@@tomkerruish2982 I haven't bugged him for details, but I'd think it would have to. I'll be interested to see what the thematic focus is, as in Neverland is a wilderness exploration where Oz is a city of factions.
IN my cypher system games, I use the equipment rules from Blades in the Dark, where you have X slots for equipment, but you fill in the specifics as you use them
I do love exploding dice, though in my case I know of the mechanic from Shadowrun. My favorite mechanic from a non-D&D game is Destiny from The Everlasting. In The Everlasting, the game master gives everyone XP and Destiny points at the end of of every session. Destiny points are typically handed out in values of 3 or fewer points per session, and only as a reward for good roleplaying. Now, Destiny *can* be used to turn a failure into a success, or multiple points can be used to create a certain effect as long as the player can justify it to the GM, but my personal favorite way to use Destiny was for comedic effect. For example, I'd set some explosive charges to destroy something with story significance and I spent a point of Destiny to make the smoke cloud appear in the shape of a rabbit. My GM pretty much always allowed my Destiny expenditures.
I'm a fan of using the occasional 1 negative crit rolls as an opportunity to roll to see if the finite supply of something being used has ran out. "Oh no, I rolled a 1!". I roll a 10 and get a 3. "You have 3 arrows left in your quiver".
Oh, that's a fun idea, too! Did you make that up, or is it from another game? And, thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. I really appreciate it. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 it's hard to say if I came up with it; I picked it up somewhere...I don't think it's from a system, but I use a lot of charts in the solo game I've been poking away at for over a decade. Another option I've used is to create a list of things the group carries that are finite and once a week or after major combat, someone rolls on the chart while another rolls a d100 for percentage. The percentage rolled equals how much of the rolled item has been used, damaged/destroyed, or lost. "the potion bottle must have broken when Torak got kicked by the hill giant, or, after catching their breath from swimming the river, the PCs check their inventory and find that twelve of Carina's arrows were lost to the current.
Consider rope. Weather and environmental conditions can affect it, the PCs might cut bits and pieces of it off, it could get tangled up when it's needed in a hurry. I've used similar things for the occasional "item wear ✔️" Ambers wears holes in her boots; Falith the Sane! Start's his watch by ripping his cloak pulling it on.
Thank you SO MUCH for the support! I so appreciate your loyalty to the channel. And I think I read a comment by you somewhere else that mentioned you use the minion rules from 4E. That *is* a really great mechanic, and one that a lot of folks like! I also maintain that the 4E DMG is one of the best written for any edition.
@@daddyrolleda1 On that topic Automatic Damage rules from 5e are really useful if you have a horde attacking the party and easy enough to adapt to other games.
Thanks for the video! I love morale and have had a few times when a monster got surprise and failed morale but might have otherwise decimated a PC party but hid or fled and the PCs never even knew the monster was there. I just chuckle behind the screen and the players always wonder but I keep my secrets well. Usage dice seem useful, pun intended, with the right group and system but with my 1E AD&D games I prefer some bookkeeping for the players to maintain some level of mental investment in the nuts and bolts. Might be the old wargamer in me but I try to keep the NPCs interesting and worth meeting and supply runs are a good place for info to be shared. Some of the best archer moments happened in modern movies when Legolas or Hawkeye run out of arrows. Makes for excellent conflict and calls for creativity. You have to love the production values for 13th Age, it's a beautifully produced game. "Your Unique Thing" might be a fun aspect to add for one-shot convention games but I prefer PCs in home campaigns to gain 'unique thing' during play and I try to create opportunities for that to happen. I do this by trying to pick up on their RPGing style and their interactions with NPCs and the other PCs in their group. The Escalation Die seems a bit like a generic feat enhancement mechanic that would work in combat heavy games. For some systems, the fact that it can speed up combats (looking at you, 3.5E!) might be very handy. Never really bought into the suspension of belief needed to enjoy an horror game of any kind, particularly CoC, though I enjoy trying to sometimes to make my 1E AD&D group of players' skin crawl. Pushing the Skill is essentially a do-over or a way of mitigating unfortunately timed bad dice rolls, basically a luck mechanic, I suppose. Seems harmless enough in games where the fun can come to a screeching halt if a failure happens. I always wondered about Savage Worlds, as it has been around quite a while and has been quite popular, but I haven't tried it. Seems to buy into the idea that folks love rolling dice and pushing their luck, no relation to the last comment. I am not so keen on exploding mechanics for campaigns because they make things swingy, like crits and fails. The entire finale of Terry Pratchett's Guards, Guards is predicated on the "Million to One" shot. Fun read! Sorry about your printing troubles. Hopefully it will work out soon. I rather like the idea of Advantage / Disadvantage for a modern RPG and would think retroactively adding it into 3.XE and stripping away some of the clutter in that system might be a fine upgrade. Andrew Kolb's Neverland Chase Mechanic of Rock, Paper, Scissors weirdly reminds me of Greg Stafford's Prince Valiant coin flipping mechanic in that both use a number of successes threshold to reach the conclusion. Might be nice to do something non-dice oriented. Scotch with Empire Strikes Back in honor of James Earl Jones is a nice touch.
I really can't express how much I enjoy your well-crafted and insightful comments. The fact that you take the time to write specific comments for each section of the video means the world to me. I truly appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness. I feel like I need to check out the Prince Valiant game... it's one I've not tried, but I remember reading the comic strip in the newspaper as a kid, and my dad was a big fan of the comic as well. I've also not read that Terry Pratchett series but I am intrigued now! Thanks again for sticking through the Bonus Content, and also for your support of me and my channel. Cheers to you!
One of the interesting things I find interesting about BECMI is that it is heroic narratively, but for the most part characters as rolled tend towards being average. The most common ability roll is around 9. There isn't feats or other real super powers but players move their characters from nobodies through to immortals by working incredibily hard to overcome being an average human/oid.
I really enjoy that style of play, too! B/X is much the stuff, except of course that it stops at level 14 (although Expert Set co-designer Steve Marsh is working on his version of what the Companion Set might have looked like had the B/X line continued instead of being replaced by BECMI). I have a few Twitter friends who are all huge fans of BECMI as it was the edition they started with, but interestingly, I don't think any of them ever reach the Immortals level. Did you? What were those adventures like? I'm so curious as I've never played at the level before!
Good video on some alternatives from allot of fun systems. I think my favorite mechanic, that I've even used in many games, is the Dueling system from AD&D2e Combat & Tactics, I've been attempting to release a free version of my own take on this mechanic to branch it out into a 2 person wargame arbitrated with a referee. I think it was originally in the En Garde rpg from back in the old days (you would program your attacks on a d12 and your defenses on a d6), which is also a cool rpg of swashbuckling adventure.
Ah, very cool! I never really looked into the late-era 2E stuff like Combat & Tactics, as my group had switched to playing Warhammer FRP and then I lost a play group for a while and didn't return to RPGs until 2001 with 3E. I chatted about En Garde! in this video: ua-cam.com/video/mUzvpXBJELA/v-deo.htmlsi=I3XT11kQlL6TOmdd
@@daddyrolleda1 Yep I actually saw that one, and it was the reason that inspired me to make this short about the dueling system in combat & tactics (Its pretty much the same, except you have premade tables): ua-cam.com/users/shortsN6xC5h8scXk?feature=share
In a game I run, I had a siege defense style scenario happen with layered walls and reinforcements on both sides. To add a sense of escalating tension as the players and their allies got pushed back I had something called the "Havoc Meter" shown on the map with big red text and squares that filled out as the attackers got further through. Each time the Havoc Meter progressed both sides got more reinforcements, with the attackers just getting more guys but the defenders gained more elite allies and had the NPC in command take more drastic measures like accepting more friendly fire with his big AoE attacks. I took care to either telegraph the leader's strikes to the players so they could run away or just graze them with little effect for the untelegraphed ones (I kinda forgot about him until around halfway through the fight, so I just said he was building power or something then had his first attack deal 50d20s of damage thanks to using a VTT). The whole Havoc Meter's main purpose though was to sorta gauge how well the players could handle the threat, in the end they did push the attackers back and won, but if they failed and the meter filled up completely, I was going to cut the combat there and bury them under some rubble for a while then pick up next session as a "you're trapped and surrounded, escape and survive" scenario.
AD&D 2e had a few historical settings. A Mighty Fortress had combat rules where you roll a save and possibly suffer damage if your character participates in battle as part of a unit. In Pendragon you can retire to the baggage area. The drawback is that other Knights see you flee.
Great video! It's nice to know I'm not the only person who wastes way more time than I should studying and testing different game mechanics. Some thoughts... I love Drivethrurpg but it's much easier and cheaper to print physical copies on Amazon and your book can be shipped from a whole list of different countries dramatically reducing the postage cost for people outside of the USA. With black and white interior and a color cover an A4 book is US$2.84 to print for up to 108 pages. Full color is $4.20 a book for the first 40 pages and 8 cents a page after that. And all you need to upload is a pdf. On the game mechanics... Reaction Table: In Knave 2e Ben Milton expands the reaction table so that each number on the 2d6 roll gives you a different reaction: 2 Kill the PCs 3 Injure or capture the PCs 4 Harass or rob the PCs 5 Insult, threaten or command the PCs 6 Avoid the PCs 7 Ignore the PCs 8 Follow or observe the PCs 9 Greet or question the PCs 10 Share information with the PCs 11 Perform minor favors for the PCs 12 Ask to join the PCs party I think this is a huge improvement over the original reaction table. You could also make a custom reaction table for each dungeon you create so it feeds into that dungeon's microcosm and major villain. Usage die: One of the problems with a usage die is you still have to keep track of what die you're on effectively swapping one type of tracking for another. One tweak of this system is to give each die level a broad classification. eg. Supply level for this equipment d10 great d8 good d6 okay d4 bad Then the GM can estimate at any time if supply is good, okay or bad based on what's happened in the adventure. Another tweak is that when you roll a 1 or 2 on the last die for something like arrows you're not out, you have just ONE arrow left. That creates some fun tension and gives players a challenge they can use their creativity to overcome. Your One Unique Thing: Unique stuff on player's character sheets may be the most valuable tool you have to increase role playing and the fun players have roleplaying. It doesn't have to be a lot of information but any kind of short backstory, background, history, unique quirky ability that the player can latch on to makes for much more interesting roleplaying. The character sheet and what goes on it is probably the most important mechanic in most RPGs and it's something that's rarely mentioned. Escalation Die: The 13th Age escalation die is a really clever mechanic for people who like role playing to deal with rules systems where combat has been designed for people who love long combats. If you want a game that isn't based around combats you should probably not play 5e, pathfinder and similar games and go for something that's less combat heavy. Games like Dragonbane, Cairn and EZD6 have fun combat that goes fast. Some hacks use Luck Dice, Deathbringer Dice etc. to overcome this problem. You get a d6 or multiple d6s you can use and add to any roll. The limit of the number of luck dice you have naturally limits their use. These are more fun to use than an escalation die. Players love rolling dice. Pushed Rolls: In Dragonbane they have pushed rolls. If you push a roll you get a condition that puts one of your attributes at a disadvantage every time you use it until you remove the condition. In most Year Zero Engine games (the SRD is free online) freeleaguepublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/YZE-Standard-Reference-Document.pdf they have pushed rolls where you might break equipment, injure yourself etc. when you push a roll. The dice pool system and different coloured dice indicate what the complication is. To me pushed rolls and 'bennies' like they have in Savage Worlds is bordering on being a little too metagamey but it's great fun when you get the balance right. Aces: Exploding dice are great fun. In EZD6 they take this to another level where you can use the Hero Die to increase rolls including increasing it to explode the dice and roll again to increase damage. The 5e hack Nimble 2e where the entire system is based around damage rolls (no to-hit rolls) uses exploding damage dice too. In Knave and Knave2e on a critical success you can do double damage OR you can choose to do damage AND some kind of stunt (like trying to push an opponent off a cliff etc.) I think this is ideal for getting players to be more creative and thinking outside the box of just doing damage to opponents to end a combat. Chase Sequences: I studied just about every chase mechanic in every game I could find because I was frustrated about the fact that chase scenes just don't feel like chases. The problem with chase rules is the rules get in the way, slowing the narrative down. Exciting chase scenes are all about a really rapid narrative with things happening fast and the players having to make rapid decisions and improvise and get creative while running. Eventually I created my own system that revolves around: 1. Rolling a random scenario...something the players have to deal with during the chase eg. River, drain, channel, open sewer in your path. or Heavy door, portcullis or heavy gate in your path. or You fall into a hole, recessed stairs, or almost off a roof grabbing precariously to avoid injury. 2. The players describe what they do to overcome the obstacle and increase their chances of getting further away from their pursuers, often with a time limit and how much time they have to explain that. 3. The entire party makes a single roll to see how they did. if they do well they get closer to escaping. If they do poorly they get closer to being captured. How to Run Chase Scenes in any Fantasy RPG is pay what you want so you can check it out free... www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/425489/how-to-run-chase-scenes-in-any-fantasy-rpg Something I liked after tweaking it... Timers: In Shadowdark you set a physical timer that goes off when the torch goes out. Fighting in the dark can get you because characters can't see in the dark and monsters can. A timer like this stops players from sitting around over analyzing everything. Wait too long and there are consequences. The idea of a timer going off and something bad happening is something I use and the clicking of a physical timer creates tension at the table so I have: 1. A random list of things that might happen. 2. Set up the number of minutes before the timer goes up with a random element so the players can hear the timer ticking but they don't know when it will go off.
Thank you so much for watching! And I'm glad you found something to be inspired by! It's a very simple mechanic and I pretty much explained the entire thing in the video, but if you need more details, just head here: the-black-hack.jehaisleprintemps.net/english/ Cheers!
It’s interesting. I’ve used it, and didn’t like it personally. I think it’s great for when you want to abstract resources a bit so that you have to care about them a bit, without them being a focus. If managing limited resources is going to be a focus in the game, the usage die breaks down completely due to the unpredictability of the system.
I like the idea of combining usage with the aces exploding die somehow. “My arrows exploded and I shot 9 of them!” I had a bunch of CoC editions 3 to 5.5 I think, and I bought the d20 one just because. I wasn’t really playing rpgs then but I read it cover to cover and quickly realized it was just wrong for the feels. Interesting but wrong - strangely it’s the only CoC upstairs and not in the basement… Also congrats on 10k subs!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it! It took just over a year and half, which I guess is pretty good? And thanks for your thoughts and comments on the Cthulhu stuff! Another person in the comments just reminded me that there is some pretty good advice in where about how to run a mystery adventure and I want to go check that out again for ideas even though I'm not using the system itself. Good advice is good advice, no matter where it comes from!
AD&D 2e also had a morale score in the monster stat block. There’s a website with all the 2e monsters listed with descriptions and stats. It’s something I use even when playing 1e, which had REALLY complicated morale calculations.
I swear I already replied to this, but it must not have saved. Anyway, thank you so much! I'd quite forgotten that - I've mentioned a few times here that while I collected some 2E stuff, I never actually played that edition, because my group at the time had switched to playing Warhammer FRP. But I love the 2E Monstrous Manual and also your idea on using the expanded list of monsters from 2E and their morale scores! Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Ah, I went to edit my post and accidentally ended up erasing it, and had to redo it. You might have been replying to the deleted one. I never played 2e either… but as I started to get back into gaming again in my 40s, I went back and started looking into all the editions I missed. When I discovered that webpage, I was excited to see ALL the monsters listed from each of the settings in one place… But when I noted the morale stat, and realized how I could incorporate that into a 1e game make the game more interesting and easier to DM at the same time.
Exploding dice have been in WoD for a long time, for any roll involving an Attribute (ability score) or Ability (Skill) you have a Specialty in, and the specialty would be applicable to the roll. This includes combat rolls, since those are Attribute+Ability like anything else (ie Strength+Brawl to punch someone, Dex+Firearms to shoot someone.)
Love this video. Awesome stuff. I love exploding dice. I like the combat attack rolls for D&D that Nimble uses: Roll the damage die for a weapon. On a one the attack misses. On the max value the die explodes and damage is cumulative.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it. Also also, thanks for your support of the channel. This idea from Nimble you mention! I've not played that game before, but it sounds really fun!
@@daddyrolleda1 Nimble is a set of house rules to lay on top of 5E (though it could be used with other versions of D&D I think). However, it's being published as it's own TTRPG. Bob Worldbuilder and a few others have covered it.
@@BenjaminMarra You can definitely use Nimble with other versions of D&D and for games similar to D&D like Pathfinder although it could mess up some of the feats.
And now, here I am once more, thinking about reorienting that Escalation Die to center on the state of "being within threat range" for the 5e game I keep homebrewing into who-knows-what. Swear I had that thought once before, but I can't remember who prompted it. Thanks for more fun ideas to play with, anyway
I really like the "effort rolls" in index card rpg. I often use it in combat for actions that won't necessarily take one single turn to accomplish, like disarming a trap.
Great topic! I really enjoy examining different game mechanics. I don't play 5E but I *think* I recall seeing an optional mechanic that is something like the Icons where you can earn favor for different factions. Maybe you helped out a merchants guild and now you get a bit of a discount when dealing with them. Something like that anyway. And Bunnahabhain is an exception to the peated Islay Scotch. Most of their stuff is unpeated. I haven't tried the one you showed but if it's not smokey, I wouldn't be surprised.
Kludge and bricolage are the very heart of D&D as a hobby (vs a product that is consumed or a lifestyle brand). B/X is such a stout, durable, little frame that she can tolerate (even invite) a great deal of tinkering under the hood.
I'm not sure if there's a more concise way to state this, but rather than DM advice, i feel like your DMing videos are best summarized as "Old School DM strategies and philosphies" Also I have been playing D&D since AD&D 2e, but I like 5e quite a bit! I also think 5e works really well (and the systems supports) if you DM with a lot of old school ethos, so I get a lot of good ideas from your DM strat videos. One of my favorite mechanics is Adventuring Gear from Dungeon World. You have 3 uses from one kit of Adventuring Gear, and each use generates a piece of gear like a ladder, 10 foot pole, pitons, etc. that you then permanently add to your inventory. It allows some resource management without requiring players to do detailed shopping for equipment ahead of time, and also encourages player engagement with the fiction of the situation as they can be creative in their use of adventuring gear to surpass challenges.
I like the dice system from FFG star wars. The success and failure is expanded upon to include advantage and threat as well as triumph and despair. Also the dice include ability and proficiency which explains what success and failure look like.
Baldur's Gate 3 has a lot of really nice mechanics that encourage "fail forward" type rolling. It also does a lot to alleviate the more irritating aspects of 5E. As an example of "fail forward" if you're picking locks and fail, you can reroll but at the cost of breaking your lockpicks. As lockpicks are expensive, you're very happy to have found them, say on dead enemies. You can only have 4 points of inspiration (earned for satisfying character goals, some of which may well be RP suboptimal), so you have strong incentive to actually use them and not hoard them. They also have different characters have different rosters of possible actions. For example, my Warlock character has often been able to roll Arcana with advantage because of being a Warlock. Normally Warlocks aren't great at Arcana not being primary Intelligence characters but advantage sure helps makes up for it! (We did find an Int-enhancing item that helps with that.) I really like the resource die; tracking resources is very old skool in some ways but it's also decidedly non-pulp and can feel very nitpicky and annoying. Exploding dice have been around. I don't know where they first started, but the West End Games Star Wars D6 featured them in the form of the "wild die", which exploded. One last thing to note: While I do like a reasonably optimized build so your character isn't a sad sack, one thing some of the smarter folks on the 5E community have noted is that players frequently optimize their way out of the fun. Treantmonk, for example, has said that things that are too good are bad for the game because they squeeze out other options. (I have a background in economics so I knew about the fact that dominated strategies. This is often exacerbated by the strict action economy that many modern games impose. Watching your videos has helped me become looser as a DM. I'm much more willing to let the action economy flex so that PCs can get away with things like social actions.
I've often wondered if I should have run Kids on Bikes for my daughter and her friends (even though I've never played it myself). But, they seem to be enjoying B/X just fine!
@@daddyrolleda1 honestly you play kids, but it's just as good a game for adults. It's basically like playing the kids from Stranger Things (or for me, the Goonies or E.T.) But I love the game as written, a lot of mechanics to encourage social engagement
Advantage/disadvantage is not a terrible mechanic even in my old head, I actually quite like the elegance of it and have used it for some ability checks. Another mechanic that I think can be useful is the idea of a fate point, but maybe you will want to talk about that another time.
The first 'exploding dice' mechanic would be Tunnels and Trolls (2nd RPG!), where you roll 3d6 and try to beat a target number for saving rolls, but any time you roll triples, you roll again and add. Rolemaster may be the second, since any time you roll 95+ (on d%) you roll again and add, and anytime you roll 05-, roll again and _subtract_.
Thank you very much! Tunnels & Trolls was so early in RPG design (1975, just a year after D&D!) so that's a pretty innovative thing for them to have added. Thanks for the info! I never played Rolemaster but my friends who did always referred to it as "Chartmaster." Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Chartmaster *is* the most appropriate name. The shame is, there's a lot of really good ideas in the general system, they just get buried under ideas that _also_ require you to have a separate chart for everything. New weapon? New chart. New class? New chart.
@@daddyrolleda1 I was coming to the comments to talk about Middle-earth Roleplaying / Rolemaster and open-ended rolling. My first RPG experience was Holmes Basic in 1980, when I was in 6th grade. In those days we mixed and matched basic D&D with AT&D. We didn't know any better. Played some Gamma World after that. But in the early '80s I discovered MERP and became an instant fan. I've played dozens of RPG systems since, (including, recently, Savage Worlds) but I still love MERP and when we finish up with the Dark Places & Demogorgons (OSE edition) I'm playing in now, I will be GMing MERP (with a house-ruled magic system) for my Wednesday group. I do appreciate what you said in your previous video about matching mechanics to the situation, but the beauty of MERP/RM/SM was its regularity and conceptual _simplicity_, using open-ended D100 for almost everything. Once you understand how skill and combat resolutions are done, all of it works essentially the same way. What you _can_ do, if you want to change the distribution of results, is to make a table that maps the results of a D100 roll onto a curve. That's what the Rolemaster Arms Law / Claw Law book is. Your attack die roll is referenced against the target's armor class column, and the result is a number of hits (if any) and possibly a critical hit severity from A-E. The nonlinear distribution of results is used to simulate the effects of wearing different kinds of armor. Lighter armor, in this premise, results in fewer hits, as you can more easily maneuver out of the way. But when the hits start coming with higher rolls, they do more damage more quickly than if the target is wearing heavier armor. The combatant wearing chain or plate will receive lots of low-value hits, but many fewer of the dangerous critical hits, and you have to go your Constitution stat value below zero (and stats are 1-100) to die of hit point damage. If you get a critical hit, you make a second roll on a critical hit table, using the severity either to select different columns in the table, or as a modifier to the die roll (A=+10, B=+20...). The critical result will be a text description, in grisly detail, of the wound and any additional damage in hits, hits / round (bleeding), broken bones, severed limbs, etc, or conditions like 'stunned 2 rounds'. The open-ended rolling and the visceral critical hit results make combat in MERP/RM much more exciting than the linear hit-point slog typical of D&D. Coincidentally, I used the same example of Bard Bowman recently in explaining how this system allows even low-level characters to have a _chance_ to defeat high level monsters or NPCs, which in turn alters the players' calculations about when, how, and how long to engage in combat. At the same time, they know that a single lucky blow from an opponent can kill their character as well. There really aren't that many more die rolls per action in a RM-style combat than D&D. A low attack roll will result in maybe a few hit points, but that doesn't require any second roll at all, unlike in D&D, where every successful hit requires a damage roll. Better hits in RM will result in a second roll on a critical table. But while many D&D combats can play out like the endgame in Monopoly or Risk (unless, as you mentioned, you use something like morale checks and one side cuts and runs), most MERP/Rolemaster combats will wrap up more quickly as somebody rolls a devastating critical hit that puts an opponent out of the combat one way or another, even if they still had lots of 'hit points'. I think that people dissing Rolemaster as 'Chartmaster' is a lot like people thinking that early D&D was haphazard in its design. It's largely a misconception. I spent an evening or 2 a few months ago doing some direct comparisons between MERP, Rolemaster, Against the Darkmaster (MERPish retro clone), and various editions of D&D. The results are very interesting. First thing to know is that Rolemaster was designed from the outset to be a pretty modular system. In fact, it started out being an alternative combat system to bolt onto D&D. As a result of its modularity, it's very easy to substitute entire chunks of the game while keeping it all compatible. Rolemaster's "Arms Law/Claw Law" is mostly a book of combat tables. Each weapon has its own combat table against 20 armor types. Lots of tables. Each player was expected to have a photocopy of the tables for the weapons that character used. Done that way, you really wouldn't have to keep track of too many of them. But MERP and Cyberspace used simplified but totally compatible systems where entire categories of weapons and armor were resolved on a single table. So instead of using a different table for dagger, longsword, and rapier, you would just use the 1-handed Slashing table, and all 20 armor type columns were compressed to no armor, soft leather, rigid leather, chain, and plate. So, the game could be played with far fewer tables by trading off some crunch and detail, while retaining the exact same mechanic, and full compatibility. To put it in a nutshell, the combined average of AD&D 1E Players Handbook and DMG has ~.55 tables per page, in 359 pages, while Rolemaster Character Law / Campaign Law, covering roughly the same ground as the PH/DMG, has ~.6 tables per page in 103 pages. These AD&D books have a total of 197 tables or charts, where Rolemaster has only 62. Rolemaster Express, a cut-down version of Rolemaster Classic that I wish was still available for sale has 82 content pages, excluding a 4 page sample adventure. It has 50 tables, for .6 tables per page, plus 30 spell lists to 10th lvl, equaling 300 spells in 11 pages, at 27.27 spells per page. It has 23 monster descriptions over 3 pages with all the monster stats presented in a single table, for 7.66 monsters per page. The Blueholme Prentice Rules (an OSR restatement of Holmes Basic) covers levels 1-4 and has 58 content pages with 43 tables, for .74 tables per page, not including monster stats or spell books as tables. It lists 40 spells in 8 pages for 5 spells per page, and 70 monster descriptions over 15 pages for 4.66 monsters per pages. Finally, Against the Darkmaster Quickstart Rules from 2022, which is a MERP-like retro-clone has 106 content pages, with 58 tables, for ~.55 tables per page, and 12 spell lores (corresponding to MERP/RM spell lists) with 10 levels each for 120 spells across 24 pages at 5 spells per page. So comparable editions of Rolemaster and D&D have comparable chart density if you disregard Rolemaster's Arms Law / Claw Law. But arguably, every combat table in AL/CL is the same thing, just with different numbers. Once you understand how the AL/CL table works, every weapon chart works the same way. There's nothing new to learn, whereas each new table in D&D may work in a completely different way. And you can swap the MERP/RMX consolidated combat tables into full-blown Rolemaster / Spacemaster without breaking anything. You could even mix and match in the same combat, having one player use a MERP Missile Weapons Attack Table and another the bespoke Longbow table from Arms Law. If you don't have the vintage MERP or RMX books and don't want to, uh, obtain PDFs of them from wherever on the Internet you might or might not be able to obtain such things, I believe the "Against The Darkmaster" Quickstart Rules are free (or dirt cheap) and are a really good presentation of a 'simple' Rolemaster-style RPG with the open-ended mechanic and the descriptive critical hits. It also has an interesting 'wealth' system that's a bit reminiscent of the 'usage dice' mechanic, except for determining what you can afford rather than what you have left.
@@Rindis8 I don't think that's really the case. Yes, in Arms Law / Claw Law there's a separate table for each weapon. But each of those tables works the same way, so there's nothing new to learn from one to the next. And the consolidated tables from MERP, Rolemaster Express, Cyberspace, or even Against the Darkmaster can be substituted in reducing it to a small handful of categorical tables. If you use MERP's 1-Handed Slashing table, you don't need to make a new table if you decide that you want to use a dirk instead of a broadsword. Because of the _regularity_ and _modularity_ of the system, you can trade detail for simplicity and keep the same basic mechanic. I really don't understand what you mean about having a new chart for a new character class. Rolemaster is no different from any version of D&D in that respect. In fact, it was AD&D that featured the 'thief open window' table, where all skills are resolved on either the Static Action table or the Moving Maneuver table in Rolemaster. There are two alternative versions of each of those tables, but you only ever need to use the one you prefer. I've done the math, and excluding the AL/CL combat tables and Spell Law, 2nd Edition Rolemaster has a grand total of 62 tables in 103 pages of Character Law / Campaign Law against 197 tables in 361 combined pages of AD&D 1e Players Handbook and DMG, which covers about the same ground. The table density is about .55 tables per page of AD&D and around .6 tables per page in Rolemaster 2e. Rolemaster Express (which includes consolidated combat tables) has 50 tables in 82 content pages (minus a 4 page sample adventure) for .6 tables per page, including all monster stats in a single table. Meanwhile, the Blueholme Prentice Rules (OSR Holmes Basic retro clone) has 43 tables in 58 content pages, for .74 tables per page, not including monster stat blocks or spells as tables. Most of the tables in MERP/Rolemaster/Against the Darkmaster are optional, only used during character creation or leveling up, or easily replaced with a modular, bolt-in alternative. Over all, aside from Arms Law / Claw Law which, yes, is a table-driven system, Rolemaster has a very comparable number of tables to comparable editions of D&D -- sometimes many fewer. There might be a few more tables that are used in ordinary play in Rolemaster-like systems, but not many, and those tables cover a _much_ wider range of situations than D&D or most D&D-inspired games. There's no need for a 'thief open window' table because that situation would be resolved on the Static Action table just like any other.
@@joelavcoco Sure, they _work_ the same way. But, you need to look up the table and have it out to use it. And you have the weapon table _and_ the critical table. All that is lookup and space. And if you have, say, two fighters with two different weapons in the same combat, you're flipping between them each time (or, yes, each can have their own copy, but that's extra paper/tablets on the table). And if you _really_ want to introduce something like a bat'leth (extreme case for example), you need a new table. Considering there's a lot of people who object to having _one_ table that while everyone uses it, is complicated enough that you always need to do lookup (say, _FASERIP_), that's a real big usability problem. (Personally, I'm fine with the one big table, but the amount of lookup of multiple big tables in RM is headed past my limits.) Now, I haven't seen _Rolemaster_ since the late '80s, so its nice to see that they've introduced some streamlining options that, certainly, our local RM players never went to if it existed at the time.
Thanks for the great ideas, Martin! Do you use Inspiration Rewards for players great role-playing, solving riddles, making great strategic decisions, inventive play, etc.?
I have given in-game rewards like clues or items, access to high-level NPCs, etc. Inspiration is a great idea and works well in 5E but I haven't used it as written in my current campaign. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Ah! I've made quite a few updates on Kickstarter, but I actually mention what's going on in this video here: ua-cam.com/video/xrCzPjMHev4/v-deo.htmlsi=BopKMBBWgobfgpZi&t=3819 If you pledged to receive a PDF in addition to your POD, you should've gotten the link to download the PDF. For the POD, I've mentioned it here before, but the printing has not been working the way it's supposed to. I've ordered two "proofs" and each was incorrect. But, I just heard from the tech folks at DriveThruRPG today and they said my file "should" work, so I'm off to order my third proof. If that one works, then I'll finally be able to send out the codes for you all to print and ship your POD(s). Thank you so much for your support, and your patience. I really appreciate it.
I've run a fair bit of 13th Age. I think the Icon systems is best applied as you've described. If you roll the dice to force the involvement of an Icon that isn't particularly involved with where or what the characters were already involved in, it just ends up making the world feel a bit more artificial. The fighter's maneuvers feel a little undercooked, i think the concept of rolling the die to both determine what an enemy is doing and if they hit is a fantastic mechanic, but as a GM, not as a player. As a player I want to have a choice in what maneuver i'm using because i want to believe that i;m making good tactical choices will be rewarded. As a GM, this approach to running enemies is such a quick way to automate so much of the combat which like, yes, thank you, that's so much easier to run.
I really dig Knave( 2e)'s version of advantage. It isn't necessarily better than 5e advantage, but just very precision designed for the osr play style of encouraging players scheeming. It is simply a ply five for advantage and a -5 for disadvantage, but the cool part is how it makes rolling redundant if you're clever
Thanks for sharing this idea, and for watching and commenting! If memory serves, the only Modiphius game I've played it Star Trek, and it was a blast (only a one-shot), and I sadly don't remember too much about the mechanics. Cheers!
I ran Masks of Nyarlathotep (plus some other adventures) with SWADE. It was a lot of funny, if far more pulpy than intended. One character played a boxer with a great fighting score (d10 probably, by the time the party hit China) and he would punch enemies to death. It was a lot of fun.
I like the idea of the escalation die, but I think I would make it apply to monster attacks, too. That way, it's not making combat easier, but rather pushing it toward a conclusion either way.
33:43 "Temperatures routinely exceed 100ºF degrees (38ºC) by midmorning and can reach 130ºF degrees (55ºC) or more by late afternoon. " -Dark Sun wiki Dang, we really living on Athas, huh?
My primary game is Pathfinder 1e which does not use advantage or disadvantage. I use it for skill checks. Whenever players fight a monster, they have not run across I let them roll a skill check, something like this. Goblins would be a Knowledge Local Check DC: 11, this gives them basic knowledge of Goblins, if they roll a DC: 15 I give the player in question advantage against that monster type for that encounter only. I also use exploding dice, if players roll a max on a damage die, they keep rolling until they do not max out. So even if they don't crit, they can still potentially do a lot of damage. I also use a form of the escalation die rule in which if a player misses on an attack, they get a +1 on their next attack, if they miss again, it goes to +2 and so on, so eventually they will hit. It does depend on them remembering they get this bonus [I don't remind them; I am a DM after all]. The only thing I haven't used but think I will try is the usage die, sounds much easier than constantly checking on material components, food and water as well as ammo. Great video, thanks for sharing.
I feel like every gamer has a story similar to your dynamite and the exploding dice (aptly named) scenario. These are the things we remember most. These are the stories we tell years down the line. And often they have a huge impact on the story because they're so absurd. I'm sure hearing other people's gaming stories is a lot like listening to someone tell you about their dreams, but I'll try to keep it brief... Running a Star Wars game using West End D6 rules. The characters are hiding out in an apartment when the owner comes in. She was just supposed to be a standard civilian, and her whole purpose (from my perspective as DM) in the situation was to complicate their mission by having potential collateral damage in the way. She's barking at them in an alien language they can't understand. Shouting. What do they do? One player tries to knock her out. Fumbles his roll. Totally whiffs. I decide that she's going to retaliate with a punch. Crazy high rolls (via exploding dice) on both the attack and damage. If it was a blaster, or some other deadly weapon, he'd be dead, but instead I rule he just gets knocked straight out. The other players (who have no idea who this woman is) react in character by putting their hands up and offering no resistance. They knew they probably could have just shot her, and even if she was some super skilled character, they would have the advantage in the fight. But it was funnier, and they knew it, if they just gave up. She grabs something from the kitchen table and then bolts out of there. The player who got knocked out is CONVINCED she was some kind of cyborg or super soldier. Say... that gives me an idea. 😀 She returned in a later adventure as a Rebel agent who was spying on the place next door to where they were trying to infiltrate. The thing she grabbed was her intelligence kit. You can try to write some masterpiece of a narrative, but the dice so often give you your best material.
I love all those weird dice mechanics. I have enjoyed the Troika dice cup mechanics. I love the hidden stones mechanics from Cave Master. I also had some bad luck with dynamite once...
Oh my goodness, YES! That last sentence sums up so much about my preferred way of running games. It's one of the reasons I love wandering monsters and random encounters, because as a referee I like coming up with reasons for why those things are happening and it's almost always better than anything I would've pre-planned anyway. I am always slightly amused by folks who aren't open to the possibilities of random dice helping drive the narrative, instead of thinking that they are just "getting in the way of the story." Thank you so much for watching and for sharing your story. Cheers!
I'm a big fan of 13th age. If you want to try it there's a revised edition coming out soon that fixes some of its biggest problems. Overall it's a very fun game, and has a lot of great ideas.
Ah... fair enough. I do celebrate both and just flubbed the title(s). Thanks for sticking through the video to watch that part. It was a last-minute decision... as I've mentioned a few times, I record my videos in order, in ~10-15 segments on my phone and then editing them together, and the Bonus Content is always the very last thing I do before combining and editing all the various parts together. This one meant a lot to me. Cheers.
The D20 Call of Cthulhu is certainly not the best way to play Cthulhu 🙂But it does have at least two things going for it imo: It has some really great advice on creating mystery style plots, which can be applied to any game where you want to... say... make a murder mystery. And it is good if you want your D&D game to have a mythos infected setting. Like some Conan stories do. And Conan do just kill the stuff just like D&D characters would. As long as you are not expecting the dread you get from actually playing Call of Cthulhu.
Both great points, and exactly how I've used the book in my long-running 3.X campaign! I should go review that advice on running mysteries! I do like Monte Cook's design work/philosophy. I just don't think, as you mentioned, that D20 is the best system for running a traditional Cthulhu style adventure. Thanks for watching and commenting!
My antipathy to WotC is strong enough, I was super excited when I heard about Exodus (video game under development by a bunch of original Mass Effect people), then just devastated to hear WotC was the publisher...
Oh no! I've been a little overly-cautious lately because folks have said I repeat myself too often, and I've mentioned a few times in various other videos that those two other players (sisters) moved away and opted not to continue playing with us online. I'll make sure to point out *why* they are no longer in the group next time!
@@daddyrolleda1 I for one like the repeated information, at least for stuff like game content because sometimes I wanna send this to a person who doesn't know DnD history, and its already a hard sell for an hur long video, much moreso if they also have to watch another to get everything that being said. And also- Not even I've seen all your videos and I never watch in order (typically go by YT's recommended) so I often hear you refer to a previous episode I have no knowledge of
Oh, that's such a good point! I hadn't considered things like sending a specific video to someone else who doesn't watch the channel! In my head, I feel like a have a very small audience despite having 10k subscribers (most video recently get
Ah, good to know! I never read/played the Player's Options stuff in 2E (and really never played "base" 2E since my group had switched to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay). So, that late 2E era stuff is a somewhat large gap in my D&D knowledge. Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 It isn't well noted, and worse, references "see the table below" (and the table doesn't actually exist). I'm not sure anyone ever actually used some of the options - it seems impossible to use _all_ of the options in all the books - but some of the systems are actually kind of fun
It's roughly once a month but with hiatus periods during the holidays and often over the summer as well, as everyone is on vacation at different times. This summer was very difficult to plan a session. Also, as they've gotten older, they just have more and more extra curricular activities. In any event, the Cleric and Thief are both currently 4th level, and the two Elves are both 2nd level (since they needed 8,000 XP to get to 3rd level). I am pretty stingy with gold and treasure for them (no magic items so far, either, other than a couple of potions and a few scrolls). I strongly prefer lower-level play and so far, nobody has complained because they don't really have any context of anything different (they've never played another TTRPG!).
@@daddyrolleda1 thank you for the reply, I can understand both being hard to plan a gaming session (the one I’m in plays once a month and we’re lucky to have 4 players, 6 is max) and also young adults being busy. I have three boys and when they were between 12-16 they were super busy with sports etc, way busier than I was at that age. Great channel, thanks for the content. Very enjoyable and helpful at the same time.
That's really nice! Thank you! So I have three girl players (one is my daughter) and one dad player. The three girls go to three different schools and that's a factor as well, with them getting older, that they'll have homecoming dances and such on three different weekends, which makes planning difficult. They don't like to play on Friday nights so we're limited to just Saturday or Sunday and the preference is strongly for Saturday. I really appreciate your nice compliments and your support of the channel. Cheers!
It's less about hating 5E and more about hating WOTC. And the further along we go, the worse they get. I have a long diatribe about what's going on, and it isn't specific to WOTC, it explains what's going on with the annihilation of all the IPs you love, LOTR, Star Wars, etc. etc. It's all the same thing. But it's very political, so I won't spew it here.
I've never gotten why some people hate anything in 5e because its from 5e, like the whole system is made of asbestos and anything it touches will be infected, and you'll have to call in specialists to get your whole game decontaminated, costing thousands of dollars in the process. Fact is: people are familiar with the system, and it has good things in there. Advantage Disadvantage is not a mechanic 5e invested- it's been around for decades as a house rule. You can use good rules even from "bad" systems. Also, Vicious Mockery is hilarious in any game
"anything it touches will be infected, and you'll have to call in specialists to get your whole game decontaminated, costing thousands of dollars in the process. " Wait! Are you saying that won't happen?!!!
I like non-unified game mechanics. When everything is d20 roll high and add modifiers I get bored with the system quickly. I do think it is easier for new players to only have to remember roll the d20 to determine success.
I don't like the "Escalation Dice" but D&D Combat has always been a hot mess. Most of the games I play that have a focus on combat use some aspect of Fatigue, it actually really speeds combat up. A tired or flagging fighter of any experience can get their arse kicked, and good, by a fast energetic opponent. So most people do'n't want fights to last long enough for that to happen It won't lead to every fight ending in a slaugher of the enemy, but that's not the goal in those games. Players and NPCs run away, surrender, or submit a lot in games like Runequest and Mythras. Most settings don't take kindly to the murder of a defeated foe who has surrendered, so you will end up with a lot of opportunity for returning foes.. D&D combat drags because it is a war of Health Bar Attrition, players are thus encouraged to stack outgoing damage and rely on their passive defence for avoiding damage in a race to zero HP. Consequently, to maintain a "challenge" enemies get more and more Health... and the spiral continues. Most "other systems" these days have cheap or even Free "Starter Sets" You can download a PDF of the core rules (they are essentially all SRDs these days anyway...) and give them a try for nothing. I personally recommend The two Mythras Imperative books. The Core "Mythras Imperative is a style and setting neutral sand box, where you can create any game you want covering pretty much everything from a stone headed axe to a Death Star. The "Classic Fantasy Imperative" is a basic version of the full CF game, but only has the four basic D&D Classes. It takes the BRP d100 system and transposes the old school D&D feel by creating sort of "Package Deals" of skills and powers that would constitue a "Fighter" or "Magic User" etc and convert them into d100 system. It's a fantastic game, and tboth these are completely free to download. The most useful thing I ever did to improve my understanding of game mechanics and be able to streamline situational resolutions was to play lots of different systems. I maintain that BRP, (Cthulhu, Runequest, Mythras, etc.) is the best, (both in terms of being complete AND flexible) system out there. D&D 5Es uniformity of "d20 Roll High," mechanically speaking, is no different to BRPs "d100 Roll Low" except the resolution is inverted and D&D only works in blocks of 5% while BRP games allow for 1% increments. BRP also puts the focus on the characters ability to do things like "Hitting an opponent with a sword" rather than difficulty of the task, or their opponents passive defence. The equivalent to the D&D Target or "DC" is instead based on the ability of the character not the difficulty of the situation, so the target is always the players Skill value, and the modifier is the situation rather than a fixed difficulty score. This puts the Characters' Talent at the focal point of things like combat, rather than the AC of the enemy. Mechanically... not that different, (obviously a d20 Roll High system can only move in 5% steps for modification) but tonally it is more immersive to focus on the character rather than the environment. My advice when trying to "Fix" or improve D&D is simply to either just roll with it for what its aimed at and good at, OR... if you really want other mechanics and settings, at the very least TRY a game that already uses them. For one thing that game WILL have already gone through more experimentation and playtesting before publishing it than you will ever get to do before dumping it on your players, and you will definitely get a better understanding. I have played in several D&D games where the DM has tried to be clever and use Sanity. It never works because either the DM tries to run it on a 0-99 direct Cthulhu clone, which always feels clumsy and out of place, or they try to use it like Hit Points and it becomes a complete mess. It needs the subtelty of small incremental chipping away, with the capacity to suffer a massive shock and both be of equal importance (though in different ways) to the running of the game. Some mechanics just don;t convert very well. That's why so many of us enjoy playing other games. And I do still play AD&D, but almost entirely for nostalgia, because I think there are way better games out there for the sorts of games I like to run.
I like pushing rolls with consequences for failure that can be very harsh. I don't really support failing forward. I prefer success or failure because there is actual consequences. You are right that if the characters have to find a secret door to advance the game it's poor game design. I would just say they find it without a roll.
Yes! I agree with your last statement. For things like that, if the players tell me that they are searching the room/corridor/whatever and where, then they find the door (no roll). If they don't mention they are searching, then they don't find it (unless they're an elf just passing by and then I might give them a secret D6 roll per the old B/X rules). But, as you also mention, I wouldn't hinge the entire adventure on them needing to find the door!
One of my favorite mechanics is from the Gumshoe games and that's the idea or investigative skills. In gumshoe games if you have any points in an investigative skill you don't need to roll it to find a clue, you automatically find it if your skill applies. You can spend points to find more information, or for stronger effects of general skill uses. I use this idea in any investigation I run now using any system. I don't hold back clues, and it makes things much smoother.
I am not a Kickstarter backer, but I feel like the update on your POD situation on your book would be better served in its own video, rather than buried in the middle of an hour and a half video on an unrelated topic? Even if you just cut out that short chunk and upload it as its own thing just to make sure everyone who contributed and is asking questions sees it.
When I was younger mechanics was like me and I was born into setting but now as you get older of course mechanics matter why don't you cover palladium in the various things because it's definitely not gurps on steroids
You say people don't want the sub systems. You are to nice, Just say it as it is, the PLAYERS ARE LAZY!!!! After YOU SPENT HOURS PREPARING AN ADVENTURE, and everything else, they are to LAZY to spend 5 minutes in between game sessions to read a 1 page hand out, fill out a simple inventory sheet, or anything else!
Advantage/Disadvantage is in my opinion the best mechanic in any RPG I've played. I port it into absolutely everything now (including B/X). Great vid!
Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed the video, and thanks for watching and commenting and for your support of the channel. Cheers!
Advantage/Disadvantage is the best thing about 5e. I'm also a big fan of Andrew Kolb's Neverland, as well as Oz (and soon, Wonderland)
Ooh, I hadn't heard about Wonderland! Thanks for the heads-up!
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah, Andrew's a cool guy. I'm in his discord and he's done interviews for Shadomain and been on Luna's show.
@shadomain7918 Will it include Mirrorland? (hope hope hope)
@@tomkerruish2982 I haven't bugged him for details, but I'd think it would have to. I'll be interested to see what the thematic focus is, as in Neverland is a wilderness exploration where Oz is a city of factions.
IN my cypher system games, I use the equipment rules from Blades in the Dark, where you have X slots for equipment, but you fill in the specifics as you use them
Fun idea! I've still not checked out Blades in the Dark but it does sound like fun. Thanks!
@@daddyrolleda1 You gotta check it out, very different from the very simulationist DnD sphere!
I do love exploding dice, though in my case I know of the mechanic from Shadowrun.
My favorite mechanic from a non-D&D game is Destiny from The Everlasting. In The Everlasting, the game master gives everyone XP and Destiny points at the end of of every session. Destiny points are typically handed out in values of 3 or fewer points per session, and only as a reward for good roleplaying. Now, Destiny *can* be used to turn a failure into a success, or multiple points can be used to create a certain effect as long as the player can justify it to the GM, but my personal favorite way to use Destiny was for comedic effect. For example, I'd set some explosive charges to destroy something with story significance and I spent a point of Destiny to make the smoke cloud appear in the shape of a rabbit.
My GM pretty much always allowed my Destiny expenditures.
Oh, wow - that does sound like a lot of fun! Very creative! I've not played Everlasting before but your description is intriguing. Thanks!
I'm a fan of using the occasional 1 negative crit rolls as an opportunity to roll to see if the finite supply of something being used has ran out. "Oh no, I rolled a 1!". I roll a 10 and get a 3. "You have 3 arrows left in your quiver".
Oh, that's a fun idea, too! Did you make that up, or is it from another game?
And, thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. I really appreciate it. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 it's hard to say if I came up with it; I picked it up somewhere...I don't think it's from a system, but I use a lot of charts in the solo game I've been poking away at for over a decade. Another option I've used is to create a list of things the group carries that are finite and once a week or after major combat, someone rolls on the chart while another rolls a d100 for percentage. The percentage rolled equals how much of the rolled item has been used, damaged/destroyed, or lost. "the potion bottle must have broken when Torak got kicked by the hill giant, or, after catching their breath from swimming the river, the PCs check their inventory and find that twelve of Carina's arrows were lost to the current.
Consider rope. Weather and environmental conditions can affect it, the PCs might cut bits and pieces of it off, it could get tangled up when it's needed in a hurry. I've used similar things for the occasional "item wear ✔️" Ambers wears holes in her boots; Falith the Sane! Start's his watch by ripping his cloak pulling it on.
All good ideas I played everything from basic multi basic second advanced third 3.5 triforce hated it and now I'm in the 5th
But I do like some of these older ones with some of their ideas even though they didn't carry on
Looking forward to watching this one! Shh. Don’t tell anyone. But I use 4th edition mechanics in my AD&D 1E game. ;)
Thank you SO MUCH for the support! I so appreciate your loyalty to the channel.
And I think I read a comment by you somewhere else that mentioned you use the minion rules from 4E. That *is* a really great mechanic, and one that a lot of folks like! I also maintain that the 4E DMG is one of the best written for any edition.
@@daddyrolleda1 On that topic Automatic Damage rules from 5e are really useful if you have a horde attacking the party and easy enough to adapt to other games.
Thanks for the video! I love morale and have had a few times when a monster got surprise and failed morale but might have otherwise decimated a PC party but hid or fled and the PCs never even knew the monster was there. I just chuckle behind the screen and the players always wonder but I keep my secrets well.
Usage dice seem useful, pun intended, with the right group and system but with my 1E AD&D games I prefer some bookkeeping for the players to maintain some level of mental investment in the nuts and bolts. Might be the old wargamer in me but I try to keep the NPCs interesting and worth meeting and supply runs are a good place for info to be shared. Some of the best archer moments happened in modern movies when Legolas or Hawkeye run out of arrows. Makes for excellent conflict and calls for creativity.
You have to love the production values for 13th Age, it's a beautifully produced game. "Your Unique Thing" might be a fun aspect to add for one-shot convention games but I prefer PCs in home campaigns to gain 'unique thing' during play and I try to create opportunities for that to happen. I do this by trying to pick up on their RPGing style and their interactions with NPCs and the other PCs in their group.
The Escalation Die seems a bit like a generic feat enhancement mechanic that would work in combat heavy games. For some systems, the fact that it can speed up combats (looking at you, 3.5E!) might be very handy.
Never really bought into the suspension of belief needed to enjoy an horror game of any kind, particularly CoC, though I enjoy trying to sometimes to make my 1E AD&D group of players' skin crawl. Pushing the Skill is essentially a do-over or a way of mitigating unfortunately timed bad dice rolls, basically a luck mechanic, I suppose. Seems harmless enough in games where the fun can come to a screeching halt if a failure happens.
I always wondered about Savage Worlds, as it has been around quite a while and has been quite popular, but I haven't tried it. Seems to buy into the idea that folks love rolling dice and pushing their luck, no relation to the last comment. I am not so keen on exploding mechanics for campaigns because they make things swingy, like crits and fails. The entire finale of Terry Pratchett's Guards, Guards is predicated on the "Million to One" shot. Fun read!
Sorry about your printing troubles. Hopefully it will work out soon.
I rather like the idea of Advantage / Disadvantage for a modern RPG and would think retroactively adding it into 3.XE and stripping away some of the clutter in that system might be a fine upgrade.
Andrew Kolb's Neverland Chase Mechanic of Rock, Paper, Scissors weirdly reminds me of Greg Stafford's Prince Valiant coin flipping mechanic in that both use a number of successes threshold to reach the conclusion. Might be nice to do something non-dice oriented.
Scotch with Empire Strikes Back in honor of James Earl Jones is a nice touch.
I really can't express how much I enjoy your well-crafted and insightful comments. The fact that you take the time to write specific comments for each section of the video means the world to me. I truly appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness.
I feel like I need to check out the Prince Valiant game... it's one I've not tried, but I remember reading the comic strip in the newspaper as a kid, and my dad was a big fan of the comic as well.
I've also not read that Terry Pratchett series but I am intrigued now!
Thanks again for sticking through the Bonus Content, and also for your support of me and my channel.
Cheers to you!
@@daddyrolleda1 I just try to comment on each chapter as it goes along. Thanks again for the fun and interesting videoS
One of the interesting things I find interesting about BECMI is that it is heroic narratively, but for the most part characters as rolled tend towards being average. The most common ability roll is around 9. There isn't feats or other real super powers but players move their characters from nobodies through to immortals by working incredibily hard to overcome being an average human/oid.
I really enjoy that style of play, too! B/X is much the stuff, except of course that it stops at level 14 (although Expert Set co-designer Steve Marsh is working on his version of what the Companion Set might have looked like had the B/X line continued instead of being replaced by BECMI).
I have a few Twitter friends who are all huge fans of BECMI as it was the edition they started with, but interestingly, I don't think any of them ever reach the Immortals level. Did you? What were those adventures like? I'm so curious as I've never played at the level before!
@@daddyrolleda1 Wait hang on, we're getting BX+C?! You gotta cover that when it releases! That's so cool!
Yes! That's why B/X has at least one foot in survival-horror vs heroic, high fantasy.
@spudsbuchlaw I am so excited for it! If you're on Facebook, check out "D&D B/X - Moldvay / Cook & Marsh"): facebook.com/groups/bxdnd/
Good video on some alternatives from allot of fun systems. I think my favorite mechanic, that I've even used in many games, is the Dueling system from AD&D2e Combat & Tactics, I've been attempting to release a free version of my own take on this mechanic to branch it out into a 2 person wargame arbitrated with a referee. I think it was originally in the En Garde rpg from back in the old days (you would program your attacks on a d12 and your defenses on a d6), which is also a cool rpg of swashbuckling adventure.
Ah, very cool! I never really looked into the late-era 2E stuff like Combat & Tactics, as my group had switched to playing Warhammer FRP and then I lost a play group for a while and didn't return to RPGs until 2001 with 3E.
I chatted about En Garde! in this video: ua-cam.com/video/mUzvpXBJELA/v-deo.htmlsi=I3XT11kQlL6TOmdd
@@daddyrolleda1 Yep I actually saw that one, and it was the reason that inspired me to make this short about the dueling system in combat & tactics (Its pretty much the same, except you have premade tables): ua-cam.com/users/shortsN6xC5h8scXk?feature=share
In a game I run, I had a siege defense style scenario happen with layered walls and reinforcements on both sides. To add a sense of escalating tension as the players and their allies got pushed back I had something called the "Havoc Meter" shown on the map with big red text and squares that filled out as the attackers got further through. Each time the Havoc Meter progressed both sides got more reinforcements, with the attackers just getting more guys but the defenders gained more elite allies and had the NPC in command take more drastic measures like accepting more friendly fire with his big AoE attacks. I took care to either telegraph the leader's strikes to the players so they could run away or just graze them with little effect for the untelegraphed ones (I kinda forgot about him until around halfway through the fight, so I just said he was building power or something then had his first attack deal 50d20s of damage thanks to using a VTT).
The whole Havoc Meter's main purpose though was to sorta gauge how well the players could handle the threat, in the end they did push the attackers back and won, but if they failed and the meter filled up completely, I was going to cut the combat there and bury them under some rubble for a while then pick up next session as a "you're trapped and surrounded, escape and survive" scenario.
Only War for Dark Heresy WH40k had artillery fire as a random event. You are not the heroes.
AD&D 2e had a few historical settings. A Mighty Fortress had combat rules where you roll a save and possibly suffer damage if your character participates in battle as part of a unit.
In Pendragon you can retire to the baggage area. The drawback is that other Knights see you flee.
Great video! It's nice to know I'm not the only person who wastes way more time than I should studying and testing different game mechanics. Some thoughts...
I love Drivethrurpg but it's much easier and cheaper to print physical copies on Amazon and your book can be shipped from a whole list of different countries dramatically reducing the postage cost for people outside of the USA.
With black and white interior and a color cover an A4 book is US$2.84 to print for up to 108 pages. Full color is $4.20 a book for the first 40 pages and 8 cents a page after that. And all you need to upload is a pdf.
On the game mechanics...
Reaction Table:
In Knave 2e Ben Milton expands the reaction table so that each number on the 2d6 roll gives you a different reaction:
2 Kill the PCs
3 Injure or capture the PCs
4 Harass or rob the PCs
5 Insult, threaten or command the PCs
6 Avoid the PCs
7 Ignore the PCs
8 Follow or observe the PCs
9 Greet or question the PCs
10 Share information with the PCs
11 Perform minor favors for the PCs
12 Ask to join the PCs party
I think this is a huge improvement over the original reaction table. You could also make a custom reaction table for each dungeon you create so it feeds into that dungeon's microcosm and major villain.
Usage die:
One of the problems with a usage die is you still have to keep track of what die you're on effectively swapping one type of tracking for another. One tweak of this system is to give each die level a broad classification.
eg. Supply level for this equipment
d10 great
d8 good
d6 okay
d4 bad
Then the GM can estimate at any time if supply is good, okay or bad based on what's happened in the adventure.
Another tweak is that when you roll a 1 or 2 on the last die for something like arrows you're not out, you have just ONE arrow left. That creates some fun tension and gives players a challenge they can use their creativity to overcome.
Your One Unique Thing:
Unique stuff on player's character sheets may be the most valuable tool you have to increase role playing and the fun players have roleplaying. It doesn't have to be a lot of information but any kind of short backstory, background, history, unique quirky ability that the player can latch on to makes for much more interesting roleplaying.
The character sheet and what goes on it is probably the most important mechanic in most RPGs and it's something that's rarely mentioned.
Escalation Die:
The 13th Age escalation die is a really clever mechanic for people who like role playing to deal with rules systems where combat has been designed for people who love long combats. If you want a game that isn't based around combats you should probably not play 5e, pathfinder and similar games and go for something that's less combat heavy.
Games like Dragonbane, Cairn and EZD6 have fun combat that goes fast.
Some hacks use Luck Dice, Deathbringer Dice etc. to overcome this problem. You get a d6 or multiple d6s you can use and add to any roll. The limit of the number of luck dice you have naturally limits their use. These are more fun to use than an escalation die. Players love rolling dice.
Pushed Rolls:
In Dragonbane they have pushed rolls. If you push a roll you get a condition that puts one of your attributes at a disadvantage every time you use it until you remove the condition.
In most Year Zero Engine games (the SRD is free online)
freeleaguepublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/YZE-Standard-Reference-Document.pdf
they have pushed rolls where you might break equipment, injure yourself etc. when you push a roll. The dice pool system and different coloured dice indicate what the complication is.
To me pushed rolls and 'bennies' like they have in Savage Worlds is bordering on being a little too metagamey but it's great fun when you get the balance right.
Aces:
Exploding dice are great fun. In EZD6 they take this to another level where you can use the Hero Die to increase rolls including increasing it to explode the dice and roll again to increase damage. The 5e hack Nimble 2e where the entire system is based around damage rolls (no to-hit rolls) uses exploding damage dice too.
In Knave and Knave2e on a critical success you can do double damage OR you can choose to do damage AND some kind of stunt (like trying to push an opponent off a cliff etc.) I think this is ideal for getting players to be more creative and thinking outside the box of just doing damage to opponents to end a combat.
Chase Sequences:
I studied just about every chase mechanic in every game I could find because I was frustrated about the fact that chase scenes just don't feel like chases.
The problem with chase rules is the rules get in the way, slowing the narrative down. Exciting chase scenes are all about a really rapid narrative with things happening fast and the players having to make rapid decisions and improvise and get creative while running.
Eventually I created my own system that revolves around:
1. Rolling a random scenario...something the players have to deal with during the chase eg. River, drain, channel, open sewer in your path.
or
Heavy door, portcullis or heavy gate in your path.
or
You fall into a hole, recessed stairs, or almost off a roof grabbing precariously to avoid injury.
2. The players describe what they do to overcome the obstacle and increase their chances of getting further away from their pursuers, often with a time limit and how much time they have to explain that.
3. The entire party makes a single roll to see how they did. if they do well they get closer to escaping. If they do poorly they get closer to being captured.
How to Run Chase Scenes in any Fantasy RPG is pay what you want so you can check it out free...
www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/425489/how-to-run-chase-scenes-in-any-fantasy-rpg
Something I liked after tweaking it...
Timers:
In Shadowdark you set a physical timer that goes off when the torch goes out. Fighting in the dark can get you because characters can't see in the dark and monsters can.
A timer like this stops players from sitting around over analyzing everything. Wait too long and there are consequences.
The idea of a timer going off and something bad happening is something I use and the clicking of a physical timer creates tension at the table so I have:
1. A random list of things that might happen.
2. Set up the number of minutes before the timer goes up with a random element so the players can hear the timer ticking but they don't know when it will go off.
I might give the Usage Die a spin. Seems interesting.
Thank you so much for watching! And I'm glad you found something to be inspired by! It's a very simple mechanic and I pretty much explained the entire thing in the video, but if you need more details, just head here: the-black-hack.jehaisleprintemps.net/english/
Cheers!
It’s interesting. I’ve used it, and didn’t like it personally. I think it’s great for when you want to abstract resources a bit so that you have to care about them a bit, without them being a focus. If managing limited resources is going to be a focus in the game, the usage die breaks down completely due to the unpredictability of the system.
I like the idea of combining usage with the aces exploding die somehow. “My arrows exploded and I shot 9 of them!”
I had a bunch of CoC editions 3 to 5.5 I think, and I bought the d20 one just because. I wasn’t really playing rpgs then but I read it cover to cover and quickly realized it was just wrong for the feels. Interesting but wrong - strangely it’s the only CoC upstairs and not in the basement…
Also congrats on 10k subs!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it! It took just over a year and half, which I guess is pretty good?
And thanks for your thoughts and comments on the Cthulhu stuff! Another person in the comments just reminded me that there is some pretty good advice in where about how to run a mystery adventure and I want to go check that out again for ideas even though I'm not using the system itself. Good advice is good advice, no matter where it comes from!
AD&D 2e also had a morale score in the monster stat block.
There’s a website with all the 2e monsters listed with descriptions and stats. It’s something I use even when playing 1e, which had REALLY complicated morale calculations.
I swear I already replied to this, but it must not have saved. Anyway, thank you so much! I'd quite forgotten that - I've mentioned a few times here that while I collected some 2E stuff, I never actually played that edition, because my group at the time had switched to playing Warhammer FRP. But I love the 2E Monstrous Manual and also your idea on using the expanded list of monsters from 2E and their morale scores!
Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Ah, I went to edit my post and accidentally ended up erasing it, and had to redo it. You might have been replying to the deleted one.
I never played 2e either… but as I started to get back into gaming again in my 40s, I went back and started looking into all the editions I missed. When I discovered that webpage, I was excited to see ALL the monsters listed from each of the settings in one place…
But when I noted the morale stat, and realized how I could incorporate that into a 1e game make the game more interesting and easier to DM at the same time.
2e is where my heart resides. By far my favorite edition. Even with all the "quirks" it has.
Exploding dice have been in WoD for a long time, for any roll involving an Attribute (ability score) or Ability (Skill) you have a Specialty in, and the specialty would be applicable to the roll. This includes combat rolls, since those are Attribute+Ability like anything else (ie Strength+Brawl to punch someone, Dex+Firearms to shoot someone.)
Love this video. Awesome stuff. I love exploding dice. I like the combat attack rolls for D&D that Nimble uses: Roll the damage die for a weapon. On a one the attack misses. On the max value the die explodes and damage is cumulative.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it. Also also, thanks for your support of the channel.
This idea from Nimble you mention! I've not played that game before, but it sounds really fun!
@@daddyrolleda1 Nimble is a set of house rules to lay on top of 5E (though it could be used with other versions of D&D I think). However, it's being published as it's own TTRPG. Bob Worldbuilder and a few others have covered it.
@@BenjaminMarra You can definitely use Nimble with other versions of D&D and for games similar to D&D like Pathfinder although it could mess up some of the feats.
Exploding dice is a great way to speed combat and make it chaotic.
Totally agree!
And now, here I am once more, thinking about reorienting that Escalation Die to center on the state of "being within threat range" for the 5e game I keep homebrewing into who-knows-what. Swear I had that thought once before, but I can't remember who prompted it.
Thanks for more fun ideas to play with, anyway
Thanks so much for watching and commenting! I'm glad you found it helpful! Cheers!
The pushing rolls from what I've seen are a big part of Alien as well, and interacts with the stress mechanics.
I really like the "effort rolls" in index card rpg. I often use it in combat for actions that won't necessarily take one single turn to accomplish, like disarming a trap.
Great topic! I really enjoy examining different game mechanics. I don't play 5E but I *think* I recall seeing an optional mechanic that is something like the Icons where you can earn favor for different factions. Maybe you helped out a merchants guild and now you get a bit of a discount when dealing with them. Something like that anyway. And Bunnahabhain is an exception to the peated Islay Scotch. Most of their stuff is unpeated. I haven't tried the one you showed but if it's not smokey, I wouldn't be surprised.
Found the channel like the day before Labor Day weekend. Almost caught up!
Kludge and bricolage are the very heart of D&D as a hobby (vs a product that is consumed or a lifestyle brand).
B/X is such a stout, durable, little frame that she can tolerate (even invite) a great deal of tinkering under the hood.
I'm not sure if there's a more concise way to state this, but rather than DM advice, i feel like your DMing videos are best summarized as "Old School DM strategies and philosphies"
Also I have been playing D&D since AD&D 2e, but I like 5e quite a bit! I also think 5e works really well (and the systems supports) if you DM with a lot of old school ethos, so I get a lot of good ideas from your DM strat videos.
One of my favorite mechanics is Adventuring Gear from Dungeon World. You have 3 uses from one kit of Adventuring Gear, and each use generates a piece of gear like a ladder, 10 foot pole, pitons, etc. that you then permanently add to your inventory. It allows some resource management without requiring players to do detailed shopping for equipment ahead of time, and also encourages player engagement with the fiction of the situation as they can be creative in their use of adventuring gear to surpass challenges.
This hacked with knave would be interesting
I like the dice system from FFG star wars. The success and failure is expanded upon to include advantage and threat as well as triumph and despair. Also the dice include ability and proficiency which explains what success and failure look like.
That sounds great! I've not played FFG Star Wars but I've heard really good things. Thanks!
According to the videos out so far, Cosmere TTRPG is adopting something similar.
Baldur's Gate 3 has a lot of really nice mechanics that encourage "fail forward" type rolling. It also does a lot to alleviate the more irritating aspects of 5E. As an example of "fail forward" if you're picking locks and fail, you can reroll but at the cost of breaking your lockpicks. As lockpicks are expensive, you're very happy to have found them, say on dead enemies. You can only have 4 points of inspiration (earned for satisfying character goals, some of which may well be RP suboptimal), so you have strong incentive to actually use them and not hoard them. They also have different characters have different rosters of possible actions. For example, my Warlock character has often been able to roll Arcana with advantage because of being a Warlock. Normally Warlocks aren't great at Arcana not being primary Intelligence characters but advantage sure helps makes up for it! (We did find an Int-enhancing item that helps with that.)
I really like the resource die; tracking resources is very old skool in some ways but it's also decidedly non-pulp and can feel very nitpicky and annoying.
Exploding dice have been around. I don't know where they first started, but the West End Games Star Wars D6 featured them in the form of the "wild die", which exploded.
One last thing to note: While I do like a reasonably optimized build so your character isn't a sad sack, one thing some of the smarter folks on the 5E community have noted is that players frequently optimize their way out of the fun. Treantmonk, for example, has said that things that are too good are bad for the game because they squeeze out other options. (I have a background in economics so I knew about the fact that dominated strategies. This is often exacerbated by the strict action economy that many modern games impose. Watching your videos has helped me become looser as a DM. I'm much more willing to let the action economy flex so that PCs can get away with things like social actions.
I like the dice pool / card mechanic from Fiasco.. my group usually plays a Fiasco SW5E mash up for holiday specials we do.
Thanks! I've been meaning to check out Fiasco. It sounds like it could be a fun system!
Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
I love exploding dice, they're also used in Kids on Bikes/Brooms
I've often wondered if I should have run Kids on Bikes for my daughter and her friends (even though I've never played it myself). But, they seem to be enjoying B/X just fine!
@@daddyrolleda1 honestly you play kids, but it's just as good a game for adults. It's basically like playing the kids from Stranger Things (or for me, the Goonies or E.T.) But I love the game as written, a lot of mechanics to encourage social engagement
Advantage/disadvantage is not a terrible mechanic even in my old head, I actually quite like the elegance of it and have used it for some ability checks.
Another mechanic that I think can be useful is the idea of a fate point, but maybe you will want to talk about that another time.
The first 'exploding dice' mechanic would be Tunnels and Trolls (2nd RPG!), where you roll 3d6 and try to beat a target number for saving rolls, but any time you roll triples, you roll again and add. Rolemaster may be the second, since any time you roll 95+ (on d%) you roll again and add, and anytime you roll 05-, roll again and _subtract_.
Thank you very much! Tunnels & Trolls was so early in RPG design (1975, just a year after D&D!) so that's a pretty innovative thing for them to have added. Thanks for the info!
I never played Rolemaster but my friends who did always referred to it as "Chartmaster."
Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Chartmaster *is* the most appropriate name. The shame is, there's a lot of really good ideas in the general system, they just get buried under ideas that _also_ require you to have a separate chart for everything. New weapon? New chart. New class? New chart.
@@daddyrolleda1 I was coming to the comments to talk about Middle-earth Roleplaying / Rolemaster and open-ended rolling. My first RPG experience was Holmes Basic in 1980, when I was in 6th grade. In those days we mixed and matched basic D&D with AT&D. We didn't know any better. Played some Gamma World after that. But in the early '80s I discovered MERP and became an instant fan. I've played dozens of RPG systems since, (including, recently, Savage Worlds) but I still love MERP and when we finish up with the Dark Places & Demogorgons (OSE edition) I'm playing in now, I will be GMing MERP (with a house-ruled magic system) for my Wednesday group.
I do appreciate what you said in your previous video about matching mechanics to the situation, but the beauty of MERP/RM/SM was its regularity and conceptual _simplicity_, using open-ended D100 for almost everything. Once you understand how skill and combat resolutions are done, all of it works essentially the same way.
What you _can_ do, if you want to change the distribution of results, is to make a table that maps the results of a D100 roll onto a curve. That's what the Rolemaster Arms Law / Claw Law book is. Your attack die roll is referenced against the target's armor class column, and the result is a number of hits (if any) and possibly a critical hit severity from A-E. The nonlinear distribution of results is used to simulate the effects of wearing different kinds of armor. Lighter armor, in this premise, results in fewer hits, as you can more easily maneuver out of the way. But when the hits start coming with higher rolls, they do more damage more quickly than if the target is wearing heavier armor. The combatant wearing chain or plate will receive lots of low-value hits, but many fewer of the dangerous critical hits, and you have to go your Constitution stat value below zero (and stats are 1-100) to die of hit point damage.
If you get a critical hit, you make a second roll on a critical hit table, using the severity either to select different columns in the table, or as a modifier to the die roll (A=+10, B=+20...). The critical result will be a text description, in grisly detail, of the wound and any additional damage in hits, hits / round (bleeding), broken bones, severed limbs, etc, or conditions like 'stunned 2 rounds'.
The open-ended rolling and the visceral critical hit results make combat in MERP/RM much more exciting than the linear hit-point slog typical of D&D. Coincidentally, I used the same example of Bard Bowman recently in explaining how this system allows even low-level characters to have a _chance_ to defeat high level monsters or NPCs, which in turn alters the players' calculations about when, how, and how long to engage in combat. At the same time, they know that a single lucky blow from an opponent can kill their character as well.
There really aren't that many more die rolls per action in a RM-style combat than D&D. A low attack roll will result in maybe a few hit points, but that doesn't require any second roll at all, unlike in D&D, where every successful hit requires a damage roll. Better hits in RM will result in a second roll on a critical table. But while many D&D combats can play out like the endgame in Monopoly or Risk (unless, as you mentioned, you use something like morale checks and one side cuts and runs), most MERP/Rolemaster combats will wrap up more quickly as somebody rolls a devastating critical hit that puts an opponent out of the combat one way or another, even if they still had lots of 'hit points'.
I think that people dissing Rolemaster as 'Chartmaster' is a lot like people thinking that early D&D was haphazard in its design. It's largely a misconception. I spent an evening or 2 a few months ago doing some direct comparisons between MERP, Rolemaster, Against the Darkmaster (MERPish retro clone), and various editions of D&D. The results are very interesting.
First thing to know is that Rolemaster was designed from the outset to be a pretty modular system. In fact, it started out being an alternative combat system to bolt onto D&D. As a result of its modularity, it's very easy to substitute entire chunks of the game while keeping it all compatible. Rolemaster's "Arms Law/Claw Law" is mostly a book of combat tables. Each weapon has its own combat table against 20 armor types. Lots of tables. Each player was expected to have a photocopy of the tables for the weapons that character used. Done that way, you really wouldn't have to keep track of too many of them.
But MERP and Cyberspace used simplified but totally compatible systems where entire categories of weapons and armor were resolved on a single table. So instead of using a different table for dagger, longsword, and rapier, you would just use the 1-handed Slashing table, and all 20 armor type columns were compressed to no armor, soft leather, rigid leather, chain, and plate. So, the game could be played with far fewer tables by trading off some crunch and detail, while retaining the exact same mechanic, and full compatibility.
To put it in a nutshell, the combined average of AD&D 1E Players Handbook and DMG has ~.55 tables per page, in 359 pages, while Rolemaster Character Law / Campaign Law, covering roughly the same ground as the PH/DMG, has ~.6 tables per page in 103 pages. These AD&D books have a total of 197 tables or charts, where Rolemaster has only 62. Rolemaster Express, a cut-down version of Rolemaster Classic that I wish was still available for sale has 82 content pages, excluding a 4 page sample adventure. It has 50 tables, for .6 tables per page, plus 30 spell lists to 10th lvl, equaling 300 spells in 11 pages, at 27.27 spells per page. It has 23 monster descriptions over 3 pages with all the monster stats presented in a single table, for 7.66 monsters per page. The Blueholme Prentice Rules (an OSR restatement of Holmes Basic) covers levels 1-4 and has 58 content pages with 43 tables, for .74 tables per page, not including monster stats or spell books as tables. It lists 40 spells in 8 pages for 5 spells per page, and 70 monster descriptions over 15 pages for 4.66 monsters per pages. Finally, Against the Darkmaster Quickstart Rules from 2022, which is a MERP-like retro-clone has 106 content pages, with 58 tables, for ~.55 tables per page, and 12 spell lores (corresponding to MERP/RM spell lists) with 10 levels each for 120 spells across 24 pages at 5 spells per page.
So comparable editions of Rolemaster and D&D have comparable chart density if you disregard Rolemaster's Arms Law / Claw Law. But arguably, every combat table in AL/CL is the same thing, just with different numbers. Once you understand how the AL/CL table works, every weapon chart works the same way. There's nothing new to learn, whereas each new table in D&D may work in a completely different way. And you can swap the MERP/RMX consolidated combat tables into full-blown Rolemaster / Spacemaster without breaking anything. You could even mix and match in the same combat, having one player use a MERP Missile Weapons Attack Table and another the bespoke Longbow table from Arms Law.
If you don't have the vintage MERP or RMX books and don't want to, uh, obtain PDFs of them from wherever on the Internet you might or might not be able to obtain such things, I believe the "Against The Darkmaster" Quickstart Rules are free (or dirt cheap) and are a really good presentation of a 'simple' Rolemaster-style RPG with the open-ended mechanic and the descriptive critical hits. It also has an interesting 'wealth' system that's a bit reminiscent of the 'usage dice' mechanic, except for determining what you can afford rather than what you have left.
@@Rindis8 I don't think that's really the case. Yes, in Arms Law / Claw Law there's a separate table for each weapon. But each of those tables works the same way, so there's nothing new to learn from one to the next. And the consolidated tables from MERP, Rolemaster Express, Cyberspace, or even Against the Darkmaster can be substituted in reducing it to a small handful of categorical tables. If you use MERP's 1-Handed Slashing table, you don't need to make a new table if you decide that you want to use a dirk instead of a broadsword. Because of the _regularity_ and _modularity_ of the system, you can trade detail for simplicity and keep the same basic mechanic.
I really don't understand what you mean about having a new chart for a new character class. Rolemaster is no different from any version of D&D in that respect. In fact, it was AD&D that featured the 'thief open window' table, where all skills are resolved on either the Static Action table or the Moving Maneuver table in Rolemaster. There are two alternative versions of each of those tables, but you only ever need to use the one you prefer.
I've done the math, and excluding the AL/CL combat tables and Spell Law, 2nd Edition Rolemaster has a grand total of 62 tables in 103 pages of Character Law / Campaign Law against 197 tables in 361 combined pages of AD&D 1e Players Handbook and DMG, which covers about the same ground. The table density is about .55 tables per page of AD&D and around .6 tables per page in Rolemaster 2e. Rolemaster Express (which includes consolidated combat tables) has 50 tables in 82 content pages (minus a 4 page sample adventure) for .6 tables per page, including all monster stats in a single table. Meanwhile, the Blueholme Prentice Rules (OSR Holmes Basic retro clone) has 43 tables in 58 content pages, for .74 tables per page, not including monster stat blocks or spells as tables.
Most of the tables in MERP/Rolemaster/Against the Darkmaster are optional, only used during character creation or leveling up, or easily replaced with a modular, bolt-in alternative. Over all, aside from Arms Law / Claw Law which, yes, is a table-driven system, Rolemaster has a very comparable number of tables to comparable editions of D&D -- sometimes many fewer. There might be a few more tables that are used in ordinary play in Rolemaster-like systems, but not many, and those tables cover a _much_ wider range of situations than D&D or most D&D-inspired games. There's no need for a 'thief open window' table because that situation would be resolved on the Static Action table just like any other.
@@joelavcoco Sure, they _work_ the same way. But, you need to look up the table and have it out to use it. And you have the weapon table _and_ the critical table. All that is lookup and space. And if you have, say, two fighters with two different weapons in the same combat, you're flipping between them each time (or, yes, each can have their own copy, but that's extra paper/tablets on the table). And if you _really_ want to introduce something like a bat'leth (extreme case for example), you need a new table. Considering there's a lot of people who object to having _one_ table that while everyone uses it, is complicated enough that you always need to do lookup (say, _FASERIP_), that's a real big usability problem. (Personally, I'm fine with the one big table, but the amount of lookup of multiple big tables in RM is headed past my limits.)
Now, I haven't seen _Rolemaster_ since the late '80s, so its nice to see that they've introduced some streamlining options that, certainly, our local RM players never went to if it existed at the time.
Thanks for the great ideas, Martin! Do you use Inspiration Rewards for players great role-playing, solving riddles, making great strategic decisions, inventive play, etc.?
I have given in-game rewards like clues or items, access to high-level NPCs, etc. Inspiration is a great idea and works well in 5E but I haven't used it as written in my current campaign.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Martin, your Kickstarter had been quiet, or I missed it. Any update on the PoD version from dtrpg?
Keep the content coming. I'm here for it.
Ah! I've made quite a few updates on Kickstarter, but I actually mention what's going on in this video here: ua-cam.com/video/xrCzPjMHev4/v-deo.htmlsi=BopKMBBWgobfgpZi&t=3819
If you pledged to receive a PDF in addition to your POD, you should've gotten the link to download the PDF.
For the POD, I've mentioned it here before, but the printing has not been working the way it's supposed to. I've ordered two "proofs" and each was incorrect. But, I just heard from the tech folks at DriveThruRPG today and they said my file "should" work, so I'm off to order my third proof. If that one works, then I'll finally be able to send out the codes for you all to print and ship your POD(s).
Thank you so much for your support, and your patience. I really appreciate it.
I've run a fair bit of 13th Age. I think the Icon systems is best applied as you've described. If you roll the dice to force the involvement of an Icon that isn't particularly involved with where or what the characters were already involved in, it just ends up making the world feel a bit more artificial. The fighter's maneuvers feel a little undercooked, i think the concept of rolling the die to both determine what an enemy is doing and if they hit is a fantastic mechanic, but as a GM, not as a player. As a player I want to have a choice in what maneuver i'm using because i want to believe that i;m making good tactical choices will be rewarded. As a GM, this approach to running enemies is such a quick way to automate so much of the combat which like, yes, thank you, that's so much easier to run.
I love the deed die mechanic in Dungeon Crawl Classics.
Oh yes! DCC has a lot of fun ideas!
I really dig Knave( 2e)'s version of advantage. It isn't necessarily better than 5e advantage, but just very precision designed for the osr play style of encouraging players scheeming. It is simply a ply five for advantage and a -5 for disadvantage, but the cool part is how it makes rolling redundant if you're clever
Loving the mechanics videos. I really like the resource tracking system, but I am not sure if I like it as much as one-for-one tracking.
The Momentum system from Modiphius 2d20 games is another unique alternative for the Escalation Die.
Thanks for sharing this idea, and for watching and commenting! If memory serves, the only Modiphius game I've played it Star Trek, and it was a blast (only a one-shot), and I sadly don't remember too much about the mechanics. Cheers!
I ran Masks of Nyarlathotep (plus some other adventures) with SWADE. It was a lot of funny, if far more pulpy than intended. One character played a boxer with a great fighting score (d10 probably, by the time the party hit China) and he would punch enemies to death. It was a lot of fun.
I like the idea of the escalation die, but I think I would make it apply to monster attacks, too. That way, it's not making combat easier, but rather pushing it toward a conclusion either way.
33:43 "Temperatures routinely exceed 100ºF degrees (38ºC) by midmorning and can reach 130ºF degrees (55ºC) or more by late afternoon. " -Dark Sun wiki
Dang, we really living on Athas, huh?
I tell you, it sure feels like it sometimes!
I have that original Dark Sun Boxed Set from the 2E Days. Such an interesting setting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Have you looked over it? Great idea for a future episode if not!
I have not, yet, but it's on the list! Thanks for the reminder!
My primary game is Pathfinder 1e which does not use advantage or disadvantage. I use it for skill checks. Whenever players fight a monster, they have not run across I let them roll a skill check, something like this. Goblins would be a Knowledge Local Check DC: 11, this gives them basic knowledge of Goblins, if they roll a DC: 15 I give the player in question advantage against that monster type for that encounter only. I also use exploding dice, if players roll a max on a damage die, they keep rolling until they do not max out. So even if they don't crit, they can still potentially do a lot of damage. I also use a form of the escalation die rule in which if a player misses on an attack, they get a +1 on their next attack, if they miss again, it goes to +2 and so on, so eventually they will hit. It does depend on them remembering they get this bonus [I don't remind them; I am a DM after all]. The only thing I haven't used but think I will try is the usage die, sounds much easier than constantly checking on material components, food and water as well as ammo. Great video, thanks for sharing.
I feel like every gamer has a story similar to your dynamite and the exploding dice (aptly named) scenario. These are the things we remember most. These are the stories we tell years down the line. And often they have a huge impact on the story because they're so absurd.
I'm sure hearing other people's gaming stories is a lot like listening to someone tell you about their dreams, but I'll try to keep it brief...
Running a Star Wars game using West End D6 rules. The characters are hiding out in an apartment when the owner comes in. She was just supposed to be a standard civilian, and her whole purpose (from my perspective as DM) in the situation was to complicate their mission by having potential collateral damage in the way. She's barking at them in an alien language they can't understand. Shouting. What do they do?
One player tries to knock her out. Fumbles his roll. Totally whiffs.
I decide that she's going to retaliate with a punch. Crazy high rolls (via exploding dice) on both the attack and damage. If it was a blaster, or some other deadly weapon, he'd be dead, but instead I rule he just gets knocked straight out.
The other players (who have no idea who this woman is) react in character by putting their hands up and offering no resistance. They knew they probably could have just shot her, and even if she was some super skilled character, they would have the advantage in the fight. But it was funnier, and they knew it, if they just gave up.
She grabs something from the kitchen table and then bolts out of there.
The player who got knocked out is CONVINCED she was some kind of cyborg or super soldier. Say... that gives me an idea. 😀 She returned in a later adventure as a Rebel agent who was spying on the place next door to where they were trying to infiltrate. The thing she grabbed was her intelligence kit.
You can try to write some masterpiece of a narrative, but the dice so often give you your best material.
I love all those weird dice mechanics. I have enjoyed the Troika dice cup mechanics. I love the hidden stones mechanics from Cave Master. I also had some bad luck with dynamite once...
Oh my goodness, YES! That last sentence sums up so much about my preferred way of running games. It's one of the reasons I love wandering monsters and random encounters, because as a referee I like coming up with reasons for why those things are happening and it's almost always better than anything I would've pre-planned anyway. I am always slightly amused by folks who aren't open to the possibilities of random dice helping drive the narrative, instead of thinking that they are just "getting in the way of the story."
Thank you so much for watching and for sharing your story. Cheers!
I'm a big fan of 13th age. If you want to try it there's a revised edition coming out soon that fixes some of its biggest problems. Overall it's a very fun game, and has a lot of great ideas.
Bonus Comment: In memory of James Earl Jones 🥃
minor quibble: StarWars day is May 25. May the Fourth is just a bad pun.
Ah... fair enough. I do celebrate both and just flubbed the title(s).
Thanks for sticking through the video to watch that part. It was a last-minute decision... as I've mentioned a few times, I record my videos in order, in ~10-15 segments on my phone and then editing them together, and the Bonus Content is always the very last thing I do before combining and editing all the various parts together. This one meant a lot to me.
Cheers.
If you're in need of illustrations for it, please let us know!
The exploding dice was done in adnd second edition for firearms not sure if that predates savage worlds
Ah, that's right! I knew it couldn't have been limited to just Savage Worlds. Thanks! I appreciate it.
The D20 Call of Cthulhu is certainly not the best way to play Cthulhu 🙂But it does have at least two things going for it imo:
It has some really great advice on creating mystery style plots, which can be applied to any game where you want to... say... make a murder mystery.
And it is good if you want your D&D game to have a mythos infected setting. Like some Conan stories do. And Conan do just kill the stuff just like D&D characters would. As long as you are not expecting the dread you get from actually playing Call of Cthulhu.
Both great points, and exactly how I've used the book in my long-running 3.X campaign! I should go review that advice on running mysteries! I do like Monte Cook's design work/philosophy. I just don't think, as you mentioned, that D20 is the best system for running a traditional Cthulhu style adventure.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
My antipathy to WotC is strong enough, I was super excited when I heard about Exodus (video game under development by a bunch of original Mass Effect people), then just devastated to hear WotC was the publisher...
"there used to be five, but there's three now" Bro you say that like they died ToT
Oh no! I've been a little overly-cautious lately because folks have said I repeat myself too often, and I've mentioned a few times in various other videos that those two other players (sisters) moved away and opted not to continue playing with us online. I'll make sure to point out *why* they are no longer in the group next time!
@@daddyrolleda1 I for one like the repeated information, at least for stuff like game content because sometimes I wanna send this to a person who doesn't know DnD history, and its already a hard sell for an hur long video, much moreso if they also have to watch another to get everything that being said. And also- Not even I've seen all your videos and I never watch in order (typically go by YT's recommended) so I often hear you refer to a previous episode I have no knowledge of
Oh, that's such a good point! I hadn't considered things like sending a specific video to someone else who doesn't watch the channel! In my head, I feel like a have a very small audience despite having 10k subscribers (most video recently get
A D12 roll for the algorithm 🙂.
I really appreciate that. Thank you!
Still my favorite is Morale and Reaction, thus not just DM whim.
Playing a 13th Age game with some friends right now.
Oh, very cool! I understand they just released a new edition (or will soon)?
@@daddyrolleda1 Will soon! Going through revisions here and there, though some people have access to it and are giving their input.
The basic idea of Advantage/Disadvantage was in 2E (Player's Option: Skills and Powers, p21)
Ah, good to know! I never read/played the Player's Options stuff in 2E (and really never played "base" 2E since my group had switched to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay). So, that late 2E era stuff is a somewhat large gap in my D&D knowledge.
Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 It isn't well noted, and worse, references "see the table below" (and the table doesn't actually exist). I'm not sure anyone ever actually used some of the options - it seems impossible to use _all_ of the options in all the books - but some of the systems are actually kind of fun
I've played the B/X Combat Sequence. It slows down game play a lot.
How often do you play with your daughter’s group? Wondering what level they are at?
It's roughly once a month but with hiatus periods during the holidays and often over the summer as well, as everyone is on vacation at different times. This summer was very difficult to plan a session. Also, as they've gotten older, they just have more and more extra curricular activities.
In any event, the Cleric and Thief are both currently 4th level, and the two Elves are both 2nd level (since they needed 8,000 XP to get to 3rd level). I am pretty stingy with gold and treasure for them (no magic items so far, either, other than a couple of potions and a few scrolls). I strongly prefer lower-level play and so far, nobody has complained because they don't really have any context of anything different (they've never played another TTRPG!).
@@daddyrolleda1 thank you for the reply, I can understand both being hard to plan a gaming session (the one I’m in plays once a month and we’re lucky to have 4 players, 6 is max) and also young adults being busy. I have three boys and when they were between 12-16 they were super busy with sports etc, way busier than I was at that age. Great channel, thanks for the content. Very enjoyable and helpful at the same time.
That's really nice! Thank you! So I have three girl players (one is my daughter) and one dad player. The three girls go to three different schools and that's a factor as well, with them getting older, that they'll have homecoming dances and such on three different weekends, which makes planning difficult. They don't like to play on Friday nights so we're limited to just Saturday or Sunday and the preference is strongly for Saturday.
I really appreciate your nice compliments and your support of the channel. Cheers!
It's less about hating 5E and more about hating WOTC. And the further along we go, the worse they get. I have a long diatribe about what's going on, and it isn't specific to WOTC, it explains what's going on with the annihilation of all the IPs you love, LOTR, Star Wars, etc. etc. It's all the same thing. But it's very political, so I won't spew it here.
My table loves usage die.
Oh, cool - good to hear! Thanks!
I've never gotten why some people hate anything in 5e because its from 5e, like the whole system is made of asbestos and anything it touches will be infected, and you'll have to call in specialists to get your whole game decontaminated, costing thousands of dollars in the process.
Fact is: people are familiar with the system, and it has good things in there. Advantage Disadvantage is not a mechanic 5e invested- it's been around for decades as a house rule. You can use good rules even from "bad" systems. Also, Vicious Mockery is hilarious in any game
"anything it touches will be infected, and you'll have to call in specialists to get your whole game decontaminated, costing thousands of dollars in the process. "
Wait! Are you saying that won't happen?!!!
I think I encountered Adv/Disadv first in some edition of King Arthur Pendragon--an excellent Chaosium game
Huzzah!
Thanks! Hope you enjoy the video! I really appreciate your support!
I like non-unified game mechanics. When everything is d20 roll high and add modifiers I get bored with the system quickly. I do think it is easier for new players to only have to remember roll the d20 to determine success.
I don't like the "Escalation Dice" but D&D Combat has always been a hot mess.
Most of the games I play that have a focus on combat use some aspect of Fatigue, it actually really speeds combat up.
A tired or flagging fighter of any experience can get their arse kicked, and good, by a fast energetic opponent. So most people do'n't want fights to last long enough for that to happen
It won't lead to every fight ending in a slaugher of the enemy, but that's not the goal in those games. Players and NPCs run away, surrender, or submit a lot in games like Runequest and Mythras. Most settings don't take kindly to the murder of a defeated foe who has surrendered, so you will end up with a lot of opportunity for returning foes..
D&D combat drags because it is a war of Health Bar Attrition, players are thus encouraged to stack outgoing damage and rely on their passive defence for avoiding damage in a race to zero HP. Consequently, to maintain a "challenge" enemies get more and more Health... and the spiral continues.
Most "other systems" these days have cheap or even Free "Starter Sets" You can download a PDF of the core rules (they are essentially all SRDs these days anyway...) and give them a try for nothing. I personally recommend The two Mythras Imperative books. The Core "Mythras Imperative is a style and setting neutral sand box, where you can create any game you want covering pretty much everything from a stone headed axe to a Death Star. The "Classic Fantasy Imperative" is a basic version of the full CF game, but only has the four basic D&D Classes. It takes the BRP d100 system and transposes the old school D&D feel by creating sort of "Package Deals" of skills and powers that would constitue a "Fighter" or "Magic User" etc and convert them into d100 system. It's a fantastic game, and tboth these are completely free to download.
The most useful thing I ever did to improve my understanding of game mechanics and be able to streamline situational resolutions was to play lots of different systems.
I maintain that BRP, (Cthulhu, Runequest, Mythras, etc.) is the best, (both in terms of being complete AND flexible) system out there.
D&D 5Es uniformity of "d20 Roll High," mechanically speaking, is no different to BRPs "d100 Roll Low" except the resolution is inverted and D&D only works in blocks of 5% while BRP games allow for 1% increments. BRP also puts the focus on the characters ability to do things like "Hitting an opponent with a sword" rather than difficulty of the task, or their opponents passive defence.
The equivalent to the D&D Target or "DC" is instead based on the ability of the character not the difficulty of the situation, so the target is always the players Skill value, and the modifier is the situation rather than a fixed difficulty score.
This puts the Characters' Talent at the focal point of things like combat, rather than the AC of the enemy. Mechanically... not that different, (obviously a d20 Roll High system can only move in 5% steps for modification) but tonally it is more immersive to focus on the character rather than the environment.
My advice when trying to "Fix" or improve D&D is simply to either just roll with it for what its aimed at and good at, OR... if you really want other mechanics and settings, at the very least TRY a game that already uses them. For one thing that game WILL have already gone through more experimentation and playtesting before publishing it than you will ever get to do before dumping it on your players, and you will definitely get a better understanding.
I have played in several D&D games where the DM has tried to be clever and use Sanity. It never works because either the DM tries to run it on a 0-99 direct Cthulhu clone, which always feels clumsy and out of place, or they try to use it like Hit Points and it becomes a complete mess. It needs the subtelty of small incremental chipping away, with the capacity to suffer a massive shock and both be of equal importance (though in different ways) to the running of the game.
Some mechanics just don;t convert very well. That's why so many of us enjoy playing other games.
And I do still play AD&D, but almost entirely for nostalgia, because I think there are way better games out there for the sorts of games I like to run.
I like pushing rolls with consequences for failure that can be very harsh.
I don't really support failing forward. I prefer success or failure because there is actual consequences. You are right that if the characters have to find a secret door to advance the game it's poor game design. I would just say they find it without a roll.
Yes! I agree with your last statement. For things like that, if the players tell me that they are searching the room/corridor/whatever and where, then they find the door (no roll). If they don't mention they are searching, then they don't find it (unless they're an elf just passing by and then I might give them a secret D6 roll per the old B/X rules). But, as you also mention, I wouldn't hinge the entire adventure on them needing to find the door!
I love logistics. Managing resources is a fundamental part of the game, and it's been much maligned since the early days.
I very much agree with this! Thank you so much for watching and commenting. Cheers!
One of my favorite mechanics is from the Gumshoe games and that's the idea or investigative skills. In gumshoe games if you have any points in an investigative skill you don't need to roll it to find a clue, you automatically find it if your skill applies. You can spend points to find more information, or for stronger effects of general skill uses. I use this idea in any investigation I run now using any system. I don't hold back clues, and it makes things much smoother.
I am not a Kickstarter backer, but I feel like the update on your POD situation on your book would be better served in its own video, rather than buried in the middle of an hour and a half video on an unrelated topic? Even if you just cut out that short chunk and upload it as its own thing just to make sure everyone who contributed and is asking questions sees it.
That's a great point. Thanks! I'll do another update. I've mentioned it a few times but haven't given specifics.
“5e monsters are a little tougher?”…… 5e Characters are a lot tougher than BECMI characters surely (and no I did not call you Surely 😅.)
When I was younger mechanics was like me and I was born into setting but now as you get older of course mechanics matter why don't you cover palladium in the various things because it's definitely not gurps on steroids
You say people don't want the sub systems. You are to nice, Just say it as it is, the PLAYERS ARE LAZY!!!! After YOU SPENT HOURS PREPARING AN ADVENTURE, and everything else, they are to LAZY to spend 5 minutes in between game sessions to read a 1 page hand out, fill out a simple inventory sheet, or anything else!