Wandering Adventure Party

Lol, what?

You’ve either never left the DnD bubble, or you’re just blatantly ignorant towards 90% of what tabletop roleplaying games are! Seriously, that’s the shittiest shittake I’ve ever heard when it comes to TTRPGs. I seriously hope you’re joking, but I’m afraid you’re not.

At least a third of the TTRPG systems I play don’t even have combat rules because it’s just so irrelevant in these systems. And then there’s the vast majority of systems like Vampires: The Masquerade, Call of Cuthulu, fate, etc. where conbat exists, but is almost completely irrelevant. I’ve played in several groups that go multiple sessions without a single combat encounter and it never felt lile combat was important or missing.

TLDR: Lol

I absolutely love The Dark Eye in every aspect except for its combat! About half of my campaigns are run in that system and I absolutely love the amount of customization it allows for your characters.

Agreed, Shadowrun overdoes it with its thousands of rules and The Dark Eye also has its problems. Especially when it comes to combat. But DnD is on the other side of that spectrum. It’s just severely lacking any kind of character depth.

That’s why I’m working on my own system trying to balance the complex, but meaningful character creatuon choices of system like Shadowrun and The Dark Eye with the combat of DnD.

And yes, it seems like we do have different preferences here. The only thing I always wonder is: Why do people who obviously prefer a rules light set of rules play something as rigid and overcomplicated as DnD. Wouldn’t you find far more enjoyment in systems lile fate or savage worlds?

So, what you’re telling me is 5e works well for combat. Which is exactly what I wrote.

But combat isn’t the only aspect of a tabletop roleplaying game. Far from it. Sure, if all you want to do is play out your superhero fantasy of killing ever bigger foes, then DnD works well enough I guess. But for me, that gets boring real fast. I want drama, mystery, social encounters, wilderness survival, interesting travelling etc. DnD does none of this.

Yes, that’s called roleplaying. And there’s nothing, not a single line in any book that supports any of this! Just imagine if DnD combat only consisted of one melee attack skill and one ranged attack skill. You could still roleplay that your ranged attack is a fireball, but it would still get boring real fast!

Everything about this scenario works pretty much exactly the same if the Barbarian goes to the library and references his notes, the wizard visits the local church and convinces the town to to join their crusade and the cleric goes to the tavern, sves the kitten, drinks with the guards, etc. Every character does everything exactly the same.

Let me give you a counter example in a system that actually does this well. In The Dark Eye, the wizard goes to the local library because they have several talents and skills that help them find and organize information in books, the cleric talks to the local clergy who respect him du to his “social standing” value and “clergical vow” skill. The barbarian actually put some points into “carousing” which makes them a solid drinker and their “local contact” skill may give them a pointer towards the old lady with the cat problem.

Hexxen is pretty amazing. The rules are extremely simple, but maintain enough complexity to still be fun and it knows what it wants to be and focuses on its core goals. Investigation is fun and engaging, combat is fast and dangerous, but not necessarily deadly and there are numerous interesting character classes that you can combine to build exactly the witch hunter you want.

Other than that, I’m working on my own system with a combat experience similar to DnD, but the social complexity and character customisability of The Dark Eye.

And lose the entire fun in the process…

Spike trap? I have spider climb/fly speed! Enemies sneaking about in the dark? I have darkvision! Resources running low and no safe place to take a rest? I cast Tiny Hut!

DnD takes the entire fun out of dungeon crawling just so that a single person can win the d*ck measuring contest of “I’m the greatest” at any given moment

The only thing subjective here is the very first sentence. Everything else is either fact and enforced by the way DnD is designed or an example to illustrate said fact.

What exactly is subjective about the fact that DnD doesn’t have any depth or variety when it comes to anything besides combat?

Oh, and before you answer. Homebrew and cinematic encounters are not part of DnD as a system and using them in your argument will only strengthen my point.

No, 5e sucks. And it’s most obvious when you play on level 1. DnD is a superhero sim with paper cutouts for humans. When you leave out the super powers, then the characters can’t really do anything. Like… at all.

Combat is DnD’s only fleshed out system. Everything else is just “roll a D20” and sometimes add your proficiency modifier depending almost entirely on your class. Give me 20 different bards and I bet 18 of them will have a 90% overlap in the proficiencies they choose.

During combat, the wizard throws fireballs, the cleric casts spiritual weapon and the barbarian rages. That’s cool, interesting and diverse. During investigations the wizard rolls an investigation check, the cleric rolls an investigation check and the barbarian does nothing because they dumped wisdom. That’s boring.

That’s why DnD sucks!