What you are saying sure does highlight an impalance in the system, one that is probably hard to solve without removing what is "core dnd". Decoupling skills from attributes is one step. Maneuvers for all another. I don't know what else to do without starting to make it not dnd. And honestly I don't really need to do anything. There is apparently something out there called Advanced 5e for those that want "dnd but more". For me there are a thousand and one systems out there for me to like.
The problem is that the only way a fighter can interact with the world is by murdering people
Pretty much the only mechanical way to reliably interact with the world. Since the results from skill checks aren't defined the point that comes across is that they matter less. Why can't the Fighter "suggest" to the ruffians to drop their weapons through their skill in Intimidation? They can of course but nowhere it is written as clearly as having the spell Suggestion.
To help non-spellcaster have reliable ways to interact and change the world there needs to be more details regarding skill check outcomes.
I had a hard time understanding this blog. One read I was confused. Second I wondered when the point was coming. Third read I understood why it didn't click for me - OSR (trad?) blogs are sooo meandering. Spreading out their kernels all over the place. Once I started reading like that its concepts came to me.
And it was Play to Find Out in a different package. The Plot spoken about in the article are fronts. Yup, I'm not in the OSR scene.
Starting up the first D&D game is the hardest game to start, especially if one isn't used to nomenclature in the hobby. How obvious is it that a "one-shot" is a scenario made to be played and completed within a single session? This time and age though there are so many resources out there that is easy to get that foot in the door.
That said D&D is a hard system to get started with. You mention it yourself - maps, foes, encounters etc. It can easily become overwhelming. And the system doesn't do any favours in this department as it between the lines urges towards perfection. If you have the time I can recommend you to read (the GM chapter of) Apocalypse World. It has its special tone but it is so good. Really help me to get out of "prep hell" and to embrace Play to Find Out.
Two GM toolkits I also would love to recommend you, and both are free, are Kevin Crawford's "Worlds Without Numbers" and Shawn Tomkin's "Ironsworn". While they are full, playable and great systems they contain so many tables for inspiration and use. Especially love Crawford's One-Roll tables.
As I see it cross-post away and with glee. I just wish there was some way to follow a cross-post to the original post or the cross posts directing you to that. Because with plenty of cross-posts the comments are being sooooo split. So it is a balance act - ten posts with one comment each or one post with eight?
Asmodeus is a master schemer, his (its?) most cunning plans span centuries. I would play into this and realize that my puny human intellect couldn't fathom his brilliance. Let him be this haughty, but always hinting of greater insight into his devices. When his minions are encountered they seldom know the same thing, and often contradictory things. Again, his plans are intricate, elaborate and for him only.
If you want to hand out tasks let them be for no specific reason and for various agents of Asmodeus. Menial tasks for a fresh acolyte. Or perhaps hold off on tasks, "soon" agents will say Soon dedication will be proven. This is just Asmodeus letting the character think the devil is on them, to let them stew in their own fear.
Perhaps Asmodeus even want the character to break his vow and thus forfeit his soul. Another soul to power the infernal machines of war.
Or perhaps Asmodeus doesn't even care? The character is handed off to a local agent as a reward for the agent having accomplished something. Now we get into politics and very understandable motives. Here I would pick something not really opposed to the party at large, nothing really distasteful. But the agent stand to gain more than what is apparent.
More specific than that you may have to look at the party itself and what their drives are. And the local setting.
For everyday user (browser, light office, photo management, tv/movie streaming) it is already as viable as windows as a daily driver.
Once it is installed and up and running. But then most windows users haven't installed windows themselves so that is almost a moot point. It is first when you get into "specialty" software linux viability drops.
I should play BG3 and get out of Act1. Buuut it's starting to be so long since I last played it that I am lost in where I was and were doing. And I honestly don't like the zone designs with all their open emptyness while at the same time being soooo cramped. What does it take to walk from the druid's encampment to the goblin temple? Two minutes? Three? Cooooome on. Would have preferred the druid's having one map, then world map travel to goblin's and then zoom in on their lair.
Condense the adventure while keeping distances plausible.
So I'll keep on looking at my small settlers as I keep building their settlement in Farthest Frontier.
I should play BG3 and get out of Act1. Buuut it's starting to be so long since I last played it that I am lost in where I was and were doing. And I honestly don't like the zone designs with all their open emptyness while at the same time being soooo cramped. What does it take to walk from the druid's encampment to the goblin temple? Two minutes? Three? Cooooome on. Would have preferred the druid's having one map, then world map travel to goblin's and then zoom in on their lair.
Condense the adventure while keeping distances plausible.
So I'll keep on looking at my small settlers as I keep building their settlement in Farthest Frontier.
Me and OSR are a complete mismatch in execution. But we work in theory and design. Where we clash is where the meme is. Simple basic rules that are to be used in pretty much every situation. Where the GM is empowered to make those rulings. Where the GM is King.
I have tried running them and constantly kept asking myself "according to the rules what am I supposed to do?" as I want to run systems as they want to be ran. What is a failure? How does the outcome space look like? And when I get to play I feel I get to relinquish so much control to the GM that I feel almost powerless. The GMs rulings and fiat rules. Sure these are my experiences and I can love OSRs and their designs while not wanting to acctually play them.
The Dathomir witches, especially the Nightsister clan (Star Wars)
Number Six (Battlestar Galactica)
Hela (Marvel)
Cersei Lannister (ASOIAF)
But that said often you can just take a male villain and change them to a woman. Or non-binary. Would it be anything diffrent if it was EMPRESS Palpatine? LADY Vader would change a few things, but imagine on Mustafar Anakine being late in pregnacy. Duel with Kenobi plays out and she is left legless. Then waking up and being told "in your anger you killed them". Oh the self-loathing and hatred towards kenobi. Dammit I need dark-as-frakk Lady Vader fanfic now.
They are not to my taste, primarily they lack task resolution guidance/rules so it is all dependent on the whims of the GM. I want things like outcome options a la PbtA or task+intent negotiation from Burning Wheel in the rules. Also the systems are very sparse with character abilities, a non-magicuser in combat essentially just attacks. All in all not to my taste. To many others tastes though.
However I get everything he publishes as the word building tools are pretty frakkin awesome. Tools for prepping equally good. His One Page (thing) collections of tables I put to really heavy use. Unlike many other tables the outcomes from his are pretty much immediately useable.
If you have the time just get the free versions and look through them. These free versions aren't really cut down text only versions, they are the full game. Minus some "extra" material.
tissek @ tissek @ttrpg.network Posts 33Comments 233Joined 2 yr. ago
What you are saying sure does highlight an impalance in the system, one that is probably hard to solve without removing what is "core dnd". Decoupling skills from attributes is one step. Maneuvers for all another. I don't know what else to do without starting to make it not dnd. And honestly I don't really need to do anything. There is apparently something out there called Advanced 5e for those that want "dnd but more". For me there are a thousand and one systems out there for me to like.