A good example of this was missing a secret passage in a game we just played, dc 10 to spot it, I had +6 investigation but I still rolled a 1 so we missed it and that was that end of story move on and find another way through. For being so good at investigating at lvl 1 I really shouldn't of missed that but since we rely on a single die roll mechanics vs multi roll like other systems its just a lot of doot. It also lends to situations where untrained people that should be failing just roll a 20 and add their +1 to beat a 16 or 18 challenge which is just a lot of "whut.."
That's a whole different conversation.
There is also the option that many GMs use that either allow multiple rolls or have the result be on a gradient. Meaning, you fail your first roll to stay on the slippery bridge but manage to grab the handrail. Or you fail to haggle the merchant to bring down the price to what you asked for but he still reduces it to X.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
The swinginess of the d20 resolution mechanic is another criticism that I think is fair, but I rarely see people getting heated enough about it to really call it "hate."
It's also pretty easily fixed by incorporating the" fail forward" philosophy where instead of having a failure on a roll stop plot progression it simply introduces some sort of complication. I think the Powered by the Apocalypse games do this best, with their list of troubles that they make the *player* choose when they fail to hit the difficulty on a roll. "I fail, but nothing bad happens to me" isn't always a choice, depending on the game. Fate also has the "succeed at a cost" option, which serves the same purpose.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Why is everything so aggressively rigid? The D&D system hate here seems so laser focused on the original 5e DM and Player Guides, which is fair. They're heavily limited. But go too far with that homebrew, and well, you might as well be playing a completely different game.
But I'm not playing a different game. The adjustments I make are heavily based in D&D's system, because it works. At it's most basic it's a system of numbers with meaning attached to them. I can adjust the meaning, and create a brand new flavor of gameplay, while still having those workable, play tested numbers. I can grant advantage, confirmation roles and check minimums for players as they rise in level that greatly reduces the pure luck nature of a D20 roll. I've done this, it works.
Granted, the majority of my games have been me and my friends, people I know well and communicate well with. I can understand this level of flexibility is not feasible for pick-up games, or games set up with people who aren't all friends. People should be able to choose the system that they enjoy and I'm glad those systems are available. But I can't blame D&D for being popular and, as a result, overshadowing other systems.
It's funny how people get so frickin angry on the forums here on dndbeyond.
People get angry. People think they're right. It's all opinion. I, for one, have only ever heard older players hating D&D - the think I dislike about it is the fact that it still contains so many fragments of racism, despite WotC's statement - for instance, on the Wilds Beyond the Witchlight's cover, two very clearly sinister characters dominate the cover - both have dark skin. And then, the changes to drow basically make the "drow" we know become slightly more evil (marking themselves with Lolth's designs) and become an extremist sub-sub-species and culture, which seems worse than keeping the drow mostly as they were and making Ellistraee a bigger element in 5E. It's shocking how many subtle pieces like that I have found recently. For another instance, ALL the Duergar and ALL the Quaggoth encountered in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden are evil. There's not even any defectors! They're ALL evil. And guess what? One looks furry (like an ape, which is a thing black people are occasionally likened to by racists), and the other has dark skin.
Where. Is. The. Diversity. The. Kindness. The. Anti-Racism. We. Were. Promised. In. That?
Sure, Van Richten's did a better job, and Tasha's was passable. But otherwise, D&D 5E is still racist D&D unless the DM looks and works hard to say otherwise.
This is my real problem with WotC's content, and part of the reason I avoid giving them my money. That's on me as a DM to fix, and I don't think it's baked into the system. The settings certainly; I use the one's I've vetted, and again, I don't pay for them.
The most Social heavy system I have played(other than diceless systems like Amber) was Vampire back in the 90s, but the reason it was more Social centric had more to do with the fact that White Wolf's combat rules were terrible. Social encounters were resolved in the exact same way as 5e. You RP out what your character says and does then roll dice hoping for the right amount of successes which was decided by the Storyteller. I can't say I really understand the need for complex rules to handle social encounters/RP.
There is a big difference between how that game handles it and D&D tho. Those games as you got better at the skill you got more and more d10s to roll and success was determined by how many passes you rolled. so needing say 2 passes and your really good at the skill and have 5 dice lends to a more even.. success fail rate vs DC 20, your really good so +9 which is still over a 50% failure rate..
D20 is way to swingy for something like social interaction as it's 1 roll to try and persuade or whatever. If you had lets say 5 dice and needed to roll a d10 above a 5 two times to succeed well than your being good at a skill has a much more even distribution chance. The story dice of FFGs star wars system where also a nice departure from the basic d20 as well.
A good example of this was missing a secret passage in a game we just played, dc 10 to spot it, I had +6 investigation but I still rolled a 1 so we missed it and that was that end of story move on and find another way through. For being so good at investigating at lvl 1 I really shouldn't of missed that but since we rely on a single die roll mechanics vs multi roll like other systems its just a lot of doot. It also lends to situations where untrained people that should be failing just roll a 20 and add their +1 to beat a 16 or 18 challenge which is just a lot of "whut.."
Rolling more d10's wasn't super great either since rolling a 1 removed a success, but that is neither here nor there. I was commenting on the fact if you step back and ignore the dice used, social interactions in both systems work the same. Role play the conversation then roll the dice and repeat until the DM/GM/Storyteller decides that the scene is done. There were no complicated rules of Social encounters yet it was a game comprised of 80% social interaction.
As for missing a secret door becoming a road block, that is a failure on the DM. A single die roll should never bring the story to halt in any system.
The most Social heavy system I have played(other than diceless systems like Amber) was Vampire back in the 90s, but the reason it was more Social centric had more to do with the fact that White Wolf's combat rules were terrible. Social encounters were resolved in the exact same way as 5e. You RP out what your character says and does then roll dice hoping for the right amount of successes which was decided by the Storyteller. I can't say I really understand the need for complex rules to handle social encounters/RP.
There is a big difference between how that game handles it and D&D tho. Those games as you got better at the skill you got more and more d10s to roll and success was determined by how many passes you rolled. so needing say 2 passes and your really good at the skill and have 5 dice lends to a more even.. success fail rate vs DC 20, your really good so +9 which is still over a 50% failure rate..
D20 is way to swingy for something like social interaction as it's 1 roll to try and persuade or whatever. If you had lets say 5 dice and needed to roll a d10 above a 5 two times to succeed well than your being good at a skill has a much more even distribution chance. The story dice of FFGs star wars system where also a nice departure from the basic d20 as well.
A good example of this was missing a secret passage in a game we just played, dc 10 to spot it, I had +6 investigation but I still rolled a 1 so we missed it and that was that end of story move on and find another way through. For being so good at investigating at lvl 1 I really shouldn't of missed that but since we rely on a single die roll mechanics vs multi roll like other systems its just a lot of doot. It also lends to situations where untrained people that should be failing just roll a 20 and add their +1 to beat a 16 or 18 challenge which is just a lot of "whut.."
I feel like this math is not adding up. Assuming an average DC of 15, with a plus nine, that should be an average success rate of 75% on most skill checks. And an average DC of 15 feels high, honestly. And contested rolls mean the NPC is taking the same risk with a D20.
Why would a system using increasing numbers of D10s be that much different than a D20 with a modifier? You could still have missed that secret door if a couple of the D10s rolled badly.
As far as missing the door, there’s no guarantee of success on anything. Anyone can fail at something, even something they’re really good at. Ever seen an athlete beef it at the olympics? Years of training still makes no promises. And if missing a hidden door derailed the campaign, that’s on the DM. Never allow a skill check if you can’t afford for the character to fail (or succeed, in some cases) I would also never allow something with a DC of 10 to be undiscoverable unless there was a serious time constraint, like the walls are collapsing. If there’s ample time, it might take the character a bit longer to find the door, but they’ll find it.
And if missing a hidden door derailed the campaign, that’s on the DM. Never allow a skill check if you can’t afford for the character to fail (or succeed, in some cases) I would also never allow something with a DC of 10 to be undiscoverable unless there was a serious time constraint, like the walls are collapsing. If there’s ample time, it might take the character a bit longer to find the door, but they’ll find it.
This is important and kind of a pro GM move. One of the guidelines that Fate gives GM's is to only call for a roll when both failure or success would result in something interesting that moves the story forward, otherwise just have them autofail or autosucceed. The job of the GM is to move the story forward.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The most Social heavy system I have played(other than diceless systems like Amber) was Vampire back in the 90s, but the reason it was more Social centric had more to do with the fact that White Wolf's combat rules were terrible. Social encounters were resolved in the exact same way as 5e. You RP out what your character says and does then roll dice hoping for the right amount of successes which was decided by the Storyteller. I can't say I really understand the need for complex rules to handle social encounters/RP.
There is a big difference between how that game handles it and D&D tho. Those games as you got better at the skill you got more and more d10s to roll and success was determined by how many passes you rolled. so needing say 2 passes and your really good at the skill and have 5 dice lends to a more even.. success fail rate vs DC 20, your really good so +9 which is still over a 50% failure rate..
D20 is way to swingy for something like social interaction as it's 1 roll to try and persuade or whatever. If you had lets say 5 dice and needed to roll a d10 above a 5 two times to succeed well than your being good at a skill has a much more even distribution chance. The story dice of FFGs star wars system where also a nice departure from the basic d20 as well.
A good example of this was missing a secret passage in a game we just played, dc 10 to spot it, I had +6 investigation but I still rolled a 1 so we missed it and that was that end of story move on and find another way through. For being so good at investigating at lvl 1 I really shouldn't of missed that but since we rely on a single die roll mechanics vs multi roll like other systems its just a lot of doot. It also lends to situations where untrained people that should be failing just roll a 20 and add their +1 to beat a 16 or 18 challenge which is just a lot of "whut.."
Sorry, but this is mathematically completely unfounded. The chance distribution is meaningless. All that matters is pass or fail, which means all that matters is the success rate. Whether your result distribution is a flat line, a bell curve or some drunk scribble line is immaterial, you still only care whether you roll past a certain point or end up short of it. If rolling X success on Y dice has a 60% chance of passing, you either get that 60% or better or you fail and 60% is 60% regardless of any curve.
Chance distribution can be pertinent, but only if there's something like a partial failure and/or extreme success feature - a partial failure system benefits from knowing that even if you fail, there's a good chance it won't be by much; an extreme success system benefits from knowing that extreme successes are relatively rare. But if all you care about is pass/fail, or even if there are gradations of success or failure but the system doesn't particularly care how rare these gradations are, the distribution means jack squat.
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My personal theory why some people (including me) dislike D&D: because it's build around the smallest common denominator of most RPG players. It has so little character building options that it annoys people who like crunchy systems, and it has so many rules that it annoys people who prefer rules-light systems. But for both extremes it offers just enough to be acceptable to play and still have somewhat fun.
With most people lying between the two extremes that is probably why D&D is super-popular. Because you can gather a group of friends and everyone will be able to enjoy the game more or less.
At the same time that extreme popularity drowns out other systems that are *far* better than D&D in their niche. And that is a reason to dislike the system.
Just imagine you really like to drink good coffee, with beans roasted from your local coffee shop, freshly ground and you can even pick how coarse the grinding should be. You also like the atmosphere there, and the other guests and talk to them. Now this new thing "Starbucks" comes along and because everyone gets an ok coffee there it has tremendous success and your favorite local coffee shop seems to be abandoned and nobody visits it anymore.
That is kinda the feeling 5e invokes in me at least. I used to have a great Shadowrun 4 campaign, a very fun Pathfinder 1 campaign, and a super creative group playing Dungeon Worlds in a homebrewed setting (and a couple of completely unknown german RPG systems). Now I have three 5e groups and the system gets more boring and stale every time we play.
Nobody ever wants to play not-5e, Kotath. It's impossible to convince a group of players to run a system other than 5e, because 5e is immediate, 5e is easy (for players, anyways), and because 5e has immense aftermarket support such as, say...D&D Beyond.
There are no online character sheet tools for GURPS, Shadowrun, Dungeon World, or anything else. None worth a damn, anyways. And because it's easy to crank out a sheet in 5e, because the system gives just enough crunch (at the start) to let people play around, it ends up the default. It's overwhelmingly difficult to get players to commit to a long-running campaign in a different system because the whole goddamned world trains everybody to want to do D&D, instead.
Ease of use is a bit of a red herring (partially because system mastery is overvalued, particularly early on). Not to brag, because I think most GMs with a bit of experience can do this, but I’m pretty sure I can explain most any new system I’m familiar with - for modern, decently designed RPGs anyway - sufficiently to start a first session in half an hour tops. Character creation shouldn’t take longer than that either, so if people are simply willing to just give it a go a knowledgeable game master can get someone from never having seen a word of the rules to the opening scene of the first session in an hour or less. All it takes is one person, presumably and ideally the game master, to be willing and able to put in the work - everyone else can just mooch off of that.
People I (try to) introduce to TTRPGs are usually intimidated by what they perceive to be a daunting amount of information to soak up, but that’s true largely regardless of the system. D&D is really no more or less scary in that regard. People already playing TTRPGs, presumably D&D mainly for the purpose of this discussion, who balk at the notion of learning something else seemingly do so because they look at how long it took them to master the system(s) they know as much as they have and don’t want to put in that much effort again, while they really should at how long it took them to just start playing and how easy and fun it was to assimilate everything they learned later on while actually playing and enjoying themselves.
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Dungeons and Dragons draws inspiration from some very specific sources. And its general mechanics and tone are designed to emulate these sources. This lends itself to a very specific type of game and experience. Combined with the fairly rigid class system, it's altogether rather inflexible. At least, on its face it is. There is a robust community dedicated to fleshing out what it can do beyond the basics. But, as a system, it cannot do everything. And it doesn't try to.
That said, there are plenty of other games where the engine and the style of play (or setting) are inexorably linked: Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium), Exalted (Onyx Path), and Shadowrun (Catalyst) are all games with their own systems. Fantasy Flight Games publishes three different games (Legend of the Five Rings, Star Wars, and more) with no unified rules. On the other hand, Pinnacle has a shared rules system (Savage Worlds) for all of their settings; some of which they own outright (Deadlands) and others which are licensed (Pathfinder, RIFTS). White Wolf, which has made D&D content under contract back in 3.X, has their entire World of Darkness line (Mage, Vampire, and Werewolf) under a shared ruleset for explicit compatibility.
There's a different flavor for everyone, and that's undoubtedly a good thing. But few have the market permeation, never mind the saturation, of D&D. There are rulesets for several of the above on VTTs, like Roll20, but they aren't as accessible. By that, I don't mean they're hard to understand. I don't think most are too difficult, at all. But they just don't have the reach that D&D does. This can lead to people not being as aware of them. That lack of awareness brings more attention to D&D, and that can also lead to being put under a microscope. The more people who look at you, the more people will point out your flaws.
And that's not a fault of any of these other companies, or of the players. The popularity of D&D erupted in a way nobody could have predicted. And it did so, in part, by factors that Wizards of the Coast could not control. Stranger Things helped put these lovable nerds and scary monsters in the cultural zeitgeist. When Critical Role began streaming, they didn't have to use D&D 5e. The home game began playing under Pathfinder 1e and chose to convert systems.
Yes, it is hard to get people to play other games besides D&D, which is super-frustrating for those of us who (like me) would like to try other games. I have slowly been accumulating rule books to other RPG systems (Savage Worlds, Stars Without Number, Call of Cthulhu, Lion and Dragon, Ironsworn, Star Trek Adventures), but so far nobody is interested in trying any of them with me.
When my current D&D campaign (which is on a couple-month hiatus) ends, however, I am going to offer my group a choice, if they want to keep playing together: Either someone else DMs, or I will GM any other system besides 5th edition D&D. This campaign is it for me as a Dungeon Master. I will happily be a Game Master, Keeper, Referee, Judge, etc. But DM... my current campaign is going to be it. I want to try some of these other game systems.
And if the rest of them don't, that's fine. We can keep playing D&D -- one of them will just have to DM instead.
Skill are notoriously half baked in 5e. You have an arbitrary +X bonus, then roll a dice. That’s it.
I don't think that's fair. It's not half-baked; it is well-done.
The designers didn't build "half a skill system". They developed - over the course of several editions - a complicated skill system and then realised how unwieldy it was, so they revised it and streamlined it.
One number, one dice roll, add the two together, then get on with the interesting stuff.
Skill are notoriously half baked in 5e. You have an arbitrary +X bonus, then roll a dice. That’s it.
I don't think that's fair. It's not half-baked; it is well-done.
The designers didn't build "half a skill system". They developed - over the course of several editions - a complicated skill system and then realised how unwieldy it was, so they revised it and streamlined it.
One number, one dice roll, add the two together, then get on with the interesting stuff.
Yes, it is simple, that is a strength, but the definition of "interesting stuff" is subjective, which means that D&D isn't for everyone. That's not really a detraction, no game is for everyone.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Nobody ever wants to play not-5e, Kotath. It's impossible to convince a group of players to run a system other than 5e, because 5e is immediate, 5e is easy (for players, anyways), and because 5e has immense aftermarket support such as, say...D&D Beyond.
There are no online character sheet tools for GURPS, Shadowrun, Dungeon World, or anything else. None worth a damn, anyways. And because it's easy to crank out a sheet in 5e, because the system gives just enough crunch (at the start) to let people play around, it ends up the default. It's overwhelmingly difficult to get players to commit to a long-running campaign in a different system because the whole goddamned world trains everybody to want to do D&D, instead.
Actually Shadowrun does have an online character sheet!
This is sort of where I am coming from though. Many of these other games have been around nearly as long as D&D has. It is not merely a question of superior marketing that D&D has won out.
D&D has name recognition. It's like "Xerox" or "Kleenex" or "Band-Aid." To many people, the little tan-colored adhesive thing with the white cotton pad in the middle that you put on an ouchie is just called a "Band-Aid," even though many brands make the same sort of product. And to most new gamers, a roleplaying game that you sit around a table and play with your friends using funny dice is just called "Dungeons and Dragons." After they become part of the RPG crowd, they will probably hear of these other brands, but it's like hearing that Curad makes adhesive bandages. They started with Band-Aids. They've always used Band-Aids. Why would they switch?
Also, to differentiate themselves from D&D, many of these games play very differently from it. OSR games will have some similar features (hit points, armor class, etc.), but the non-OSR games are completely alien. Savage Worlds uses dice for stats, instead of numbers (you have a "d6" in strength or a "d8" in fighting skill), Champions uses points, and Ironsworn uses "asset cards." To someone familiar only with D&D, to whom classes, subclasses, and "ability scores" are innate to RPGs, such differences can be like going from a warm bath into a cold shower. A lot of people simply can't adjust and go back to D&D, which feels comfortable.
So it is not just about marketing. It's that D&D has successfully made itself "the default" RPG. Most people start with D&D, and many never leave it. Just like most people start with Band-Aids, and never think to try another brand.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I don't really think anyone is complaining that WOTC is successful.
The question raised was, why does D&D get so much hate? I'm not sure it even does, but if it does, one of the reasons is that as a juggernaut, it does kind of drown out all the competition. And for those of us who would like to try or play other games, that can be frustrating.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
My personal theory why some people (including me) dislike D&D: because it's build around the smallest common denominator of most RPG players. It has so little character building options that it annoys people who like crunchy systems, and it has so many rules that it annoys people who prefer rules-light systems. But for both extremes it offers just enough to be acceptable to play and still have somewhat fun.
With most people lying between the two extremes that is probably why D&D is super-popular. Because you can gather a group of friends and everyone will be able to enjoy the game more or less.
At the same time that extreme popularity drowns out other systems that are *far* better than D&D in their niche. And that is a reason to dislike the system.
Just imagine you really like to drink good coffee, with beans roasted from your local coffee shop, freshly ground and you can even pick how coarse the grinding should be. You also like the atmosphere there, and the other guests and talk to them. Now this new thing "Starbucks" comes along and because everyone gets an ok coffee there it has tremendous success and your favorite local coffee shop seems to be abandoned and nobody visits it anymore.
That is kinda the feeling 5e invokes in me at least. I used to have a great Shadowrun 4 campaign, a very fun Pathfinder 1 campaign, and a super creative group playing Dungeon Worlds in a homebrewed setting (and a couple of completely unknown german RPG systems). Now I have three 5e groups and the system gets more boring and stale every time we play.
But what happened to the great non-5e campaigns you seem to no longer play?
Shadowrun ended in a (literal) blast. :D After that one of the other players suggested they'd like to play something completely different, like a fantasy game. Easiest one to get everyone on board? Yup, 5e.
Dungeon Worlds ended with someone wanting some more crunch getting comfortable with the concept of RPGs... yup. 5e.
Pathfinder 1 and the german systems ended with one or more players wanting less crunch... guess to what system that lead? :D
I dropped out of some of these campaigns, the ones I am still playing in are only with close friends. It kinda sucks that everyone decided on 5e in these groups, but that's what I meant with "smallest common denominator": it's the system everyone can get somewhat along with.
Doesn't mean I have to like it. It's just the way it is. I'm still buying a lot of other RPG systems, though, in the hope that I'll one day manage to get three other people to give Coriolis, Runequest, Star Wars FFG, Forbidden Lands, Pathfinder 2, Lex Arcana or Splittermond a try... and maybe even play in one of these systems for a change. :D
Doesn't mean I have to like it. It's just the way it is. I'm still buying a lot of other RPG systems, though, in the hope that I'll one day manage to get three other people to give Coriolis, Runequest, Star Wars FFG, Forbidden Lands, Pathfinder 2, Lex Arcana or Splittermond a try... and maybe even play in one of these systems for a change.
Yup, I am in the same boat, with a different slate of games (though I find Forbidden Lands potentially interesting... haven't bought it yet, but it's on the list).
And your final comment there -- play in one for a change -- probably my #1 frustration is, the only way I'll ever get to participate in one of these other games besides D&D is as a GM. As a player, I think my only shot is D&D. (Which I am getting to do starting next week as a friend takes over for a couple of months as DM.)
For most of these I don't care all *that* much but I strongly want to play a bunch of Call of Cthulhu first before being a Keeper.... because so much of Lovecraft comes from the thrill of investigating the unknown, and when you have read all the GM rules and monster manuals and what not there is a lot less "unknown". But yeah... good luck with that, since it's not D&D.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
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That's a whole different conversation.
There is also the option that many GMs use that either allow multiple rolls or have the result be on a gradient. Meaning, you fail your first roll to stay on the slippery bridge but manage to grab the handrail. Or you fail to haggle the merchant to bring down the price to what you asked for but he still reduces it to X.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
The swinginess of the d20 resolution mechanic is another criticism that I think is fair, but I rarely see people getting heated enough about it to really call it "hate."
It's also pretty easily fixed by incorporating the" fail forward" philosophy where instead of having a failure on a roll stop plot progression it simply introduces some sort of complication. I think the Powered by the Apocalypse games do this best, with their list of troubles that they make the *player* choose when they fail to hit the difficulty on a roll. "I fail, but nothing bad happens to me" isn't always a choice, depending on the game. Fate also has the "succeed at a cost" option, which serves the same purpose.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Why is everything so aggressively rigid? The D&D system hate here seems so laser focused on the original 5e DM and Player Guides, which is fair. They're heavily limited. But go too far with that homebrew, and well, you might as well be playing a completely different game.
But I'm not playing a different game. The adjustments I make are heavily based in D&D's system, because it works. At it's most basic it's a system of numbers with meaning attached to them. I can adjust the meaning, and create a brand new flavor of gameplay, while still having those workable, play tested numbers. I can grant advantage, confirmation roles and check minimums for players as they rise in level that greatly reduces the pure luck nature of a D20 roll. I've done this, it works.
Granted, the majority of my games have been me and my friends, people I know well and communicate well with. I can understand this level of flexibility is not feasible for pick-up games, or games set up with people who aren't all friends. People should be able to choose the system that they enjoy and I'm glad those systems are available. But I can't blame D&D for being popular and, as a result, overshadowing other systems.
This is my real problem with WotC's content, and part of the reason I avoid giving them my money. That's on me as a DM to fix, and I don't think it's baked into the system. The settings certainly; I use the one's I've vetted, and again, I don't pay for them.
Rolling more d10's wasn't super great either since rolling a 1 removed a success, but that is neither here nor there. I was commenting on the fact if you step back and ignore the dice used, social interactions in both systems work the same. Role play the conversation then roll the dice and repeat until the DM/GM/Storyteller decides that the scene is done. There were no complicated rules of Social encounters yet it was a game comprised of 80% social interaction.
As for missing a secret door becoming a road block, that is a failure on the DM. A single die roll should never bring the story to halt in any system.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I feel like this math is not adding up. Assuming an average DC of 15, with a plus nine, that should be an average success rate of 75% on most skill checks. And an average DC of 15 feels high, honestly. And contested rolls mean the NPC is taking the same risk with a D20.
Why would a system using increasing numbers of D10s be that much different than a D20 with a modifier? You could still have missed that secret door if a couple of the D10s rolled badly.
As far as missing the door, there’s no guarantee of success on anything. Anyone can fail at something, even something they’re really good at. Ever seen an athlete beef it at the olympics? Years of training still makes no promises. And if missing a hidden door derailed the campaign, that’s on the DM. Never allow a skill check if you can’t afford for the character to fail (or succeed, in some cases) I would also never allow something with a DC of 10 to be undiscoverable unless there was a serious time constraint, like the walls are collapsing. If there’s ample time, it might take the character a bit longer to find the door, but they’ll find it.
This is important and kind of a pro GM move. One of the guidelines that Fate gives GM's is to only call for a roll when both failure or success would result in something interesting that moves the story forward, otherwise just have them autofail or autosucceed. The job of the GM is to move the story forward.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Sorry, but this is mathematically completely unfounded. The chance distribution is meaningless. All that matters is pass or fail, which means all that matters is the success rate. Whether your result distribution is a flat line, a bell curve or some drunk scribble line is immaterial, you still only care whether you roll past a certain point or end up short of it. If rolling X success on Y dice has a 60% chance of passing, you either get that 60% or better or you fail and 60% is 60% regardless of any curve.
Chance distribution can be pertinent, but only if there's something like a partial failure and/or extreme success feature - a partial failure system benefits from knowing that even if you fail, there's a good chance it won't be by much; an extreme success system benefits from knowing that extreme successes are relatively rare. But if all you care about is pass/fail, or even if there are gradations of success or failure but the system doesn't particularly care how rare these gradations are, the distribution means jack squat.
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I mean that’s just forums :) as one great comedian said, you should never dwell in the bottom half of the internet :).
My personal theory why some people (including me) dislike D&D: because it's build around the smallest common denominator of most RPG players. It has so little character building options that it annoys people who like crunchy systems, and it has so many rules that it annoys people who prefer rules-light systems. But for both extremes it offers just enough to be acceptable to play and still have somewhat fun.
With most people lying between the two extremes that is probably why D&D is super-popular. Because you can gather a group of friends and everyone will be able to enjoy the game more or less.
At the same time that extreme popularity drowns out other systems that are *far* better than D&D in their niche. And that is a reason to dislike the system.
Just imagine you really like to drink good coffee, with beans roasted from your local coffee shop, freshly ground and you can even pick how coarse the grinding should be. You also like the atmosphere there, and the other guests and talk to them. Now this new thing "Starbucks" comes along and because everyone gets an ok coffee there it has tremendous success and your favorite local coffee shop seems to be abandoned and nobody visits it anymore.
That is kinda the feeling 5e invokes in me at least. I used to have a great Shadowrun 4 campaign, a very fun Pathfinder 1 campaign, and a super creative group playing Dungeon Worlds in a homebrewed setting (and a couple of completely unknown german RPG systems). Now I have three 5e groups and the system gets more boring and stale every time we play.
Nobody ever wants to play not-5e, Kotath. It's impossible to convince a group of players to run a system other than 5e, because 5e is immediate, 5e is easy (for players, anyways), and because 5e has immense aftermarket support such as, say...D&D Beyond.
There are no online character sheet tools for GURPS, Shadowrun, Dungeon World, or anything else. None worth a damn, anyways. And because it's easy to crank out a sheet in 5e, because the system gives just enough crunch (at the start) to let people play around, it ends up the default. It's overwhelmingly difficult to get players to commit to a long-running campaign in a different system because the whole goddamned world trains everybody to want to do D&D, instead.
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Ease of use is a bit of a red herring (partially because system mastery is overvalued, particularly early on). Not to brag, because I think most GMs with a bit of experience can do this, but I’m pretty sure I can explain most any new system I’m familiar with - for modern, decently designed RPGs anyway - sufficiently to start a first session in half an hour tops. Character creation shouldn’t take longer than that either, so if people are simply willing to just give it a go a knowledgeable game master can get someone from never having seen a word of the rules to the opening scene of the first session in an hour or less. All it takes is one person, presumably and ideally the game master, to be willing and able to put in the work - everyone else can just mooch off of that.
People I (try to) introduce to TTRPGs are usually intimidated by what they perceive to be a daunting amount of information to soak up, but that’s true largely regardless of the system. D&D is really no more or less scary in that regard. People already playing TTRPGs, presumably D&D mainly for the purpose of this discussion, who balk at the notion of learning something else seemingly do so because they look at how long it took them to master the system(s) they know as much as they have and don’t want to put in that much effort again, while they really should at how long it took them to just start playing and how easy and fun it was to assimilate everything they learned later on while actually playing and enjoying themselves.
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I think it's due to a combination of factors.
Dungeons and Dragons draws inspiration from some very specific sources. And its general mechanics and tone are designed to emulate these sources. This lends itself to a very specific type of game and experience. Combined with the fairly rigid class system, it's altogether rather inflexible. At least, on its face it is. There is a robust community dedicated to fleshing out what it can do beyond the basics. But, as a system, it cannot do everything. And it doesn't try to.
That said, there are plenty of other games where the engine and the style of play (or setting) are inexorably linked: Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium), Exalted (Onyx Path), and Shadowrun (Catalyst) are all games with their own systems. Fantasy Flight Games publishes three different games (Legend of the Five Rings, Star Wars, and more) with no unified rules. On the other hand, Pinnacle has a shared rules system (Savage Worlds) for all of their settings; some of which they own outright (Deadlands) and others which are licensed (Pathfinder, RIFTS). White Wolf, which has made D&D content under contract back in 3.X, has their entire World of Darkness line (Mage, Vampire, and Werewolf) under a shared ruleset for explicit compatibility.
There's a different flavor for everyone, and that's undoubtedly a good thing. But few have the market permeation, never mind the saturation, of D&D. There are rulesets for several of the above on VTTs, like Roll20, but they aren't as accessible. By that, I don't mean they're hard to understand. I don't think most are too difficult, at all. But they just don't have the reach that D&D does. This can lead to people not being as aware of them. That lack of awareness brings more attention to D&D, and that can also lead to being put under a microscope. The more people who look at you, the more people will point out your flaws.
And that's not a fault of any of these other companies, or of the players. The popularity of D&D erupted in a way nobody could have predicted. And it did so, in part, by factors that Wizards of the Coast could not control. Stranger Things helped put these lovable nerds and scary monsters in the cultural zeitgeist. When Critical Role began streaming, they didn't have to use D&D 5e. The home game began playing under Pathfinder 1e and chose to convert systems.
TL;DR
It's complicated and is what it is
Yes, it is hard to get people to play other games besides D&D, which is super-frustrating for those of us who (like me) would like to try other games. I have slowly been accumulating rule books to other RPG systems (Savage Worlds, Stars Without Number, Call of Cthulhu, Lion and Dragon, Ironsworn, Star Trek Adventures), but so far nobody is interested in trying any of them with me.
When my current D&D campaign (which is on a couple-month hiatus) ends, however, I am going to offer my group a choice, if they want to keep playing together: Either someone else DMs, or I will GM any other system besides 5th edition D&D. This campaign is it for me as a Dungeon Master. I will happily be a Game Master, Keeper, Referee, Judge, etc. But DM... my current campaign is going to be it. I want to try some of these other game systems.
And if the rest of them don't, that's fine. We can keep playing D&D -- one of them will just have to DM instead.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I don't think that's fair. It's not half-baked; it is well-done.
The designers didn't build "half a skill system". They developed - over the course of several editions - a complicated skill system and then realised how unwieldy it was, so they revised it and streamlined it.
One number, one dice roll, add the two together, then get on with the interesting stuff.
Yes, it is simple, that is a strength, but the definition of "interesting stuff" is subjective, which means that D&D isn't for everyone. That's not really a detraction, no game is for everyone.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Actually Shadowrun does have an online character sheet!
Herolab Online lets you do Shadowrun: Sixth World :Hero Lab Online – Lone Wolf Development (wolflair.com)
Which also has a PF2e character sheet that is amazing...even has public dice rolling and everything.
D&D has name recognition. It's like "Xerox" or "Kleenex" or "Band-Aid." To many people, the little tan-colored adhesive thing with the white cotton pad in the middle that you put on an ouchie is just called a "Band-Aid," even though many brands make the same sort of product. And to most new gamers, a roleplaying game that you sit around a table and play with your friends using funny dice is just called "Dungeons and Dragons." After they become part of the RPG crowd, they will probably hear of these other brands, but it's like hearing that Curad makes adhesive bandages. They started with Band-Aids. They've always used Band-Aids. Why would they switch?
Also, to differentiate themselves from D&D, many of these games play very differently from it. OSR games will have some similar features (hit points, armor class, etc.), but the non-OSR games are completely alien. Savage Worlds uses dice for stats, instead of numbers (you have a "d6" in strength or a "d8" in fighting skill), Champions uses points, and Ironsworn uses "asset cards." To someone familiar only with D&D, to whom classes, subclasses, and "ability scores" are innate to RPGs, such differences can be like going from a warm bath into a cold shower. A lot of people simply can't adjust and go back to D&D, which feels comfortable.
So it is not just about marketing. It's that D&D has successfully made itself "the default" RPG. Most people start with D&D, and many never leave it. Just like most people start with Band-Aids, and never think to try another brand.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I don't really think anyone is complaining that WOTC is successful.
The question raised was, why does D&D get so much hate? I'm not sure it even does, but if it does, one of the reasons is that as a juggernaut, it does kind of drown out all the competition. And for those of us who would like to try or play other games, that can be frustrating.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Shadowrun ended in a (literal) blast. :D After that one of the other players suggested they'd like to play something completely different, like a fantasy game. Easiest one to get everyone on board? Yup, 5e.
Dungeon Worlds ended with someone wanting some more crunch getting comfortable with the concept of RPGs... yup. 5e.
Pathfinder 1 and the german systems ended with one or more players wanting less crunch... guess to what system that lead? :D
I dropped out of some of these campaigns, the ones I am still playing in are only with close friends. It kinda sucks that everyone decided on 5e in these groups, but that's what I meant with "smallest common denominator": it's the system everyone can get somewhat along with.
Doesn't mean I have to like it. It's just the way it is. I'm still buying a lot of other RPG systems, though, in the hope that I'll one day manage to get three other people to give Coriolis, Runequest, Star Wars FFG, Forbidden Lands, Pathfinder 2, Lex Arcana or Splittermond a try... and maybe even play in one of these systems for a change. :D
Yup, I am in the same boat, with a different slate of games (though I find Forbidden Lands potentially interesting... haven't bought it yet, but it's on the list).
And your final comment there -- play in one for a change -- probably my #1 frustration is, the only way I'll ever get to participate in one of these other games besides D&D is as a GM. As a player, I think my only shot is D&D. (Which I am getting to do starting next week as a friend takes over for a couple of months as DM.)
For most of these I don't care all *that* much but I strongly want to play a bunch of Call of Cthulhu first before being a Keeper.... because so much of Lovecraft comes from the thrill of investigating the unknown, and when you have read all the GM rules and monster manuals and what not there is a lot less "unknown". But yeah... good luck with that, since it's not D&D.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.