Woah! Vid responses oldschool youtube style! Firstly I'm pretty excited to have tumbled into a MCDM video: I think overall your read is right - I think I didn't communicate something well in my video and that's: **I really enjoyed Blades in the Dark and I think about it all the time.** I just had some friction when initially running it, because it's a roleplaying game and usually roleplaying games are complex (for different reasons) Also I've been repeatedly and convincingly informed: I'm wrong and Blades is setting neutral? I think I need to play another campaign of it. Wow though, this made my day!
BitD is not necessarily setting neutral - the book has an implied setting, just like 5e. Rather, the setting doesn't matter - the most popular BitD hack, "Scum and Villainy" is set in the Star Wars universe with its numbers filed off. The setting matters in BitD exactly as much as it matters in 5e, that is to say, not at all.
I don’t think Blades itself is setting neutral, it’s just that it is hackable to create new games in new settings without a ton of difficulty. See Scum and Villainy, Court of Swords, Band of Blades, etc. They’re all Forged in the Dark, like Apocalypse World, similar so that you can pick them up fairly easily but skinned to fit different themes and settings. I actually feel that the setting of the world of Blades is important to the game Blades.
I love this little network of Talented and interconnected nerds so in love with this game and nerd-dom in general Keep it up friends, love your work Zee
The playbooks have an implied setting. None of the core systems such as setting the level of position (aka risk) and effect (aka reward) and building D6 dice pool and keeping the single top result (or the resistance rolls or what have you), none of those have any implied setting beyond having a team of competent characters do heists/missions.
It's a weird thing about TTRPGS: technically, you can always swap out the setting it comes with for one of your own, but the rules as written always have things about the setting that are implied. For instance, Burning Wheel implies that humans are weak and fragile compared to monsters, elves are ancient, mysterious, and powerful, and dwarves are greedy. Blades in the Dark implies a world that has a rich, powerful "underworld" of criminal activity to the point that everyone is involved in some way. Shadows of the Demon Lord implies that the adventurers have a more real world outlook on how monsters are creepy and terrifying. So, when you swap out the setting it comes with, the new setting you put in should have the same default assumption and implications that the rules give you, or else you need to start hacking the rules to align with your setting more. And that's where we come to the often crux of the issue with other games and people telling you to play them instead: when you start hacking the rules, the more you hack them, the more work you do and the less like the original system it becomes. At some point, you cross a line where people looking at it wonder why you are hacking a system rather than just starting with a system that they think is closer to what they think you want based on your hacks. Or because they found a system that they love and demand that everyone else love it too.
@@mirthfulArtist "You've been listening to DnD propaganda again haven't you? Of course they're gonna say we're the baddies!" "Yeah but DND doesn't get to design our _dice_ "
Barbarian: we just slaughtered entire village of cultists. Investigation checks pass wizard Wizard: (investigating a diary)actually they're old volunteer to be cannibalized at the end of there lives. Barbarian: are we the baddies?
It's a shame he can't do like he did in the past, with all the movie clips. Understandable, but still a shame. Overall his videos are better put together and deliver more concentrated amounts of ideas, there was a major charm to the rougher, more "stream of consciousness" style from the before time.
We need more of this positive community engagement between RU-vidrs. I still remember the friendly back and forth with Dr. Viking Cowboy. Great video Matt! Great video Zee! Thank you both.
You're spot on in why I love Genesys. You get this fabric of results rather than just target, miss, target, hit, target, miss. Genesys is also setting agnostic, so it doesn't suffer from the problem of the setting being inextricably tied to the rules.
yes~ that's exactly why i love genesys so much! i had such a specific setting i wanted to create and i just couldn't find an appropriate system for it. Genesys was honestly just perfect for it and im so happy i discovered it, really changed the way i experienced rpgs in general!
I have the base source book for Genesys, the dice and the GM Screen, but I've never been comfortable with running it because I never got a proper feel for how combat would work, or the dice pool system. Do you have any recommendations as to resources I could check out to get a better hang of it? I'd love to use it more (and by that I mean at least once!)
@@VegaraMu check Runeslinger's videos. Yes, they are Star Wars vids, but they will very much give you a ton of great ideas for basically the same system.
@@VegaraMu If you're anything like me (I can't just learn by reading the rules, have to learn by example), then actual play shows are the way to go. I HIGHLY recommend the podcast "Campaign: Skyjacks"! Or any of the other actual-play shows on the OneShot podcast network: oneshotpodcast.com/actual-play/campaign/ (but Skyjacks is my fave). There's a lot of action in episodes 5, 6, & 7 (each roughly an hour, so about one session's worth of adventure) with the real blow-by-blow combat happening in episode 7. I think listening to just a handful of Campaign: Skyjacks episodes, plus a small handful of Campaign: the Mynock episodes (that one's in the Star Wars setting) would be a really solid demonstration of the narrative dice, including different settings and GM styles. :D
This is actually one of Hegel's points. When a person makes an argument and you say you agree, it is unclear whether you agree with the premises, conclusion, or both.
@@amoghkulkarni2239 I swear I took my Phil final 3 weeks ago and all of a sudden I'm surrounded by philosophers. Also, I agree with Schopenhauer in one point - Hegel sucks.
I play the FFG Star Wars RPG, and can attest to how awesome the narrative dice can be. It is much more interesting IMO than D&D's pass/fail system, but it does force you to be more creatively flexible in DMing. Both are good and it's nice to have both. Remember that having options is a good thing in gaming and in life.
I have run a campaign in that system with my friends. The narrative dice system works really well for the Star Wars setting. It keeps the pace going very fast and forces everyone at the table to inhabit their character and interpret dice results into a progressing scene.
I've been running games for my group for every week going on over 3 years and the 12 session game we had in Star Wars Force and Destiny was probably the most epic game we ran. The power scaling was awesome, players loved the dice after session 1 awkwardness which is always to be expected. But I made 2 people who weren't even fans of the movies fall in love with content. Can't recommend it enough.
@@mirthfulArtist It's pretty much as described by Matt, so it just takes a little while to get the hang of it. What slows down play is that what you're rolling can have specific meanings depending on what you're rolling for (from giving a bonus or penalty to your next roll in combat, to skill specific things like shortening journey lengths when using the Astrogation skill). My group came from D&D to it, and I think we were too rigid in our need for rules. It took a while to just let go and not look too hard at what the dice rolls technically can do, and just try and think of it as cool film moments that we want to pull off.
I agree with the core concept of the video. There are several settings I recommend to people but add in the caveat, "You'll want to use a different game system though." Shadowrun immediately comes to mind on that, but there are others as well. Then there are game systems that I love but can not stand the setting. I'm looking at you, Storyteller System. People get annoyed with me when I tell them these things, but I want people to have the best overall gaming experience they can have.
No you are absolutely right about the storyteller system, I love the storyteller system, the setting of world of darkness I can take or leave in a heartbeat.
I love the Shadowrun setting, but the rules felt too extreme to me. Too much incomprehensible crap in the anniversary edition, not enough stuff (why should we bother?) in Anarchy.
Very interesting to hear someone got caught up in Blades lore instead of the system, given there are now dozens of spinoff games that have repurposed the Blades core rules for other settings and genres
You need the settings that these hacks come with though, because the basic rules don't balance wizards and fighters for example - so you need in setting balance (otherwise who would be a fighter when you can be a battle mage?).
@@chromeego7903 I really don't see balance between 'classes' as a thing in a game like BitD/PbtA that is narrative first.. at least it shouldn't be if it's ran well. Balance in these games comes in the amount of spotlight the characters get and if the player is happy with it. And while you can argue that's true of D&D as well, the focus of combat effectiveness in the mechanics ensures that that spotlight can be stolen away through system mastery as easily as someone just trying to chew up scenery
@@DaveBozarth Balance isn't a thing in BitD because there is stuff in the premise that flattens an amazing skill that would otherwise be a 'no brainer' take on character creation. For example the ability to control demons would be devastating if unconstrained by the dire consequences of the world setting. Danilo Furtado had the idea of Flashbacks costing a % of hitpoints. The thing is porting these good ideas over might come with consequences that go unnoticed. 10% of a fighters hitpoints is less of a hit then 10% of a wizards hitpoints, so your fighter might end up coming up with all the planning flashbacks- this seems 'wrong' (not wrong but kind of not what you would expect). So you might come out of that game thinking 'that Flashback mechanic isn't very good &I don't think I will bother playing BitD' - which would be a shame. My point is that porting mechanics from other games has hidden consequences. The designer chose those mechanics that often have roots or 'balancing' in the setting. Also: any game 'ran well' will be by definition enjoyable so that isn't really a point. Try My Little Pony 'run well' and you will have a mind blowing time.
I think you've kind of hit on the best reason to play "other games" regardless of what your favorite game is. If you only play one system, when you decide you want to play/run something that doesn't work great with the system, if you have to rely solely on internet advice you'll probably have a hard time since the internet is unlikely to really know what you're aiming for. On the other hand, if you've played a bunch of different games you have a much easier time evaluating if one of them can be a suitable tool for running your crazy idea. One shots and mini-campaigns can also help bring to light the areas where your favorite system shines. There are pros and cons to every game, but ultimately and RPG's mechanics are just tools. Knowing which tool is right for the job is a great skill to have, but you'll only really get it by trying a bunch of different games. Finally, take every internet suggestion with a grain of salt. I may like game X because it really helps me run/play the kind of game I like, but that doesn't necessitate that the game you want to run would be best served with my favorite system.
I love playing D&d as a player, but running it as a GM just takes too much planning for me. I am really bad at balancing combat, because often I am more interested in the character drama than an engaging encounter. I struggled with this for a while, I felt like I wanted to weave a story with my friends but I was weighed down by a 3 hour combat, and carry weight, and movement speeds. For anyone whose felt similar frustration, I would highly recommend Powered By The Apocalypse games. Apocalypse World, The Sprawl, Dungeon World, Masks are all very rules light. The settings are basically just genre, they provide almost no pre-made content, except for a few example enemies so homebrew is a must, which is what I love. Play just moves fluidly from scene to scene feeling more like a movie or show than a tactical combat. The mechanics are hard to get used to at first, the GM never rolls dice and many rolls resolve whole scenes. The main draw for me is that most of the rolls in the game only occur when something narratively dramatic is taking place. When a roll hits or misses, the outcome determines whether the player or the GM has narrative control. This creates a fun push and pull, but does require a lot of trust and understanding that everyone at the table is working to create a story. These games really opened up my eyes to what rules light games have to offer.
I've not played with the dice system matt's talking about in this video but it sounds like a more crunchy version of pbta rolls (or rather maybe pbta is less crunchy version of this). I love the "succeed with consequences" of DW, and it's also very fast!
I love Dungeon World. Sadly, it didn't take off with my players. From a GM prep side, I love Cypher System. Enemies and challenges use a unified and simple system that means I never have to look at a stat block again. Though I've eventually run into problems with giving meaningful (permanent) magical loot. It turns out when you take away a lot of the unnecessary excess of D&D, there are a lot less levers to pull to reward gamers. But yeah, great suggestions, I just thought I'd leave another one here that I believe fits your point.
I recently got into PBTA by running Masks without ever seeing it before, and it was such an incredible experience of just how dynamic everything is, including battles. It was less of me weaving the narrative and the next steps, and more of me asking back the players' questions, and us weaving the narrative together. I absolutely agree that you need a group that understands what the system wants from you, and thankfully I had just that.
Experimented with PbtA and FATE. Eventually settled on Cypher as the system for our group. The sort of narrative focus and encouraging player input of those systems, but more mechanically tight and defined was much easier for my players. Cypher works for players who need some crunch to ground themselves. PbtA and FATE worked great with groups who can mostlt improv and wing everything, but just need an occasional resolution mechanic.
Apocalypse World actually sprang to mind when Matt was talking about other systems. I love PbtA games, but I run D&D 5e more than anything. I usually toss out anything that doesn't enhance the style of game I play, which usually means travel rules, tracking small inventory (rations, ammo, pocket change), and similar small details. I prefer narrative games, so the enjoyment doesn't come from tracking things like that. Playing something like a West Marches campaign, I'd definitely be leaning into encumberance, travel, and exhaustion. (I also run combat with Health pools for most enemies, so maybe I'm just lazy)
Blades in the dark lore can mostly be safely ignored much like the forgotten realms lore for DnD. Dont be intimidated by it! Before seeing Zee's and Colville's videos on it i wouldn't have even remarked on the lore as being a super central thing to the game.
This could not be more true, I ran a game of blades for nearly two years, probably my most successful campaign ever, and the first time I ever heard about the names of the hours was from Zee's video
The big lore pieces that are tied to the mechanics are ghosts. Lightning walls keeping people in the city and faction lore so you can run the faction game. There are a ton of options there so I can see why someone would think the lore is overwhelming. Especially if you read it and think that you're doing the game a disservice by not using the lore and everything accompanying it. Zee went further than I did by reading cover to cover and even with my reading I found Myself a bit overwhelmed with how much information the book provides for the large number of factions, ghosts, demons, vampires and other things like that as well as how they interact. It's true you don't need that much to get started. Even a faction game (2-3 competing factions in one district with the ability to add more later) can begin simply. These are just some ramblings about my experience so far. I have run the game before for a short stint and am planning on running the game again in a west marches style. I'm very excited to try it out again.
I think this is true but also not, in that Blades to me is intimately tied to the setting. But the system itself can be skinned to create new games using the same mechanics to fit whatever sort of game you’re trying to play.
@@Aud_the_Odd Fully agree with your comment. Blades is tied to the setting, but nothing stops one from stripping it down. Tbh, that's how I run my D&D games in the Forgotten Realms 😂
I don't think that's completely true though, in regards to the forgotten realms lore. Like in order for a wizard in stock 5e to work, you need to include the stock spell lists, which makes several implications about characters and setting that aren't necessarily true in your campaign. You could design a completely new spell list, but then you're building a completely new homebrew class to balance, which is it's own separate problem. Another example, including Elves, Dwarves, Halftlings, and then Half-Orcs but no full Orcs as playable races sends a pretty clear (and somewhat troubling) message to players, in addition to making assumptions about your setting, which isn't even to get into how those racial traits imply very narrow characterization of those races that might not be true for you.
I love when a game's systems are designed to be inseperable from the reality of the setting, it's one of the big reasons that Vampire: The Masquerade clicked with me so strongly coming off of D&D. Everything mechanical in that game is tied to some fact aboit existing in that world or is there to reinforce the thematic elements, and I find that super cool.
It's funny that you say 'coming off D&D' because as someone who plays a lot of different TTRPGs I feel like there is a *tremendous* amount of D&D that is inseparable from certain setting elements you basically have to have in your setting or ignore/change bits of D&D. D&D as a ruleset doesn't care what the place is called or if the background is grass or sand, but it cares an awful lot about a lot of what's in the setting background.
@@Silkspar Theyre linked. The type of world were that is possible is radically different than onewhere it isnt. Another obvious example is the classes.
L5R RPG from FFG uses a similar dice system, Successes, 'Opportunities' instead of 'Boon'. It really fleshes out the dynamics of Samurai battle and works well with the different mechanics for Investigation, Dueling and Massed Battles. You may be blocked while striking, but in that moment capture a glimpse into the opponents Loyalties or Desires. Like i said, fits and fills out the Samurai theme so well.
Underrated video. I feel like this should be required watching for novice worldbuilders! Be us authors, game masters, screenwriters... This is almost "Storyworlds 101" for me.
How to run a pre-planned heist in any system: have players make rolls for how they are helping the preplanning process. Each success adds a metacurrency (bennies, hero points) to a pool that the heroes can draw on during the event. Spending a point from the pool either grants them a reroll or adds a vital tool to their inventory.
Genesys is amazing. The dice add SO MUCH to the storytelling. They also make the plauers take an active role in telling the story. They aren't just relying on the DM to tell them everything that's going on. It really makes things so much more interesting, fun and surprising.
I've recently become infatuated with the Dungeon Crawl Classics system, as it is inspired by D&D's appendix N, but is rules light and fun over lots of mechanics. The whole game is truly made on good ttrpg philosophy, giving players and the DM much more liberty without the rules. Making monsters and magic items is so fast, simple and fun; wizard magic is wild and chaotic whereas cleric's relationship with their God is core to their class; the theif and warrior are simple but reward creativity in combat much more than their 5e counter parts AND homebrew is so easy and fun (and pretty much assumed) do to the game's design. Going to really have a blast with this game :3
I came here to endorse Dungeon Crawl Classics as well. Absolutely fantastic game system! Rolling for everything is super fun and the story builds itself along with how the rolls go.
I’ve had some of the most fun sessions I’ve ever GMd in DCC. Fun is designed into the game, I think it’s impossible to play that game without leaving the table with a few crazy stories
For a little while now I've believed that you look at what the game simulates to see what is important to that game. I now have to add "how it simulates it" to that statement thanks to this video.
There's a Leverage RPG powered by Cortex Plus. The gist of the game is that the heist involves a location with some predetermined obstacles inside (traps, enemies, locks, etc). The game play is basically scouting the target, identifying those threats, preparing for those threats, then entering the location with all of your preparations in play. I think Leverage itself messes with the sequence of these, so some of the preperation happens in flashback, just-in-time as an obstacle is encountered. There's an essay in the Cortex Plus Hackers Guide called "A Dungeon Crawl Is Just a Poorly Planned Heist" that talks about how heist stories and dungeon crawl stories can be combined somewhat to improve both.
Can I just say that this video had what I wanted in the "Other games you should try" video. An exited story about the fun you had. Amy felt like she was just reading press copy. I know she wrote it, but it was just a description of the game and setting. (I know she made a statement about diving into darker subjects than normal, but again, that isn't a specific story, and there wasn't that moment of "This was so cool!" that sells people on a game.).
In Genesys/Star Wars where this dice mechanic is in use today, the dice function almost identically to what Matt showed you today. Dice are broken into three types and organized by colors as positive and negative. Positive D12's are "Proficiency Dice" Positive D8's are "Ability Dice" and Positive D6's are "Boost Dice" Negative D12's are "Challenge Dice" Negative D8's are "Difficulty Dice" and Negative D6's are "Setback Dice" Dice pools are usually assembled by taking the number of Proficiency Dice and Ability Dice as determined by your Skill and Ability for the check. Most challenges will be opposed by difficulty dice, harder challenges will be "upgraded" to swap in a challenge die. Boost and Setback dice are usually used for conditional modifiers. Positive dice have three symbols: Success, Advantage and Triumph. Negative dice have three symbols: Failure, Disadvantage and Despair. Pools are rolled against each other, Successes and Failures cancel each other out, Advantage and Disadvantages cancel each other out and Triumph and Despair happen simultaneously when rolled together. The PC can spend Advantages to get bonuses for other members of the party, or activate special abilities of gadgets and weaponry. The GM can spend Disadvantages to do the same for his antagonists. Triumphs can be spent on critical successes or for special situations that turn the tide of the encounter. Despairs can be spent in a similar way by the GM
Mr. Colville, I love how you run the game! I just watched Dusk #6 and I am completely enchanted. I especially liked the part when Dael said "I have been Colvilled." That being said, I want to stress as a DM myself that it doesnt matter what system you run, it matters how you run it. Like you I have many rulesets coursing thru my brain .. Blades in the Dark, OSE, DCC, CoC, Dungeon World, D&D .. My take-away here is that as a DM, the Player Agency is the Core. And the players inform the world. But it all plays out into a scenario sculpted by the DM. You have a Masterful grasp of interactive story-telling, Inspirational.
"If that sounds like it would be tedious for you, then that is probably not your kind of game." You hit the nail on the head Matt. I read these rules in the Star Wars game was went "Oh hell no!" and sold the book. I envisioned the game slowing to a crawl while my players constantly asked about what dice to use, or tried to bargain for the good dice, and then had to ask what the symbols meant after every single roll. Not to mention everyone having to spend money on something they already have tons of - dice. Give me 15+6=21 and done! And that is why we have different games, to satisfy people with different tastes.
Yeah, I don't think this dice pool system is for me. The good thing about the D20 system is that it's fast and flexible, you either succeed in a cool way or fail in a cool way at a specific task. This lets players make multiple choices in each encounter and it lets the DM build the sense of success or the threat of failure with each roll. With the dice pool, you kind of build in all the inputs and then just roll for the result of a fight or an encounter. It wouldn't make sense to build the pool and roll for each minor action. My goal in every session is to maximize player agency and minimize rules parsing. The dice pool seems like it would tend to stymie player and DM agency.
I know it entirely misses the point of "play the right game" that's been a focus recently, but this really really feels like what the plan was supposed to be with dnd 4e skill challenges. I wonder if skill challenges could be improved by having story dice along with the roll rather than advantage/disadvantage and other dnd-focused processes?
Yes! Mechanics are so important for tone, and it's weird how some people don't get that. I remember before Discord took off I was in a Skype-based ttrpg group where the dm was wanting help building a lovecraftian themed rpg. Being creative and supportive, everyone pitched him ideas and helped him work through it and it was cool. It was kind of like Collabris where he would propose some ideas, collect feedback, and gather ideas up to refine and tinker with to make into a bigger project he was in charge of. But when he was trying to get us thinking about what different abilities could do and class concepts and such, I asked him where he thought the game would land between Bloodborne and Call of Cthulhu, and he said something like "I don't actually think that matters much". I know the guy wasn't dumb by any means, but that response had me at a loss. I don't have contact with them anymore cuz I quit Skype ages ago, but I hope he found this video. He was really keen on game design and seemed really hooked into the rpg space, so hopefully this video found it's way to him, to better explain that idea than I did at the time.
Am I the only one loving this little Inception game of uploading gaming videos about other gamers' uploaded gaming videos about other games? So meta. Your move, Zee.
I know Matt prefers scripting his videos, but I really enjoyed this more free-form one. It took me back to the earlier videos, which, granted, were a bit rambly, but had their own charm over the strictly scripted ones (which I love too). Regarding the subject - take what you love and put it in your game. I took the "partial success" idea of Dungeon World / BitD and my skill checks and saving throws now have two DCs, ie. "18/12" - the first one is a success, the second one still mostly succeeds, but with consequences. It's a great way to put some shades of gray into the narrative, especially if other players help with their own ideas (to screw the player making the check).
I love the magic system in Low Fantasy Gaming, as you cast spells they are more likely to have Dark and Dangerous Magic effects. It keeps the magic from taking over the game and ensures the players think things through before they cast spell.
I've been running Edge of the Empire for my players for a few months now and they have really warmed up to the system. Letting them drive the narrative with their rolls has lead to some amazing games. I highly recommend it!
This made me miss 3rd Edition! I'm a huge WFRP Fan, I do love the setting, but I really enjoy the brutality of the game. I like a system that doesn't get in the way of the actual game, I don't want to be stopping every 5 minutes checking rules.
This is so spot on! You can play just about any type of game in any system but the Mechanics and the System will influence that gameplay so you might as well use a system that aids the gameplay you want. Also, I love LOVE that you are talking about this system. I am a big fan of FFG’s SW & Genesys systems and played many hundreds of hours in it. The main difference is the dice system has been refined and improved to be a little less noodley but still presents exactly as you say in feel and potential execution. One of the only systems that aids in Narrative play through the system, not just the creativity of the players & narrator. Love it Matt! Thanks for the Vid!
I recently started GMing Fantasy Flight's Edge of the Empire, and I really love it. Skill checks are so much more interesting than RAW 5e. It fits in to my style a bit better than 5e I think, though I still love DnD. I highly recommend FFG swrpg!
@@mirthfulArtist your question doesn't really make sense to me. 5e is fundamentally a d20 system, everything you do in that game stems from the d20. If you replace the d20 with the dice pool it is now a different system. If you mean could you run the FFG dice system in a fantasy setting ala forgotten realms, absolutely you could. It would take some finagling, but it's possible.
@@trombonegamer14 I meant do you think ffg style skill challenges could be implemented into 5e, with the dice pool reflecting proficiencies, ability mods, help actions, etc.
@@mirthfulArtist so you're saying, I call for an athletics check in dnd, and instead of rolling a d20 you pick up a series of ability and challenge dice? Because I would no longer call that 5e, the core rule of the game has changed. It would affect everything
@@trombonegamer14 Oh sorry, I meant Skill *Challenges,* like the ones in 4e that were never really carried over to 5e. I didn't realize you said "checks" in your first comment. Shows where my mind was! But yeah, I think this boon/bane/success/failure dice system is a really interesting one. I might try it out in my non-combat encounters.
Matt, thanks for another great video! Our gateway to TTRPG was then newly published Fantasy Flight Star Wars (Edge of the Empire to be exact) game. After some research I realized that their starting sets were second to none when it comes to introducing new players into the hobby. And that proved to be very very true for us. The Star Wars setting was a huge selling point for my players. But it was the system and the dice that truly made it shine. It is extremely intuitive and dials storytelling and improvisation to 11. I am so happy that we've started playing using narrative dice. When we started our second campaign using D&D 5E we all very much loved how the system is streamlined and easy, but we had no problem continuing to narrate all die rolls just as we did in FFG SW system. We have a great campaign in 5E, but everyone in the group would love to dive back in our old SW game for a one shot or a small follow-up adventure at some point. For the story and characters mostly, but also for the system and those dice.
Having watched 70 sessions of Chaosium's King Arthur Pendragon on Eric Vulgaris's channel, I can say that the mechanics do a nearly perfect job in emulating the Arthurian legends.
Your explanation of the system differences with the dice in the story type sense is brilliant. I hadn't thought of what you get FROM the dice in play style rather than that just being those mechanics. 1st class video, possibly one of the best in a philosophical sense.
The dice action is one of the reasons why I am fond of Vampire the masquerade V5. There's a lot of Discourse around it, and some of it I agree with, but not this one. For this one, V5 replaced the blood pool (a system of points, kind of like a mana pool; you got, say, three blood points, it costs a blood point to hypnotise a mortal, now you have two blood points) with hunger system- in which each use of a supernatural ability provokes a roll of a blood rouse die. If you get a success, you can use your ability for free. If you fail the roll, you get hungrier. The hungrier you are, the more normal dice in your standard pools (like rolling athletics) are replaced with red hunger dice, which, other than successes and failures, also have a little skull on them, and a "fanged" success. Fun things happen with the red dice in your pool; you can lose control, you risk letting your hunger for blood win, you may succeed, but like a monster or animal would, not a human (so instead of convincing the bouncer to let you skip a queue, you rip out his throat. queue skipped all the same, but...-). Hence all the use of abilities becomes an interesting risk balacing game, and the narrative that vampires are blood-thirsty, dangerous creatures is reinforced not just through the story, but through gameplay. For a ludonarrative coherence fetishist like myself, it's like its snowing cocaine ;P
Thanks Matt I’ve missed your handsome face - I had a question for you, I’ve been running the game for a 2 years now, inspired by you, but I’m coming up in the end of the campaign… how do you end a long running game?
I ended a 2-year campaign a few months ago, and the way I basically did that was concluding the big story arc, making sure the player characters had their goals reasonably met, tying up NPCs and their stories, and then letting the players decide where their characters go next. Some of them retired, went home to family. Some decided to sail off to distant lands. And some decided to start a little adventuring guild together. That campaign ending had a bittersweet tone to it, but mostly sweet. My brother ended a long campaign with one of the player characters dying in a climactic battle to save the universe, another player dying in a epilogue while destroying a powerful wizard who had manipulated her and her town the entire campaign, yet another player turning evil and then being killed by a player, and my character returning to his studies at the University, trying to understand the powerful magic he encountered on the quest. So it can be a really depressing and emotionally heavy ending, too, if that's what works for your campaign.
The discussion about resolution mechanics reminds me of the game that I run, which uses Pokémon Tabletop United. And the way skill resolution works in that game is that you roll a specific number of dice. So there is a marked difference in the way that a character with a 1 in Athletics handles situations from a character with a 3 or 4 in Athletics. It makes the character strengths and weaknesses a lot more apparent.
Blades do be good for heists tho, the system and specifically the flashbacks are fun and cinematic. The setting is specific, but it isn't prescriptive. It even does a lot of the same things you really liked about the Warhammer Fantasy RPG system without the fiddly dice
It's always so good to watch this videos because they reaffirm ideas and thoughts I have, but I'm never sure on them. Seeing you basically taking stuff from my head and saying them in a coherent and well explained way makes me very safe.
Was Zee (sp?) reading the same Blades in the Dark book as I was? The vast majority of the book is about running the game. The setting material is only really the latter one-third of the book. The sections on running a heist "the Score" and "Running the Game" are clearly marked in the table of contents. I feel like most of the book is about teaching how play works and the game principles.
I played a lot of games during the years with different systems, one of the best I've tried is the one used on Heavy Gear from Dream Pod 9. The amout of dice you threw (d8 I think) were your skill level, you keep the higher one and then you add (or substract) your attribute (usually +1 or +2 for your main ones). In the end the most important thing on a test was that you were trained, but being naturally disposed also helped
I'm a huge fan of the WFRP3e system for exactly what you describe: variable success rather than binary success 1e, 2e, and 4e have binary outcomes wiith success levels, but no variable successes so our group has gone back to 3e . I've written and produced quite a lot of material for WFRP (all editions) for fanzines and whatnot and the world brings me back as much as the 3e rules do. I was a Greyhawk fan from when Sargent did FROM THE ASHES and made the setting more grimdark. Sargent btw wrote for WFRP extensively and you can see the permanent effect on the D&D World of Greyhawk. Anyways, thanks for doing the video. It warms my heart.
The go to system I look to when stepping out from 5e is Cypher system. Cypher has a handful of different settings with core books that spend a lot of page space on setting lore. Numenera (Jack Vance style distant future world), the strange (investigators hopping through portals to parallel dimensions that pop up all over the world), predation (Dino Riders), and a high school secret identity superheroes setting that I forget the name of. Cypher also has a core book that is setting agnostic, frontloads the core rules of the system, and has guidelines for homebrewing just about any setting or genre in the back. The specific mechanic I love from Cypher is its XP system. Roll a nat 1 and you get 1 XP to keep, 1 XP to give to a party member, and the DM introduces a complication. A bane. If you don't want to face the complication you give the 2 XP back to the DM. If you want to reroll a failed roll you can give the DM 1 XP. To level up you put 4 XP into one of 4 categories on your character sheet. Once you've upgraded all 4 categories you level up. I love adapting Cypher XP to D&D because it so seamlessly replaces the need to remember all the little edge cases where inspiration needs to be handed out. It also puts leveling in the hands of the players and reduces DM bookkeeping. Also, since another key aspect of progress in Cypher is discovery and exploration it is great for rewarding knowledge, social, investigation, and exploration rolls. Anyone roll a nat 20? Everyone gets 1 XP. Roll high enough on an intelligence check to trigger a lore dump from the DM? Here's 5 extra XP. Roll high enough to discover a hidden cave, grove, grotto, or treasure on a survival check? Here's 2 XP plus whatever gold or platinum I say is hidden in under the rock you just tripped over. End a potential combat encounter with words instead of drawing weapons? Here's XP equal to the result of that persuasion check divided between each party member. Cypher is great for getting players to stop treating intelligence as a dump stat.
I’ve just started DMing a campaign in the Warhammer World but using 5e. Thought about what system to use for a long time but in the end everyone round the table knew D&D so well that the rules don’t get in the way of the roleplaying and that’s what‘s important to us. WFRP 4e is definitely worth investigating for the artwork alone - the production values Cubicle 7 have in their work is really impressive.
I have played Edge of the Empire as well, and that dice system has become beloved by me because of all the reasons it seems to have been loved by you. I hope to use the basic system to run a game in the future. Thank you for all of your content Matt, always insightful and entertaining and just plain fun to listen to. I always appreciate your perspective and reasonings, and I can genuinely thank you for years of DMing now under my belt because of your first video. Peace, Out.
Ghostbusters (by West End Games) had a "Ghost Die." A six on one die in a pool of D6s was replaced with a ghost. For players, a 👻 meant something bad happened. For ghosts, it meant something good happened. It was the first system I had ever seen to use pools.
I had an idea to accommodate both ideas. D&D is three things primarily. Social interaction, exploration, and conflict. What if, in order to add this fail forward or succeed with complications ideas, for SOME rolls typically outside combat, you add one fate dice to a d20 roll. Then the d20 shows success or failure, and the fate dice indicates bane or boon or neither. Outside combat, this can make for extra tensions that help engage the players. And using it judiciously can make the whole game get a new dimension.
Totally agree, for example I really love traveller setting, space is cool. but the most unique thing is creation of character - there you have to roll on flow charts and determine what happened previously and how you met other party members.
One thing that I also think is different about the dnd vs starwars/warhammer dice system from a Player's perspective, is that the warhammer die require an element compromise and negotiation between the player and gm. A player and gm might have a different ideas of what a boon or bane could mean in a situation, for example, and a player might have to accept a worse punishment for a bane than they expect, or a boon they think isn't helpful when they imagined something different in their head. Whereas, in the dnd system, what constitutes success and failure is preset and agreed upon before the roll is made, and as soon as the roll is seen everyone is immediately on the same page about what has happened (not always but usually). This leads to a different kind of buy-in and player experience; in DnD, you can go in completely embodying a character and play it like a game knowing that your success/failure is based purely on concrete things about the world and the dice, while in Warhammer you can go in with a more collaborative storytelling angle, knowing that what happens is going to be based on what the GM or the table collaboratively thinks is the most interesting or fun thing to happen, and accepting that you'll be a little more outside of your character and it may not always feel "fair" in a game-y sense. It would also require establishing up front if the table is going to be negotiating the outcomes of rolls or if its whatever the GM says goes (advantages and drawbacks to both). I prefer the first way personally, but I definitely know people who would prefer the second. That said, I've only ever watched/listened to star wars/warhammer games and haven't played in those systems myself so who knows, maybe i'd feel differently
It sounds like a lot of the agency in your warhammer dice system is taken out of the player's hands and put into the GM's. It lets the DM be creative in interpreting the results, but where a game like D&D might let the player say "I'm going to throw dirt in the minotaur's eyes and then kick him in the balls", it sounds like the player just goes "ok here's my dice roll to fight the minotaur, now GM tell me how I did".
As always, your timing is impeccable, after about two years of solely dnd my group is branching out into blades in the dark, eclipse phase, monster of the week, and a few others. Your videos always come right when i need them
Loved the video Matt. The dice cam was a great touch. Felt very refreshing and perhaps not as structured as some of the more recent videos, which i liked. The very scripted, structured videos are great, but there was just a hint of the old ways and that was plenty and great 👍
Finally, a chance to talk about Ryuutama & Fate. I tried Ryuutama because I couldn’t run a survival-style game in D&D without taking out half the mechanics, and I’m still running it years later (granted I’ve been postponing the last session for months). I do like the world of wonder the setting brings with it, but what I like most is that the mechanics are not built with primarily fighting in mind. The 4 base classes focus on completely different things (travel/camping, hunting, healing, buy/sell/carrying) but are each equally invaluable. I say I like Ryuutama’s rules, not because of the dice, but because it’s written with the equal importance of every aspect in mind. A camping check is important, not an add-on to a monster-fight-game. Fate I’m still waiting to run but it’s already my favourite. Seems to me like no game makes roleplaying and ruleplaying mesh as well as Fate does. I’ve had lots of fun in character creation using progression rules in reverse to figure out my character’s history. Anyway, Fate is hard to place. Of course I love the system in that it makes roleplayers and minmaxers have the best interest… but what I also love is that it lacks setting. I can do magic cats with one group and waterbenders with the other, no worries about how accepted tieflings are. So lack of setting, does that count as liking it because of the setting? Of course I’m cheating a bit as FateCore & FAE are systems themselves and not implementations, but I do have rulebooks for both, so they kinda count as in between.
Two of my favorite systems to play that aren't D&D are Iron Kingdoms (Warmachine's rpg) and Iron Claw, "The Furry RPG." I think the setting for Iron Claw is facinating given how dark it is, I was a big fan of the Red Wall books growing up and it feels very reminiscent, but I love the system more than anything. It's an active rolling system similar to Warhammer Fantasy that Matt is talking about here, but it's a lot more simplified. You have six main stats, followed by an array of skills like D&D, but your stats are represented by dice and two of those stats are you Career dice and your Species dice. The bigger/more Career dice you have, the better you are at your job and skills relevant to it, and the bigger/more your Species dice are, you more "feral" you are and better at natural talents of your species. A Fox merchant with a 2d6 in career and a d4 in species would probably be good at haggling, appraising items, possibly bluffing and persuasion, but when it comes to things like digging or swimming, they may not be good at it. You could still yourself more athletic with your Body stat, but that would be showcased because your fox maybe works out or goes swimming frequently through hard work, not because theyre naturally capable. It's such an expressive system and lens itself incredibly well to more rp focused games than tactical grid combat. Problem is, as I'm sure some people reading this are thinking, people don't want to play the Furry rpg regardless of how fun the system is. I definitely recommend giving it a shot if anyone's interested, even if you reskin it for some other setting though I'm not entirely sure how well that translate given the nature of how species work in the system and the sheer volume of choices you get in the core book alone.
I get that getting good at discourse is a good way to talk about different games without being condescending. I believe that talking seriously about games (which includes being clear about what you like from a certain game) is the first way to respect a potential new gamer or hobbyist. Many times we forget that beyond the whole social experience, we are playing games and that fundamental aspect requires for you to be able to talk rules, mechanics, nuanced interpretations of the text depending on the group. That's why it's important to think about why do we choose to play certain games. Sometimes even 5E D&D can be overwhelming and tedious for me, because it's so mechanically dense (or either, combat gets in the way of what I like most about running the game). That's why I don't run or play it and I'm interested in other systems, but my friends, with whom I have played for years, really like 5E. That makes playing with them quite challenging, because our tastes are different at the moment, but instead of getting mad at them, you just have to accept it and still enjoy other things within the same hobby.
The only thing I have come up with for 5e that even comes close to the narrative dice, is when a DC (or AC) is matched perfectly, I like to give the player the option of succeeding at a cost, or failing with a benefit. What's really interesting about the FFG dice mechanic is that you typically get success with negative consequences or failure with positive consequences (on appropriate difficulty tasks). This is because if you roll lots of successes and not many failures you'll succeed, but your difficulty dice haven't rolled failures so they are probably banes and all your ability dice have been used up on successes so they can't cancel those out with boons. So it's not usually completely good or completely bad. I find the fact that these dice produce a natural balance like that really neat.
Icon does something where it defines two... basically entirely different modes of play for narrative versus combat. In narrative play it uses Blades in the Dark's core mechanics; negotiating your position and risk with the GM, taking strain/stress to improve your results, using abilities from your Bond, which is like a Blades playbook. But when you get into combat, it becomes D&D4e with a Final Fantasy twist. You track your position on a grid, attack monsters by rolling a d20 and comparing it to something, everyone has hit points, and your character has powers based on their Class and Job within that Class. And those halves of the game don't really care about each other mechanically, there's nothing limiting what Bond you can pick based on what Job you have and vice versa. You could have two characters that are Stalwarts, big tanky warriors with big shields, but one has the Bond of the Brave and "adresses challenges with perseverance, friendship, and passion" while the other has the Bond of the Wolf and "addresses challenges with precision, coldness, or intimidation".
11:43 what you just described is almost every Blades in the Dark roll. Only on a complete success do you not face some consquence or complication, even if you succeed
Well if you are willing to be a bit flexible then in D&D you can absolutely replicate the effects of several dice types you spoke about here. Someone helps you = advantage; something hinders you = disadvantage. If you want to narrate something amazing happening, make the player roll for Athletics to jump into a moving carriage. Think about how difficult it can be. Then see how their result compared to the DC you set. If you set it at, say, 10 and they rolled a 12 or 14 - everything is fine. If they rolled a 20 total, something beneficial can happen. If they roll nat. 20, something even more amazing can happen. Likewise, if they failed the check, it doesn't necessary need to mean that they did not manage the jump. Varying degrees of success. If they rolled an 8, you can say that they managed the jump but are now hanging on their fingertips. You preserve the thing you treasure - ie. not knowing how it turns out - with the simplicity. Just instead of several types of dice telling you whether something happens, only the difference between the DC and the check result tells you that. When my players roll to see whether they can find a specific shop in a new town, a low result doesn't necessary mean they can't find it - it just means that it took them much longer than expected.
One thing I think that not enough people talk about enough is the number of genres that happen in a typical TTRPG campaign, and that it's hard to switch systems mid-campaign. Keep in mind that I primarily run and play 5th Edition D&D so most of my views comes through that lens, but in any given TTRPG campaign that I see tends to have multiple styles of play. You can usually have tactical combat, dramatic duels, stealth, heists, traveling and survival, resource management, on top of walking and talking. The simpler and less defined a TTRPG is, the easier it will be to slide between these styles without having to 'shoehorn' in different mechanics which are unsuited. Overall, to use 5e as an example, I think it handles most genres well. It's a pretty simple system that usually has rules for what you'd expect in a given situation, and I think that it'd fail as a system if it went into any more detail than it does. If you want that, go to Pathfinder, but expect to be scratching your head if you're new to TTRPGs and flipping through the book a lot (not to riff on Pathfinder, I actually like it a lot). It's not convenient to sign up your friends / coworkers / strangers at a game store to any TTRPG, much less to switch mid-campaign for this highly specific situation, scenario or scene, especially so when we all just want to get to the table, make good memories, and roll dice. Basically, what I'm saying is that we should all use Fate Core.
One of the things a lot of people don't get until they've tried a lot of different RPGs is that very few game systems are setting agnostic, which can make mixing and matching systems from different games difficult. For example, I *love* the social system from Legend of the Five Rings, because it forces players to weigh things like Honor and Glory against more pragmatic concerns, as well as their own personal goals. For example, the Doji Courtier school gives bonuses to characters with high Honor, and at its highest levels can allow a player to force someone to choose between accepting defeat on an argument and accepting an Honor loss. However, that system absolutely does not work outside of L5R's setting, because it carries certain assumptions about the way the world works that don't carry over into other settings. Another example would be Scion 2e and its combat system. In most systems, you declare what you want to do when you attack an enemy, take appropriate penalties or activate abilities, and then attack. In Scion 2e, though, you first roll your attack, and accumulate a certain number of "successes." You then spend successes to overcome defense and inflict an Injury, with any leftover successes getting allocated to "stunts," which include things like initiating a grapple, disarming an opponent, inflicting a disabling injury, and so on. This works well in the setting because you are playing the literal children and chosen heroes of the gods, so the assumption leans towards allowing you to do cool stuff, rather than "realistically" penalizing you for getting fancy.
cool dice mechanics! you've given me some great ideas for a new system i've been developing for a couple years now. appreciate it! this is why dice mechanic talks are awesome. you get some fun insight. i'm thinking a "@ a cost" die is a great idea. appreciate it!
I like the idea of letting the players use inspiration in my game to mimic the whole, "He's a friend from work!" mechanic from blades in the dark. Heck if they do a good enough job on the RP/backstory I may award an inspiration to replace the one they spent. Sort of like force points from WEG.
That's something I love about Exalted. The resolution takes time, but the overlap of playing a mythic hero and assembling a hefty pile of dice feels right. Tossing a pool od 15d10 feels badass, because you probably used a Charm to do something amazing, gave the Storyteller some cool description for a bonus, and spent some magical power, which might have not-insignificant consequences for you. Perhaps you got some a die or two, because your character's motivations and values align with what you're trying to do, which encourages thinking like your character even in combat. Above all, tossing 15d10 makes you feel like you have the power in your hands. It's something only high-level spellcasters and Sneak-attacking Rogues can truly experience in D&D, casting handfuls of dice while others just add +10. Whether you're chasing an elemental through a jungle, fighting a demon prince atop a field of raised spears, or fixing centuries of tangled bureaucracy if your character is proficient in it, you're going to feel awesome once the test is resolved.
Matt, I recommend digging into burning wheel! It's a system I found that does not have much available in the side of "lore" and mostly just contains a slew of rules and info on running the game. It's a system I haven't mastered after many years. Just a recommendation! Thanks for these videos! It's so refreshing to see everyone banding together to brave the breach of new systems!
The Burning Wheel is a beautiful system (and a gorgeous tome), but it is very much burdened by being extremely optimized for a very specific sort of gritty medieval fantasy. Yes, you can homebrew your way around that, but the skills and lifepaths, the bulk of the meat of the system, are very specific to that kind of setting. Just because the setting isn't a specific world doesn't mean that the game isn't geared towards creating a very specific kind of experience. TBW is a book I definitely recommend everyone read, because it's immensely mind-expanding, but I'm doubtful I'll ever actually play it because I'm simply not into that kind of grit.
@@watcher314159 Too true! I appreciate the well constructed response! (I'm still trying to wrap my head around the duel of wits and combat oriented mini games!) Crunch for crunch sake seems to be popular among the more "OSR" Games I've noticed but hadn't really considered.
This is my main criticism of the first Games You Might Like video. Amy was pitching us a setting far more than the mechanics, and it was a setting that wouldn't be out of place as a 5e setting. Her favorite mechanic from the system was one she said she now uses in every other system because it's easy to implement, which is the opposite of what someone should say when they are trying to convince me what makes their system better for certain games and styles of play than what I'm currently playing.
My favorite thing is Adventures in Middle Earth because it’s relatable, still being 5e, but introduces many game changing rules that help you play in a different way, leaning more towards exploration fitting for being in middle earth. I wish more things existed like it.
4th ed WFRP was a "let's get back to the roots" type of thing and resembles kind of a mashup of 1st and 2nd edition. Percentile system, huge mechanical disparity between species i.e. Elves are just better at everything and not by a little. A lot of interest in very detailed permanent injuries (how many teeth and on what side/row did that critical punch just knock out etc) and of course slowly going crazy/becoming mutated because you see chaos things sometimes.
Critical hits are indeed hugely important to the combat mechanics, and do come with a one sentence description that provides an example, but in no way is it as detailed as the example given.
I think the origin of this style of interpreting dice pools lies in 1986's Ghostbusters RPG from West End Games. That game had a Ghost Die which was rolled as part of every dice pool. If the Ghostbusters symbol came up, a mishap occurred regardless of the overall success of the roll. This concept was further refined in the form of the Wild Die in the Star Wars RPG and in later d6 products. The d6 Wild Die is definitely less flashy than the FFG narrative dice, but it has the advantage of not requiring custom dice to play the game.
I am a HUGE fan of rules that are 'yes but' and 'no and.' I also like my rules to be easy to play and simple but also versatile enough to do whatever you want and there isn't time spent figuring out what to roll. I am most in love with the Storyteller/Storytelling/Storypath system because it hits these marks. I also fell in love with Spirit of 77 because it takes all the strengths of the Apocalypse Engine and makes the concepts less abstract. I tried Apocalypse World but just couldn't wrap my head around it.
Matt, I know you hear this thousands of times. But...I wanted you to know. Watching you (and other D&D streamers/youtubers) has inspired me to run a D&D 5E game! I convinced my kids and brother in law, as well as my niece to play. I started with Lost Mines of Phandelver. So, thank you for making these videos! 2 sessions and a session 0 so far...and the kids (and my brother in law) seem to love it. I myself am not feeling that I am doing well, but I am likely comparing myself to people I watch... (CritRole, High Rollers, Dungeon Dudes, and you)
