to rping. They enjoy building their character and then having control over it on a grid in play. I tried running blades in the dark and it meant very limited character creation and then not controlling their character and instead reacting and negotiating with the dm about narrative outcomes instead of having enemies in front of them with their own stats and hp was something they really didn't jive with and something that they felt made it feel out of their control and too much just make believe, same with skipping planning which was something they really wanted to do. It was also super intense to run as a dm, requiring me to constantly cone up with stuff with all that extra effort feeling wasted since they didn't dig it. And yet I'm with you on wanting a more engaging combat and skill action rolls that more directly encourages failing forward, but it's not an easy sell with systems that don't di what dnd does in these respects.
I've found narrative systems are often exhausting, both for the GM, who has to adapt and adjudicate more, and players, who don't have enough grounding or common base to know what to do.
I love narrative, and yes D&D can drag that down on the opposite side, but the rules of Blades and Fate for instance I've actually found to be too player punishing (discouraging them) and sometimes actually too limited, so they become rigid and confining.
The best narrative experience I had was GMing a couple sessions just diceless. We defined the characters and setting and established trust and a framework expectation of the game and just played.
That way, I didn't have to interpret Genesys/SWRPG dice outcomes, or concoct a roll from some combo of Blades stats, and still figure out what happens on the 40-50% failure rate.
honestly, there is so much that i would rip out and redo from scratch in D&D, never liked Armor Class and then theres Hit Points being either real physical trauma or a vague indication of battle fatigue etc and fighters could just as easily have scaling abilities like a Mage. but it really is too much work, fixing one or two things is fine, but when you are patching all over the place and replacing multiple systems, its better to just find one that is less flawed and maybe still use the D&D setting you like.
Martials do have scaling abilities, what are you talking about? In fact, in the newest edition of DnD, most martials, ESPECIALLY fighters have more damage than casters on average. And I don't see the point of even removing AC or even HP, and you can roleplay being HP as being physical trauma and indication of battle fatigue. There is no flaws in my opinion, only how you use the tools given to you, and not to mention that, if you don't plan to even PLAY a high fantasy game, DnD is DEFINITELY not for you.
@@gabrielvasile1360 not everyone plays the latest edition, does what you claim apply to earlier editions?
@@robertban871 yes, martials do have scaling abilities in general, like extra attacks or more features that let them be in combat more. Of course, early levels, most martials are stronger than casters while in later levels it's vice versa. This is because of how powerful spells are in general anyway, that's why most people tend to play hybrid with multiclassing.
@@gabrielvasile1360 ok sure they get those things, extra attacks etc, but the main thing they are about does not change, their damage output does not increase at all. a mage's fireball and lightning bolt will increase each level. they could be given special attacks that do significantly more damage or every certain amount of levels their weapon damage could have a extra die
@robertban871 it's basically the same thing, it's like the Eldritch blast, you get more attacks on it but it basically does the same type of damage. Monks have scaling damage because they use martial arts but a fighter can use different swords too, a longsword deals 1d10 with 2 hands, meaning that doing 4 attacks is the equivalent to 4d10 if they all hit, it's as powerful as a Eldritch Blast, not to mention that martials will most likely use magical weapons, possibly dealing even more raw power since they add their ability modifers to the attacks. If you know how to play a martial, you can deal quite a bit of damage.
Really appreciate the takes and more importantly, the passion in which you make them.
I’m a pretty big DnD fan and our long running campaign has 6 PCs plus the DM. We were all new to rpgs when we started. I’ve since branched out some, but the biggest benefit to DnD is the ability for any player to take or leave basically any part of the game. We have a few that are very deep into it… and forgotten realms has existing lore on which to build a character.
I understand people into table top have these takes… but those of us there to play and tell stories with friends… it’s hard to find a better substitute than dnd
And honestly man no shade to that. I loved it for a long time and it gave me some great friends, memories, and opportunities. If you're rocking with it and your group loves it keep it rolling
@ thanks! Hopefully one day we’re all table top vets and we’ll start telling stories from this TH-cam rando desksanddorks’ game ;-)
And I sincerely appreciate the passion you have. It’s never a bad time to see what someone who’s passionate about something is bringing to the table. Best of luck!
Its nice to see comments like this. While I don't enjoy 5e as much as other systems it can feel like a bit of an echochamber when interacting with either side of the 5e or anti 5e.
You hit the nail on the head with the classes. A while ago I had an opportunity to run a 5e game for a couple of people in my company (we have a great community and I'm very grateful for it) and most of them never played a TTRPG, but have played video games. At one point during a conversation, one player said, "I can't trust you, you're a rogue". Funny thing is, they had no reason not to trust each other, as they were playing a group who knew each other for a long time now. Classes give you a brand and it actually hurts roleplay, not elevates it.
Go look at Dungeon Crawl Classics. They made classes have abilities that depend on player creativity to work. Fighters get something called Heroic Deeds which is a roll where you can make up some crazy combat maneuver that effects enemy combatants.
Sounds like the class gave the players a roleplaying tool that a first time player was using to roleplay with. I guess you were disappointed with the lack of nuance, but in another game the conversation could just as easily gone, "What are you playing?" "I'm a cop." "Oh, a cop eh? I don't trust you, I'm playing as a bootlegger." It's basic, but it's sound.
Some good points there. You might know when D&D was created the Mage had only one spell so the fighter was more fun to play.
@@moodymacon the contrary. It was established at the start that the characters have been together for a while now and they can trust each other. It was just a "you are playing x, therefore I can't trust you", which doesn't make much sense in class context. Classes are just skillsets, not character.
@@SirWhorshoeMcGee I wasn't there, but I have a pretty low bar for first time players. I do wonder why a little game banter from a first time player becomes an example of how character classes hurt roleplaying.
"Classes are just skillsets, not character." This is game breaking and a foundationally wrong approach when playing D&D I think. Bear with me please
Most people just roleplay as different versions of themselves. The character class is foundational in telling us something about the character, that we can draw on as players to use to roleplay. Fighters don't mind spilling blood, they might even look forward to it, clerics are deeply religious and spiritual characters with a personal connection to some form of divinity, magicians have spent countless days of their youth studying ancient tomes under the tutelage of a master wizard somewhere honing their craft and are driven by some need to grow in knowledge and power, rogues are handy at picking pockets and locks, bluffing and cheating, honour among theves may be a thing but are they trustworthy?
Race/background, character class and alignment are the basic tools we get as prompts for roleplay in D&D, and I think it's a better game when we lean into them a bit.
6:26 d&d is not inspired by Tolkien so much as it is inspired by Pulp literature that preceeded tolkien. The Idea that D&D drew significantly from LoTR is largely a myth.
Just a few minutes in, but my guy you continue to impress. So well measured well articulated; and as always, presented with empathy and eloquence.
Edit: farther in so I'll comment on the text. Agree with everything said about Hasbro and D&D as a whole. ShadowDark had been so exciting for me in tone, design, and the principles of it's creator Kelsey. Excited to try more systems from folks who work for the love of the game, such as 2e of your RPG, Draw Steel, Knave 2e, Into the Black, and others as well.
Really appreciate the compliment and am glad to know the extra work on the video and script was noticed.
I actually re-recorded and scripted about 70 percent of the video, and I added new stuff because I wanted to approach the subject matter with as much oomph as I could.
I'm so happy it was noticed.
@DesksAndDorks Crushed it! Worth the effort.
Fifth edition, at least, is NOT adaptable. Sure, you can house rule anything you like, but the math is so optimized that any change one makes to fix a perceived flaw causes at least a half-dozen problems in related systems that were carefully calibrated around the original rules and premises of high medieval/iron age fantasy.
I feel like all the points you brought up as D&D's strengths - intuitiveness of rolling high being good; customization and house rules; being a canvas - apply just as much to the vast majority of all TTRPGs, and apply much more to some than to D&D.
13:10 Would love to see a video by you discussing options for first time and cash-strapped creators in the TTRPG space. I personally have noticed that finding things such as royalty free and public domain art has become a lot more difficult in the age of AI, as a lot of the good, accessible art gets buried under a mountain of AI generated slop.
Consider it done.
Been getting really into Lancer specifically and I think part of why is that it seems pretty easy to onboard for DnD players who enjoy the more crunchy parts of tactical combat. The systems are pretty similar (d20 with modifiers), but levels and damage is pretty static throughout, and it's REALLY easy to sell players on the concept of "you're a badass mech pilot" that offers a similarly strong power fantasy as DnD but in a totally opposite genre.
The worst thing about this (which we can already see in these comments) is that the people who are happy with D&D won't even _listen_ to this. Believe me, I've tried. I _try_ to show people that there are other games they could play that they would ultimately enjoy _more._ Like, objectively, there is absolutely a better game out there for them. I'm gonna actually have some stuff to say about this video...
I feel like we may be making some progress. I've heard and seem more rumblings of change from the only dnd crowd more and more each year so who knows.
@@DesksAndDorks Nope. I've been playing for 20 years. These kinds of complaints have been around longer than me. Nothing ever actually changes.
You're almost talking about me. I'm listening to this and I love D&D and to have a great time playing it. But you will never catch me DMIng anything other than dungeons and dragons. Why not because there's anything wrong with anything else. It's because why should I I'm having fun, The people I play with are having fun. None of us feel the need to do anything else because we are having fun.
@cablefeed3738 Wow it's almost like gaming is about having fun and not about system elitism.
@coonhound_pharoah it's not elitism, there's just no point and playing multiple ttrpgs when we only meet up to play twice a month. No one goes around calling anyone an elitist for playing MTG but not playing Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon. You can only have so many hobbies.
WOAHHHH ITS THE DORK!!!! Looking good brother
34:31 Thank you for having your content be accessible like that. For someone to fight you on your content, there are so many people rapping about DnD on TH-cam like literally watch anywhere else.
The whole "I won't play anything that isn't...(insert whatever game here)" hit me in a way I really didn't expect. I tried to pitch playing a session of Ex Novo as a means to jointly create the starting area for a new fantasy game... And got no interest from players that are generally really into playing Pathfinder, D&D, and VtM. Someday, I will find a group that is willing to do that At least I hope to, because it just seems like it would be fun and provide an environment the players would already have a base of knowledge around which to design characters.
This has been and continues to be a major motivating factor for why I make and shill for other rpgs.
Excellent video and solid points made. Myhtras Classic Fantasy became my fantasy RPG of choice for many of the points you make!
I was thinking about why it's so hard for players who've long been devoted to any single system (most often D&D, but in my case its PF1e) to learn new systems... And I think the most common trap is that people *forget* how they first learned D&D, or whatever their first system was...
Whats the most common reason players give for not wanting to play a new system besides the cost of new books? "I don't want to spend all the time it'll take to read a whole book to learn how to play." It's like people think the only way to learn and start playing a game is to literally reas the rulebook, cover to cover, like its a textbook for a college course!
But while I'm sure there are some small number of people out there who genuinely got into TTRPGs from reading a rulebook, I'm willing to bet that the majority of us, as younger players, just started playing the game and learned as we went along, and most importantly we *werent afraid to make mistakes!*
Think of the first game of D&D you ever played, it was probably some lf the most clownshoes dysfunctional roleplaying you've ever done in your life! But it was fine, its how you started learning, you probably had a lot of fun! You were willing to just play through any screw ups and fix things when you realized you werent following the rules.
At my table, we all started as High School Sophomores, we played for an entire year before we realized how pointbuy worked! We thought that each stat increase only cost one point! Our characters were broken as hell, but did it stop us from having fun? No! And when we found out, we just fixed things next time and started following the rules more closely.
But people are so concerned with the idea that you have to play a new game "properly" and that the only way to do that is to understand each and every rule and mechanic from Session 1 that we talk ourselves out of the game before we ever even give it a chance, completely forgetting that once upon a time we were willing to experiment, and to learn through doing instead of just through reading.
I spent years cramming hacks and fixes on to 5e trying to make it do what I wanted it to and it was just not worth it. So many times looking at interviews about 5e is so burdened by the weight of the DnD name and the wargaming traditions that spawned it that it really limits what it is able to do.
Just getting out of the bubble of 5e is so damn freeing, I got really lucky that my play group really embraced my game when I started testing it.
That's awesome man! I've been very fortunate in that there are lots of folks around me who seem to love indie rpgs so it's been amazing.
My biggest gripe with DND since day one has been how everything has so much lore and flavor text attached to it.
I wish I could just plug and play without having to deal with assumed lore from the monster manual or one adventure published 5 years ago .
To me, this is how it actually makes players bad. The key to people getting on board to my GM style is that I change how things function. Trolls? Yeah, fire actually just gets them drunk and they take no damage from it. They are now just likely to miss but if they hit 15-20, they are all crits now while a 1-10 miss.
That's just how trolls roll, all my monster are like this and people can get used to that or find a new GM. I even have an in world explination of a travler who has been to the void and seen the multiverse if I have players meta game too much he will just tell them this.
Also no they can not go to the multiverse... well they don't want to. It prevents you from returning to your universe for 1500 years and travel is only easy one way, if you leave you better have wanted to do so.
Wha
There are barely any lore descriptions for most things what are you talking about?
Dude no, they have removed all the good lore and all the good bits. Go have an AI randomly generate monsters if thats what you want
@codylarson I meant more in the sense that If I saw demon there is going to be the baggage of Devils vs Demons war, Orcus and pals and Tiamat.
I heavily homebrew and mix and match monster parts so the "gameplay' ain't the issue, it's the lore baggage attached to thing within the D&D space.
@@3l_Raro
Ah, I totally agree with this. It's so frustrating to explain no, there's no gods in my world, no planes, no evil/good are not fundamental forces in my setting. Tldr: I just wish I didn't have to explain to my players that my setting isn't the forgotten realms with a new coat of paint
III. The System Sucks for Roleplaying
Y'know, we get to the meat n' potatoes and I'm a _little_ disappointed. I don't believe that D&D leaving role-playing itself entirely up to it's players is a _fundamental_ flaw. D&D was, from the beginning, not really conceived as a game about _embodying_ your characters, that was more of a side-effect that blossomed into the sort of games you talk about in this section. And I love those games, especially Fiasco! They're all very clever and good at what they do. But D&D itself? That it doesn't really ask anything of it's players in terms of, y'know, roleplaying, that's just a choice, really. I don't think it's a _bad_ choice because it sort of takes that pressure away, and some people just want to play, in essence, the tabletop equivalent of Rogue plus some Desert Island style "what would you do about this?" puzzling.
I do believe that D&D is fundamentally flawed in the sense that it isn't even very good at achieving it's own goals, because modern D&D doesn't seem to have any. It wants to pretend to be a game _about roleplaying_ when it obviously is not. It uses that as an excuse to say "well, we don't need to balance things or give you particularly good advice, because that's not the point!" when everything about how the game is designed screams otherwise. It tries to please the old-school crowd, the 3rd Ed build-crafters and to pay lip service to the indie role-playing darlings (with the Inspiration mechanic) and it would be far better for just picking a lane and doing it well.
Your cup of scissors in the back gives the space classroom vibes and that's fantastic
Also you have made very excellent points. And despite the fact that I still continue to predominantly (not exclusively) play a system based on 5E, I think all your points are valid. From my perspective there's simply isn't a right or wrong answer here, the people who is still like 5e for what it is are valid from an (ironocally) old school perspective. The game rules we're extremely open-ended back then and everybody made it their own. I do that with 5e because that is what I like to do. I run a system that is pretty much uniquely my own. I play different games/systems and collect the ideas that I like to add to my own.
At the end of the day I do not want a game system that tries to tell me exactly how to do everything right (looking at you, PF2E) and I don't have to want that. At the end of the day I'm comfortable with the fact that my personal ideal of fun is not the golden standard of fun that the gaming community at large Must Agree With.
Anyway, sorry for the rant... loving your content as always! Nice desk (probably)
Oh I also need to add, to your point about wotc being odious (literally true) is that while I will gladly save and spend money on respectable publishers such as your fine self, I've proudly never given wotc a dime of my money in my many years of running my own personal d&d. Aaargh even pirates have standards
I love that point about the customization being what keeps you because at the end of the day I really respect that (even if I've found that same customization and personalization in other games).
There's something to be said about dnd being something that just let's gms paint that makes it have such longevity.
Also I used to not mind spending money with them. There was a time where they were really supportive of the eco system they helped foster. Also glad you loved the pencil cup. It's an old carryover from my time in a real classroom!
"Loved" - past tense.
Yep, I totally get this.
It's a lot of work for me to massage the current rules into a game I enjoy. Fun is the goal. Play what is enjoyable, seems like a good strategy to me.
Cherrs!
Play what you love and work for the benefit of your players!
I was reading a book yesterday called “The Courage To Be Disliked.” There was a point around the tenth or eleventh chapter where the philosopher character mentioned “Agathos” and “Kalos” as the Greek words for “good” and “bad.” But what was most interesting is how these two concepts were better interpreted as “Beneficial” and “not beneficial.”
After what you’ve said about the pass/fail dilema of DND, I’m thinking about trying to fundamentally change how I perceive the pass and fail of the D20 rule. I might make some radical fundamental change that will allow the game to have that “theme,” or core mechanic so many other TTRPG’s have.
I need to do some THINKING!
Honestly the fact that my video made you think is the biggest compliment you could give me.
Very enjoyable discussion! I came to similar conclusions over the years. My favorite solution has so far been D&D 😅 OSR, old school style systems with some of the philosophies, realizations and interpretations of the OSR community. Eg. Not resorting to dice rolls so the time, especially when the core fantasy (I think this was the expression used in the video) of the character is in question, or the players come up with interesting plans that make sense, possibly using items they have and/or the environment etc. It could be seen as opting to go around the rules, but I see it a lesser issue in old school games than in 3e-5e (or non-issue if done meaningfully).
Also having characters face opponents they can't expect to level-appropriately bash makes the players have to solve situations a bit more like puzzles but ones that don't have a preset solution.
In any case I heartily agree that is good for people to try rpg's with completely different design philosophies.
I'm working on a TTRPG that could be described as DnD 5e lite with emphasis on class balance, build diversity, and roleplay over roll-play. It's simple in that any given character only has 5 to 10 abilities (spells/attacks) based on their level (1-5), but I often think that it may be too similar to DnD and prone to the same issues. Your video has given me a lot of insights on these pitfalls. Thanks so much!
There are better systems than dnd out there, like Forbidden Lands, Cypher, Savage Worlds.
Good luck! I have a simplified book called Five Torches Deep which has similar concepts. I'd be glad to see your progress.
It sounds a little like Pathfinder2e actually.
Just chiming in to say good luck on your game and 5 torches deep is fantastic for inspiration.
Excellent video. I have been looking to leave D&D behind because of the same issues. I also like so Monty Cook games as they focus on either success, succeed with issues, or fail with issues to allow for more directions. It's good to hear other game designers are looking at ways to give the agency to the players rather than the dice.
The influx of Giving Up D&D/Finding Better Alternative videos has been such a wonderful thing to see. The gaming world is all the better from embracing the wider diverse world of options out there. IMO, the biggest flaws of D&D are sparked by WotC/Hasbro. Is TSR D&D a great game? Kinda. It has a lot of cool things going for it, many missing in the editions after that. But, there's a massive amount of clunk still, especially when other things exist in that "old school fantasy" space too.
I appreciate that you dive into what you think about the system and what you're looking for in a game. It makes this video so much better and thought provoking than some "hot take" or performed outrage.
The George RR Martin-ian description of desserts killed me 😂.
I originally had a much more tongue in cheek hot take kind of a video but I thought that kind of analysis didn't do anyone any good. Glad I made the right call!
@DesksAndDorks I liked it! For designery-minded people, which I imagine make up a lot of your audience, this is a cool start point for a lot of talk on elements you bring up.
You got my mind going on barely-there systems (like the What's so Cool About- games), amounts of simulation in a system, concreteness vs boardgamey-ness, genre emulation, and systems pushing hard to do a certain thing (Burning Wheel, etc).
Also I can never begrudge anyone calling out Wotc/Hasbro for business shittiness.
I've got two thoughts on this one:
Having studied games of all shapes and sizes, I've noticed that the biggest winners are the ones with the highest degree of player expression. This is more noticeable in video games, where the biggest winners are games like Minecraft and GTA (the games with HUGE modding scenes) or Fortnite and Valorant (the games where hopping in Discord/Xbox-chat with your schoolyard friends is the recommended way to play), but DnD has been leveraging it for decades. DnD is a comfortable environment taking mechanics you already understand and using it to express yourself in new ways. You rag on the massive spell list, but that enormous size is a feature to the players, not a problem -- I've seen people spend hours and hours on builds when the time between actual sessions is measured in years. Sure anyone can go out and make their own game, but then they're not a player expressing themselves, they're a designer.
Has DnD been relying on that as a crutch? Oh absolutely. But it's strong enough to BE a crutch in the first place
And regarding "please try another game." I picked up a neat little gamebook called Heroines of the First Age a year or so back. It advertises itself less as a game and more as a collaborative storytelling prompt. It's a system that explicitly -- written into the rules -- uses near misses and barely-there successes as chances for storytelling rather than a binary pass/fail system. In fact, it's so committed to this vision that it's actually really bad at explaining the few explicit rules it does have. As one example, the hit point system is treated as a superfluous secondary stat and I genuinely cannot tell if some of the things it instructs you to do actually matter (all characters have six health point "stars" in a "constellation" that the game instructs you to connect with lines... but taking damage fills in the stars with "marks" like a checkbox, and the connecting lines don't represent anything). It is a neat little book and I'm not giving it a bad review, but I think it went a little TOO far in the opposite direction from DnD in some respects
Firstly, I congratulate your candour. There's a lot of well reasoned critiques and criticisms here. Alas, I do think that your conclusion is flawed. I'm an old 53 year guy still running a 30+ year 2E campaign. And as a group, we've played at least 16 different TTRPG systems. I think the problem here is that there's an implicit premise assuming that there's such a thing as a perfect system. But that can't be. The criterion of success for a given system is how well it serves the particular group of players, not how well it serves any player. The system is meant as a means of action resolution, and nothing more. But the game isn't about action resolution, otherwise one might as well play chess or Monopoly. The game is about roleplaying. I was on the alpha test group for D&D 5E back in 2012. I dropped out during arguments as it became clear to me that there was a big push to implement/encode what we old timers called 'min/max'ing'. They pushed that aspect through with the ridiculous myriad of power stack feats and abilities that characters could acquire. Essentially, turning the game into an antagonistic, as opposed to cooperative enterprise. Now, there's nothing implicitly wrong with anyone wanting to play that way, but codifying it into the rules is just inherently problematic. Thus, 5E ended up being a 'roll-playing' game, and not a 'role-playing' game. I know you brought it up but, at the end of the day, as the administrator, it is up to the DM to be the arbiter. D&D as a game is ultimately supposed to be a shared creative storytelling act, not a game where one wins or loses. Given the impossibility of a perfect system, the game is dependent upon the players. The specific architecture is secondary. To this end, in my group at least, 2E represents the optimal structure for us. And so we game on...
I grew up in 2e, loved digging into the myriad products and systems. I would say there's still system mastery and min maxing there. 3e went nuts with it. 4e overdid rebalancing but still flooded itself into a giant soupy mess. 5e I think they actually did a comparatively good job of limiting sprawl over 10 years & learning the other lessons, with nice 2e reminiscent feelings thrown in. I do personally think overall it's the best D&D system.
Yet, literally, like Gandalf, for me, "I once knew every spell in all the [books of AD&D2e]..." and tried to min max with them :D
@@stuartmiller2526 Yep, I generally agree. Except, with 5E they threw in the Feats. I think that's a major flaw, just adding to the min/max issue.
Wanted to say seperately that this kind of content is IMMENSELY satisfying. Thank you so very much.
Much appreciated my friend!
@@DesksAndDorks Most welcome. Your content is universally high-quality and consistently thought-provoking. You should be reminded frequently how awesome that is. :)
Perfect timing for my coffee break
I think the main flaw with D&D is the power curve. Characters are fragile at 1st and 2nd level, too simple at levels 3 and 4, but by level 5+ they can reliably trivialize any obstacle that would work in a movie or book, such as a prison cell, castle wall, death, chasms, etc. Every level past 5th makes the characters more and more invincible. By 11th level they are basically unkillable. As a DM who has run a long term high level campaign in 3.5, the amount of work I had to put in to let PCs use their powers and create a challenge that couldn't be trivialized, was ridiculous. Granted, I am a storyteller and my players are power gamers, so they had a great time, while I was mostly exhausted. Is there still a DM shortage? Haven't played in years.
Also the company is trash, but that isn't the game.
One would hope the 2024 monster manual really buffs up the challenge, there have been previews that this is the case. We won't see until next month though. I do like the third party monsters like in Flee Mortals that bump up the challenge. At least WOTC/Hasbro released the core rules to Creative Commons, really because they had to after the OGL cluster, but they are a soulless company.
One thing that drives me crazy is when people say it's too hard to learn other games, ir two much time. Like, I have played so many games where everyone learned the rules right before the first session and during
I guess people in this hobby tend to fall down rabbit holes and are afraid that anything you play with them would be another one. So they tend to stick to their first one.
Player resistance is real.
Since the OGL (I have similar feelings about WotC) I branched out into the OSR scene, and just having players move to a simpler version of what they are already playing has been a struggle (5e to shadowdark in this instance). This transition has been mind blowing for me as a GM and player, and eventually my players have that same epiphany, but getting them to take the fist step is frustratingly hard.
However, getting some players take a jenga tower, or snuffed candle seriously,...forget about it, but... I will endeavor to try.
The reality is: It is hard to be a GM who is always trying to introduce new stuff to my players (games I want to play), but never get to be a player as a result.
imo, it's far easier for most people to customize a system if it's just a zine book. You can literally take the system apart and mod it.
Try doing that with a 500 pages book.
The actual rules in D&D 5 are a couple of pages if you tried to condense it
This might not be "branching out" enough for your liking, but I once fell in love with an alternative spell casting system to 3.x DnD called "Elements of Magic". (Actually, "Elements of Magic: Revised Edition", because there were three version: EoM, EoM revised, and Mythic Earth, but revised is the best by far) However I couldn't get anyone to ever actually play the damn thing, not in my game store and not in my friend group a few years back.
And this was back when 3rd edition was in vogue. People just don't want to give you even a little hope if it means reading a rulebook at the table at the end of it.
Goated content as always; I like that it's straight-forward enough you don't need more than one watch to get most out of it, but that it has enough concepts I'll watch it again to fully think about them
I love the "just change it" bit. I'm a fan of modding, but if I proposed to play Catan and somebody told me "oh but the initial placements determine the outcome, let's change the rules", that does sound interesting, but also, let's also just play something else right now, no?
I don't know if dnd really does lend itself to modifications that naturally; maybe that's just a staple of the TTRPG genre. My gut feeling is a more stripped down system like OSE is more naturally suited for additions. What do you think?
Oh and btw, I found the audio was a smidge low; if you right click the video and click on stats for needs, Volume / normalized bla bla is at -14.7; my understanding is this should ideally be a negative number that's as close to 0 as possible (so this video could be 14db+ louder). At work I've found videos that do this do perform a bit better
I recently have switched from D&D over to Dungeon Coaches DC20. If you haven’t already checked it out I would suggest you do.
DC20 fixes (or at least begins to grapple with) many of the issues you have with D&D. It implements a multiple successes/failures system to fix the D20 and roleplay (although I do not think it goes far enough in this regard). It switches over to a 4 action system, granting all Martials “Stamina Points” to match the Spellcasters “Mana Points”. It also seems at first glance to be run in a more respectable manner.
Regarding you problem with Classes as a whole, they have introduced a really interesting multiclass system with Classes really only being relevant up until level 10 after which your character’s Class falls away, the handrails being no longer necessary. I personally prefer something of that nature than many of the more open ended systems out there which often leave me feeling unsupported in character creation.
DC20 is a turd LOL. As bad if not more than %E. And is still D&D, really bad D&D but D&D non the less.
DC20 is just a 5e hack either play PF2e which it rips off or another RPG
@ I disagree completely. For one, your statement that DC20 is “too similar” to 5e just indicated you’ve never played it. Similarly if it is “just a 5e hack” then so is Pathfinder.
DC20 uses some similar innovations, but they are only similar and not the same. For example:
Pathfinder: 3 Actions 1 Reaction
DC20: 4 Actions
Pathfinder: Measures movement in feet (like D&D)
DC20: Movement measured in Spaces
Pathfinder: Crit on 10 above/below
DC20: crit on nat 20’s/1’s, extra degrees of success system for every +/-5.
Pathfinder: Roll Damage System (like D&D)
DC20: Static Damage System with many Damage Modifiers
Pathfinder: base 20 ability scores
DC20: flat modifier ability scores
Pathfinder: keeps Paladin (renames it)
DC20: splits Paladin into Spellblade and Commander
Pathfinder: 6 ability score system (like in 5e)
DC20: 4 ability score system
Pathfinder: D&D style AC system
DC20: Split of AC into Physical and Mystical Defense, make Damage Reduction a big part of Armor (heavy armor)
Pathfinder: Fortitude Reflex & Will
DC20: Ability Score Saves + Grit System
Pathfinder: Modifier Only System (no adv/disadv) + Fortune System (Single Advantage System like in D&D)
DC20: Stacking Advantages System + Modifiers
Pathfinder: TEML Skill System + add character level to skills
DC20: 5 Tier Skill System (very similar here)
Pathfinder: Powerful Ancestry System that sets many stats (such as base HP). Heritages & Ancestry Feats System
DC20: Point Buy Ancestry System + all ancestry abilities Modify, they do not set.
I could go on and on. Suffice to say DC20 is its own game. Not to dis on Pathfinder 2e, but it is far more similar to D&D than DC20 is.
I am not out here to call Pathfinder a clone however, like almost every board game on the market its creators have agonized over most every detail of their game and with Pathfinder it shows.
All I am saying is this. Stop being a dick and putting down other systems. You know, that was kinda the whole point the creator of this video was trying to make.
@@alexnikols8996 DC20 IS another rubbish D&D no D&D like 4E, ,5E, Featfinder and Featfinder 2. Another MMORPG emulator for people wanting to play superhéroes in a pseudo medieval setting. If you build a PC instead of crearing It, min maxing stats, feats, skills, etc, it's a MMORPG emulator. Actions, reactions, triple actions, multi actions, bonus actions, all in 6 to 10 seconds 🤣🤣. More rubbish based on D&D that's not D&D.
@ I literally cannot read whatever you just wrote. It’s indecipherable. Something about DC20 being a game where you play as a Hero? I think you’re also saying all other classic Fantasy TTRPG’s are also bad because you dislike the genre?
I mean, you can have whatever opinion you’d like on the Fantasy Medieval Setting and the Power Fantasy of the genre. I like it. I actually have a lot of fun with a good old Sword & Sorcery.
Obviously that’s not your kind of TTRPG, so what is? Are you a Sci-Fi guy, or maybe a Modern Fantasy enjoyer?
My Takeaway:
This Dork likes Drizzel on their ice cream
:)
Passive skills checks are a thing in 5E they’re just rarely used, I regular apply them in my game 22:48
V. Combat Sucks
Not a ton to say here, it's just true. It sucks. So. Much. The breaking point for me was the start of a Curse of Strahd campaign in which my players stood in a circle around an immobile pile of jelly, smacking it over the "head" for several minutes straight accomplishing almost nothing because it's AC was so high. My god, it is so bad.
I'll just get preachy about Mythras and say that it somehow manages to be all of these things at once:
- Quick (once you're used to it), it can actually scream right along, partially because it's _over_ quickly and partially because it's surprisingly intuitive for what it is. The specific order of operations prevents people from getting into analysis paralysis _before_ accomplishing nothing, too, and despite the simulationism there's hardly any math and the few tables that exist are really just there for clarification, not because you'll need to check them.
- Realistic in a "cinematic" way. It is easy to visualize exactly what these characters are doing because the specifics of what they're doing matter mechanically. People have turned movie duels into Mythras fights.
- Functions *as a game* with interesting choices. Plenty of systems have tried to do "realistic melee combat" or whatever but Mythras is the first I've played where it feels truly gameified, like, there's risk-reward decisions to make that change depending on what you're fighting, there are pretty deep rock-paper-scissors mindgames that can happen.
- Doesn't lead to "whoops, you're dead" scenarios, believe it or not. The way damage is modeled is very believable, but it's surprisingly hard for you to just drop dead and there isn't much of a "death spiral" either.
- Actually lends itself to roleplay. This is the sum total of what I've said so far. Mythras combat naturally encourages *reluctance* (the character who dives in first is risking a lot to do so, if their opponent is smart), *surrender* (like I said, you can see your death coming long in advance) and *mercy* (on the flipside, opportunities to stop and let opponents wave the white flag). It does a good job of putting players in the mindset that human life is valuable, and that it takes a great deal of hatred or desperation for someone to really, really want someone else dead.
You're not the first person to recommend Mythras and it sounds like I need to check it out.
Another person with fine taste. Mythras is amazing. Such a deeply satisfying RPG.
My group switched to D100 with Magic World about 10 years ago and we are now using Mythras. The combat system is quite a bit of fun and the system keeps characters from becoming ridiculous over time.
Yea, but a ton of that relies on what players actually want to do.
@archersfriend5900 I know what you're trying to say I think ("Use the enviroment! Swing on chandeliers!") but ultimately you're going to step up to the enemy and go "...I swing my sword" regardless. D&D players gaslight their GMs into thinking that if only they can make cooler scenarios the "I swing my sword" bit will somehow get less boring.
In Mythras, so long as you succeed your roll and your target doesn't, you get to incur some sort of actual mechanical penalty on them _on top_ of the damage rather then needing to _forego_ damage. Make them bleed, shove them, swing for their head specifically, crush their armor, catch their leg with your billhook to trip them next turn, etc...
The catch is that there are saves on some of those effects and many of them rely on dealing damage, and you haven't rolled for that yet. They didn't parry but their shield or armor might save them. They might resist the bleed. It's a _gamble_ and the safer thing is to just give yourself an advantage by picking something that gives you an AP advantage.
Meanwhile, if the defender rolled better? They'd be able to screw _you_ over.
...And there's ways of countering each other if you can guess what they'll do.
None of that is stopping you from hopping on that chandelier, it'll just be _cooler. _
This is a great video, and I do agree with most of it's points, as a 5e DM and a player for like 5 years. Here are my personal reasons why I keep on playing it till this day.
1) I did try several other systems. Both editions of Pathfinder, Fabula Ultima; and I did read some other rulebooks on the matter. And yet nothing tops 5e for me in terms of mechanics and the general vibe. Also (maybe it is a neurodivergent thing) I find it really hard to learn other systems, unless I hyperfixate on something related to them. For D&D it was Critical Role, that amazing world with vibrant characters, and I used to be a part of their fandom for quite some time. It is really hard for me to focus on a learning process; every single time it feels like a chore just to stare in these walls of texts. And I do feel like lots of 5e community folks also have this problem (it is also important to note that lots of these people do have ADHD or similar issues). Again, I'm not speaking for all ADHD folks, it's just my personal experience.
2) The other reason is quite simple. 5e is my comfort zone (which you gotta leave one day, which I do acknowledge) and do consider myself a very good 5e GM. You know what they say, "jack of all trades, master of none", and this is precisely what I DON'T wanna be if I spread my attention and try to focus on other systems (yeah, again, not the best learner - I've mentioned it before). I would rather provide a good D&D experience than some mediocre one with other system.
That being said, I don't agree with the "D&D doesn't facilitate good roleplay" argument, but other replies did much better job deconstructing it.
Same wavelength on class systems, it pigeonholes players too much. I like this analysis, it is quite respectful though I do have a hot take on this. D&D the system is a toolkit, not a game. There's a whole lot of missing stuff you need to add to make it a game, not least of which is a setting; part of the reason it **has** to be vanilla is because it needs to be adaptable to any setting and vibe, so it can't be great at any of them.
I wonder, would people who only play D&D enjoy playing 2e Dark sun? I meaaaan... It *is* D&D.
The issue is that D&D isn't a good toolkit.
The more I need to create house rules the more flawed the main rule system is. Any solidly built rule system will only need light house rules or none at all.
@@andynonimuss6298 yep, totally! House rules are meant to be tweaks, not a crutch for holes in the system. If you find yourself duct-taping a whole lot of them together to keep the game going, you should definitely be looking at other systems that fit the experience you want.
@@andynonimuss6298 Can confirm. I run FATE and it's very, very, adaptable for many different scenarios by just using the core mechanics
This is inspiring me to not only continue my homebrew but to adventure more rpgs to understand mechanical systems that make these other games very enjoyable.
I've actually started to get tired of 5e, I've been wanting to try a new system. Pathfinder 2e caught my eye, and so did Zwiehander.
How can I get my stubborn play-group to dip their toes into the water of a new system, and what can i do on my end to understand them better?
Big fan of your channel btw.
Both of these are great questions. One is to simply ask. It's the most direct approach, sure, but it let's you know up front.
If you suspect that approach will go poorly (or be met with outright hostility) I would suggest baking mechanics of other rpgs into your dnd sessions or having shorter rpgs you can play in between your games or while you're waiting for folks to arrive. If your players like these enough they may ask to run an additional game or two and then you've got them.
Another thing you could try is if a person from your group wants to gm you can always encourage them to try their first time gm'ing using a rules light one shot like lasers and feelings.
Hope this helps!
LOL, Featfinder is bad D&D, like 5E, but is still D&D, like Shadowdark is D&D and LOTFP is D&D. And if you think it´s not adaptable, just look for Stars Without Number, Godbound, Worlds Without Number or Cities Without Number, from Kevin Crawford. They are all D&D. Another great error is that D&D is based on Lord of The Rings LOL, as it´s origins were those of Sword & Sorcery, pulp books and comics and Sci Fi. They only added the races because they were popular.
And if you think D&D is not adaptable to the superhero genre just look at 5E, where you are playing Superheroes in a "pseudo" medieval setting. And yes, 5E rules are bad, really bad, but D&D is a great game but most of you are playing the worst kind of D&D, like 4E, 5E, Feat Finder and all those "easy mode" D&D adjacent products trying to emulate MMORPGs.
@@ricardojuanlopeznaranjo6651 "superhero" is used too broadly here. Mechanics of D&D 5e aren't really made to enable playing as high-flying comic book heroes.
@adzi6164 Yes they are. You start like the Teen Titans and level Up until you become the Justice League. Just watch the VOX Machina series, most of the CR adventures, etc. Remember The Punisher IS a Superhero too.
@@ricardojuanlopeznaranjo6651 try to emulate Superman properly with D&D system, without having to constantly fudge or improvise.
A lot of games out there do a fantastic job in making a simple system that fits what it is conveying perfectly. Blades does heist very well and Alien RPG's movie mode captures the essence of Alien(s) very well. I don't understand people's hesitation on different systems. We picked up Runequest in the late 90's after playing D&D 1st and AD&D and ever since then I have been a connoisseur of systems. I occasionally still play D&D, CR2020 and WOD games, but our group runs a lot of like 3-10 session campaigns with different systems. I am not going to lie. The money we spend on books (or PDFs) is quite a lot.
I'll never be on the same page as these "only D&D" folks. In the early 90s I was buying AD&D2E and World of Darkness books to read before I ever knew I'd have anyone to play with. When I found my group a couple years later, there was never any notion of playing one system; I was immediately introduced to Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Star Wars D6, and some lame post-apoc game I can't even remember. Over the next few years we added L5R, RIFTs, Deadlands, Champions: New Millennium, and many others.
There's no way in hell I would have stuck with the hobby if we'd limited ourselves to just being a D&D group, especially in that era. We were doing this in high school, and we *still do it* well into our 40s+, so I honestly don't buy it when people tell me it's some great labor to try out a new system.
That's awesome! I was fortunate in that some of my core gaming group wanted to try new stuff, and it's been really good.
Sounds like you've got a good group!!
After starting with DnD because of MCDM, I switched to to WHFRP shortly after. I had some real fun with this one. Now I want to introduce some youngsters to the hobby and will use Shadow of the Demon Lord for a short campaign. Thanks for introducing me to this game. It looks like a lot of fun.
I enjoy your videos a lot. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with most of the points except when it comes to the actual combat mechanics. Starting at about 29:00 where you mention how characters will basically default to using their best attack over and over again as being a solution, and the issue is far more nuanced and complicated than was really discussed here. First, we have to understand that characters will default to using an ability that works best in the situation they're in. A fireball is a tool used for clearing encounters with multiple enemies, but it's notable that a fireball cast is also a resource that has to be used. Wizards have a burden of having a full array of abilities they'd like to use but only being able to use a small amount of them. A wizard who memorizes all 3 of his 5th level spell slots (4 if he specialized, trading versatility for extra resources) as fireballs will perform better in combat, sure, but he will also have far fewer options to engage with other situations. Something that has been lost as players have modernized and become frankly far lazier with the game is that dungeons are supposed to be long and taxing on the party's resources without overwhelming them at once. If a wizard never has to make a painful choice about casting a fireball in terms of it being 'worth it' compared to potential power later in the dungeon, then the dungeon design has failed to properly challenge the players, and in situations like that it will always seem like the best solution to simply cast fireballs endlessly.
A great issue D&D 5e has with the caster/martial divide is that in terms ofh ow most martials work, they are primarily what we'd call in computer RPGs an "auto-attack" build with different flavors. Even Rogues primarily deal damage by doing a modified version of a standard attack action vis a vis sneak attack. Rangers get favored enemy, barbarians modify theirs with Rage, and so on. But ultimately how they all work is just adding bonuses to the Attack action. This is a very archaic design that, while easy to understand, runs into the issue that most auto attack builds don't have any utility. As such, since auto attacking is always available, most martial characters worry most about HP as their primary resource, since their auto attack will never run out entirely, just their bonuses. Modern RPGs usually involve martial type characters using a rotation of abilities for combos, or giving them multiple options for different but potentially useful actions. Knocking a character prone with a Trip action will rob them of their turn for example, or a character might have a standard attack with a chance to inflict a debuff, at which point they can activate another ability that does extra damage to targets with said debuff. D&D has very little of this, especially contained within a single character. In a nutshell, most martial characters are boring DPS/tank hybrids in D&D while spellcasters get access to most of the cool toys and utility that should be spread more evenly across the party.
tl;dr too easy of dungeon design doesn't test player builds properly in terms of taxing player resources and martials are designed poorly which contributes to the problem of them not feeling like they can do anything other than Attack actions. D&D's d20 combat system works fine, the flaws lay within the balance and design of the player characters themselves
My biggest gripe with 5e and on is that something like True Strike used to give you +20 to hit, making it practically impossible to miss outside of fate. Changing it to advantage removed the stability that True Strike used to provide. It went from the most powerful to the least powerful spell
i been asking myself what i want to experience in ttrpg`s and my gut feeling is that i swim in my own head space and chance anything.
while I'm pretty much against DnD as a system because it is poorly done and all the corporative aspects of it being primarly a product without actual care for the art behind designing an RPG makes it have fundamental flaws that WotC simply can't address even if they wanted to (which obviously they don't), I also think that comparing a system like DnD with more narrative-oriented games is a flawed comparison because RPGs like DnD are not about the story but about immersive open ended choices and consequences, while narrative games (that at least for this video seems to be your preference) focus on how you would develop a better overall story, RPGs like DnD care more about you having choices and those choices having consequences, and the story happens after-the-fact, so the point about roleplay I think kinda misses this difference. that being said, DnD does this poorly also from the perspective of choice-consequence-immersion, so fuck DnD; and yeah, d20's binarity is bad, but I think not because you can simply fail or succeed but because it is too simple so many secondary mechanics end up lacking depth; and yeah ffs DnD combat sucks and the fact that ppl NEED to homebrew it for it to be tolerable, combat being the whole focus of DnD as a system, should be enough to assert how bad DnD is.
but my point is that I do think you are coming with a very story-oriented mindset that is not the main goal for systems like DnD
Yeah, that and the argument that the d20 system is fundamentally bad is just proof that he just doesn't like the type of game 5E tries to be
This is like saying Mario Party 10 is bad, because it is a terrible racing game. Like, that is not what the game is trying to do, it is bad on its own merits. MP10 sucks as a party game and especially as a Mario Party game
@@xolotltolox yup, exactly this. I do think DnD is a bad game, but not because it is a bad storytelling game, cause it doesn't aim to be that. but because it's very shallow in the choice-consequences mechanics, it struggles a lot with immersion given the corporate mindset of "give them a kitchensink to sell stuff" and for a combat focused power fantasy RPG, its combat is mind numbingly boring without many homebrews (and I do agree that by which point how much is it the system's merit or just other people's efforts) and higher levels that should feel just powerful are broken and unwieldy to play. but to say things like DnD doesn't have mechanics to create better stories. yeah, of course it doesn't, 'cause that's not the point.
Been saying this for years (at least since the 4e days), but it's good to see the opinion reiterated again and again so it doesn't ever die out.
Everyone's welcome to like whatever they like, but please, please, just TRY anything that isn't D&D every once in awhile. If only for the novelty. It can only make you a better player and GM.
I feel like the people who have most loved the system, who have gotten the most into it will also eventually grow the most disappointed and frustrated with it. At least that's what happened to me, and it kind of sounds like what happened to you too.
Those less immersed in the system will still be happy with it for a long time and have a hard time understanding the source of our discontent even when well articulated since it just doesn't resonate with them, or the answers seem simple to them (like the common "just house rule it", or "flavor is free, just reflavor the classes to fit your theme"). But the problems run too deep, and these are just bandaids. They will help a little, until the bleeding wounds under can no longer be contained.
That was unexpectedly dramatic and I didn't intend it but I'll leave it as it is.
I'm one of those people too. My 3 year, 65 session campaign took me from love to disappointment to hate when it came to DnD (the campaign itself was good, I have a lot of great memories from it, but DnD as a game just got in the way).
I am unabashedly one of those people who deeply loved the game and has so many fond memories of my time with it. It's something I'll always treasure and something I remain grateful for but it's definitely left me with an understanding of how flawed the game is at a pretty deep level.
I would also like to add that upon reflection my fond memories of the game have nothing to do with the system and everything to do with the people I played with.
@@DesksAndDorks As it is with most things we do.
A system I recomend is Apocalypse World
Ive only played 2nd Edition thus far, its been fun, and were on our second campaign
Great video. Just a quick nit to pick - D&D owes much much more to the authors Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fritz Leiber, and Robert Howard then Tolkien.
Those are huge influences for sure.
Well-structured critique, cogent and resonant with the small but growing vocal minority of role-players begging the community to branch out from the bog-standard.
But yes, 33:33 - like the brand loyalty that keeps people buying ugly cars or shopping at chains that regularly rip them off, D&D remains the accessible touchstone. Anchoring bias and neophobia is a potent cocktail, and it is such a pity.
Would love a follow-up exploring strategies employed by alternative roleplaying system developers to bridge that gap for players whose timorous hobbitism once held them back from new experiences. Some designers really broke through the barrier, like Evil Hat with Blades in the Dark, and that's not by coincidence.
I like your comments about the strengths and simplicity of D&D. In my case, those are the same reason I use GURPS. Some of the core parts of the D&D system are why I switched in the late 1980s.
I do run and play in D&D (the former cos I got asked to, and I've stuck with 4E for it; the latter is Level Up not D&D 5E), so I've kept track of the changes.
Path finder has a system called take 10 and take 20 which allows players to take extra time to complete a goal. This makes the d20 more of a chance system designed specifically for combat or intense situations. I think that is a great addition to the d20 system that helps mitigate that issue.
100% agree on the class limiting your thinking shenanigans. I actually came into role playing through CRPGs like Ultima, where in the latter ones the player had not class. You just did stuff, and got better at it as you practiced. I thought that was a much better way of doing things. I did tend to not have more skills in some arias than others, but that is just my personal play style
I really resonated with your final couple points. I feel like D&D, as well as other d20 titles, fail in that they don't choose a theme to promote but instead try to be everything to everyone. Because of that, they just lack a certain thematic wholeness or integrity.
That's very well put.
About the D20 dice: To be fair the dice is less the problem and more the fact that by default without any homebrewn concoctions by the DM it is that black and white succes/fail thing in DnD and most other rpg systems. "Easy fix" is making a tabelle with different ranges of success-rates with several results enlisted for the respective check.
Derek, from Knights of Last Call has a great concept for differentiating a "true role-playing game" from other RPGs. It's if the GAME is about the RP, the rules apply to role-playing.
Avatar Legends is about the characters balance, and mechanics affect RP decisions. White Wolf's WoD have some of this with its flaws and virtue and vice systems, and mouse guard and similar games incentivise using traits against yourself.
DnD is more simulationist than RP, mechanically. It's a choice to use that versus a RP game. Brennan Mulligan talked about how he doesn't care about TP mechanics cause he and his players do that, he just needs a physics engine to run the stuff that's "less interesting" to him
I would argue every rpg is a storytelling game. I get that other stuff has different systems but at their core we're playing rpgs to tell a story with our friends.
D&D is NOT simulationist, D&D's lack of RP tools does not automatically make it simulationist. Simulation and role playing are not mutually exclusive, in fact they enhance each other.
@@DesksAndDorks I'm not saying it's not a storytelling game, rather than there aren't as many mechanics focused on the role play. Characters have stats and powers for combat, and there's some skills that determine how convincing a character or NPC is.
But, a player could potentially play DnD with very little role play and character development and focus while using almost all the rules and the game system will be functioning, because the rules aren't really about how you roleplay. The closest the system gets is that players are encouraged to use skills their characters are good at, which does encourage certain character choices, but the system doesn't really care as much about that, and where it does (alignment and loosing powers for paladins) it feels like it kinda gets in the way of what the game is good at.
@@aaronabel4756
I'm not saying they are mutually exclusive, but games often seem to be better at one or the other (but not always, like mouse guard or torchbearer which seems to have a solid integrated system for RP and physics simulation)
When I say DnD is simulation focused, I mean that most of the rules are about physics (and magical physics). How things function in the world, rather than the hearts of the characters. Playing DnD can be as RP heavy or combat sim focused as players want because the GAME rules aren't about how you play your character's . . . character. Other games have the game part be about the characters behavior and feelings and personality like Monster Hearts (from what I've seen) or L5R and Avatar where the rules don't really zoom in on how many feet you can jump or damage dice you deal
@@w4iph I understand what you are saying now. I agree with you about D&D. Take it from someone that really enjoys simulationist RPG's D&D is way too video gamey to be simulationist, especially in combat.
I'm glad more people are coming out to say the things I've been screaming from the rooftops for years. Now allow me to play a little devil's advocate... As much as I am loathe to do so. Firstly: DnD 5e does actually have rules for roleplay to facilitate it. However, many people don't realize that it's set up for a classical dnd experience. Which is to say, it's more faction based with individuals being kind of hand-waved. You can find the rules in the DMG for how rp encounters are supposed to work on the back end. I'd argue that it still fails at delivering a solid, useful product like much of the rest of 5e. However it is there.
And that's really the thing people need to get through their heads. 5e was designed as a heroic fantasy game about dungeon crawling and playing a factions game. In older editions with more robust management rules for how to properly run strongholds and settlements, this would work far easier. However 5e's rules are quite punitive and obtuse, so I rarely ever see them mentioned even amongst people that know they exist (again, check the DMG). It doesn't work as a horror game, it doesn't work as a sci-fi game, it doesn't work as a modern game. It barely functions for what it was made for. Attempting to homebrew it into those things would require so much effort that you might as well just make your own system or play something else.
That last sentiment is probably what's made the 5e community so resistant to change though. Because when they see a discourse about what they would like the hobby to be, basically everyone tells them that their 200-ish usd book collection is useless so now they need to buy another 30 usd of books for the specific thing they want. Not to mention putting forward the effort and passion to learn something through more than just osmosis.
I did disagree with your assessments on the d20 system, but then again not everyone has my approach of "Don't always roll for a binary, roll for a gradient more often." For your rock climber example, I'd have them roll to see how well they do rather than whether they could do it or not. Their character's invested in this particular thing, they *can* do it without question. Unlike the rest of the PCs. Simple GM skill that I wish more systems made mention of. Also when to call for a roll is important. I might call for a strength check if a low-strength character wants to lift something heavy, but the average person might not even need to roll. The DC's not difficult, but the fact that they *have* to roll it means they wouldn't auto-pass like basically everyone else. Which is a character flaw informed by their choices during creation.
No arguement on the combat system being weak. It's serviceable at best, but it's more let down by the designers being terrified of certain archetypes being usable and a distinct distaste for martials. Meaning the combat being weak is more derivative of the classes being poorly designed. Which is the truth of it. Something I think has come into more focus as I've played more OSR games as well as A2E dnd. Ironically making the classes as bloated as they are and sanding off the rough edges is a lot of what makes them weaker in general from a feel standpoint. Older design/jank were actually meaningful balancing points that are cast aside in modern dnd design. Sure, I don't like the RAW encumbrance rules, but they exist as a lever to try and help balance out strength vs dex. Ranged weapons needing to track/lose ammo as well as not actually having damage mods based on stats makes them more of a trade-off with melee rather than a purely better option in 99% of cases. EXP based leveling was required because it served a purpose in older editions. Classes advanced at different rates because they were designed around their lower option amounts for things like fighter and thief. Having to find spells rather than picking and choosing what you got through level up acted as a major balancing point for magic users. Actually being beholden to a deity balanced out the power behind clerics and ensured they thought about more than just the power they were getting from their choices. Alignment acts as a good metric for generally what you can expect from the player, character, or both as well as a way for the gm to politely remind players about the tone they were going for. Just... y'know, don't use it as a stick to beat your players with. That never goes well. Personally more a fan of extra XP or cool magic swag for playing to alignment.
Probably the best class-based TTRPG I've found yet has been Pokemon Tabletop United. It's free, but very crunchy. As it does a good job of trying to recreate the complexity of the games with the adventurous spirit of the show. If you're fine with 3.5e dnd you'll probably not find it too bad, but 5e kids might struggle a little in adjusting. It's not complicated, there's just a lot to it. Also, complication that comes with it being a pokemon game: Basically everyone's a summoner. So larger groups may want to limit the party size of individual trainers, and rethink gym battles into more being gym challenges. Anyway, off topic, in that game your classes function more as Skill trees, of themed feat-packets you nab to help build the identity of your trainer. Want to build brok? Mentor, Type Ace: Rock, Pokemon researcher: Caretaking and Apothecary, and Chef. You've built an exceptionally skilled pokemon breeder that is adept at nurturing and tending pokemon of all types, but is particularly skilled at commanding your type of choice. Pretty much any archetype you could think of or pokemon character you could want to play can be constructed out of the combination of 4 classes and general feats.
As an older TTRPG player, I was over D&D and d20 systems in general after AD&D came out. :P
In your Rockclimbing example, Pathfinder 2e does have an answer. At the GM discretion if there are other possible handholds the player can use their reaction to roll Grab and Edge using their Acrobat or Reflex Save which may save the player completely or partially save them. As for the fantasy of being a really good rock climber or climber in general, there is a feat that can be taken, Assurance, which ensure you never fail "easy" rolls for the selected skill, in this case Athletics. You can still fail really challenging DCs.
Great video. I feel like dnd is too noncommittal. It's not robust enough to be setting agnostic, but it doesn't commit enough to a nongeneric setting to do something interesting and have a unique feel imo. It's a mediocre combination of setting dependant and setting agnostic.
I actually wanted to bring up exactly this point (and may still do so in a follow-up)
It's why dnd routinely undeserved its coolest campaign settings.
@DesksAndDorks that would be a great video, especially focusing on how it drops the ball on so many settings. Looking forward to it!
This video is very interesting, because I kinda agree with your first point, but not they way you word it. I would agree that 5e's binary pass/fail is less than interesting, and while not a problem for me personally, it is not an issue with all roll high d20 systems. Granted I cannot at this moment come up with one that does something more interesting than pass/fail, however I think we both agree it could exist. While I like the cut of your jib, I think it might help you to just double check your scripts to make sure what you mean to say, and what you are actually saying are the same thing. You did a great job cutting of criticism at the front and making sure cooler head prevail ( and at some level you will get people who don't care and levy them either way), I'd hate to see people just blanket throw your opinion out because what you said and what you meant where different, and they took issue with the former (like myself here, but with a lot more hate because they disagree with you, which again I really don't)
I definitely think your issue with combat in D&D comes down to your style of paly. Matt Colville has a great video on this called "The Problem With Talking About D&D" in which he talks about how different tables see different pain points. I don't think picking the best choice all of the time is really a problem with D&D, I think it is a fundamental issue with games as a whole. Players if given the chance will optimize the fun out of a game. It's not an issue that I have personally had, but I get why you might feel that way.
I think ultimately, the issue with asking people to play other games is simple, people aren't actually meeting up to paly D&D, or really any one game for that matter, they just want an excuse to meet up and hang out. Dinner parties are a dyeing art, and the only 3rd places people can meet come with a $50 price tag, and when that happens D&D becomes a great reason that people can meet up 1-4 times a month to hang out. If dinner parties became popular again tomorrow, D&D would be played less, but also the portion of tables willing to try new things would go up. Id argue that the number of tables willing to branch out is a little higher than it was in the 90s, but the number of tables in existence is much higher. I also think there is some wired social issues that prevent these games from being played, mainly I think it's the players of any given table who want to try other games (The DM tends to either be to heads down on prep to spend time learning of new games, or there is to much friction for the DM to switch systems) but that player doesn't want to ask their DM (out of a fear for being rude) but also that player doesn't feel as if they can run a game and so they don't offer, despite the fact that the DM would be more than happy to allow that if the group was interested.
and If you are one of those players reading the comments, just ask your group, trust me, you already have 1 yes vote from your forever DM who would like to be a player for once, and again the players will probably say yes because they don't actually care which game they play, they just want to hang out and eat pizza. and if your worried about doing a bad job, don't be. You will do great, just grab something premade and run that, You know more about running the game than you think you do, I mean you have watched your DM do it for tens of hours, just try to be like them. and in the 1/1000 case the night goes bad, It won't look bad on you because nobody knows the game well enough to say if it was your fault or the games, but again, your players won't have a bad time so don't worry about it, just have fun.
I feel this. I've run so many amazing campaigns in 5e but I've accumulated so much homebrew that I literally just decided to make my own RPG. I was surprised how much of that process was already complete when I first sat down to work on it.
Sec. 1 "What Makes D&D Great" thoughts:
I think that the d20 system has it's saving graces but simplicity isn't D&D's strength, oh no. For one thing it's very, very easy to make a game "simple" if your criteria is just "the dice mechanic is easy to understand". The thing about D&D (and D&D-like systems), though, is that their mechanics are so scattershot that it's like you're learning the game all over again every time you play a new character. Very little is unified.
Personally, the only positive I could hand to D&D exists in a hypothetical. I believe that the best thing WotC could do, given the direction that D&D has gone, would be to make a "D20 Gold" book, essentially. They want people to make stuff up? Kay, make a book that strips away all of the D&D and exposes the bare-metal engine underneath. Make D&D their premier expression of that engine. There _is_ some merit to a system where your "prime attributes" are the main focus, particularly since the two big generic games, BRP and GURPS, are mostly skill-based. People like to homebrew D&D, not only because people try to fix it's limitations, but because D20 is easy to get loosey-goosey with and just wing it. It would also hopefully hep WotC create all the setting splatbooks they seem so interested in lately. I can see that you critique D20 itself later (and I can guess why) so I'm curious to see that.
Seeing the current climate around TTRPG play and D&D's hegemony over it, I feel very blessed to have entered the hobby with a d100 system (Dark Heresy). Not only is it fundamentally different from D&D - building your own class, the d100 dice mechanic, brutal combat, the skills and traits system - it also allowed me to think critically about RPGs as a medium and which fantasies we're trying to evoke.
I feel your pain, but D&D has proven to be popular, adaptable, functional and entertaining for 50 years. I realise it has been reduced to being a d20 roll high game with endless options for character building and optimising, and that gets dull sooner or later. I've put a lot of time into reading and learning other systems (there are great ones out there by the shelf load) and learned a lot by reading them, they have added a lot to my knowledge as a gamemaster and helped me improve my game. When I want to fill a table with players I click my fingers, say D&D and I have a game to run. When I switch for a season to another system I've got empty chairs.
I can't keep buying rule books for games I'll never run or run once or twice with 3 people. They're just bending the bookshelf for no good reason.
Game collecting leads to a weird consumer drive where we end up buying more than we can ever play. It's just titles in a file, or spines on a shelf, but the games don't get playtime at a table. It's fine for collectors, but a dilemma for people who just want to play A good enduring game.
D&D has been a controversial mess of commercial greed glossed with corporate virtue signalling shenanagins since the 1980's, that is disappointing because despite all it's flaws D&D endures in popularity because it is a remarkable game that has spawned an entire remarkable genre of games.
There's is nothing D&D does that another system does not do better, but the classes are the most agregious to me. I GM Pathfinder beginner box to experience players, and they were awed at how much their classes at lvl 1 felt different from each other, how the feat system made their fantasy come to life in the mechanical sense: The ranger using his pet to get "advantage", the alchemist throwing bombs and potion everywhere, the Bard having multiple type of songs and marches for buffing or debuffing, the cleric using his spells without worrying about having enough to heal.
Second is the dungeon crawling, and for this I really recommend HEART: Beneath the city. It has the most elegant system for the slowly descent into madness and stress of actually dungeon crawling, the multiple health bar for various of your stuff, mind and body is excellent, and for the first time taking damage in a game is exciting, is not a "the only hitpoint that matters is the last one"
The point on binary failures is interesting because I've been thinking about it a lot lately. One of the things I've realised about a lot of the popular d20s over the years like DnD 3.5/PF1e and DnD 5e is that a lot of the appeal is gaming out the binary check systems. Hardcore players will powergame them out through huge modifiers and buff states, while less instrumental players will demand the GM bend over backwards to ensure any fail state is removed of consequences and fun-killing moments.
The thing is, binary fail states can be interesting when there are indeed consequences - and preferably consequences that simply create more tension and require response to, not that instantly kill the player or otherwise remove their autonomy - but it's very hard to codify this without having those roleplay and social systems from the sorts of systems mentioned in the video. It's doable, but requires external impetus to tell them how to make it work effectively, or the GM just figuring it out themselves with no guidance.
Like take the mountain climbing scenario. Is rolling a string of checks to see if you succeed at just scaling the mountain boring? Absolutely. Now let's say you're scaling a rock face because you're being chased by a monster or pack of monsters who can climb up after you, or there's a pool of toxic water that's rising. Now you have tension and stakes. And in those scenarios, players are also more likely to be creative and consider more interesting solutions under pressure than just rolling their checks. Maybe they have a potion of spider climb they've been saving for a rainy day, or a limited use teleporting ability, spell, or item they can use if they fall too close to the danger.
But I still think this comes back to that fundamental issue of engaging in that chance-based gameplay. Those solutions are still avoiding engagement with those checks. If you're just going to do everything to avoid them, there's a fair discussion to have about how much you value that binary luck-based gameplay if they're just going to be undesirable anyway.
And it's surprising to me how many people I bring this up to and shirk the idea it has anything to do with hating luck or even the binary d20 roll. It seems to me a lot of people are viciously in denial how much they hate the swingy maths of the d20, let alone that binary fail state they only seem to resent when it occurs. Yet offering alternatives is like pulling teeth. They want solutions within the scope of the d20 system, without sacrificing it, despite those foundations being the core issue.
And to make it clear, I say this as someone who still generally likes d20 games. PF2e is my game of choice because I like the crunchy tactics and how the scaling success does a lot to embrace the d20s swinginess rather than just trying to overcompensate for it. I also realise why a lot of people don't like the d20, but their wants and solutions always seem to be some variant of 'let's go back to DnD 3.5 or 5e' instead of even considering other system formats. To me it's less d20 is fundamentally flawed, but that it's trying to appeal to people who don't understand why their tastes are inherently at odds with it, but refuse to change while demanding that design bend over backwards to cater to them.