I'm a Sword and Sorcery type of guy myself. I really like exploration, wilderness travel, big gnarly dungeons, and I like legacy play, like building a castle and managing the lands around it, starting a Thieves Guild, that kinda stuff.
@@antigrav6004 I'm good on systems. It does look cool. I actually run Dungeon Crawl Classics with some stuff from the Rules Cyclopedia added in. The system of DCC, especially the magic, is fantastic for Sword and Sorcery games.
I got into D&D with this exact mindset. I was taught to play by a man who didn't even use any official books of any edition. He had his own idea of D&D in his head (he'd written the basic documentation down too, but since it was totally his, he remembered it very well), and he ran whatever D&D materials he wanted with that. That was very formative, to me. I've never really thought that D&D can be found in any book. You can start with them, sure, and you can use rules from books if they work for you, but to me, D&D has never been between the covers of a book. Making it your own and changing it and adding to it so that it works the way you want is the essence of D&D, to me. Now I'm building my own systems, and even though they're not anything close to that first system I got to experience, it was still a very valuable lesson. Words on paper are not the game, the game is what we play.
I very much agree! For me and many others I know; D&D is a banquet that we assemble from a variety cookbook of recipes. Each table and Ref/DM, at the very least seasons to taste and replace a few ingredients. Other friends use the recipe as a bridge for creativity.
I've been running my Franken-edition of D&D for well over 10 years now. Every year or so I modify and update it, and keep testing it to see what I like and what I don't, what works well for me and my players, etc. I use BECMI as my base, but steal whatever I like from other editions. I haven't released my rules yet, but plan to do so soon, as I think I've finally found what works best for me.
Lately I've noticed that it's the art that drives how I think of the editions. We roll with BECMI, so I find myself letting the art of Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, etc. sort of define the style. It's high fantasy, right? But a very different style of high fantasy than, say 5th Edition artwork. Likewise Jeff Dee, I associate with the more OSR style. If you look at MERP, most of that artwork was done by Angus McBride. I don't know if any of this makes sense, but when I'm picking house rules, I find myself wondering (or maybe, "feeling") if it matches the mood of the artwork.
Grade school/ junior high school in the 1980's and early 90's, .. my grandparents had " World Clip Art Book," holding a bunch of old style late 1800's wood cut block prints. It greatly influence my art style. Still trying to put together my own 34 page comic book RPG guide book. Due to running into creative road blocks I quit drawing for about ten years and restarted relearning how to draw. My last yearly family reunion my cousin looked at my stuff and said, " What type of Pen did you use to draw this ?!" Me, " Same type of pen I used at 15yo, I just took about ten years off cause of problems." My cousin, " Best ten years off cause your style greatly improved and changed. I recognized the style from your earlier work, you just now have a more .. mature .. hand style to employ the pen. " I have some maps and landscapes but no stories as of yet on paper, problem with mental management in writing. Still working on my d6 system and when through five different character stat sheet write ups. It takes around three or more hours to hand draw design PC sheets. I have an old style 1980's Nintendo Zelda style map that took around 16 hours to draw out. And an equipment page with a suit of padded armor which took 6hours to shade and twenty weapons that took another eight hrs to go through. Trying to create fifty drawing to post at once on Bing, along with a comic book like magazine the holds seven short four page mini games hosting a single monster to copy right and get posted on a few web sites. What has started as a year long project is now looking like a three years project. I discover Unreal Engine video game designer about a year ago, once I get the building/ dungeon maps draw out, then down loaded to create walk throughs to final after thirty years create my own Zelda D&D game. Problem, is designing the starting village, forest, and first four dungeons. Which since a young age of being a corn field hedge maze dozen acre theme park. Flip a comic book/ D&D campaign setting of a dozen issues into a video game and a twenty acre theme park. Hopefully by the time I am fifty years old six years from now I might have something. Early 1990's TMNT rpg had a few comic panel pages going over story and action, then went through those panels step by step explaining how to play the game. Whitewolf/ World of Darkness (WoD ) vampire and werewolf had similar art rpg concepts.
I remember coming to this conclusion during the 4e / Pathfinder / Early OSR days. There’s no reason to complain about game systems, make the one you want to use.
I feel the same way! Ive had players who didnt like a certain subclass so i quickly tweeked a couple things took an idea from the player made that a quest hook which unlocked a homebrew feat. The campaign was great and all those tweeks made it FEEL great for me the Dm of that campaign and the players
I love this video. I have been DMing for years, starting D&D in the early 80's. I have ADHD, which leads me to be very creative, but I have a bad memory and am not good with a lot of detail. I have condensed the 5e rules to a 4 page Player's Handbook, eschewing a huge load of unnecessary fluff and minutiae. My D&D group loves how much easier this makes the game, how organized my Player's Handbook is, and I love having a Player's Handbook that my players actually read.
Words to live by Daniel. When I started my latest campaign, the foremost thought in my mind was "What will keep me engaged, interested and fascinated over a very long time? What kind of Fantasy would do that? What kind of setting? What types of play?" I knew if I did that, I would find prep, sessions and everything about the Campaign a positive joy and that I would be engaged for the long haul. The answers were "Low Fantasy start, some High Fantasy engagement later; channel Howard some; Early Modern Era (Age of Sail/Muskets/Printing Press); exploration play discovering unknown continent; classless system with skills that allows building of characters who become heroic; multiple magic systems that match to different religions, cultures and traditions." So for me this led to GURPS. But the bottom line is; find your bliss that will keep you thoroughly engaged. If you are, and allow the players to build the world with you, but stay true to your vision, a GM can do it for the long haul. And the work isn't work; its joy.
@@BanditsKeepKeep I am learning The Fantasy Trip as well and hope to get others at the FLGS interested. It is nice tactical combat where facing matters. Armor absorbs damage. Also, the game has no dump stat. I really like that. It makes every decision matter. Do you play TFT legacy or classic? In case you did not know, Melee is available for free.
Been writing up my own setting/system over the past 4 to 5 years! Setting has nods to alot of things that shaped my idea of fantasy since childhood: - Conan - Rankin-Bass cartoons - Final Fantasy - Castlevania - Dark Souls video games - Lovecraft - Etc. Basically.... Dark Sword and Sicence Fantasy... Kinda? For rules, I've mainly been intrigued by OSE/BX, LotFP, Mork Borg, Forbidden Lands, and a few others. - 6 ability scores - modifiers as scores - player facing roles - armor as damage reduction - GLoG style magic - Various simple classes - My own takes on races as well as my own original ones - Rules for three stages of play: The Overworld, Exploration, and Battle. I've done some minor playtesting, but my first actual real ongoing play test begins I a couple of weeks..weeks .. as soon as I finish converting/chopping down B1 and B2 lol.
Conan, TMNT - tv cartoon from the 1980's, then the comic book Turtle Soup, TMNT d% rpg game which had a few comic book style pages to tell a short encounter story then doubles back over those pages to explain how the dice rolls worked. Hell I had to cross TMNT with AD&D2ndE with cartoon action just to keep my sibling and cousin interested in playing, otherwise it was video games and plastic baseball fights. Castlvania 1, 2, and 3 for the Nintendo of the 1980's. The N64 during the late 1990's just before WotC 3rdE D&D/Star Wars. WEG west end games d6 system Star Wars rpg. Zelda AD&D2ndE Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) vampire, werewolf, mage and later Mage the Awakening and Changeling the Lost. Working on my own d6 system with only 15 dice rolling stats, you don't roll for ability scores, just 2d6 for Skills with only three upgrades per given skill. So roll 2d6+3 for given action. No .. classes .. just arch-type builds. There are only 12 character levels to advance through, and Xp will be set up which can be played long term campaign style or quick video game rapid advancement. Whitewolf and WEG Star Wars all stat upgrades and spells/ force powers were bought with Xp. -basic level up, every two or three levels you get a +1 modifier to all stats more or less. So a 12th-level fighter will only have a +6 modifier to hit with a +3 skill bonus on chosen weapon, total 2d6+9 to hit with their favorite spear. a two handed spear is a large weapon only granting a +3 modifier to dmg. So atk is 2d6+9 with dmg being 2d6+3, but all level hd is d6. So a 12th-level PC knight has 12d6+3 moidifer ( 75hp more or less if you do not reroll 6s or not.) But four lucky hit and anyone can get dropped. WoD and WEG are more lethal games with one hit kill rules. Spells, stat upgrades, weapon/combat or saves upgrades are bough separately. More or less everything fits within six pages. 2.) I am a rule lawyer meta power gamer, anytime when another player wanted an over-the-top character arch-type they asked me on how to bend the rules to get it. So I over complicate things and I'm working on trying to keep it real simple. But complicated enough to interest the power games or the more experience players with a variety of rules.
I agree with everything you said 100%! This video came out at the perfect time for me because I've just started doing this. I've recently been reading all the different edition rulebooks as well as some non-D&D games. Rather than choosing one, I decided to compile a word doc with my all my favourite rules, which has evolved over time into its own system. Happy adventuring everyone!
This reminds me a bit about an article that Gygax wrote about creating campaigns. Essentially, he says to define the setting concept and create a starting area containing a dungeon with some levels prepared, a city to work as the initial hub and some secrets that can work as adventure seeds, I suppose. I'm using this method to create my homebrew campaign setting and since I'm not aming for the classic D&D setting, I'm very excited to run some games in it and see if the B/X ruleset will be enough or not! Keep with the great work!
Damn, man. Great video. D&D is the game where the players (DM included) re-invent (at least some aspect) of the game every time they play. The rotating DM thing is absolutely true.
Yes! This is the way. Good on you for encouraging this, Daniel. So many people lose the message in the method. It's YOUR game, create it, own it, love it!. I've only ever done it this way. I started at 13 with AD&D, developed further with 3rd Edition in my 20's and I keep the system going today; with my own flavours and small additions from other systems and editions. I'll see if I can sum it up in brief. My character, creatures and adventure generation and reference system is 3/3.5 edition D&D. Anything I create, flavour, change or use and abuse is ported here. I have both the 3rd and 3.5 core rules and a dozen supplements in hard copy, plus 1 module and access to pretty much all of it in PDF. I also have access to the 1st Edition AD&D core rulebooks and a couple of modules and both current starter sets (Not Stormwreck) for 5th edition. I use the advantage/disadvantage mechanic and a tweaked version of the rest & recovery rules from 5th, I use the experience award rates from AD&D, my own home-brewed scaling for level promotion and progression and currency exchanges for turning loot into spendable money. Electrum is a thing, platinum probably can't be exchanged in a small population centre like a village or smaller. My flavour is that of semi-grounded and gritty, Dark, High Fantasy. Think if Howard and Tolkien wrote a book together. Medium Magic, it's known of and people can attend Wizard schools, Warmage college or whatever. It's quite expensive and if they are military sponsored like a warmage, then a term of service and fealty is also required. Wizards, Warlocks, Pact Mages and Sorcerors have also fought witch wars with each other off and on throughout history. The main continent of play, is Sairose. Ecologically and roughly geographically, similar to the North Americas. It's territories have never truly been dominated, by a single race or culture ever. Though over 10's of K's of years, Empires have risen, expanded, declined, fallen and occasionally disappeared entirely across, around and under it. The ecology of the world is such; that if no creature that has ever existed on Earth, ever experienced an ELE. If it ever lived here. Then somewhere, it still lives there. I use any modules I like, researched from reviews and walk-throughs on the net. I port them backwards or forwards. Then flavour them for the world and characters and plug them in.
Hi Daniel! Thanks for talking about this! I feel like this is exactly how I have approached playing D&D nowadays. I have my own system that is hacked together from a bunch of different ttrpgs and I love it. I’d love to share the doc with you and get your thoughts if you’re ever looking for some new ideas! Cheers!
100% agree. Well said. I like low fantasy, and random tables for level advancement to avoid character builds and to focus on problem solving with available tools and abilities. Made my own Frankenstein OSR5E with a pinch of Rients. Never been happier.
If you go examine the earlier versions of PrinceCon D&D rules you'll find tons of charts of percentages as to-hit numbers. That opened my mind as to what you say here, Daniel. Despite a certain specific way of handling things, the d20 or the d100, D&D is a sum of concepts, it's the role-playing itself and nothing that couldn't be tweaked and customized. Very good point, superb video.
This video has REALLY helped me in developing my own D&D style game and being able to let go of trying to follow the D&D rules, as complex as they are, and to just rearrange everything to suit what me and my friends would most likely enjoy to play is such a relief. The game I'm trying to make is what I'd call a homebrew of D&D, but in the setting of Destiny. When trying to learn about D&D this past week, I was so worried about how I was going to learn everything and how I'd even be able to keep track of it all, or how I'd balance my own version. Now I know I can just do whatever I want. Ideally, I'm still going to keep as much of the core formula as I can, but when things get to complex and overbearing in information, I'll simply it or replace it with a system I feel would suit us better. Thank you. This has honestly lifted a great weight off of my shoulders, and I'm now writing my homebrew's guidelines as I speak. (I do specify in it that anyone who plays can add or subtract whatever they want from the guide).
Agreed! This is Dungeons and Dragons, its about flat soda and Monty Python jokes at 2am. Its about having fun with friends, and saving the day on graph paper. Its where the settings are made up and rules don't mater. The rules are meant to serve the narrative, not the other way around. So use what you like, ignore what you don't, and if you have a better idea use that instead, but above all else have fun! Its your game, make it you're own!
"As the Dungeon Master, you aren't limited by the rules in the Player's Handbook , the guidelines in this book (DMG), or the selection of monsters in the Monster Manual. You can let your imagination run wild." (From the DMG 5E pg 263)
@@BanditsKeep join us virtually. My brother, whom's house we are playing at. Has one of the fastest computer set ups i have ever seen. We are rolling charecters up on the 10th of September. Let me know.
I’m glad the comments are agreeing with you on this one, because this is a fantastic topic! Ever since I hacked white box, basic, and my favorite rulings together, I’ve found myself enjoying refereeing more and more!
Literally watched this video as I printed my own rules for a game next week. I've been spending some time building the D&D I want to run and play and could not be happier. I was looking for something intuitive that encouraged players to plan and think and touch everything, because I was a bit tired of sprawling systems that make players look at their character sheet as a launchpad of buttons to press to solve the next issue. Started with B/X as a baseline with the aim of producing a 1-page barebones system I could run for one shots and to help beginners get started. After borrowing ideas from several rulebooks and OSR blogs, I ended up with a 5-pager that includes character generation, rules, spells, character sheet and GM screen that captures the tone I was going for. The result is a minimalist game that handles combat, magic, levels and resolving tasks well enough, leaving breathing space for all the other stuff. So far people have really enjoyed the experience and we got a couple beginners roleplaying in a matter of minutes! I've realised people start trying wild stuff and asking interesting questions in the absence of procedures for everything. And to me that's an ideal game! It might not be the most comprehensive version of D&D ever made, but it's what I consider the bare minimum I want in my games. The rest, I can wing or make rulings with the stuff I have in my brain, and that's what I aimed for :D
I must say fantastic video, not just the topics but presentation. I am sick of watching videos where there are edits every sentence cause the presenter can't string together sentences and instead of doing one longer cleaner take just chops its up like it's a sci-fi action movie. A speaker that can actually speak, you are a rare beast in this land of youtube!
I think as long as you've played the game enough to understand basically how the rules work, they can and should be hand-picked and modified according to the type of game you want to run. Wherever you want the focus to be, assemble the rule-set to fit. And that goes for everything from a one-shot to a multi-year campaign. The game is very flexible; that's its strength. And all the editions and variants available only add to that. D&D: Some Assembly Required. Great video!
The game is what you make it. As others have said before, D&D is a game construction tool kit. My favorite add-on: The fortune die. Roll a d12 when you're trying to accomplish something, in addition to the normal die roll for success/failure. On a 12, something good for the character happens, regardless of the success or failure of the main die roll. On a 1, something bad happens, again regardless of success/failure. Blessings and curses affect the fortune die. This adds a huge extra dimension to the role play, essentially a luck resource to manage. You can build inherently lucky characters. Don't annoy the hedge witch / village priest / local druid. Evil soaked areas are naturally unlucky for good characters.
I love this mindset cause I've began thinking like this. I've heard of how 3.5 offers more creativity with building your character but I've also heard it's more complex than 5e so I decided against dippin my toes into that. But now that you've brought up such great points on how you don't have to stick strictly to an edition and how u can create your own really inspired me. So if you're reading this comment, thank you for inspiring this teen to broaden their perspective on how to build their own game, their own dnd.
Daniel, totally agree. I am finishing up play this month with a current group, taking a month to review and update things. Come October, when we return to the table, I am splitting the players into two groups and going with the style of play that works for each. Being an old AD&D (with the original supplements before the DMG), suckered into Pathfinder 1e and now D&D 5e, I have decided to use systems that reflect the vision of my world. So I am looking at DCC for my muse. Great channel and keep it up.
You've made some wonderful points. I'm working on my own game now and there have been times that it looked like it wasn't going to work out, but the key take away was that I know now what I like and don't like. I've found my TTRPG niche. And I don't know if I really realized that before you said it. Thanks, Daniel. Love your content.
I GM a heavily modified Palladium 1e game which itself was a D&D offshoot (probably 1e or B/X). I use the 4e Nentir Vale "points of light" setting and use both Palladium 1e and modified 4e monster stat blocks. I mine older D&D books and use rare dark vision, combat as battle, BECMI building costs, and whatever things I find in any D&D Edition or offshoot that fits the "points of light" style of my campaign setting. It's been a wild time building and I've been GMing it 1.5 years so far. Make the game your own!
I am really loving your channel!! You've got a whole lot of really helpful insight. Without being overly didactic. I add a lot of the B/X exploration procedures to 5e when I run it for sure. The next time I kick off a 5e game I'll be trying the optional "background/personality proficiency" rules from the DMG to get rid of skills. I also want to try a modified B/X style I initiative in 5e. I'm not 100% convinced that will work, but it's worth a try.
That’s awesome - I went side initiative in my games and rolled every round A the players really liked it - was way easier for them to use teamwork in combat
Re: Forgetting the rules and starting from the ground up- So much this. I spent years fiddling with 3.5 and PF1, but in the last month or so I've thrown away the attack roll for dice pools and it just works so much better for me. Instead of rolling to hit and rolling damage it's just a single roll to see how much damage happens and it's been so liberating lol
@@groovegnome hitting and missing is a roleplaying construct as I see it. Whether an attack hits or misses is going to vary between characters and monsters, whether they're a tank who would endure a hit or a skill based character who would evade it or a magic based character who might counter it. The Hit Point bar is just a progress meter that shows how close that character is to being defeated through attacks
I’m almost finished with my own fantasy ttrpg which was born out of my year long campaign doing exactly what this video talks about. Mixing and matching my own rules, systems, etc. and sewing them together into a Frankenstein’s monster. -Tons of fun! Additionally I’ve made systems before that have failed, but like Daniel says, you learn from that each time and it helps you out the next time you inevitably start the next project.
I just started watching your videos and I must say much of what you say resonates with me. I guess it's because I'm an old school dungeon master (and pretty old as well). Much of what you said about making your own D&D edition just validates what I've been doing lately. I have just started running an OSR-type game using Swords & Wizardry as the basic platform. My players seem to be scratching their heads as they see me continuously piling up rules from other D&D editions and OSR rules sets in addition to my own house rules. So far, everyone is having a good time, so I'm just taking this as far as it will go.
Came to this video because of the topic and the urge I've been having recently to write up my own system. There's a lot of little rules ideas here and there, scattered in released games, blogs or advice videos (some of which are your own!) and I've often wondered lately what all the stuff I enjoy would look like collated together. Who knows maybe I'll get past the mind mapping stages of this one :P
I guess I could actually discuss some of what im working on. The following is to be tacked onto to the traditional 5th edition of the game. So i started d&d with 4th edition, and prejudices aside I had some of my greatest d&d memories from that version of the game. Also, for what it’s worth i play a mid to high magic game, combined with low magic level consequences for failure. So theres some mechanics from 4e im pulling over, specifically the combat/tactical advantage(a simple +2 bonus to things) and spreading that out across more than just combat. I believe some moments are good to award a player but not with full advantage. I wanna pull the dungeoneering skill straight over as it was a method for non thief or tinker characters to engage with traps and physical mechanics in a dungeon. I’ve already encouraged more active use of skills like Arcana and religion. In 4e there wasn’t a detect/identify ability and it fell on the Arcana skill instead. I still don’t detail specifically what could told using those spells but arcana checks to know that magic is in the area, or to discover secret doors I allow. I’ve got an idea for a Knowledge Mechanic to open up roleplay for more esoteric things. A fighter could have knowledge about certain favored weapons/armor while a wizard could have knowledge in things like Legend/lore since I've never met a player that uses the spell Legend/lore. I've been tinkering with an Alchemy system as well as other sorts of crafting. One of my favorites being Spell Charms. Trinkets made to cast a certain spell X number of times. I've already seen players make excellent plays/situations with their charms. The stuff you said about alignment language hit really home and I'm just pulling the idea straight from you Daniel. Lastly, I'm personally a combat sportsman in my spare time, I'm fond of practice Boxing and Mixed Martial arts, and as such I'm working on feats to open up the unarmed combat portion of the game.
Cheap yellow plastic baseball fights are fun, learn that from my grandfather. As teenagers me and my cousins found if you slick the bats down with dish soap and fought bare chested, those cheap light weight plastic bats leave whets on impact. Pain and anger management skills to laugh off pain. Yes I got dog pack by my little sister and her friends multiple of times. Teenage girls can get mean when they are bored.
I have created a material source of magical energy for my campaign. It allows not only for spells/artifacts to be powered, but also acts as a resource in the world that political and commercial factions vie for. It also allows non-caster characters to interact with magical circles, riddles and traps. It also plays a major role in enchantment.
A method for rolling ability scores. Roll 3d6 for each Str Int Wis Dex Con Cha Gold, in that order. When choosing a race/class the player may swap the highest roll with any other roll, then multiply Gold score x10. This is a simple answer to help a little for those who feel too restricted by classic character creation.
I have done exactly that. My version started out as Ad&D, we then added selected feats from 3rd edition into the proficiency system. I then made monsters a cross between 3rd edition and 5th and lastly we use the 5th edition spells, with some select ad&d spells. Its a real frankenstien. We have a large number of saves. The saves from Ad&d, except rod staff, wand (we got rid of that) plus the ability saves from 5e. Ive kept a few monsters attacks as sa Ive also added abilities at each level for the characters, mostly taken from 5e. No multiclassing. Ive kept certain save or die mechanics, ive kept vampires draining levels etc and i am balancing as we go. Highest group so far is 8th level and its still a challenge for them even though they are very powerful. More powerful than even in 5e, but as im balancing around the characters it still feels pretty deadly.
As a DM, I am always looking to explore new ways to play DnD and incorporate thoughtful rules that both newer and more experienced players like. Currently, I am setting up a game where characters start at lvl 0 and they use the pathfinder retraining rules to turn into their level 1 characters. This allows newer players to take initiative on how they want to play and find what weapons work for them. The hook for the older players is that every retraining come a boon of free a quarter caster spell table or a bonus ability from another class.
@@BanditsKeep This is the PF1 retraining rules. It's "8 hours of intense training per day" and because it's retraining an NPC class it will take 3 in game days.
I've never understood the semantic arguments about "RAW". The rules say the it's the DM's world, and you make or change whatever you want at your table. That power is always tempered by the objective which is to run a fun game for your players. Whatever that means to you and your group. Personally, I run a high magic world, with powerful characters, that way I don't feel guilty about luring the sorcerer forward to then unleash a flurry of blows on him (those children were so innocent, even though detect magic said they had necrotic magic)! Or a succubus "girlfriend" for the fighter who can't resist her charms. Or Kobolds stealing all the players gold when they went down a shaft in a dungeon with no other way out. I feel like an encounter goes well when at least one player says something like," oh come on, now what!?" That's just the right level of challenge to be fun and satisfying.
Old cartoon from Dungeon or Dragon magazine from the 1990's, .. ( Monster Bait) Halfling hanging from a rope down a pit to trigger a monster to attack, the halfling, goblin, and short orc lasso to draggling ropes looks at the dragon and yells back up the shaft .. " All is clear and safe down here !"
I'm currently working on two game systems: first, an OSR style low-fantasy game that pulls together my favourite bits from a variety of games into one place & (hopefully) streamlines them into the version of D&D that I've always wanted, and a 1970s/80s vigilante movie simulator because that's always been one of my favourite genres. It's an interesting experience to realize what tweaks are required to simulate wildly different genres using the same basic "tool kit"
Rewatch the Conan moves with your friends with a stopwatch and count the combat hits and when they happen to plot out dice action encounters. Play fights with plastic baseball fights and reenacting the action scenes in the Conan movies is a fun way to learn Stage Acting. My grandfather was fun playing with the grandchildren. Sword fighting and shooting craps 1960's US navy style. Us 1980's grade school kids were loudly arguing over green army men on who hit who along with He-Man. Steps, green army men had 1d6hp mark with a die next to the figure. Step two, laying flat or cover gives a +1 to +3 cover defense. Step three, roll 2d6 against each other to see who hits. Same thing for He-Man. There are like twenty rules covering the battles between army men rolling 2d6. We made up rules just to see how to bend, break, and to cheat at them. Along with hand twisting a screw driver into the number pits to work lead into them, and we were 5 and 6 years old to cheat our teenage aunt's boyfriends during game play. " I bet you .50 cents I can beat you at dice army men." Man we had 0.75cent comic book money back in the 1980's. Five comic books a week was living large. When my granddad and granny's brother was in the navy, they set up plastic army men to hid that they were playing .. craps Some of my grandparents Tall Tales were anything but Low Fantasy.
I will experiment with this, as the process of making D&D/Pathfinder your own is something that interests me. I like this talk even more because it goes way beyond what I was originally thinking and I might make something more interesting to me in this way.
Good video. A friend of mine introduced me to Deathbringer recently, which is now my preferred gaming system. My current goal is to pull together good RPG elements from a variety of sources and add my own ideas to do the very thing you're talking about: make my own RPG.
Geezer here, yep. Homebrew everything. Beginning serious playtest in the next month. Although I have played the majority of it for years. Just now putting pdfs together. Have google docs if you would care to take a gander. Gaming on.
I run a game for my friends where we play a Frankenstein of 10% of B/X, 80% of Holmes Basic, and 10% Ad&d, Greyhawk, and house rules. I take the best of all the systems. I think this is the spirit of Old School D&D. I have been running this type of game for a year almost. It is by far the best. My players and I prefer a low-magic, dark and gritty game, this is why a mix of 1977 Basic and 1981 Basic is perfect. It it rules light and open to more house rules. Sorry for my ramblings... 🤣 PS: I love your videos.
@BanditsKeep Rewatched the video, and just updating what changes have happened. The game is now a base of 1977 Holmes basic, and added a bunch of my home brew rules. I've been busy and added a lot of home brew. Its gotten me closer to the dark, gritty, depressing games I've been trying to get towards. PS: I want to thank you Daniel, for introducing me into Old-School types of D&D, I thought I just didn't like D&D when I tried it years ago, not true, I just didn't like 5th edition. :)
I think this helps change my mindset after so long of thinking about my initial journey into tabletop RPGs. Although I've always stuck with the rules in each rulebook I collect as I go. I think it gets repetitive and unsatisfying to run the game by the book with no changes whatsoever. Though these experiences are often from a solo perspective and my GMing experience is very minimal. As long as friends/groups are enjoying the type of game you are running. Then there is nothing wrong how you want to make such changes.
My 1st edition players handbook has notations all throughout it. There are rules for Mana use for mages. Notations for character class levels by stats. For character class levels by race. Notations for spells for clarification on effects, etc... Different Dungeon Masters had slightly different rules for their campaign and some we had agreed upon for several different campaigns. For making magic items that were common, mages had certain rules they followed in one campaign that were different in another campaign. The DM was the final arbiter for their campaign and we all understood that. I remember several times when we would just sit down and discuss certain aspects of this and that so that game play would go faster next time. Nobody ever screamed FOUL at the DM or swore never to play in their game again.
Great stuff as always Daniel. I think another potential source for discovering the kind of D&D you like is playing with other DM's and in other systems. Sometimes you discover a style or mechanic that you really like and can incorporate it into your own play. You mention "hand waving" in the video. I remember first watching a DM use this when the session was coming to an end so that we would be in a good place to stop. We had a random monster that flew high overhead, we hid, it moved on and no battle. I thought "oh, you don't have to be a prisoner to the die rolls". I played Traveler and decided to incorporate some sci-fi into my game. Same with Metamorphosis Alpha. And if you play wargames you might find a mechanic that allows you to streamline large scale combat if you don't want to get bogged down in that kind of battle.
I've pretty much created my own spin on the 3.5/Pathfinder 1e system over the years, with loads of changes, and I plan to make it available some day. It has extra dodge AC from BAB, damage reduction on armor, natural attacks with enhancement bonus depending on creature type and HD, automatic Weapon Finesse and Dex-Mod on damage with light piercing and slashing weapons and more. Am also working on an alchemy system for creating potions etc without spellcasting, and creature part harvesting, but that's a load of work and kinda in the backlog ^^
I was intrroduced to Original D&D in the late 70s, but I didn't start running the game until the three core AD&D books had come out (late '79/early '80). I find 5e to be the best game yet, but fear the next iteration. My setting is not extremely different from "traditional fantasy" - AD&D players would not find it as alien as many of the newer material. It has some high fantasy elements. I've been worldbuilding for so many years now... I have many tweeks to 5e. Three examples of just how minor most are: - Guidance adds +4 to the roll, not 1d4, but you are immune to being affected by the spell for an hour. - The Flame Arrows spell does not require concentration. - Drinking a potion in combat is a bonus action if you take the Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, or Search action. Otherwise, it is the Use An Object action. Administering a potion to another character is also the Use An Objection action. Others changes are more complicated. I have a few custom races, but I don't allow many of the official races, including some of the standard races like Half Elves and Half Orcs. I don't allow about half of the subclasses that have come out post PHB. I've made several "replacement" feats. Some of these changes are to make the rules better fix my homebrew setting.
Yes, I am making my own system. A 3d20 system, DH1, DL1. Right now there is no place to get the rules except in a Discord or through random playtest packets I have sent out.
I created my own version many years ago. I used to call it v2.5 (mostly 2nd-ed with those parts of 3.5 that I liked). Much of 3rd-ed introduced things I was already doing, long before 3rd came out. Even my first ever campaign featured monsters with character levels. So far, I've not heard anything about 4th or 5th that I like.
Cool! I tend to fall into the camp of character levels etc are for the players - monsters have their own rules, but I can see certain benefits to this type of system for sure
@@BanditsKeep For sure. The most important things to keep in mind are: 1: Keep it fun 2: Keep it balanced 3: If you're going to deviate from the published rules, be sure that it makes sense Example: If a goblin adventure is planned for a first level party and the players reach second level before getting to the goblins, then giving the most important goblins (let's say, the chieftain and his personal bodyguards) a level or two in fighter might be a better solution than just adding more goblins.
Funny, I would do neither - the party has earned level 2 and should reap the rewards which would be an advantage over the goblin group - different play styles to be sure.
@@BanditsKeep Okay, you're right. Maybe it wasn't the best example. Maybe I should instead have said it was a published adventure designed for level 1 and you want to re-scale it for level 2 (or for a larger party).
This was one of the best talking head DnD videos I've seen and I wholeheartedly agree with the message for the most part. I think 5e and it's popularity does a phenomenal job of introducing people to tabletop roleplaying games and does enough things to give players a sense of what they like and don't like. I think the major mistake players then make is they think 5e is all their is and never branch out. Personally, I prefer exploring/recommending the other RPG systems that exist rather than creating my own system from scratch, but maybe I'm just lazy 😂 Subbed and about to burn through your backlog!
I am currently working on B/X flavored hack for solo and one on one play. The biggest challenge is the party roles, but as they are solitary characters I open up magic item use, allow for some light training in the other traditional roles, and I run monsters as mobs so they only get one attack (though it is a doozy sometimes). That takes care of the action economy problem. The swingyness of a d20 roll is worked out with a 3d6 action resolution that focus on the usefulness of a bell curve (I got the chart from a 3d6 turn undead table from a white box hack. I put the game on a silver scale and reduced all the treasure in coin by 90%. This allows the PC to carry away the same value of coin but rearranged to their limited capacity. Hirelings are just that and tend to fade into the background. Most other bx rules remain the same (moral, sight distance, random encounters etc). I am still in play test, but it is working pretty well.
Sounds cool, I really enjoy one on one play. I’ve mostly used DCC for this so the carrying of treasure was less of an issue (to level up) but I like that silver solution here, simple without messing too much with the structure
I set up my own version of OSE Advanced Fantasy that incorporates a bunch of stuff from the 3.5 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting as well as a few other Homebrew stuff. I also expanded spells from AD&D 1st edition (which in some cases has to be converted) as well as equipment options from Basic Fantasy. I have only play tested it a few times but players seemed to like it.
I've been Frankensteining together a form of D&D made up of 5E classes and mechanics, 4E powers (converted to fit those mechanics), and a 3.5E style spell slot system (tweaked with an upcasting _and_ downcasting system inspired by Chrono Cross's element grid).
Only one of my house rules is "original" (though someone must have thought of this before): Half-Levels. Half-Level advancement: at the half way point between 2 levels, and at full levels, PCs get 1/2 more hit point (so fighters roll 1d4, and Magic-Users 1d2). Cleric turn ability increases by 1 (since the B/X default increases by 2 every level). Thieves get a halfway skill increase. If a magic user would get access to two new spells at the full level they'll gain the lower one at the previous half level instead. Etc. Obviously there are lots of details and edge cases, but this is the big idea. My reasoning is that players love to level up but I didn't want to artificially speed up advancement in my campaign. So this way they get to "level up" twice as often. It also has the side benefit of slightly increasing PCs average hit points without raising a class's maximum hit points, making characters slightly more survivable earlier in the game.
Fascinating. In my own game I went the opposite direction, reducing the levels. My game has levels 0-9/10 (still deliberating between having 10th level spells and a 10th level or not) with level 0 an Apprentice level (that I don't particularly intend to use in play) that corresponds to Cantrips (a finite resource in my games similar to 3rd edition but a bit stronger, good enough to use when the Magic User is out of spells or doesn't have the right one(s) prepared but not something that can be spammed like a bow.
One reason I 'left' 5e is that so many DM's in 5e are terrified to do precisely what Daniel has described. It has eased a bit in the last year (post-OGL mess) but the view that somehow only something play tested by WotC is credible has been pervasive for a long time. These days, I am now very much in the Classic/OSR camp (OSE Advanced to be specific) and it feels so liberating! And way more fun and relaxed esp. to DM.
Extremely helpful points! I'm currently DMing OSE work light tweaking but I'm missing the "skill" system i used in my own homebrew I crafted last year. The main idea was that thiefs do thief things, mages do mage things etc. Like a basic idea of what your character is good at based mainly on class but also possibly background stuff. No specific skills. That would set the difficulty 7/10/13 for d20 + ability mod roll.
I 've done a lot of looking and thinking about the type of D&D I like to run and for me it's White Box with the supplement White Box Expanded Lore. it has the simplicity of OD&D allwoing me to make rulings not rules and explanded Lore gives my players more options for classes and features for those classes. WIth this version magic isn't as abundant as modern versions but I can compinsate that with giving players magic items.
11:23 -- ya! I"ve been streaming the past few months the development of a 5e mass combat and 4x guild/city resource system to use as downtime activities. 5e doesn't scale out from the individual hero efforts but that leadership role was fun from 1st, 2nd, 3rd edition.
I literally did this. My houserules got too extensive so I wrote my "own edition" from the ground-up, using AD&D 2e as a base and adding ideas from OD&D, 4e, 5e, LotFP, DCCRPG, 13th age, dungeon world, a zillion blog articles/forum discussions, and my own best practices. I print a dozen or so copies a couple times a year to hand out. About 150 pages in A5 format replacing the PHB, DMG, and MM.
@@BanditsKeep hasbro and WOTC has well written worlds, monsters, and adventures. So much so that If you try to make your own it just comes off as copying. That's why I believe that there will be no real change in 6 edition Dungeons & Dragons. The wheel has been made why re make it.
I think it boils down to a balance between players wanting to "do the cool thing", DMs wanting to setup the cool scenario and making it challenging but accomplish-able. I have run scenarios without a system or dice and they tend boil down to co-operative story telling. The game system and the introduction of a random element help "realism" and remove some of the "you never let me do the cool thing" from co-op story telling. If you pay attention to little kids playing you will notice the struggles of co-op story telling. 🤣
I have an idea kicking around for a classless system and skill based magic. My current players can't be bothered to read the rules of the base game we play, so play testing with them feels pointless as they don't have any solid reference for rules.
@@BanditsKeep true, I guess I could just gauge the funness. Tho I would eventually need some feedback about the actual rules and system mechanics. I feel like I'll need some more experienced and attentive players for that. Luckily I just found some in old acquaintances of mine who will be joining our group.
I’m an old gamer and have spent 100s of hours modifying and house ruling D&D up until version 3.5… at which time I just gave up on D&D and started playing other games with seismically better rules. Forbidden Lands is the most recent fantasy RPG that leaves D&D 5.0 (and Pathfinder) in the dust.
I am currently trying to come up with my own system that doesn't use spell slots, I guess I kinda started with Pathfinder in that you get a bunch of actions and some spells use more actions. But I started thinking if there are no spell slots then what's to stop someone from spamming their strongest spell every turn? Then yesterday I came up with the tired rule, some spells are so powerful that you get momentarily winded or drained of energy and have to catch your breath, then on your next turn you have 1 or 2 less actions to represent that, that way you don't have enough Actions to cast it every turn, maybe every other turn. Then some more powerful spells deal so much damage you could wipe out an entire army, like a 9th level fireball, but you gain exhaustion, so if you spam spells like that, you could drop dead if you don't give the character a chance to rest. I also added you recover from exhaustion faster
Great video. I've been tinkering around the edges of D&D for years wit homebrew rules. I just recently found out about Shadowdark RPG which is NOT D&D but takes very heavy inspiration from OSR or B/X D&D and merges it with some new school mechanics. After just a single one shot session my heavily modified 5E campaign voted to switch to Shadowdark, which is great because I strongly prefer the OSR vibe. You have a great channel and I'm glad I subscribed, especially now that your advice will be more relevant than ever to my campaigns. If you get a chance, check out Shadowdark. I'd like to know your thoughts on it.
The main reason I started watching your channel is because I am hacking 1st ed AD&D to make my own system. But I have also written a very non-dnd game, it removes levels completely.
I'm building a world where magic is generally illegal, mostly criminals or isolated areas from the big cities use it in secrecy. This is enforced by, ironically, magic users.
And Dry World, now on itch and drivethrurpg, is a great example of how to strip dnd of everything an making a whole new feel! Check it out, Dry World!!
My beef with D&D is primarily with combat taking too long & not having enough tension. A homebrewed D&D version would probably scrap turns & initiative and be more free-flowing: players all simultaneously do move and attack actions & roll dice. Add in the defense bonus rule from 3.5 too - makes sense PCs should improve defense skills when leveling up & not only to-hit bonus! Also think casting spells ought to be more interesting than saying "I cast fireball". Like why not allow players to cast any number of spells from the PHB, with the catch they have to memorize a certain phrase for each spell. Maybe something in Latin, like Ulrich in Dragonslayer? Players would have an incentive to study their spellbook between sessions, kind of like real wizards.
Book is about 15 years old now, Whitewolf/World of Darkness(WoD): Mage the Awakening has a nice dice system for free flowing magic. Along with not too difficult to cross spells into D&D use. WoD system is a lot better than D&D when it comes to powering up and tearing apart spirit beings in running a Blood War campaign in Baator/devils vs Abbys/demons.
@@BanditsKeep Yes, Steve Jackson's Sorcery series. Each spell was like a short one syllable word, not too hard to memorize. It was fun, I still own the spellbook. You'd study up on the spells prior to each adventure.
We enjoyed it - played I believe 3-4 games with it as tests but never started a true campaign with it (I had 3 going) I suspect the power level might be too high for many tables in a long campaign, but I could see a certain kind of group taking it in a fun long term direction
Still working on my "RPG rules that won't annoy me". I've done a lot of medieval research over the decades and done many years of armoured combat too. So D&D contains a lot of stuff that annoys me ;)
Late 1990's at my first RPG gaming shop, .. a.) 3second combat melee rounds, Whitewolf/ World of Darkness(WoD) vampire d10 system " posers." b.) 6second combat melee rounds, TMNT d% system c.) 1 minute combat melee rounds, AD&D2ndE .. " gatekeepers/ armchair warriors," so called due to all the D&D books they read so they think they understand medieval melee combat. My first gaming shop was also a pain blast aero soft gun shop, weight bench to press and dead lift for your character's strength score, along with foam weapon larpers that also had cheap yellow plastic baseball fights. After a quick few seconds beat down, the armchair scholar warrior learn to shut up. Combat was rolled to be 3 to 6 seconds long, any smug DM said combat was a minute long the shop own offer his plastic baseball bats to help them understand reality. D&D players/DM that acted like AD&D2ndE strength score of 12 to 15 was above average or str:17 was legendary heroic was shown the weight bench. Even for skinny dishwashers could dead lift the weight equal to the str rating of 15, and he didn't ever did farm work of pulling on goats. Most of the big stocky guys around 6ft that played football/rugby average at str:17 or low 18/00 -45. Other than some bull crap gatekeeping from the thirty and forty year olds, and whinny from the twenty year olds without any imagination. It was a chill place on how the shop owner let things play out. Gatekeepers, " One on one DM and player, allow Only One character to the player to PC ! Not eight PCs for a single player ! " Shop owner, " His game, his table, his style of rules." Point was those gatekeeping jerks didn't want a new guy in their group who didn't know how to play and were passing the time for the more charismatic DM to show up. So I had a hand drawn dungeon and used a chess board to play out on with chess pieces and different color plastic army men. I gave the new guy two of each class to work with to learn the rules and to work on Role playing voice acting to get a Feel for how thing went. Then the other Better DMs shown up, and they join my game with .. multiple .. PCs to work with. The gatekeeping jerk lost three of HIS players to join my group. Many of the players/DM have played other gaming systems so had no problem blending the rules. Some players just didn't like AD&D and how the ability scores worked, but once I explain the d20 of every 1point equal 5%, a fighter with str:9 roll under instead of rolling Thac0 had a base chance of 45% to hit and each point of AC reduce their % to hit. Which in other gaming system you roll dexterity to hit and not strength to hit. So after some time we re did AD&D instead of rolling high on Thac0 with strength, it was roll under dexterity to hit, and under strength to have push/shove/knock back effects when getting hit. Thac0 bonus of 17 as a 4th-level fighter equal a +3 to hit bonus, or 15% to hit which raised your roll under score to hit by three points. Disagree with me and there are the plastic baseball bats waiting for you. We had a few Deaf players that could fast sign with their hands and rubber band you. They were very good at Dodging bat swings and rubber banding people as a Larper spellcaster. Problem in my area back in the late 1990's, in my town we still had those dumb azz c0ps caught up believing in that " Satanic Panic " crap. Which wasn't overly fun at times. So we Dazel them with word math % point jargon till them lost their zhit. 2.) There was a couple of older guy that brough their children to the show only for the paint guns and to play Magic the Gathering. But the .. regular .. players were more than happy to help with math homework and spot the teenagers and dads bench pressing, it was a family place. Second gaming shop was ran by the owner's wife who DM and she had a baby, .. so we got use to very young children, grade school children, junior high school teenagers playing WotC D&D3.5e, MtG, and Hero Clicks. So we had to learn to .. watch .. our language. And Everyone wanted to bend the Rules that annoy them or slowed the game down, limited the action, or add more variant rules to create more drama for the game.
I came to the conclusion long ago that D&D is not a game, but a game engine. You tweak the engine to work with your setting. This is how D&D used to be, and how they make video games to this day. After I get done running the current "kitchen sink" 5e game with friends, I am going to collect my notes and start writing some stuff for the "engine" and setting of my next game.
Yep, I’m also tinkering with my own system. The great think about B/X is it’s simple to add and change things. Perhaps one day it will be subjected to players and hopefully not break too much :)
I'm a Sword and Sorcery type of guy myself. I really like exploration, wilderness travel, big gnarly dungeons, and I like legacy play, like building a castle and managing the lands around it, starting a Thieves Guild, that kinda stuff.
Sounds fun!
Have you looked at Forbidden Lands? I think you might like it. It checks off everything you described.
@@antigrav6004 I'm good on systems. It does look cool. I actually run Dungeon Crawl Classics with some stuff from the Rules Cyclopedia added in. The system of DCC, especially the magic, is fantastic for Sword and Sorcery games.
Sounds like my taste!!
If you have not seen it, check out Hyperborea RPG. They are on 3rd edition & it hits all your marks.
I got into D&D with this exact mindset. I was taught to play by a man who didn't even use any official books of any edition. He had his own idea of D&D in his head (he'd written the basic documentation down too, but since it was totally his, he remembered it very well), and he ran whatever D&D materials he wanted with that. That was very formative, to me. I've never really thought that D&D can be found in any book. You can start with them, sure, and you can use rules from books if they work for you, but to me, D&D has never been between the covers of a book. Making it your own and changing it and adding to it so that it works the way you want is the essence of D&D, to me.
Now I'm building my own systems, and even though they're not anything close to that first system I got to experience, it was still a very valuable lesson. Words on paper are not the game, the game is what we play.
For sure
I very much agree!
For me and many others I know; D&D is a banquet that we assemble from a variety cookbook of recipes. Each table and Ref/DM, at the very least seasons to taste and replace a few ingredients. Other friends use the recipe as a bridge for creativity.
Any chance we can get some kind of transcript? I'd be curious to hear how his game actually played.
This is how the game was designed. It's nice to hear the community bring this to light.
Indeed
This is the wisest thing I've heard about D&D this whole year. Thank you for the reminder.
Thank You!
I've been running my Franken-edition of D&D for well over 10 years now. Every year or so I modify and update it, and keep testing it to see what I like and what I don't, what works well for me and my players, etc. I use BECMI as my base, but steal whatever I like from other editions. I haven't released my rules yet, but plan to do so soon, as I think I've finally found what works best for me.
Lately I've noticed that it's the art that drives how I think of the editions. We roll with BECMI, so I find myself letting the art of Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, etc. sort of define the style. It's high fantasy, right? But a very different style of high fantasy than, say 5th Edition artwork. Likewise Jeff Dee, I associate with the more OSR style. If you look at MERP, most of that artwork was done by Angus McBride. I don't know if any of this makes sense, but when I'm picking house rules, I find myself wondering (or maybe, "feeling") if it matches the mood of the artwork.
I totally agree
Grade school/ junior high school in the 1980's and early 90's, .. my grandparents had " World Clip Art Book," holding a bunch of old style late 1800's wood cut block prints.
It greatly influence my art style. Still trying to put together my own 34 page comic book RPG guide book. Due to running into creative road blocks I quit drawing for about ten years and restarted relearning how to draw.
My last yearly family reunion my cousin looked at my stuff and said, " What type of Pen did you use to draw this ?!"
Me, " Same type of pen I used at 15yo, I just took about ten years off cause of problems."
My cousin, " Best ten years off cause your style greatly improved and changed. I recognized the style from your earlier work, you just now have a more .. mature .. hand style to employ the pen. "
I have some maps and landscapes but no stories as of yet on paper, problem with mental management in writing. Still working on my d6 system and when through five different character stat sheet write ups. It takes around three or more hours to hand draw design PC sheets. I have an old style 1980's Nintendo Zelda style map that took around 16 hours to draw out. And an equipment page with a suit of padded armor which took 6hours to shade and twenty weapons that took another eight hrs to go through.
Trying to create fifty drawing to post at once on Bing, along with a comic book like magazine the holds seven short four page mini games hosting a single monster to copy right and get posted on a few web sites. What has started as a year long project is now looking like a three years project. I discover Unreal Engine video game designer about a year ago, once I get the building/ dungeon maps draw out, then down loaded to create walk throughs to final after thirty years create my own Zelda D&D game.
Problem, is designing the starting village, forest, and first four dungeons. Which since a young age of being a corn field hedge maze dozen acre theme park. Flip a comic book/ D&D campaign setting of a dozen issues into a video game and a twenty acre theme park. Hopefully by the time I am fifty years old six years from now I might have something.
Early 1990's TMNT rpg had a few comic panel pages going over story and action, then went through those panels step by step explaining how to play the game. Whitewolf/ World of Darkness (WoD ) vampire and werewolf had similar art rpg concepts.
This is exactly how I envision games too haha
I remember coming to this conclusion during the 4e / Pathfinder / Early OSR days. There’s no reason to complain about game systems, make the one you want to use.
Indeed
I feel the same way! Ive had players who didnt like a certain subclass so i quickly tweeked a couple things took an idea from the player made that a quest hook which unlocked a homebrew feat. The campaign was great and all those tweeks made it FEEL great for me the Dm of that campaign and the players
I love this video. I have been DMing for years, starting D&D in the early 80's. I have ADHD, which leads me to be very creative, but I have a bad memory and am not good with a lot of detail. I have condensed the 5e rules to a 4 page Player's Handbook, eschewing a huge load of unnecessary fluff and minutiae. My D&D group loves how much easier this makes the game, how organized my Player's Handbook is, and I love having a Player's Handbook that my players actually read.
Any chance you could post that pamphlet as a publicly accessible document somewhere, perhaps Google Drive for example...
That’s awesome!
Condensing all that to 4 pages is a mastodontic undertaking, hats off to you sir!
I'd be curious to read it 👀
Words to live by Daniel. When I started my latest campaign, the foremost thought in my mind was "What will keep me engaged, interested and fascinated over a very long time? What kind of Fantasy would do that? What kind of setting? What types of play?" I knew if I did that, I would find prep, sessions and everything about the Campaign a positive joy and that I would be engaged for the long haul. The answers were "Low Fantasy start, some High Fantasy engagement later; channel Howard some; Early Modern Era (Age of Sail/Muskets/Printing Press); exploration play discovering unknown continent; classless system with skills that allows building of characters who become heroic; multiple magic systems that match to different religions, cultures and traditions." So for me this led to GURPS. But the bottom line is; find your bliss that will keep you thoroughly engaged. If you are, and allow the players to build the world with you, but stay true to your vision, a GM can do it for the long haul. And the work isn't work; its joy.
Awesome, I’m messing with the Fantasy Trip a bit (kinda pre GURPs) and it’s a neat system
@@BanditsKeepKeep
I am learning The Fantasy Trip as well and hope to get others at the FLGS interested. It is nice tactical combat where facing matters. Armor absorbs damage. Also, the game has no dump stat. I really like that. It makes every decision matter. Do you play TFT legacy or classic? In case you did not know, Melee is available for free.
Been writing up my own setting/system over the past 4 to 5 years!
Setting has nods to alot of things that shaped my idea of fantasy since childhood:
- Conan
- Rankin-Bass cartoons
- Final Fantasy
- Castlevania
- Dark Souls video games
- Lovecraft
- Etc.
Basically.... Dark Sword and Sicence Fantasy... Kinda?
For rules, I've mainly been intrigued by OSE/BX, LotFP, Mork Borg, Forbidden Lands, and a few others.
- 6 ability scores
- modifiers as scores
- player facing roles
- armor as damage reduction
- GLoG style magic
- Various simple classes
- My own takes on races as well as my own original ones
- Rules for three stages of play: The Overworld, Exploration, and Battle.
I've done some minor playtesting, but my first actual real ongoing play test begins I a couple of weeks..weeks .. as soon as I finish converting/chopping down B1 and B2 lol.
Conan,
TMNT - tv cartoon from the 1980's, then the comic book Turtle Soup, TMNT d% rpg game which had a few comic book style pages to tell a short encounter story then doubles back over those pages to explain how the dice rolls worked.
Hell I had to cross TMNT with AD&D2ndE with cartoon action just to keep my sibling and cousin interested in playing, otherwise it was video games and plastic baseball fights.
Castlvania 1, 2, and 3 for the Nintendo of the 1980's. The N64 during the late 1990's just before WotC 3rdE D&D/Star Wars.
WEG west end games d6 system Star Wars rpg.
Zelda
AD&D2ndE
Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) vampire, werewolf, mage and later Mage the Awakening and Changeling the Lost.
Working on my own d6 system with only 15 dice rolling stats, you don't roll for ability scores, just 2d6 for Skills with only three upgrades per given skill. So roll 2d6+3 for given action.
No .. classes .. just arch-type builds.
There are only 12 character levels to advance through, and Xp will be set up which can be played long term campaign style or quick video game rapid advancement.
Whitewolf and WEG Star Wars all stat upgrades and spells/ force powers were bought with Xp.
-basic level up, every two or three levels you get a +1 modifier to all stats more or less. So a 12th-level fighter will only have a +6 modifier to hit with a +3 skill bonus on chosen weapon, total 2d6+9 to hit with their favorite spear. a two handed spear is a large weapon only granting a +3 modifier to dmg. So atk is 2d6+9 with dmg being 2d6+3, but all level hd is d6. So a 12th-level PC knight has 12d6+3 moidifer ( 75hp more or less if you do not reroll 6s or not.) But four lucky hit and anyone can get dropped.
WoD and WEG are more lethal games with one hit kill rules.
Spells, stat upgrades, weapon/combat or saves upgrades are bough separately.
More or less everything fits within six pages.
2.) I am a rule lawyer meta power gamer, anytime when another player wanted an over-the-top character arch-type they asked me on how to bend the rules to get it.
So I over complicate things and I'm working on trying to keep it real simple. But complicated enough to interest the power games or the more experience players with a variety of rules.
I agree with everything you said 100%! This video came out at the perfect time for me because I've just started doing this. I've recently been reading all the different edition rulebooks as well as some non-D&D games. Rather than choosing one, I decided to compile a word doc with my all my favourite rules, which has evolved over time into its own system. Happy adventuring everyone!
Awesome
This reminds me a bit about an article that Gygax wrote about creating campaigns. Essentially, he says to define the setting concept and create a starting area containing a dungeon with some levels prepared, a city to work as the initial hub and some secrets that can work as adventure seeds, I suppose.
I'm using this method to create my homebrew campaign setting and since I'm not aming for the classic D&D setting, I'm very excited to run some games in it and see if the B/X ruleset will be enough or not!
Keep with the great work!
Damn, man. Great video. D&D is the game where the players (DM included) re-invent (at least some aspect) of the game every time they play. The rotating DM thing is absolutely true.
Thanks 😊
Yes! This is the way. Good on you for encouraging this, Daniel. So many people lose the message in the method. It's YOUR game, create it, own it, love it!. I've only ever done it this way. I started at 13 with AD&D, developed further with 3rd Edition in my 20's and I keep the system going today; with my own flavours and small additions from other systems and editions. I'll see if I can sum it up in brief. My character, creatures and adventure generation and reference system is 3/3.5 edition D&D. Anything I create, flavour, change or use and abuse is ported here. I have both the 3rd and 3.5 core rules and a dozen supplements in hard copy, plus 1 module and access to pretty much all of it in PDF. I also have access to the 1st Edition AD&D core rulebooks and a couple of modules and both current starter sets (Not Stormwreck) for 5th edition. I use the advantage/disadvantage mechanic and a tweaked version of the rest & recovery rules from 5th, I use the experience award rates from AD&D, my own home-brewed scaling for level promotion and progression and currency exchanges for turning loot into spendable money. Electrum is a thing, platinum probably can't be exchanged in a small population centre like a village or smaller. My flavour is that of semi-grounded and gritty, Dark, High Fantasy. Think if Howard and Tolkien wrote a book together. Medium Magic, it's known of and people can attend Wizard schools, Warmage college or whatever. It's quite expensive and if they are military sponsored like a warmage, then a term of service and fealty is also required. Wizards, Warlocks, Pact Mages and Sorcerors have also fought witch wars with each other off and on throughout history. The main continent of play, is Sairose. Ecologically and roughly geographically, similar to the North Americas. It's territories have never truly been dominated, by a single race or culture ever. Though over 10's of K's of years, Empires have risen, expanded, declined, fallen and occasionally disappeared entirely across, around and under it. The ecology of the world is such; that if no creature that has ever existed on Earth, ever experienced an ELE. If it ever lived here. Then somewhere, it still lives there. I use any modules I like, researched from reviews and walk-throughs on the net. I port them backwards or forwards. Then flavour them for the world and characters and plug them in.
Hi Daniel! Thanks for talking about this! I feel like this is exactly how I have approached playing D&D nowadays. I have my own system that is hacked together from a bunch of different ttrpgs and I love it. I’d love to share the doc with you and get your thoughts if you’re ever looking for some new ideas! Cheers!
100% agree. Well said. I like low fantasy, and random tables for level advancement to avoid character builds and to focus on problem solving with available tools and abilities. Made my own Frankenstein OSR5E with a pinch of Rients. Never been happier.
If you go examine the earlier versions of PrinceCon D&D rules you'll find tons of charts of percentages as to-hit numbers. That opened my mind as to what you say here, Daniel. Despite a certain specific way of handling things, the d20 or the d100, D&D is a sum of concepts, it's the role-playing itself and nothing that couldn't be tweaked and customized. Very good point, superb video.
Thank You!
This video has REALLY helped me in developing my own D&D style game and being able to let go of trying to follow the D&D rules, as complex as they are, and to just rearrange everything to suit what me and my friends would most likely enjoy to play is such a relief.
The game I'm trying to make is what I'd call a homebrew of D&D, but in the setting of Destiny. When trying to learn about D&D this past week, I was so worried about how I was going to learn everything and how I'd even be able to keep track of it all, or how I'd balance my own version.
Now I know I can just do whatever I want. Ideally, I'm still going to keep as much of the core formula as I can, but when things get to complex and overbearing in information, I'll simply it or replace it with a system I feel would suit us better.
Thank you. This has honestly lifted a great weight off of my shoulders, and I'm now writing my homebrew's guidelines as I speak. (I do specify in it that anyone who plays can add or subtract whatever they want from the guide).
That’s awesome, let me know how it plays at the table.
Agreed!
This is Dungeons and Dragons, its about flat soda and Monty Python jokes at 2am. Its about having fun with friends, and saving the day on graph paper. Its where the settings are made up and rules don't mater.
The rules are meant to serve the narrative, not the other way around. So use what you like, ignore what you don't, and if you have a better idea use that instead, but above all else have fun!
Its your game, make it you're own!
"As the Dungeon Master, you aren't limited by the rules in the Player's Handbook , the guidelines in this book (DMG), or the selection of
monsters in the Monster Manual. You can let your imagination run wild."
(From the DMG 5E pg 263)
For sure
Working with one of my brothers to start a new Wilderlands Campaign as we speak. I love Judges Guild.
cool
@@BanditsKeep join us virtually. My brother, whom's house we are playing at. Has one of the fastest computer set ups i have ever seen. We are rolling charecters up on the 10th of September. Let me know.
I’m glad the comments are agreeing with you on this one, because this is a fantastic topic! Ever since I hacked white box, basic, and my favorite rulings together, I’ve found myself enjoying refereeing more and more!
Awesome
I come back to this video all the time. It means a lot to me.
Thanks, I always hope when I make a video it will connect with at least one person.
Literally watched this video as I printed my own rules for a game next week. I've been spending some time building the D&D I want to run and play and could not be happier. I was looking for something intuitive that encouraged players to plan and think and touch everything, because I was a bit tired of sprawling systems that make players look at their character sheet as a launchpad of buttons to press to solve the next issue.
Started with B/X as a baseline with the aim of producing a 1-page barebones system I could run for one shots and to help beginners get started. After borrowing ideas from several rulebooks and OSR blogs, I ended up with a 5-pager that includes character generation, rules, spells, character sheet and GM screen that captures the tone I was going for. The result is a minimalist game that handles combat, magic, levels and resolving tasks well enough, leaving breathing space for all the other stuff.
So far people have really enjoyed the experience and we got a couple beginners roleplaying in a matter of minutes! I've realised people start trying wild stuff and asking interesting questions in the absence of procedures for everything. And to me that's an ideal game!
It might not be the most comprehensive version of D&D ever made, but it's what I consider the bare minimum I want in my games. The rest, I can wing or make rulings with the stuff I have in my brain, and that's what I aimed for :D
I must say fantastic video, not just the topics but presentation. I am sick of watching videos where there are edits every sentence cause the presenter can't string together sentences and instead of doing one longer cleaner take just chops its up like it's a sci-fi action movie. A speaker that can actually speak, you are a rare beast in this land of youtube!
Thank you ☺️
I think as long as you've played the game enough to understand basically how the rules work, they can and should be hand-picked and modified according to the type of game you want to run. Wherever you want the focus to be, assemble the rule-set to fit. And that goes for everything from a one-shot to a multi-year campaign. The game is very flexible; that's its strength. And all the editions and variants available only add to that. D&D: Some Assembly Required. Great video!
For sure
The game is what you make it. As others have said before, D&D is a game construction tool kit.
My favorite add-on: The fortune die. Roll a d12 when you're trying to accomplish something, in addition to the normal die roll for success/failure. On a 12, something good for the character happens, regardless of the success or failure of the main die roll. On a 1, something bad happens, again regardless of success/failure. Blessings and curses affect the fortune die. This adds a huge extra dimension to the role play, essentially a luck resource to manage. You can build inherently lucky characters. Don't annoy the hedge witch / village priest / local druid. Evil soaked areas are naturally unlucky for good characters.
I love this mindset cause I've began thinking like this. I've heard of how 3.5 offers more creativity with building your character but I've also heard it's more complex than 5e so I decided against dippin my toes into that. But now that you've brought up such great points on how you don't have to stick strictly to an edition and how u can create your own really inspired me. So if you're reading this comment, thank you for inspiring this teen to broaden their perspective on how to build their own game, their own dnd.
That’s awesome! I’d love to hear more as you explore building your own best game.
Daniel, totally agree. I am finishing up play this month with a current group, taking a month to review and update things. Come October, when we return to the table, I am splitting the players into two groups and going with the style of play that works for each. Being an old AD&D (with the original supplements before the DMG), suckered into Pathfinder 1e and now D&D 5e, I have decided to use systems that reflect the vision of my world. So I am looking at DCC for my muse.
Great channel and keep it up.
Sounds cool, DCC is fun
You've made some wonderful points. I'm working on my own game now and there have been times that it looked like it wasn't going to work out, but the key take away was that I know now what I like and don't like. I've found my TTRPG niche. And I don't know if I really realized that before you said it. Thanks, Daniel. Love your content.
Excellent! Thanks
I GM a heavily modified Palladium 1e game which itself was a D&D offshoot (probably 1e or B/X). I use the 4e Nentir Vale "points of light" setting and use both Palladium 1e and modified 4e monster stat blocks. I mine older D&D books and use rare dark vision, combat as battle, BECMI building costs, and whatever things I find in any D&D Edition or offshoot that fits the "points of light" style of my campaign setting. It's been a wild time building and I've been GMing it 1.5 years so far. Make the game your own!
I am really loving your channel!! You've got a whole lot of really helpful insight. Without being overly didactic.
I add a lot of the B/X exploration procedures to 5e when I run it for sure. The next time I kick off a 5e game I'll be trying the optional "background/personality proficiency" rules from the DMG to get rid of skills. I also want to try a modified B/X style I initiative in 5e. I'm not 100% convinced that will work, but it's worth a try.
That’s awesome - I went side initiative in my games and rolled every round A the players really liked it - was way easier for them to use teamwork in combat
Re: Forgetting the rules and starting from the ground up- So much this. I spent years fiddling with 3.5 and PF1, but in the last month or so I've thrown away the attack roll for dice pools and it just works so much better for me.
Instead of rolling to hit and rolling damage it's just a single roll to see how much damage happens and it's been so liberating lol
Excellent
So it’s impossible to miss?
@@groovegnome hitting and missing is a roleplaying construct as I see it.
Whether an attack hits or misses is going to vary between characters and monsters, whether they're a tank who would endure a hit or a skill based character who would evade it or a magic based character who might counter it.
The Hit Point bar is just a progress meter that shows how close that character is to being defeated through attacks
I’m almost finished with my own fantasy ttrpg which was born out of my year long campaign doing exactly what this video talks about. Mixing and matching my own rules, systems, etc. and sewing them together into a Frankenstein’s monster. -Tons of fun!
Additionally I’ve made systems before that have failed, but like Daniel says, you learn from that each time and it helps you out the next time you inevitably start the next project.
That's awesome!
I just started watching your videos and I must say much of what you say resonates with me. I guess it's because I'm an old school dungeon master (and pretty old as well). Much of what you said about making your own D&D edition just validates what I've been doing lately. I have just started running an OSR-type game using Swords & Wizardry as the basic platform. My players seem to be scratching their heads as they see me continuously piling up rules from other D&D editions and OSR rules sets in addition to my own house rules. So far, everyone is having a good time, so I'm just taking this as far as it will go.
That’s awesome
Came to this video because of the topic and the urge I've been having recently to write up my own system. There's a lot of little rules ideas here and there, scattered in released games, blogs or advice videos (some of which are your own!) and I've often wondered lately what all the stuff I enjoy would look like collated together.
Who knows maybe I'll get past the mind mapping stages of this one :P
Even just the mind mapping can be fun!
I guess I could actually discuss some of what im working on. The following is to be tacked onto to the traditional 5th edition of the game.
So i started d&d with 4th edition, and prejudices aside I had some of my greatest d&d memories from that version of the game. Also, for what it’s worth i play a mid to high magic game, combined with low magic level consequences for failure.
So theres some mechanics from 4e im pulling over, specifically the combat/tactical advantage(a simple +2 bonus to things) and spreading that out across more than just combat. I believe some moments are good to award a player but not with full advantage.
I wanna pull the dungeoneering skill straight over as it was a method for non thief or tinker characters to engage with traps and physical mechanics in a dungeon.
I’ve already encouraged more active use of skills like Arcana and religion. In 4e there wasn’t a detect/identify ability and it fell on the Arcana skill instead. I still don’t detail specifically what could told using those spells but arcana checks to know that magic is in the area, or to discover secret doors I allow.
I’ve got an idea for a Knowledge Mechanic to open up roleplay for more esoteric things. A fighter could have knowledge about certain favored weapons/armor while a wizard could have knowledge in things like Legend/lore since I've never met a player that uses the spell Legend/lore.
I've been tinkering with an Alchemy system as well as other sorts of crafting. One of my favorites being Spell Charms. Trinkets made to cast a certain spell X number of times. I've already seen players make excellent plays/situations with their charms.
The stuff you said about alignment language hit really home and I'm just pulling the idea straight from you Daniel.
Lastly, I'm personally a combat sportsman in my spare time, I'm fond of practice Boxing and Mixed Martial arts, and as such I'm working on feats to open up the unarmed combat portion of the game.
Cheap yellow plastic baseball fights are fun, learn that from my grandfather.
As teenagers me and my cousins found if you slick the bats down with dish soap and fought bare chested, those cheap light weight plastic bats leave whets on impact.
Pain and anger management skills to laugh off pain.
Yes I got dog pack by my little sister and her friends multiple of times.
Teenage girls can get mean when they are bored.
OD&D, AD&D and BECMI are very compatible. Any rule or table from any of these systems are easily adapted to any other.
Indeed - though the stat modifiers are very different.
I have created a material source of magical energy for my campaign. It allows not only for spells/artifacts to be powered, but also acts as a resource in the world that political and commercial factions vie for. It also allows non-caster characters to interact with magical circles, riddles and traps. It also plays a major role in enchantment.
Nice
A method for rolling ability scores. Roll 3d6 for each Str Int Wis Dex Con Cha Gold, in that order. When choosing a race/class the player may swap the highest roll with any other roll, then multiply Gold score x10. This is a simple answer to help a little for those who feel too restricted by classic character creation.
For sure
Agree 100% with this. Roll your own is the way to go.
For sure
I have done exactly that. My version started out as Ad&D, we then added selected feats from 3rd edition into the proficiency system. I then made monsters a cross between 3rd edition and 5th and lastly we use the 5th edition spells, with some select ad&d spells. Its a real frankenstien. We have a large number of saves. The saves from Ad&d, except rod staff, wand (we got rid of that) plus the ability saves from 5e. Ive kept a few monsters attacks as sa Ive also added abilities at each level for the characters, mostly taken from 5e. No multiclassing. Ive kept certain save or die mechanics, ive kept vampires draining levels etc and i am balancing as we go. Highest group so far is 8th level and its still a challenge for them even though they are very powerful. More powerful than even in 5e, but as im balancing around the characters it still feels pretty deadly.
As a DM, I am always looking to explore new ways to play DnD and incorporate thoughtful rules that both newer and more experienced players like. Currently, I am setting up a game where characters start at lvl 0 and they use the pathfinder retraining rules to turn into their level 1 characters. This allows newer players to take initiative on how they want to play and find what weapons work for them. The hook for the older players is that every retraining come a boon of free a quarter caster spell table or a bonus ability from another class.
Cool, is that from PF1 or PF2? Or both?
@@BanditsKeep
This is the PF1 retraining rules. It's "8 hours of intense training per day" and because it's retraining an NPC class it will take 3 in game days.
I've never understood the semantic arguments about "RAW". The rules say the it's the DM's world, and you make or change whatever you want at your table. That power is always tempered by the objective which is to run a fun game for your players. Whatever that means to you and your group.
Personally, I run a high magic world, with powerful characters, that way I don't feel guilty about luring the sorcerer forward to then unleash a flurry of blows on him (those children were so innocent, even though detect magic said they had necrotic magic)! Or a succubus "girlfriend" for the fighter who can't resist her charms. Or Kobolds stealing all the players gold when they went down a shaft in a dungeon with no other way out.
I feel like an encounter goes well when at least one player says something like," oh come on, now what!?" That's just the right level of challenge to be fun and satisfying.
Sounds fun to me!
Old cartoon from Dungeon or Dragon magazine from the 1990's, .. ( Monster Bait)
Halfling hanging from a rope down a pit to trigger a monster to attack, the halfling, goblin, and short orc lasso to draggling ropes looks at the dragon and yells back up the shaft ..
" All is clear and safe down here !"
I'm currently working on two game systems: first, an OSR style low-fantasy game that pulls together my favourite bits from a variety of games into one place & (hopefully) streamlines them into the version of D&D that I've always wanted, and a 1970s/80s vigilante movie simulator because that's always been one of my favourite genres. It's an interesting experience to realize what tweaks are required to simulate wildly different genres using the same basic "tool kit"
Rewatch the Conan moves with your friends with a stopwatch and count the combat hits and when they happen to plot out dice action encounters.
Play fights with plastic baseball fights and reenacting the action scenes in the Conan movies is a fun way to learn Stage Acting.
My grandfather was fun playing with the grandchildren. Sword fighting and shooting craps 1960's US navy style. Us 1980's grade school kids were loudly arguing over green army men on who hit who along with He-Man.
Steps, green army men had 1d6hp mark with a die next to the figure.
Step two, laying flat or cover gives a +1 to +3 cover defense.
Step three, roll 2d6 against each other to see who hits.
Same thing for He-Man.
There are like twenty rules covering the battles between army men rolling 2d6.
We made up rules just to see how to bend, break, and to cheat at them.
Along with hand twisting a screw driver into the number pits to work lead into them, and we were 5 and 6 years old to cheat our teenage aunt's boyfriends during game play.
" I bet you .50 cents I can beat you at dice army men."
Man we had 0.75cent comic book money back in the 1980's. Five comic books a week was living large.
When my granddad and granny's brother was in the navy, they set up plastic army men to hid that they were playing .. craps
Some of my grandparents Tall Tales were anything but Low Fantasy.
I will experiment with this, as the process of making D&D/Pathfinder your own is something that interests me. I like this talk even more because it goes way beyond what I was originally thinking and I might make something more interesting to me in this way.
Excellent
Good video. A friend of mine introduced me to Deathbringer recently, which is now my preferred gaming system. My current goal is to pull together good RPG elements from a variety of sources and add my own ideas to do the very thing you're talking about: make my own RPG.
Excellent
Geezer here, yep. Homebrew everything. Beginning serious playtest in the next month. Although I have played the majority of it for years. Just now putting pdfs together. Have google docs if you would care to take a gander. Gaming on.
Awesome, I’d love to
I run a game for my friends where we play a Frankenstein of 10% of B/X, 80% of Holmes Basic, and 10% Ad&d, Greyhawk, and house rules. I take the best of all the systems. I think this is the spirit of Old School D&D. I have been running this type of game for a year almost. It is by far the best. My players and I prefer a low-magic, dark and gritty game, this is why a mix of 1977 Basic and 1981 Basic is perfect. It it rules light and open to more house rules. Sorry for my ramblings... 🤣
PS: I love your videos.
Cool, sounds fun!
@@BanditsKeepAdditionally, one of the players named his character Daniel, after you because you got him into OSR.
@BanditsKeep Rewatched the video, and just updating what changes have happened. The game is now a base of 1977 Holmes basic, and added a bunch of my home brew rules. I've been busy and added a lot of home brew. Its gotten me closer to the dark, gritty, depressing games I've been trying to get towards. PS: I want to thank you Daniel, for introducing me into Old-School types of D&D, I thought I just didn't like D&D when I tried it years ago, not true, I just didn't like 5th edition. :)
I think this helps change my mindset after so long of thinking about my initial journey into tabletop RPGs. Although I've always stuck with the rules in each rulebook I collect as I go. I think it gets repetitive and unsatisfying to run the game by the book with no changes whatsoever. Though these experiences are often from a solo perspective and my GMing experience is very minimal.
As long as friends/groups are enjoying the type of game you are running. Then there is nothing wrong how you want to make such changes.
For sure
I totally agree with this. Currently beta testing my own hybrid. Loads of fun!
Awesome
My 1st edition players handbook has notations all throughout it.
There are rules for Mana use for mages.
Notations for character class levels by stats. For character class levels by race.
Notations for spells for clarification on effects, etc...
Different Dungeon Masters had slightly different rules for their campaign and some we had agreed upon for several different campaigns.
For making magic items that were common, mages had certain rules they followed in one campaign that were different in another campaign.
The DM was the final arbiter for their campaign and we all understood that.
I remember several times when we would just sit down and discuss certain aspects of this and that so that game play would go faster next time.
Nobody ever screamed FOUL at the DM or swore never to play in their game again.
Cool
Great stuff as always Daniel. I think another potential source for discovering the kind of D&D you like is playing with other DM's and in other systems. Sometimes you discover a style or mechanic that you really like and can incorporate it into your own play. You mention "hand waving" in the video. I remember first watching a DM use this when the session was coming to an end so that we would be in a good place to stop. We had a random monster that flew high overhead, we hid, it moved on and no battle. I thought "oh, you don't have to be a prisoner to the die rolls". I played Traveler and decided to incorporate some sci-fi into my game. Same with Metamorphosis Alpha. And if you play wargames you might find a mechanic that allows you to streamline large scale combat if you don't want to get bogged down in that kind of battle.
For sure!
I've pretty much created my own spin on the 3.5/Pathfinder 1e system over the years, with loads of changes, and I plan to make it available some day. It has extra dodge AC from BAB, damage reduction on armor, natural attacks with enhancement bonus depending on creature type and HD, automatic Weapon Finesse and Dex-Mod on damage with light piercing and slashing weapons and more. Am also working on an alchemy system for creating potions etc without spellcasting, and creature part harvesting, but that's a load of work and kinda in the backlog ^^
Nice, sounds fun
I was intrroduced to Original D&D in the late 70s, but I didn't start running the game until the three core AD&D books had come out (late '79/early '80). I find 5e to be the best game yet, but fear the next iteration. My setting is not extremely different from "traditional fantasy" - AD&D players would not find it as alien as many of the newer material. It has some high fantasy elements. I've been worldbuilding for so many years now...
I have many tweeks to 5e. Three examples of just how minor most are:
- Guidance adds +4 to the roll, not 1d4, but you are immune to being affected by the spell for an hour.
- The Flame Arrows spell does not require concentration.
- Drinking a potion in combat is a bonus action if you take the Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, or Search action. Otherwise, it is the Use An Object action. Administering a potion to another character is also the Use An Objection action.
Others changes are more complicated. I have a few custom races, but I don't allow many of the official races, including some of the standard races like Half Elves and Half Orcs. I don't allow about half of the subclasses that have come out post PHB. I've made several "replacement" feats. Some of these changes are to make the rules better fix my homebrew setting.
Yes, I am making my own system. A 3d20 system, DH1, DL1. Right now there is no place to get the rules except in a Discord or through random playtest packets I have sent out.
I created my own version many years ago. I used to call it v2.5 (mostly 2nd-ed with those parts of 3.5 that I liked). Much of 3rd-ed introduced things I was already doing, long before 3rd came out. Even my first ever campaign featured monsters with character levels. So far, I've not heard anything about 4th or 5th that I like.
Cool! I tend to fall into the camp of character levels etc are for the players - monsters have their own rules, but I can see certain benefits to this type of system for sure
@@BanditsKeep For sure. The most important things to keep in mind are:
1: Keep it fun
2: Keep it balanced
3: If you're going to deviate from the published rules, be sure that it makes sense
Example: If a goblin adventure is planned for a first level party and the players reach second level before getting to the goblins, then giving the most important goblins (let's say, the chieftain and his personal bodyguards) a level or two in fighter might be a better solution than just adding more goblins.
Funny, I would do neither - the party has earned level 2 and should reap the rewards which would be an advantage over the goblin group - different play styles to be sure.
@@BanditsKeep Okay, you're right. Maybe it wasn't the best example. Maybe I should instead have said it was a published adventure designed for level 1 and you want to re-scale it for level 2 (or for a larger party).
I loved this video! I have been toying with the idea of making my own version of D&D for a while and you have been very inspirational with this video!
Awesome, thanks
This was one of the best talking head DnD videos I've seen and I wholeheartedly agree with the message for the most part.
I think 5e and it's popularity does a phenomenal job of introducing people to tabletop roleplaying games and does enough things to give players a sense of what they like and don't like. I think the major mistake players then make is they think 5e is all their is and never branch out.
Personally, I prefer exploring/recommending the other RPG systems that exist rather than creating my own system from scratch, but maybe I'm just lazy 😂
Subbed and about to burn through your backlog!
I agree, it’s a good idea to play/run many systems to really know what you like
I am currently working on B/X flavored hack for solo and one on one play. The biggest challenge is the party roles, but as they are solitary characters I open up magic item use, allow for some light training in the other traditional roles, and I run monsters as mobs so they only get one attack (though it is a doozy sometimes). That takes care of the action economy problem. The swingyness of a d20 roll is worked out with a 3d6 action resolution that focus on the usefulness of a bell curve (I got the chart from a 3d6 turn undead table from a white box hack.
I put the game on a silver scale and reduced all the treasure in coin by 90%. This allows the PC to carry away the same value of coin but rearranged to their limited capacity. Hirelings are just that and tend to fade into the background.
Most other bx rules remain the same (moral, sight distance, random encounters etc).
I am still in play test, but it is working pretty well.
Sounds cool, I really enjoy one on one play. I’ve mostly used DCC for this so the carrying of treasure was less of an issue (to level up) but I like that silver solution here, simple without messing too much with the structure
I set up my own version of OSE Advanced Fantasy that incorporates a bunch of stuff from the 3.5 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting as well as a few other Homebrew stuff. I also expanded spells from AD&D 1st edition (which in some cases has to be converted) as well as equipment options from Basic Fantasy.
I have only play tested it a few times but players seemed to like it.
Sounds cool
I think of it like this; RPG rules only need to be used to eliminate arguments, everything else is optional.
I think players need to have an idea of the rules (whatever they may be) to make intelligent choices, and to me that is the game.
That's what I want to do, yay!
Awesome!
I've been Frankensteining together a form of D&D made up of 5E classes and mechanics, 4E powers (converted to fit those mechanics), and a 3.5E style spell slot system (tweaked with an upcasting _and_ downcasting system inspired by Chrono Cross's element grid).
Nice!
Only one of my house rules is "original" (though someone must have thought of this before): Half-Levels.
Half-Level advancement: at the half way point between 2 levels, and at full levels, PCs get 1/2 more hit point (so fighters roll 1d4, and Magic-Users 1d2). Cleric turn ability increases by 1 (since the B/X default increases by 2 every level). Thieves get a halfway skill increase. If a magic user would get access to two new spells at the full level they'll gain the lower one at the previous half level instead. Etc.
Obviously there are lots of details and edge cases, but this is the big idea. My reasoning is that players love to level up but I didn't want to artificially speed up advancement in my campaign. So this way they get to "level up" twice as often. It also has the side benefit of slightly increasing PCs average hit points without raising a class's maximum hit points, making characters slightly more survivable earlier in the game.
Fascinating.
In my own game I went the opposite direction, reducing the levels.
My game has levels 0-9/10 (still deliberating between having 10th level spells and a 10th level or not) with level 0 an Apprentice level (that I don't particularly intend to use in play) that corresponds to Cantrips (a finite resource in my games similar to 3rd edition but a bit stronger, good enough to use when the Magic User is out of spells or doesn't have the right one(s) prepared but not something that can be spammed like a bow.
Cool idea, yes, players love to level up!
One reason I 'left' 5e is that so many DM's in 5e are terrified to do precisely what Daniel has described. It has eased a bit in the last year (post-OGL mess) but the view that somehow only something play tested by WotC is credible has been pervasive for a long time. These days, I am now very much in the Classic/OSR camp (OSE Advanced to be specific) and it feels so liberating! And way more fun and relaxed esp. to DM.
Indeed
I tinker with d&d systems all of the times and I have for years
Excellent
Grit, Combat, Treasure and there’s always a chance.
Cool!
Extremely helpful points! I'm currently DMing OSE work light tweaking but I'm missing the "skill" system i used in my own homebrew I crafted last year. The main idea was that thiefs do thief things, mages do mage things etc. Like a basic idea of what your character is good at based mainly on class but also possibly background stuff. No specific skills. That would set the difficulty 7/10/13 for d20 + ability mod roll.
Cool
I 've done a lot of looking and thinking about the type of D&D I like to run and for me it's White Box with the supplement White Box Expanded Lore. it has the simplicity of OD&D allwoing me to make rulings not rules and explanded Lore gives my players more options for classes and features for those classes. WIth this version magic isn't as abundant as modern versions but I can compinsate that with giving players magic items.
Nice!
Such good advice, I just use the basic dnd rules just as a point of reference for the power levels of monsters.
Cool
11:23 -- ya! I"ve been streaming the past few months the development of a 5e mass combat and 4x guild/city resource system to use as downtime activities. 5e doesn't scale out from the individual hero efforts but that leadership role was fun from 1st, 2nd, 3rd edition.
Cool
Fantastic video! I love this message!
Thank You!
I literally did this. My houserules got too extensive so I wrote my "own edition" from the ground-up, using AD&D 2e as a base and adding ideas from OD&D, 4e, 5e, LotFP, DCCRPG, 13th age, dungeon world, a zillion blog articles/forum discussions, and my own best practices. I print a dozen or so copies a couple times a year to hand out. About 150 pages in A5 format replacing the PHB, DMG, and MM.
Awesome
@@azzTwild For sure! If you wanna send me your email/reddit/some platform I can dm you I'll send you a copy.
I'm trying to reply with my email but YT keeps deleting the comment I think
I'll try and DM you somehow I forget how to do it on here....
@@azzTwild type your email with s/a/s/h/e/s between each character?
This is a sign, i was thinking about writing a system with adventues. With how copyrights so many creative things just sit on shelf
Cool, in what way does copyright come in to play?
@@BanditsKeep hasbro and WOTC has well written worlds, monsters, and adventures. So much so that If you try to make your own it just comes off as copying. That's why I believe that there will be no real change in 6 edition Dungeons & Dragons. The wheel has been made why re make it.
Again a very helpful video. Thank you ☺️
Thanks 😊
I think it boils down to a balance between players wanting to "do the cool thing", DMs wanting to setup the cool scenario and making it challenging but accomplish-able.
I have run scenarios without a system or dice and they tend boil down to co-operative story telling.
The game system and the introduction of a random element help "realism" and remove some of the "you never let me do the cool thing" from co-op story telling.
If you pay attention to little kids playing you will notice the struggles of co-op story telling. 🤣
For sure - all kids should be given a d20 when they play 😂
I would be very interested to hear what rules changes or additions you make to your home games for thr various systems you play and why.
Interesting idea
Another enjoyable video, thanks for the ideas!
Thank You!
I have an idea kicking around for a classless system and skill based magic. My current players can't be bothered to read the rules of the base game we play, so play testing with them feels pointless as they don't have any solid reference for rules.
Just have them say what they want to do any you can handle the rules part!
@@BanditsKeep true, I guess I could just gauge the funness. Tho I would eventually need some feedback about the actual rules and system mechanics. I feel like I'll need some more experienced and attentive players for that.
Luckily I just found some in old acquaintances of mine who will be joining our group.
I’m an old gamer and have spent 100s of hours modifying and house ruling D&D up until version 3.5… at which time I just gave up on D&D and started playing other games with seismically better rules. Forbidden Lands is the most recent fantasy RPG that leaves D&D 5.0 (and Pathfinder) in the dust.
No every game is for every group.
I am currently trying to come up with my own system that doesn't use spell slots, I guess I kinda started with Pathfinder in that you get a bunch of actions and some spells use more actions. But I started thinking if there are no spell slots then what's to stop someone from spamming their strongest spell every turn? Then yesterday I came up with the tired rule, some spells are so powerful that you get momentarily winded or drained of energy and have to catch your breath, then on your next turn you have 1 or 2 less actions to represent that, that way you don't have enough Actions to cast it every turn, maybe every other turn. Then some more powerful spells deal so much damage you could wipe out an entire army, like a 9th level fireball, but you gain exhaustion, so if you spam spells like that, you could drop dead if you don't give the character a chance to rest. I also added you recover from exhaustion faster
Interesting
I believe OD&D is the best for house rules and settings.
Agreed
Great video. I've been tinkering around the edges of D&D for years wit homebrew rules. I just recently found out about Shadowdark RPG which is NOT D&D but takes very heavy inspiration from OSR or B/X D&D and merges it with some new school mechanics. After just a single one shot session my heavily modified 5E campaign voted to switch to Shadowdark, which is great because I strongly prefer the OSR vibe. You have a great channel and I'm glad I subscribed, especially now that your advice will be more relevant than ever to my campaigns. If you get a chance, check out Shadowdark. I'd like to know your thoughts on it.
Awesome! I look forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences with Shadowdark
The main reason I started watching your channel is because I am hacking 1st ed AD&D to make my own system. But I have also written a very non-dnd game, it removes levels completely.
Awesome! Is it skill based?
I'm building a world where magic is generally illegal, mostly criminals or isolated areas from the big cities use it in secrecy. This is enforced by, ironically, magic users.
Interesting
And Dry World, now on itch and drivethrurpg, is a great example of how to strip dnd of everything an making a whole new feel! Check it out, Dry World!!
🙌🏻
Fantastically stated
Thank You!
Each DM creates their own version with the help from the player.
What is the best of D&D?
The BBRG is slain and you hear lamentations of the minions.
🗡🗡
Everyone’s doing it!
Yes!
I'm working on a SciFi game, wanting to make something simple and pulling inspiration mostly from White Box and BX.
We had a blast in the first play-test, you are on to something for sure!
I'm starting my first campaign soon, and I'm making my own system for it. Oddly, not my first system
Cool
Hey that's a good idea!!!
Thank You!
My beef with D&D is primarily with combat taking too long & not having enough tension.
A homebrewed D&D version would probably scrap turns & initiative and be more free-flowing: players all simultaneously do move and attack actions & roll dice.
Add in the defense bonus rule from 3.5 too - makes sense PCs should improve defense skills when leveling up & not only to-hit bonus!
Also think casting spells ought to be more interesting than saying "I cast fireball". Like why not allow players to cast any number of spells from the PHB, with the catch they have to memorize a certain phrase for each spell. Maybe something in Latin, like Ulrich in Dragonslayer? Players would have an incentive to study their spellbook between sessions, kind of like real wizards.
Book is about 15 years old now, Whitewolf/World of Darkness(WoD): Mage the Awakening has a nice dice system for free flowing magic. Along with not too difficult to cross spells into D&D use. WoD system is a lot better than D&D when it comes to powering up and tearing apart spirit beings in running a Blood War campaign in Baator/devils vs Abbys/demons.
I think it might be one of the fighting fantasy books I’ve looked at that made you (the reader) memorize the spells you could cast - seems fun to me
@@BanditsKeep Yes, Steve Jackson's Sorcery series. Each spell was like a short one syllable word, not too hard to memorize. It was fun, I still own the spellbook. You'd study up on the spells prior to each adventure.
Man I can’t stop making game systems
I’m the same
Hey Daniel, I'm wondering how much play your Word Magic system has seen in your games. Does it have staying power?
We enjoyed it - played I believe 3-4 games with it as tests but never started a true campaign with it (I had 3 going) I suspect the power level might be too high for many tables in a long campaign, but I could see a certain kind of group taking it in a fun long term direction
Still working on my "RPG rules that won't annoy me". I've done a lot of medieval research over the decades and done many years of armoured combat too. So D&D contains a lot of stuff that annoys me ;)
ha ha, you are not alone!
Late 1990's at my first RPG gaming shop, ..
a.) 3second combat melee rounds, Whitewolf/ World of Darkness(WoD) vampire d10 system " posers."
b.) 6second combat melee rounds, TMNT d% system
c.) 1 minute combat melee rounds, AD&D2ndE .. " gatekeepers/ armchair warriors," so called due to all the D&D books they read so they think they understand medieval melee combat.
My first gaming shop was also a pain blast aero soft gun shop, weight bench to press and dead lift for your character's strength score, along with foam weapon larpers that also had cheap yellow plastic baseball fights.
After a quick few seconds beat down, the armchair scholar warrior learn to shut up. Combat was rolled to be 3 to 6 seconds long, any smug DM said combat was a minute long the shop own offer his plastic baseball bats to help them understand reality.
D&D players/DM that acted like AD&D2ndE strength score of 12 to 15 was above average or str:17 was legendary heroic was shown the weight bench. Even for skinny dishwashers could dead lift the weight equal to the str rating of 15, and he didn't ever did farm work of pulling on goats. Most of the big stocky guys around 6ft that played football/rugby average at str:17 or low 18/00 -45.
Other than some bull crap gatekeeping from the thirty and forty year olds, and whinny from the twenty year olds without any imagination. It was a chill place on how the shop owner let things play out.
Gatekeepers, " One on one DM and player, allow Only One character to the player to PC ! Not eight PCs for a single player ! "
Shop owner, " His game, his table, his style of rules."
Point was those gatekeeping jerks didn't want a new guy in their group who didn't know how to play and were passing the time for the more charismatic DM to show up.
So I had a hand drawn dungeon and used a chess board to play out on with chess pieces and different color plastic army men. I gave the new guy two of each class to work with to learn the rules and to work on Role playing voice acting to get a Feel for how thing went.
Then the other Better DMs shown up, and they join my game with .. multiple .. PCs to work with. The gatekeeping jerk lost three of HIS players to join my group.
Many of the players/DM have played other gaming systems so had no problem blending the rules. Some players just didn't like AD&D and how the ability scores worked, but once I explain the d20 of every 1point equal 5%, a fighter with str:9 roll under instead of rolling Thac0 had a base chance of 45% to hit and each point of AC reduce their % to hit. Which in other gaming system you roll dexterity to hit and not strength to hit. So after some time we re did AD&D instead of rolling high on Thac0 with strength, it was roll under dexterity to hit, and under strength to have push/shove/knock back effects when getting hit. Thac0 bonus of 17 as a 4th-level fighter equal a +3 to hit bonus, or 15% to hit which raised your roll under score to hit by three points.
Disagree with me and there are the plastic baseball bats waiting for you.
We had a few Deaf players that could fast sign with their hands and rubber band you. They were very good at Dodging bat swings and rubber banding people as a Larper spellcaster.
Problem in my area back in the late 1990's, in my town we still had those dumb azz c0ps caught up believing in that " Satanic Panic " crap.
Which wasn't overly fun at times. So we Dazel them with word math % point jargon till them lost their zhit.
2.) There was a couple of older guy that brough their children to the show only for the paint guns and to play Magic the Gathering. But the .. regular .. players were more than happy to help with math homework and spot the teenagers and dads bench pressing, it was a family place.
Second gaming shop was ran by the owner's wife who DM and she had a baby, .. so we got use to very young children, grade school children, junior high school teenagers playing WotC D&D3.5e, MtG, and Hero Clicks. So we had to learn to .. watch .. our language. And Everyone wanted to bend the Rules that annoy them or slowed the game down, limited the action, or add more variant rules to create more drama for the game.
EZ D6 and then take the Factions, Crafting, and Sea Exploration Rules from Lavender Hack
Cool
I came to the conclusion long ago that D&D is not a game, but a game engine. You tweak the engine to work with your setting. This is how D&D used to be, and how they make video games to this day. After I get done running the current "kitchen sink" 5e game with friends, I am going to collect my notes and start writing some stuff for the "engine" and setting of my next game.
Excellent
Good video, hoss!
🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
Yep, I’m also tinkering with my own system. The great think about B/X is it’s simple to add and change things.
Perhaps one day it will be subjected to players and hopefully not break too much :)
I agree. My players break everything so I never worry about that part 😂