The D&D thread

Aaron · Jan 14, 2023

Just heard about this yesterday. So if I understand this correctly, it goes something like this: A huge corporate conglomerate called ~~Activision~~ Hasbro bought out a smaller, well loved gaming company called ~~Blizzard~~ WotC that made fan favourites such as ~~WarCraft~~ D&D. When the stonks dropped, the soulless suits at the top looked at the Dollar revenue per consumer Excel sheet and wanted to up it, so they sent out orders to "monetize the system" which results in a shitty, soulless moneygrabbing product and not the fan favourite that brought it to where it is now?

Well, sad but whatever. I've found out that there is a shit ton of interesting RPGs out there, many very good and have little or not ties to D&D. Just of the top of my head I can name Delta Green, a sort of Cthulhu meets the X-Files game; Alien RPG, set in the Alien universe, very good mechanics; Traveller, more precicesly Mongoose 2nd edition. a great and very detailed space RPG infamous for being able to die during character creation, and the Cthulu RPG. Those who want to role play and roll dice are in no means limited to D&D and Pathfinder.

Qhue · Jan 14, 2023

I do wonder just how many D&D Beyond subs were cancelled this past week. You know that Hasbro didn't do a damn thing until their evergreen revenue source of monthly subs started to get dinged.

Mist · Jan 14, 2023

I haven't seen anything backfire this hard, this fast since Blizzard wanted to force people to use their real names on the battle.net forums.

bigmark268 · Jan 14, 2023

The d&d community is the nerdiest community. And you don't screw with nerds and their games/collectibles. That being said the quality of the wizkidz d&d minis are fucking trash. I've taken to scooping up tons of the old 3.5 and 4e minis. Just cause I like that aesthetic the most.

Mist · Jan 14, 2023

Qhue said:
Most people seem to be content with their decision to ditch DnDBeyond. Now the onus is on Hasbro to actually create a world class virtual table top for One D&D in order to compete and I guarantee they will not manage to do it. Then they will have to decide which of the existing VTTs they cough up money and buy which will be, at the very least, egg on their face. I would be shocked if that Amazon woman they hired a year ago doesn't 'chose to explore new opportunities' sometime in the next few weeks.

WotC tried like 6-7 times to build a good digital MTG experience and finally got to MTG Arena, which is fantastic from a playing experience, and the only real limitation of the gameplay experience is that it's still limited to two players and I don't see that changing anytime soon. (I happen to think the economy of it is basically fine, though lots of people disagree with good reasons.)

I think WotC will eventually land on a VTT that is good but has pretty bad monetization and it'll be interesting to see if people go along with it or not. The core game of D&D is really hard to monetize, most of it just happens in your imagination once you own enough books to put together a decent game, and books can be copied. WotC would be much better off investing in using the IP to build next-gen, highly monetizable products. To me, a no-brainer would be some kind of Neverwinter Nights-meets-Valheim type game where players can build their own mini-MMO-scale worlds using assets they buy from WotC, then setup some kind of revenue-share model for access to these worlds. WotC should honestly look at Star Citizen and see that some people are willing to shell out a shitload of money for digital goods on the promise of building their gameplay experiences. Out of nearly all products, D&D is the textbook example of a highly monetizable, metaverse-ready IP, the only better one I can think of would be like the digital Lego universe.

Mist · Jan 14, 2023

Qhue · Jan 14, 2023

Mist said:
WotC tried like 6-7 times to build a good digital MTG experience and finally got to MTG Arena, which is fantastic from a playing experience, and the only real limitation of the gameplay experience is that it's still limited to two players and I don't see that changing anytime soon. (I happen to think the economy of it is basically fine, though lots of people disagree with good reasons.)

I think WotC will eventually land on a VTT that is good but has pretty bad monetization and it'll be interesting to see if people go along with it or not. The core game of D&D is really hard to monetize, most of it just happens in your imagination once you own enough books to put together a decent game, and books can be copied. WotC would be much better off inventing in using the IP to build next-gen, highly monetizable products. To me, a no-brainer would be some kind of Neverwinter Nights-meets-Valheim type game where players can build their own mini-MMO-scale worlds using assets they buy from WotC, then setup some kind of revenue-share model for access to these worlds. WotC should honestly look at Star Citizen and see that some people are willing to shell out a shitload of money for digital goods on the promise of building their gameplay experiences. Out of nearly all products, D&D is the textbook example of a highly monetizable, metaverse-ready IP, the only better one I can think of would be like the digital Lego universe.

You and I and really anyone with a shred of imagination can come up with half a dozen relatively-easy monetization strategies that would have filled their coffers. Instead they came up with half-assed merch and a history of abject failure when it came to internal development of digital D&D tools, games, etc and then turned to pure greed as a stop-gap solution. Looking at the resume of the person they hired you had to see this coming so they knew exactly what they were doing... and they did it anyway because they thought it would be easy.

I mean for fucks sake just having fully rigged virtual miniatures that work in a VTT would bring in $$ like mad. Then you create extra skins and 'outfits' for those minis HeroForge style (or.. ya know... just BUY HeroForge) and the products almost develop themselves.

Grabbit Allworth · Jan 14, 2023

I've taken a break from rage today and announced this change for my players for our next campaign (after the current one comes to its conclusion in the Summer).

I've made a significant number of adjustments to 5e and many of which are designed to make the game more difficult while also providing the players with numerous additional progression paths. Basically, they have so many options they literally cannot do everything available to them.

Anyway, this is the change for the new campaign. I saw something like it somewhere, but I can't remember where or who it was so I can't give proper credit for the inspiration.

Fate-
Death in many games of 5e is little more than an inconvenience (unless the entire party is killed). The fear of consequence... the fear of failure...the fear of death are core elements needed to create the beautiful tension and drama at the table. Without the gravity of those elements, it is not uncommon for a game to become stale and success becomes a foregone conclusion by simply going through the motions.

I am making an effort to raise the stakes by implementing a statistic called: Fate.

Characters may only receive resurrection-like magic equal to twice their total character level in spell levels. Other than gaining two Fate points with each level, a character's Fate total can never be increased or modified in any way.

Each time a character is brought back from death their Fate points are reduced by a number equal to the spell level that revived them. Once a character has exhausted their Fate points (or they do not have enough Fate points for a needed spell), they can no longer be restored to life and the character is permanently retired.

For example – a 7th level character would have a Fate total of 14. This character could receive two Resurrections (7x2=14) or two Raise Dead and a Revivify (5x2+3x1=13) before being permanently dead.

Conefed · Jan 14, 2023

Grabbit Allworth said:
I've taken a break from rage today and announced this change for my players for our next campaign (after the current one comes to its conclusion in the Summer).

I've made a significant number of adjustments to 5e and many of which are designed to make the game more difficult while also providing the players with numerous additional progression paths. Basically, they have so many options they literally cannot do everything available to them.

Anyway, this is the change for the new campaign. I saw something like it somewhere, but I can't remember where or who it was so I can't give proper credit for the inspiration.

Fate-
Death in many games of 5e is little more than an inconvenience (unless the entire party is killed). The fear of consequence... the fear of failure...the fear of death are core elements needed to create the beautiful tension and drama at the table. Without the gravity of those elements, it is not uncommon for a game to become stale and success becomes a foregone conclusion by simply going through the motions.

I am making an effort to raise the stakes by implementing a statistic called: Fate.

Characters may only receive resurrection-like magic equal to twice their total character level in spell levels. Other than gaining two Fate points with each level, a character's Fate total can never be increased or modified in any way.

Each time a character is brought back from death their Fate points are reduced by a number equal to the spell level that revived them. Once a character has exhausted their Fate points (or they do not have enough Fate points for a needed spell), they can no longer be restored to life and the character is permanently retired.

For example – a 7th level character would have a Fate total of 14. This character could receive two Resurrections (7x2=14) or two Raise Dead and a Revivify (5x2+3x1=13) before being permanently dead.

Our fix is Death Save fails don't go away so each fail is quite scary

Arbitrary · Jan 14, 2023

You're both crazy.

Sounds kind of cool.

bigmark268 · Jan 14, 2023

That does sound cool. Yeah death always felt dumb. Like ok cool ya died go res the crew and move on. So because of that I'd rarely kill a character.

But two games ago I killed 4 of my 8 players. And yeh the rest went to res them. Long and the short is. I had the resurrections cursed and 3 months later they ended up dying. Their corpses turned to ash and their souls spirited away to Shars tower of loss. Thr remaining members went to retrieve their souls. Ended up going through shars tower and facing off against a very old chosen of shar. Now they have 4 members of the party whos souls are held in black pearls. and they are all stuck now in the shadowfell. Everyone is level 18-21 so I'm sure they'll figure it all out.

Dr.Retarded · Jan 14, 2023

Maybe MERP will come back!

Nothing better than rolling an open-ended high or low, depending on how much wackiness you want to have.

Live by the crit...die by the crit....

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Arden · Jan 15, 2023

Dr.Retarded said:
Maybe MERP will come back!

Nothing better than rolling an open-ended high or low, depending on how much wackiness you want to have.

Live by the crit...die by the crit....

View attachment 453223
View attachment 453224

Always liked this system. I designed similar crit charts in my own system. For spells too.

Dr.Retarded · Jan 15, 2023

Arden said:
Always liked this system. I designed similar crit charts in my own system. For spells too.

Yeah, it's such a simple and fun system. One of the last D&D campaigns I played in, we took the MERP charts and condensed them some for natural 20s and 1s to add some spice to the game.

The only problem with MERP was the players end up taking so many rolls against them from combat and skill checks that they're eventually going to roll and open the blue and kill themselves or get decapitated. It was never a question of if but when, hehe. Still fun though.

Grabbit Allworth · Jan 15, 2023

Charts like that can add a lot of spice to a game, but I've personally never been a fan of critical failures. Especially the blooperish ones where it's like "oops, natural 1, you cut off your own face with an errant axe swing" queue the Benny Hill song.

Just starting out at level 1, adventurers are not average people and by the time they're level 5 the characters are relative gods to the average person and critical failures happen more and more often as the characters grow in power. It's particularly pronounced with high-level fighters because they get so many attacks. A high-level fighter is almost guaranteed to roll a 1 in session that has a couple combat scenes and for this character that has become death incarnate with steel, the chance for some ridiculous mishap goes to something like 15% chance a round instead of .001% as it should be.

Anyway, sorry about the rant...critical failures are just antithetical to the hero-fantasy of players.

I like critical successes in some contexts and use them, but them causing lingering injuries is something that I have found is pretty polarizing among players. Some players love it, some hate the fiddly record-keeping of it and I understand both arguments so I let my players vote on the inclusion of some mechanics.

Dr.Retarded · Jan 15, 2023

Grabbit Allworth said:
Charts like that can add a lot of spice to a game, but I've personally never been a fan of critical failures. Especially the blooperish ones where it's like "oops, natural 1, you cut off your own face with an errant axe swing" queue the Benny Hill song.

Just starting out at level 1, adventurers are not average people and by the time they're level 5 the characters are relative gods to the average person and critical failures happen more and more often as the characters grow in power. It's particularly pronounced with high-level fighters because they get so many attacks. A high-level fighter is almost guaranteed to roll a 1 in session that has a couple combat scenes and for this character that has become death incarnate with steel, the chance for some ridiculous mishap goes to something like 15% chance a round instead of .001% as it should be.

Anyway, sorry about the rant...critical failures are just antithetical to the hero-fantasy of players.

I like critical successes in some contexts and use them, but them causing lingering injuries is something that I have found is pretty polarizing among players. Some players love it, some hate the fiddly record-keeping of it and I understand both arguments so I let my players vote on the inclusion of some mechanics.

Yeah it's definitely not a perfect system but it was fun. We played MERP for years with ongoing campaigns, and there were a lot of hilarious and fun moments, but also some pretty bullshit ones.

I guess that's what I was trying to say earlier that it's just statistically dangerous for the player characters because they're going to have so many encounters and roles against them where something is just going to screw up.

I guess one of the reasons that system though was in place is maybe that even the lowest Hobbit has the potential to score a massive blow against a mighty foe, and even the greatest warrior might trip on his own sword.

When we applied the system to D&D it was more just for fun, and to add a little bit of flair specifically if you hit a natural 20. So at the end of the day we had fun with the system whether it was with MERP or DND, and that's really all that matters. Also helped our sessions were always with barbecue and a case of beer. We would start earlier in the morning so we could get a smoker going, and then feast on ribs and play till 3:00 a.m.. I really miss those days.

Grabbit Allworth · Jan 15, 2023

Dr.Retarded said:
Yeah it's definitely not a perfect system but it was fun. We played MERP for years with ongoing campaigns, and there were a lot of hilarious and fun moments, but also some pretty bullshit ones.

I guess that's what I was trying to say earlier that it's just statistically dangerous for the player characters because they're going to have so many encounters and roles against them where something is just going to screw up.

I guess one of the reasons that system though was in place is maybe that even the lowest Hobbit has the potential to score a massive blow against a mighty foe, and even the greatest warrior might trip on his own sword.

When we applied the system to D&D it was more just for fun, and to add a little bit of flair specifically if you hit a natural 20. So at the end of the day we had fun with the system whether it was with MERP or DND, and that's really all that matters. Also helped our sessions were always with barbecue and a case of beer. We would start earlier in the morning so we could get a smoker going, and then feast on ribs and play till 3:00 a.m.. I really miss those days.

It sounds like you guys had a ton of fun and I envy you in some respect because I don't really enjoy the 'less-serious' type of D&D games and I wish I was able to.

My preferred style of play is very reminiscent of Dragonlance: War of the Lance or the quest to destroy the One Ring where the campaign has a serious, grim tone. Moments of levity of are appreciated, but they're the exception.

Arden · Jan 15, 2023

Dr.Retarded said:
I guess that's what I was trying to say earlier that it's just statistically dangerous for the player characters because they're going to have so many encounters and roles against them where something is just going to screw up.

I guess one of the reasons that system though was in place is maybe that even the lowest Hobbit has the potential to score a massive blow against a mighty foe, and even the greatest warrior might trip on his own sword.

I totally get that. But I think it *should* be statistically dangerous for any character (PC or NPC) to engage in combat. The more attackers you go up against (i.e. the more attack rolls you face), the more risky it is. I've never liked the idea of lengthy combat, where two people with axes and swords pound on each other for 10 or 20 rounds. I don't care who you are, if someone hits you with 2 or 3 solid chops of a battle axe you're probably going to die- or at least lose a limb.

I like my combat short and brutal, for both PCs and NPCs. My players have learned that combat is fucking dangerous- and that's a good thing. This encourages them to be circumspect and to try and use roleplaying and talking rather than just running into every scenario with their swords drawn. Player deaths happen, and of course they suck. But, conversely, when my players survive to the end of an adventure, they really feel like they've accomplished something because the risk was real.

Qhue · Jan 15, 2023

This is one of the issues I have with the 'healbot' style of games wherein the one player who doesn't really want to be there gets charged with being a walking trauma center responsible for keeping everyone alive.

The 'short rest' and daily hit dice was a massive improvement for D&D in that respect, but more can and should be done to clean up the overall gameplay and narrative mismatch.

At some point I will take the time to write out all my ideas on a system to rectify this. It's been percolating for literal decades and I think I've finally cracked it.

Seananigans · Jan 15, 2023

Arden said:
I totally get that. But I think it *should* be statistically dangerous for any character (PC or NPC) to engage in combat. The more attackers you go up against (i.e. the more attack rolls you face), the more risky it is. I've never liked the idea of lengthy combat, where two people with axes and swords pound on each other for 10 or 20 rounds. I don't care who you are, if someone hits you with 2 or 3 solid chops of a battle axe you're probably going to die- or at least lose a limb.

I like my combat short and brutal, for both PCs and NPCs. My players have learned that combat is fucking dangerous- and that's a good thing. This encourages them to be circumspect and to try and use roleplaying and talking rather than just running into every scenario with their swords drawn. Player deaths happen, and of course they suck. But, conversely, when my players survive to the end of an adventure, they really feel like they've accomplished something because the risk was real.

I’ve always thought of hit points in DnD as more of stamina/exhaustion than “ok I got hit for 20 damage, I have a huge bleeding gash across my chest” type stuff. That helps with what you’re talking about.

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