this seems like a non issue that comes down to "your fun is wrong because my opinion is X, therefore im mad you arent conforming to my standards" they are just having fun hanging out as friends and playing basically a home game and we are just lucky enough to be able to listen to it
Not to mention, combat can be incredibly boring or frustrating if its the only thing sought after/being offered. Even the harder or more impressive combats get easily forgotten if that's literally all you're doing. "Hey remember when you almost fell off a cliff fighting wargs?" "Which time."
I think there is a good argument that it's better to switch systems from 5E if you're planning to have less combat in a campaign. With that said acting like it's a requirement is pretty dumb. Do what's the most fun for you.
For just a home game, that'd probably be what they do. But keep in mind, the streams are also a business. And D&D sells. Hardly a soul left in the world that doesn't recognize D&D, but if you say Pathfinder, even a lot of people who PLAY D&D have only the slightest inkling what the system entails. Now imagine a system that doesn't focus on combat, like some PBTA systems or a Gumshoe system. I only know a few people who would even try them, let alone watch other people play it. D&D just has too much brand recognition to pass up. See: Critical Role swapping to 5e (and utterly breaking it by porting over Pathfinder items)
The greater context is that the GM has two decades of experience in that specific system, and because of that he feels more comfortable bending D&D into the system he wants to play in. There would ultimately be less freedom in going to a combat light system, because of the lack of familiarity with the flexibility of it.
There is a good argument, but a better argument is having to learn a new system with a bunch of people watching you while also trying to tell you how to run your games/play your characters. Like I don't disagree with you, but we need to turn to us as a collective audience and work on being better towards actual play DMs to give them that comfort to experiment with new systems. Too many of us (the collective) are entitled brats who need to control a table we're not even sitting at.
You can tell Brennan is having fun with junior year, because he’s taking his time with it, sure he started with a combat, but that’s for the crowd, now that it’s for him he’s taking his time and making it his best season yet
I've barely noticed the lack of combat in WWW because I'm just so enthralled by the story, and continuously impressed by the way Brennan creates such high stakes without the use of combat. Even when there is combat, I love how they use post production to remove the time it takes to roll and add up totals. It's maybe the closest a D&D table has ever come to a turn/round only lasting 6 seconds. I think the point that Brennan has buy-in from his players as trained actors and improvisers is a fair point. This was also obvious when they released the Witch class playtest. So many features were designed in such a way where they only really work if both the DM and the player are acting in good faith. But I think that's the real strength of the the four of them. It's not just that they're all very talented artists that allows them create a good story, it's the combined trust each has in the other that lets them create a great story.
Decades of improv and sketch experience is kind of a super power. Familiarity with the rules is huge factor in sticking to them. But I think one of the most important things is the audiences familiarity with the rule set. If you had never played an rpg and I got recommended an actual play podcast I think you would have a hard time understanding it (why are they pausing the story to roll dice?) and bounce off of it almost immediately. To a lesser extent I think this is true for systems that you aren't aware of even if you are a seasoned rpg-fan.
There's very much a sense in which I think Brennan could have picked a system that supported and channeled his social roleplaying needs without getting in the way, and which would likely abstract away the physics sim side of play to the level that the story actually cares about it (and thus also getting in the way less). But system familiarity also means a lot, and evidently was enough to not make it worth the effort to find a marginally better system for his purposes. And the fact that another system could have saved him some work probably doesn't hold much water if the work it would have saved is what Brennan derives his fun from. For most people who aren't pro improvisers however, I think that calculus would be more on the side of finding a better system. If the rules of improv aren't absolutely second nature for everyone at the table to the point that social/narrative mechanics are completely superfluous, I almost guarantee a system with more social/narrative mechanical support will feel more liberating than restricting.
I don't think it really matters what system they play, or how they play it. but that said I think his belief that DND isn't a combat game is incorrect. it basically only has rules that facilitate combat, the game can only way in on its own mechanics, so social stuff is almost entirely up to the DM and players. I also like the sound of the stove analogy but it seems misplaced, as its not to say it has nothing to do with food but that the type of food you want to make requires the right tools, DND doesn't inherently help you make a social game, just like a stove may provide heat but you wouldn't bake a cake on it, you'd use an oven.
I think Puffin Forest said in one of his videos, and I'd have too look through them again. But the Rules As Written really only says to reward EXP when players overcome an encounter. However it doesn't say HOW that encounter is overcome. So players successfully circumventing the need to fight an encounter is technically overcoming said encounter. It's meeting the challenge placed and yet through RP, Puzzle Solving, ect, as long as the challenge is no longer a roadblock, the players have succeeded the encounter. While I agree that DnD does have rules that facilitate combat, if that were the only thing one can do with the ruleset it wouldn't be interesting enough to have stayed mainstream. Stealth can be a huge part of encounters and as said above, doesn't have to lead to combat so much as circumventing it. Observant's read lips ability lets you gather information without needing to strap them down and shine a dingy light in their face in a dark room. The amount of non-violent heists you can commit too (or try too.) is about as many as the amount of goblin tribes you mercilessly cut down. Spells like Ceremony, and literally every Paladin Tenant leans HEAVILY into RP. Along with feats like Linguist, Inspiring Leader, and Actor, the idea of deceiving or inspiring others while beneficial for combat, cannot be overstated how versatile those are in the right(or wrong) hands. To say DnD ONLY facilitates combat is ignoring the amount of creativity DMs and other Players can wield when using those abilities. And while I only cited ceremony for spells, a really creative wizard is a highly dangerous wizard.
@@strifeandharmony6472Obviously D&D has rules for things that aren't combat. However, the D&D PHB takes almost twice as many pages to describe the rules for combat as it does the rules for travel, social interaction, and downtime *combined.* In common usage this gets even more extreme, since more than half of the space for non-combat rules is used explaining mechanics like travel pace and downtime activities that most groups never use. This is in contrast to something like FATE, which generalizes its combat rules to also apply to social conflicts, or Ironsworn, which dedicates roughly the same complexity to combat, travel, and building relationships.
AD&D 2e is a great system if you like the dynamic interplay of mechanics and story telling. Something weird happened around 3rd edition when encounter became synonymous with combat. while this can be the case looking at the design of earlier editions combat was intended to be a last resort in most cases. As charaters become less fragile the danger involved in combat becomes less prominent in the minds of players. Bad decision making like unnecessary combat can lead to a pc death in a matter of rounds, it's brutal but it makes players think more deeply about creative ways to slove situations they put their characters in less risky positions. When a player believes they are unkillable violence is optimal.
Any role playing system, with enough experience and understanding, can be bent into the story you want to tell. A mastery of the mechanics is more crucial than finding the exact mechanisms you desire. If you want to play a bunch of different systems based on genre, that’s fine. But it seems against the spirit of Table Top RP to assume that the GM is at the mercy of the system, and not the other way around
The game may be designed in a way, but the players and GM's may always choose their own style of play and focus. But it doesn't change what the game was designed for.
One time I played a game where the whole table were essentially criminals. The only person who wasn't a career criminal had been framed for murder. So we fully avoided guards whenever we could, stealthed through situations even when our characters weren't optomized for that, and had an amazing time. The campaign ended with a zombie outbreak forcing us to actually be in combat for maybe the second time ever. And it was fun! Everyone had a great time! If we had persued combat, our GM would have taken us there, but we thought our characters would be cowards and played them that way. And we won the final combat BTW, but it was chaos.
“I don’t like external rules about my improve because I already have rapport with these players” “Oh, so you’re saying all Roleplay focused games are bad!” Brennan doesn’t know everything, but he knows his table. And most of what he is saying falls along the lines of “this assumption people have is no a rigid requirement” and then people are like “but the game supports it!”. He never said it didn’t, he said it doesn’t require it
as someone who LOVES numbers and mechanics. I can not stand 5e for not having enough rules and mechanics in place for both combat and narative elements. it always feels like it was torn between being a battle game and being a narrative game and chose to do neither particularly well.
DnD is built on wargames of the past, just scaled down to use humanoids instead of like tanks or battleships. There was no social roleplay aspect in the wargames, and while the newer editions are slowly introducing more social mechanics, the core is still combat and Dungeon-crawling. Brennan uses 5e's combat mechanics as a vehicle for roleplaying a social story, while most people use 5e for the combat itself. It's like the difference between a normal car, a self-driving car, and a train. Many people prefer driving a car themselves because they like driving a car, and think that if you're not gonna drive, you may as well take the train. Brennan uses the self-driving car because he's familiar with it, and while it may be like a train just smaller, he uses it efficiently to get the places he wanna go without having to think about the driving itself, and if he feels like driving, then he can just take control. I assume that he likes the fact that combat is always an option in DnD, and if he switched to another system built for social roleplay, the combatmechanics would be lost and cease to function as an option. To use my analogy, I usually use trains to get around, but I have access to a car with autopilot, and when I've been forced to use cars without auto-pilot, I definitely miss it.
When I see other DMs play a different way than me, I assume they have different players than I have. My players are currently: a top of her class medical student, a new lawyer, a product manager with a huge company, an incredibly well travelled chef, an amazing homemaker, and an endlessly creative artist. They aren’t improvisers in the way that literal Hollywood stars are. They know their own fields and use their knowledge in subversive ways. Oh, the cleric didn’t go to law school in the game, but has extensive experience with the fey and that’s practically law school in 5e. Brennan uses what he needs to make excellent shows for us and he knows what he’s doing in the system he’s using.
The idea that Brennan Lee Mulligan is unfamiliar with other systems is ridiculous. They've played multiple systems on Dimension 20. It's almost as ridiculous as the idea that Brennan Lee Mulligan is unfamiliar with the rules of improv. He knows the rules of improv intimately. That's why he says he doesn't need a system of roleplaying rules. He's internalized roleplaying rules.
Just use the system you want too use; DnD is the bard of ttrpgs. Its a jack of all trades; its not heavily combat focused like Path Finder, its not as heavily focused on exploration or mystery based as Call of Cthulhu and its not as intensely focused on Role-playing like Vampire the Masquerade (or one of the other modules like Hunter). It can do all of them well but not hyper focused on a specific pillar; so removing on piller which in this case is combat wont cause it to fall apart. At the end of the day, if people dont like it. They can simply stop watching and let the people who do enjoy it, enjoy it in peace
You build a good enough framework for any DnD setting it can be almost any genre you want it to be. Action? Covered. Horror? Covered. Exploration? Covered. Mystery? Covered. Politics? Covered. Slice of Life where you're just a bunch of halfling bakers? Covered. Romance? Bards. Thriller? Covered. Dark? Covered. Light? Covered. Epic? Covered. Isekai? I'd be upset but covered.
D&D has more combat rules because combat REQUIRES more rules, but also can hold more rules. Social dynamics, storytelling and character progression (in a non-numerical way) shouldn't have rules. Guidelines sure, but the purpose of a TTRPG is not to numerically reduce the act of storytelling to a formula, it's to act as a framework to facilitate the elements of storytelling that woukd cause strife, to resolve conflict. Its a referee, the arbiter of the "i shot you! "No you didnt!" arguments we all had as kids. People who say they should swap to a less combat focused game, a genuine question; why? What purpose does that serve?
Hello my name was said. :D To further this point, the DMG repeatedly tells you in its intro that its more of a guide then a strict ruleset and its your game to run. And while it does offer advice on how to make a plot and plan encounters, a lot of it can be implemented into teaching a basic writing class. What is the problem? How do you make the framework? Here's a tip on how to link a previous adventure to a new one. Not to mention an entire section JUST to help you worldbuild. (Don't know how to build a town? We'll help you make the framework!)
I know I'm quite late to respond to this but I'm not sure I agree. Combat doesn't require more rules necessarily. I've seen games that treat combat as more or less the same as other rolls. Genesys and Blades in the Dark make their rolls quite similar regardless of what they are. Additionally, games flesh out different parts. Powered and Blades encourage you to do something tied to your playbook or relationships or etc that might cause problems for the group or emphasize a change of relationships to encourage dynamism or reward somebody for taking suboptimal choices. The Burning Wheel has an entire mechanic for social interactions (not for every last one) but to encourage a disagreement between people to lead to change possibly. Your PC's opinion might change even if you don't want it to change as an attempt to make the PC more distinct from the player. But there is an allure to more detailed combat mechanics. For Brennan it's that it's the one area he wants more structured mechanics for. It often will lead to combat lasting longer but will often encourage more tactical considerations. While the stupidly fantastic roll in Blades can be hype or the mixed success can be interesting, it's often wed to a single decisive description of what occurred. There's an allure to the paladin getting a crit and smiting the enemy, the monk running on a wall, jumping and letting loose a flurry of blows on a flying monster that stuns them and the monk skillfully lands without any damage, the wizard casting a gravity spell that pulls enemies off the train. I don't have any qualms with Brennan or etc playing DnD but the reality is that, while you can homebrew anything, different games encourage different things and will alter storytelling, social dynamics, etc. DnD 5e presumes level 1-2 to be quite lethal but quickly becomes heroic and it's top to bottom high magic and fantasy as a default. You can homebrew it but guns and crossbows will be fired at a faster rate than our own world and guns damage is marginally better than a gun or crossbow. There's also some real limits on what a system can easily do. I don't think the mechanics for DnD are necessarily the best for horrors or gritty campaigns or politiking but there's parts you can play with in interesting ways. Trying to play a game of purely artisans or a skilled diplomat that doesn't also magically have a stupidly good sneak attack or bardic magic, that really pushes past it.
@@brycejordan8987 While I don't think you're wrong, I think you're attributing too much power to the system and not enough to the players. A particular group of players will tend to gravitate towards certain elements because that's what they want in a game. I know groups who run Blades as a hack and slash. I RUN groups who can go sessions and sessions of 5e without a single combat. We just use the because we're familiar enough with it to build stories /with/ the rules. While I agree certain systems are more suited towards different tables and play styles, my point was simply that I don't feel making rules for storytelling does much more than dictate /how/ you can tell stories.
@@corneliusdwyer1824 Oh, to be clear my viewpoint is more based on degrees. I referenced the artisans not working particularly well with DnD because I tried to do that and it really feels like you are stretching the bounds of the mechanics outside of what it can actually do and that was with a homebrew book that was all about crafting to boot. I play DnD 5e largely sans one shots currently. We actually have 2 campaigns currently running with the same group of players (just the DM swaps). We have combat encounters significantly less than the game is designed for because while we enjoy some combat, it's not necessarily our biggest priority. The GM for one campaign is very fond of having a session every once and a while completely dedicated to murder-mysteries and many of our highlight sessions are ones without any combat.
I hate this video and this discussion because it's making me think I may be wrong about my own opinions on this subject and god forbid someone be wrong. Well done Benny boy!
There’s nothing wrong with 5E. The argument against playing it is solely for the purpose of the argument because of society, not the lack of playability or game mechanics, etc., in DnD 5E. P.s. it may be an overstep to say there is “nothing” wrong, all a meant to say is that DnD isn’t as flawed or broken as naysayers want it to be for the sake of arguing against it, else we wouldn’t be celebrating its 50th year as the premier ttrpg system that it is.
"your fun is wrong because your fun doesn't conform to my fun so you shouldn't play my game cuz you're playing it in a way that isn't the way I play it 😡😡😡😡😡"
Here's the problem that I've seen mostly in this take. Players and Viewers understand how D&D works. They're comfortable and know what the terms mean and understand what it means when someone is a Warlock vs a Sorcerer or a Monk vs a Cleric. The archetypes for characters are comprehensible and the story is legible. There's an issue of "Gotta get out of that comfort zone!!!" with everything. D&D is intuitive, simple, incredibly modular, and even without combat, still holds up. Rolls, rolls, stats, risks, everythinf makes sense and is intuitive. That doesn't mean you don't try out or utilize other systems, but the notion that one *must* exit their comfort zone snd become an entity of pure logic, only making the optimal decisions, defeats the purpose. Let people play their games, jeez lol
this seems like a non issue that comes down to "your fun is wrong because my opinion is X, therefore im mad you arent conforming to my standards"
they are just having fun hanging out as friends and playing basically a home game and we are just lucky enough to be able to listen to it
Not to mention, combat can be incredibly boring or frustrating if its the only thing sought after/being offered. Even the harder or more impressive combats get easily forgotten if that's literally all you're doing.
"Hey remember when you almost fell off a cliff fighting wargs?"
"Which time."
I think there is a good argument that it's better to switch systems from 5E if you're planning to have less combat in a campaign. With that said acting like it's a requirement is pretty dumb. Do what's the most fun for you.
For just a home game, that'd probably be what they do. But keep in mind, the streams are also a business. And D&D sells. Hardly a soul left in the world that doesn't recognize D&D, but if you say Pathfinder, even a lot of people who PLAY D&D have only the slightest inkling what the system entails. Now imagine a system that doesn't focus on combat, like some PBTA systems or a Gumshoe system. I only know a few people who would even try them, let alone watch other people play it.
D&D just has too much brand recognition to pass up. See: Critical Role swapping to 5e (and utterly breaking it by porting over Pathfinder items)
The greater context is that the GM has two decades of experience in that specific system, and because of that he feels more comfortable bending D&D into the system he wants to play in. There would ultimately be less freedom in going to a combat light system, because of the lack of familiarity with the flexibility of it.
There is a good argument, but a better argument is having to learn a new system with a bunch of people watching you while also trying to tell you how to run your games/play your characters.
Like I don't disagree with you, but we need to turn to us as a collective audience and work on being better towards actual play DMs to give them that comfort to experiment with new systems. Too many of us (the collective) are entitled brats who need to control a table we're not even sitting at.
I also think that playing in dnd leaves the door open for combat in the future even if there is little to no combat in the current chapter.
You can tell Brennan is having fun with junior year, because he’s taking his time with it, sure he started with a combat, but that’s for the crowd, now that it’s for him he’s taking his time and making it his best season yet
I've barely noticed the lack of combat in WWW because I'm just so enthralled by the story, and continuously impressed by the way Brennan creates such high stakes without the use of combat.
Even when there is combat, I love how they use post production to remove the time it takes to roll and add up totals. It's maybe the closest a D&D table has ever come to a turn/round only lasting 6 seconds.
I think the point that Brennan has buy-in from his players as trained actors and improvisers is a fair point. This was also obvious when they released the Witch class playtest. So many features were designed in such a way where they only really work if both the DM and the player are acting in good faith.
But I think that's the real strength of the the four of them. It's not just that they're all very talented artists that allows them create a good story, it's the combined trust each has in the other that lets them create a great story.
Decades of improv and sketch experience is kind of a super power. Familiarity with the rules is huge factor in sticking to them. But I think one of the most important things is the audiences familiarity with the rule set. If you had never played an rpg and I got recommended an actual play podcast I think you would have a hard time understanding it (why are they pausing the story to roll dice?) and bounce off of it almost immediately. To a lesser extent I think this is true for systems that you aren't aware of even if you are a seasoned rpg-fan.
There's very much a sense in which I think Brennan could have picked a system that supported and channeled his social roleplaying needs without getting in the way, and which would likely abstract away the physics sim side of play to the level that the story actually cares about it (and thus also getting in the way less).
But system familiarity also means a lot, and evidently was enough to not make it worth the effort to find a marginally better system for his purposes. And the fact that another system could have saved him some work probably doesn't hold much water if the work it would have saved is what Brennan derives his fun from.
For most people who aren't pro improvisers however, I think that calculus would be more on the side of finding a better system. If the rules of improv aren't absolutely second nature for everyone at the table to the point that social/narrative mechanics are completely superfluous, I almost guarantee a system with more social/narrative mechanical support will feel more liberating than restricting.
I don't think it really matters what system they play, or how they play it. but that said I think his belief that DND isn't a combat game is incorrect. it basically only has rules that facilitate combat, the game can only way in on its own mechanics, so social stuff is almost entirely up to the DM and players. I also like the sound of the stove analogy but it seems misplaced, as its not to say it has nothing to do with food but that the type of food you want to make requires the right tools, DND doesn't inherently help you make a social game, just like a stove may provide heat but you wouldn't bake a cake on it, you'd use an oven.
I think Puffin Forest said in one of his videos, and I'd have too look through them again. But the Rules As Written really only says to reward EXP when players overcome an encounter. However it doesn't say HOW that encounter is overcome. So players successfully circumventing the need to fight an encounter is technically overcoming said encounter. It's meeting the challenge placed and yet through RP, Puzzle Solving, ect, as long as the challenge is no longer a roadblock, the players have succeeded the encounter.
While I agree that DnD does have rules that facilitate combat, if that were the only thing one can do with the ruleset it wouldn't be interesting enough to have stayed mainstream. Stealth can be a huge part of encounters and as said above, doesn't have to lead to combat so much as circumventing it. Observant's read lips ability lets you gather information without needing to strap them down and shine a dingy light in their face in a dark room. The amount of non-violent heists you can commit too (or try too.) is about as many as the amount of goblin tribes you mercilessly cut down.
Spells like Ceremony, and literally every Paladin Tenant leans HEAVILY into RP. Along with feats like Linguist, Inspiring Leader, and Actor, the idea of deceiving or inspiring others while beneficial for combat, cannot be overstated how versatile those are in the right(or wrong) hands.
To say DnD ONLY facilitates combat is ignoring the amount of creativity DMs and other Players can wield when using those abilities. And while I only cited ceremony for spells, a really creative wizard is a highly dangerous wizard.
@@strifeandharmony6472Obviously D&D has rules for things that aren't combat. However, the D&D PHB takes almost twice as many pages to describe the rules for combat as it does the rules for travel, social interaction, and downtime *combined.* In common usage this gets even more extreme, since more than half of the space for non-combat rules is used explaining mechanics like travel pace and downtime activities that most groups never use. This is in contrast to something like FATE, which generalizes its combat rules to also apply to social conflicts, or Ironsworn, which dedicates roughly the same complexity to combat, travel, and building relationships.
AD&D 2e is a great system if you like the dynamic interplay of mechanics and story telling. Something weird happened around 3rd edition when encounter became synonymous with combat. while this can be the case looking at the design of earlier editions combat was intended to be a last resort in most cases. As charaters become less fragile the danger involved in combat becomes less prominent in the minds of players. Bad decision making like unnecessary combat can lead to a pc death in a matter of rounds, it's brutal but it makes players think more deeply about creative ways to slove situations they put their characters in less risky positions.
When a player believes they are unkillable violence is optimal.
Any role playing system, with enough experience and understanding, can be bent into the story you want to tell. A mastery of the mechanics is more crucial than finding the exact mechanisms you desire. If you want to play a bunch of different systems based on genre, that’s fine. But it seems against the spirit of Table Top RP to assume that the GM is at the mercy of the system, and not the other way around
The game may be designed in a way, but the players and GM's may always choose their own style of play and focus. But it doesn't change what the game was designed for.
Where did the animation shots of the characters come from at the start of the video?
One time I played a game where the whole table were essentially criminals. The only person who wasn't a career criminal had been framed for murder. So we fully avoided guards whenever we could, stealthed through situations even when our characters weren't optomized for that, and had an amazing time. The campaign ended with a zombie outbreak forcing us to actually be in combat for maybe the second time ever. And it was fun! Everyone had a great time! If we had persued combat, our GM would have taken us there, but we thought our characters would be cowards and played them that way. And we won the final combat BTW, but it was chaos.
“I don’t like external rules about my improve because I already have rapport with these players”
“Oh, so you’re saying all Roleplay focused games are bad!”
Brennan doesn’t know everything, but he knows his table. And most of what he is saying falls along the lines of “this assumption people have is no a rigid requirement” and then people are like “but the game supports it!”. He never said it didn’t, he said it doesn’t require it
as someone who LOVES numbers and mechanics. I can not stand 5e for not having enough rules and mechanics in place for both combat and narative elements. it always feels like it was torn between being a battle game and being a narrative game and chose to do neither particularly well.
DnD is built on wargames of the past, just scaled down to use humanoids instead of like tanks or battleships. There was no social roleplay aspect in the wargames, and while the newer editions are slowly introducing more social mechanics, the core is still combat and Dungeon-crawling. Brennan uses 5e's combat mechanics as a vehicle for roleplaying a social story, while most people use 5e for the combat itself. It's like the difference between a normal car, a self-driving car, and a train. Many people prefer driving a car themselves because they like driving a car, and think that if you're not gonna drive, you may as well take the train. Brennan uses the self-driving car because he's familiar with it, and while it may be like a train just smaller, he uses it efficiently to get the places he wanna go without having to think about the driving itself, and if he feels like driving, then he can just take control.
I assume that he likes the fact that combat is always an option in DnD, and if he switched to another system built for social roleplay, the combatmechanics would be lost and cease to function as an option.
To use my analogy, I usually use trains to get around, but I have access to a car with autopilot, and when I've been forced to use cars without auto-pilot, I definitely miss it.
When I see other DMs play a different way than me, I assume they have different players than I have. My players are currently: a top of her class medical student, a new lawyer, a product manager with a huge company, an incredibly well travelled chef, an amazing homemaker, and an endlessly creative artist. They aren’t improvisers in the way that literal Hollywood stars are. They know their own fields and use their knowledge in subversive ways. Oh, the cleric didn’t go to law school in the game, but has extensive experience with the fey and that’s practically law school in 5e. Brennan uses what he needs to make excellent shows for us and he knows what he’s doing in the system he’s using.
i dont even like combat, whether playing or listening to it. i cant imagine why someone would be mad about this 😂
The idea that Brennan Lee Mulligan is unfamiliar with other systems is ridiculous. They've played multiple systems on Dimension 20. It's almost as ridiculous as the idea that Brennan Lee Mulligan is unfamiliar with the rules of improv. He knows the rules of improv intimately. That's why he says he doesn't need a system of roleplaying rules. He's internalized roleplaying rules.
Just use the system you want too use; DnD is the bard of ttrpgs. Its a jack of all trades; its not heavily combat focused like Path Finder, its not as heavily focused on exploration or mystery based as Call of Cthulhu and its not as intensely focused on Role-playing like Vampire the Masquerade (or one of the other modules like Hunter).
It can do all of them well but not hyper focused on a specific pillar; so removing on piller which in this case is combat wont cause it to fall apart.
At the end of the day, if people dont like it. They can simply stop watching and let the people who do enjoy it, enjoy it in peace
You build a good enough framework for any DnD setting it can be almost any genre you want it to be. Action? Covered. Horror? Covered. Exploration? Covered. Mystery? Covered. Politics? Covered. Slice of Life where you're just a bunch of halfling bakers? Covered. Romance? Bards. Thriller? Covered. Dark? Covered. Light? Covered. Epic? Covered. Isekai? I'd be upset but covered.
nitpicky nerds kill good stuff
D&D has more combat rules because combat REQUIRES more rules, but also can hold more rules. Social dynamics, storytelling and character progression (in a non-numerical way) shouldn't have rules. Guidelines sure, but the purpose of a TTRPG is not to numerically reduce the act of storytelling to a formula, it's to act as a framework to facilitate the elements of storytelling that woukd cause strife, to resolve conflict. Its a referee, the arbiter of the "i shot you! "No you didnt!" arguments we all had as kids.
People who say they should swap to a less combat focused game, a genuine question; why? What purpose does that serve?
Hello my name was said. :D
To further this point, the DMG repeatedly tells you in its intro that its more of a guide then a strict ruleset and its your game to run. And while it does offer advice on how to make a plot and plan encounters, a lot of it can be implemented into teaching a basic writing class. What is the problem? How do you make the framework? Here's a tip on how to link a previous adventure to a new one.
Not to mention an entire section JUST to help you worldbuild. (Don't know how to build a town? We'll help you make the framework!)
I know I'm quite late to respond to this but I'm not sure I agree.
Combat doesn't require more rules necessarily. I've seen games that treat combat as more or less the same as other rolls. Genesys and Blades in the Dark make their rolls quite similar regardless of what they are. Additionally, games flesh out different parts. Powered and Blades encourage you to do something tied to your playbook or relationships or etc that might cause problems for the group or emphasize a change of relationships to encourage dynamism or reward somebody for taking suboptimal choices. The Burning Wheel has an entire mechanic for social interactions (not for every last one) but to encourage a disagreement between people to lead to change possibly. Your PC's opinion might change even if you don't want it to change as an attempt to make the PC more distinct from the player.
But there is an allure to more detailed combat mechanics. For Brennan it's that it's the one area he wants more structured mechanics for. It often will lead to combat lasting longer but will often encourage more tactical considerations. While the stupidly fantastic roll in Blades can be hype or the mixed success can be interesting, it's often wed to a single decisive description of what occurred. There's an allure to the paladin getting a crit and smiting the enemy, the monk running on a wall, jumping and letting loose a flurry of blows on a flying monster that stuns them and the monk skillfully lands without any damage, the wizard casting a gravity spell that pulls enemies off the train.
I don't have any qualms with Brennan or etc playing DnD but the reality is that, while you can homebrew anything, different games encourage different things and will alter storytelling, social dynamics, etc. DnD 5e presumes level 1-2 to be quite lethal but quickly becomes heroic and it's top to bottom high magic and fantasy as a default. You can homebrew it but guns and crossbows will be fired at a faster rate than our own world and guns damage is marginally better than a gun or crossbow. There's also some real limits on what a system can easily do. I don't think the mechanics for DnD are necessarily the best for horrors or gritty campaigns or politiking but there's parts you can play with in interesting ways. Trying to play a game of purely artisans or a skilled diplomat that doesn't also magically have a stupidly good sneak attack or bardic magic, that really pushes past it.
@@brycejordan8987
While I don't think you're wrong, I think you're attributing too much power to the system and not enough to the players. A particular group of players will tend to gravitate towards certain elements because that's what they want in a game. I know groups who run Blades as a hack and slash. I RUN groups who can go sessions and sessions of 5e without a single combat. We just use the because we're familiar enough with it to build stories /with/ the rules.
While I agree certain systems are more suited towards different tables and play styles, my point was simply that I don't feel making rules for storytelling does much more than dictate /how/ you can tell stories.
@@corneliusdwyer1824 Oh, to be clear my viewpoint is more based on degrees. I referenced the artisans not working particularly well with DnD because I tried to do that and it really feels like you are stretching the bounds of the mechanics outside of what it can actually do and that was with a homebrew book that was all about crafting to boot.
I play DnD 5e largely sans one shots currently. We actually have 2 campaigns currently running with the same group of players (just the DM swaps). We have combat encounters significantly less than the game is designed for because while we enjoy some combat, it's not necessarily our biggest priority. The GM for one campaign is very fond of having a session every once and a while completely dedicated to murder-mysteries and many of our highlight sessions are ones without any combat.
I hate this video and this discussion because it's making me think I may be wrong about my own opinions on this subject and god forbid someone be wrong.
Well done Benny boy!
very cute sweater
i dont see how he was wrong it seems pretty reasonable
There’s nothing wrong with 5E.
The argument against playing it is solely for the purpose of the argument because of society, not the lack of playability or game mechanics, etc., in DnD 5E.
P.s. it may be an overstep to say there is “nothing” wrong, all a meant to say is that DnD isn’t as flawed or broken as naysayers want it to be for the sake of arguing against it, else we wouldn’t be celebrating its 50th year as the premier ttrpg system that it is.
"your fun is wrong because your fun doesn't conform to my fun so you shouldn't play my game cuz you're playing it in a way that isn't the way I play it 😡😡😡😡😡"
Here's the problem that I've seen mostly in this take.
Players and Viewers understand how D&D works. They're comfortable and know what the terms mean and understand what it means when someone is a Warlock vs a Sorcerer or a Monk vs a Cleric. The archetypes for characters are comprehensible and the story is legible.
There's an issue of "Gotta get out of that comfort zone!!!" with everything.
D&D is intuitive, simple, incredibly modular, and even without combat, still holds up. Rolls, rolls, stats, risks, everythinf makes sense and is intuitive. That doesn't mean you don't try out or utilize other systems, but the notion that one *must* exit their comfort zone snd become an entity of pure logic, only making the optimal decisions, defeats the purpose.
Let people play their games, jeez lol