I wanted to know the general thought about campaigns that are gimmicky. I like it when every campaign has some kind of homebrew rule, or general rule set. I don't just mean where the worlds are different, but the way it's played. I have one for instance, with different abilities for each class to activate, and a spell making mechanic.
I just wanted to know if I'm a lunatic, if this is a split topic, or people think it's cool as well.
It's not whether it has a gimmick or not, it's about if it's fun. If your having a gimmick for gimmick's sake, that's probably a bad idea, but if the gimmick is a part of lore, the story, and/or the mechanics of the location/creature, that's fine and if done well it's fantastic.
The rules as written are already quite good. There's so many different classes and subclasses to try anyway. I can understand wanting to try something different if you've played so much base game that you're finding it doesn't have enough variety... but I find it takes quite a while to get to that point.
So in my opinion, adding "gimmicks" is more likely to increase confusion without increasing fun, rather than the other way around.
Not so much just some homebrew rules, but ones that change things up a good amount. One thing I've done is making weapon blocking and dodging. Things such as a longsword could block something else around its size, such as dual shortswords, by both the attacker and defender rolling athletics. If the defender won, they would halve the damage. The down side would be lowering the weapons durability, which is another thing I did for it.
What makes it a gimmick is that it isn't something in the base rules and isn't going to be in most campaigns you come across.
I think once you start down the path of adding crunch, or gimmicks, or "realism," or whatever you want to call it, it's almost impossible to stop until the fight scenes are endless and tiresome. The more numbers you add to process, the more comparative advantage there is in playing a video game instead.
OTOH, there are people who just like rolling dice, Lathander bless 'em.
I think ultimately, the problem is that there aren't enough of us so that we can all find a game with people who share our own personal gaming philosophies.
It seems then like almost every campaign is gimmicky. I’m hard pressed to think of a game of D&D I’ve played in the last 35 years across every edition that doesn’t have some bits added or ignored to suit the preference of the table. And I’d be surprised if my experience is really that unusual.
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I wanted to know the general thought about campaigns that are gimmicky. I like it when every campaign has some kind of homebrew rule, or general rule set. I don't just mean where the worlds are different, but the way it's played. I have one for instance, with different abilities for each class to activate, and a spell making mechanic.
I just wanted to know if I'm a lunatic, if this is a split topic, or people think it's cool as well.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
It's not whether it has a gimmick or not, it's about if it's fun. If your having a gimmick for gimmick's sake, that's probably a bad idea, but if the gimmick is a part of lore, the story, and/or the mechanics of the location/creature, that's fine and if done well it's fantastic.
I agree, it is all about fun. Over all, I am indifferent to gimmicks.
Eh, I'm leaning on the no side.
The rules as written are already quite good. There's so many different classes and subclasses to try anyway. I can understand wanting to try something different if you've played so much base game that you're finding it doesn't have enough variety... but I find it takes quite a while to get to that point.
So in my opinion, adding "gimmicks" is more likely to increase confusion without increasing fun, rather than the other way around.
Not to be pedantic, but can you define “gimmick” and explain the difference between that and a couple homebrew rules?
Not so much just some homebrew rules, but ones that change things up a good amount. One thing I've done is making weapon blocking and dodging. Things such as a longsword could block something else around its size, such as dual shortswords, by both the attacker and defender rolling athletics. If the defender won, they would halve the damage. The down side would be lowering the weapons durability, which is another thing I did for it.
What makes it a gimmick is that it isn't something in the base rules and isn't going to be in most campaigns you come across.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
I think once you start down the path of adding crunch, or gimmicks, or "realism," or whatever you want to call it, it's almost impossible to stop until the fight scenes are endless and tiresome. The more numbers you add to process, the more comparative advantage there is in playing a video game instead.
OTOH, there are people who just like rolling dice, Lathander bless 'em.
I think ultimately, the problem is that there aren't enough of us so that we can all find a game with people who share our own personal gaming philosophies.
Gimmick - a couple of homebrew rules that go together or fit a theme.
The difference is negligible.
It seems then like almost every campaign is gimmicky. I’m hard pressed to think of a game of D&D I’ve played in the last 35 years across every edition that doesn’t have some bits added or ignored to suit the preference of the table. And I’d be surprised if my experience is really that unusual.