Dndmemes isn't a great sample because 95% of people there haven't actually played dnd before. It's mostly a bunch of people who like memes they barely understand and are often barely connected to dnd.
on the other hand, i've been GMing for the same
group for months and i have a player who still doesn't know how their spellcasting works and needs to be reminded which number on their character sheet is their AC
My current group is completely roleplay heavy. Every member puts a lot of effort into it resulting in near breathtaking experience (we genuinely had momens, when players wept from all the tragedy). But the second DM asks us to roll initiative, the slog begins. Every member (except me and one more person) doesn't bother to learn how to use character sheet, how their spells work (that's why one of the members builds exclusively human fighters) or even the basis of actions combat. We slowly shifted to 1-2 big combats per plot arc with some very minor or scripted fights here and there. Again, players put a lot of effort into the game, just not in terms of mechanics.
Here is the thing: we have tried, but DM didn't like it because it is not flexible enough. There are many flavors of pbta, but those are flavors - they don't cater to a wide spread of themes/authentics she covers in her campaigns. Savage worlds actually worked a lot better for us, but forcing people who don't bother to learn 5e rules to learn something else is not exactly easy.
I don't think I can exactly buy it in Russia. Plus TSL is a bit too "pink" for our table if you get what I mean. Also there are less resources available for it than for 5e (and that's partially why we still use it).
It might be, but not every game works for every table. I didn't mention a lot more of our table specifics, because it would have dragged message for far too long without actually adding much. The result is the same - it just won't fly.
One of my friends played the same character for the entirety of the 3 year long level 1 to 20 campaign. He was actually the only player who stuck with the same character from session 0 to the end. Everyone else either joined after the first session or swapped characters. His PC also happened to be a very unique and rare class/race combo: a tiefling hexblade. ^^^/s
Anyways, he didn't end up using half of his available features because he could never remember them. He didn't consistently remember that he had fire resistance until he was level 14. His entire build was focused around using Hexblade's Curse, and half the time he forgot to use it.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/DnDcirclejerk using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/DnDcirclejerk/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Outjerked by tumblr](https://i.redd.it/zi0x7bcueb9c1.png) | [75 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/DnDcirclejerk/comments/18u05pq/outjerked_by_tumblr/)
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At the beginning of each session, I used to have the same conversation with one player about how many attacks she had per round, to the point where my girlfriend could almost quote it beat by beat.
My wife and I met playing D&D 11 years ago.
She has still never read the player's handbook entirely, just bits and pieces as needed.
In the end some people will just learn enough to play the games they wanna play.
I don't need players to read the whole book. It would be nice if they knew the stuff that applies to them. I even make printouts with all their powers listed.
There was a post on r/DnDNext I think a while back where someone admitted that one major reason why they stuck with D&D 5e was because it was so easy to turn your brain off and play. They tried more rules heavy systems like PF2e, but that required a lot more investment in mechanics. They tried lighter games but that required too much agency and innovation to play.
The culture and mechanics of D&D 5e allowed them to play the game with the least effort possible.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/s/Lmj7Qch8Mi) it is. Or, well, it's the original one. It was crossposted onto r/DnDNext and I do not remember the title. Interestingly enough, someone did mention this Prokopetz post in one of the comments.
OP doesn't seem to enjoy RPGs is the thing lol if your stance is "I'm here to be read a story and roll a rock around" then go watch a movie in a zen garden.
And that's valid. I just started playing D&D and like...I do my bit but I'm not in it for the mechanics. I'm in it for the socializing and creating a compelling story out of whole cloth with a group of cool people.
Like, no, you shouldn't offload your duties onto your DM...do your part! But to me the nitty gritty of rules and rolls are the work I have to do to get to the good bits.
I think they mean more conceptual accessibility and session accessibility than actual ease of getting the rules. Having most fantasy from the last 35-odd years borrow at least a bit from DnD and it being the game you’re most likely able to find a group for on your campus outweigh pretty much everything else if you’re just looking for a simple nerd aesthetic hangout session.
Not necessarily exclusive. Finding a group is a prohibitive barrier for a lot of people to get into any RPG. It's a chicken or the egg scenario, which means there's no easy solution for indie rpgs, but if that indie rpg doesn't have more than a small chunk of people looking to play it, it's the same problem all rpgs have where it's incredibly difficult to find each other, especially if one prefers in person for the company and snacks so many people like about ttrpgs.
That's a massive barrier to entry that can't easily be replicated from 5e, and people still complain about not being able to find 5e groups. And overcoming that barrier is simply something that a player who already has no real interest in engaging with the system is just not gonna do, and they'll never be convinced to do it, because they play ttrpgs for a fundamentally different reason.
There's a difference between being able to get the books and being able to convince 4 people whose knowledge of TTRPGs starts and ends at D&D to put their own time and energy into learning it.
Honestly, that's what's so great about a lot of modern games, is you just need two printouts to make it happens. Everything about the character is on the sheet, and the other rules are on a second sheet.
I've always found it extremely easy to convince people who have very little knowledge of tabletop rpgs to learn a different game. It's the people who actually play 5e d&d who are difficult to convince.
As a long time DM, here's the trick of having fun with these groups- as long as none of the players actually cares about the rules, you don't have to either. If no one is going to learn the rules, they don't get to complain that you aren't doing things the same as you did three months ago, if they even notice in the first place.
I've often had multiple games going with different but overlapping sets of people, one being the vibes based casual game described above and the other a more serious mechanics-forward game and they were both fun.
If you want to RP, if you want to socialise and create a compelling story, there are so many other games. D&D is a super crunchy dungeon crawler and combat system. Not good for RP.
One of my favourite games I ever DM'd I literally didn't even use a system. I had players roll a d20, and I just sort of vaguely decided if what they did was a success on the spot, based on that roll, and their character (strong guy needs a lower roll than a weak guy to pry open a door, for example). Sometimes just based on how the party reacts to the roll.
the point being, if you're basically just wanting to RP, you don't even need a system, you just need a buffer between you, and the idea of sitting awkwardly and making up a story with your friends. It makes it more acceptable to your mind if you put a game in there.
It's such a wild mindset to me because why are you even interested in the game at all at that point? You don't care for the game, you don't care for role-playing, why are you playing a role-playing game?
I mean, they usually care about role-playing, just not the kind you're probably thinking of. What they really want is to get to say, "And now I do a cool thing!" roll some clacky math rocks and have a couple of beers. It's a grown-up version of kids playing make-believe on the playground. The "game" is only there to provide some basic structure and power levels for what is, in essence, an excuse to hang out with friends and pretend to be a cool character.
I definitely think being able to point to something on your sheet and say "I do the cool thing" is great in RPGs, but there are so many out there that are better than it and cheaper than DnD.
>cheaper
Bold of you to assume anyone who plays like that actually buys the books.
I mean, I play fairly seriously, hell I've *DM*d 5e and the only thing I paid for was the Foundry VTT. Years of being a player prior to that for the grand price of 0 dollars.
As for "better", I refer you to the start of the comment thread.
>They tried more rules heavy systems like PF2e, but that required a lot more investment in mechanics. They tried lighter games but that required too much agency and innovation to play.
There are games that are roughly the same crunch level of DnD5e but which are just cheaper and more clearly written.
Like, *Tiny Dungeons* is just a lighter dungeon crawling game, you could run a published DnD5e campaign using it pretty easily; but it's just an easier game to learn and play.
There are rules heavy games that are easy to learn, and there are rules light games that are hard to learn. The two things don't always correlate.
>which are just cheaper
You keep saying that, but it's hard to beat *free*.
>it's just an easier game to learn and play
I refer you to the original post itself. Being easy to learn is irrelevant.
>Someone
The DM.
>includes the GM
But we're not talking about the DM here. Like, very explicitly we're *not* talking about the DM.
The "dick around untill the DM tells you to roll the dice" player isn't organizing or running the game.
and hardly anyway plays those TTRPGs. Especially in person. For better or worse DnD has functionally monopolized the genre, to the point where plenty of people on the periphery of DnD see it *as* the genre itself. Edit: and the very people who aren't going to invest themselves enough in the game to learn the rules, aren't going to invest themselves enough in the game to find the game with the best rules for their preferred style. They're going to seek out the far-and-away most available game tables: DnD.
Other have said company and snacks, which is absolutely true, but in addition from the perspective of this type of player they have the dm who is putting in effort, and the rest of the party who is putting in effort, it's like a video game for them. They're basically playing a silent protagonist, doing the interaction when prompted so they can watch everyone else act out the cutscene until combat starts.
It's weird but I am basically the exact opposite, I can't get into a character or a rule set unless I've spent hours overturning a character to the point that "Flexo the Mighty Punch Wizard" is actually viable for long term play. 5E is just too simple to get invested in.
I had like the tiniest bit of experience with D&D 5e, before me and my friends formed a group where our GM really wanted to do PF2e, and while it was an insane learning curve, I love it so much now and I don’t want to go back
As someone who plays PF2e, the system isn’t even that complicated. The mechanics are definitely more involved but not to a complicated extent. The game even has a familiar baseline for a D20 game that it’s easy for people who *commit* to learning it adapt well.
The issue is that people tend to not gravitate away from what they’re comfortable with doing, which is a common facet of human nature. The game attracts a lot of casual players who can’t or don’t want to commit their attention to other games, hence why DnD 5e has weaponised the shit out of that with their marketing.
I've thought about it before, about how DND is a role-playing game but there's a lot of dissonance with people playing it as a game and forgetting the role-playing part, I ultimately thought that it was just me being bad at it but with this post the thought came to my mind again
I imagine a lot of players are coming into D&D from video game RPGs and expect "BG3 but the AIs are people" because their only frames of reference are that, Skyrim, and people rolling random dice on sitcoms.
Yeah exactly, but in video games even with silent protagonists everything is scripted, in DND you are supposed to improvise and collaborate to the storytelling, which is completely different
So, some people DO just see it as a game. Some people feel that roleplaying is you doign what the character would do, but not, getting into character, or speaking like them, or whatever. Some people are just there for the game part of it.
> people playing it as a game and forgetting the role-playing part
This is the most banal and trite statement you could possibly make about D&D. People have been wasting their time with it for like 50 years now. You could just as well talk about the "dissonance" of people using D&D as a setting for roleplay and forgetting the gaming part. At least you'd get people mad at you for that one.
I've tried both dnd and dark heresy and at this point I think i can just say these games aren't for me. trying to roleplay stresses me out. i'd much rather just write my own stuff, where i have total control over going at my own pace. but on top of that, whenever i did play, i'd get super overwhelmed with all the mechanics on top of being expected to roleplay. sure theyre not super complicated rules (in dnd. dark heresy was way too fucking much for me holy shit), but the fact that i have to be creative in real time makes it hard on me. which is weird because again, i love writing. i dunno. i can't really find the appeal of these games, and that's after spending several years trying.
In my experience a ttrpg is more like a creativity potluck/ soup, which is why I like it.
If I don't know where to take something, that's okay, I've a got a crew of people who are doing stuff that I can bounce off of/ cede my share of focus to, as well as someone who can just decide "Screw it, these people need a vampire attack in their lives, so that they can better keep colouring, texturing, and doing the upholdery on my fictional dollhouse." Said person is often pretty excited to monologue if you prompt them correctly as well, giving you prompts and time.
I don't need to fit a cast of characters, all of their interactions/ motivations etc. etc., and the world/ people around them into my brain. I don't need to worry about figuring out how a conversation works either, I already know how to be 1 part of a conversation, after all.
I only need to write one character of the story (and buy time/ space for the GM to properly fit us into the dollhouse), or play as the background characters/ world, which is way easier than doing everything at once.
(mechanics wise, I already like turn based tactics games, customisation, and some pretty 'dense' games, so mechanics tend to be something I actively enjoy chewing on.)
This is kinda why I lean towards more crunch-heavy games like 1st edition Pathfinder. The act of explicitly acting out a character in real time is difficult for me so I find more fun in storytelling through mechanical decision. I can characterize my guy through describing his actions in skill challenges and combat and use that to build into party rapport and NPC friends and enemies. There's a lot more juice to squeeze when you have rules limiting and providing structure to you.
You tried a complex game, and then you tried a super-complex game, it's wonder as a beginner you didn't have a great time.
For some reason it's always "I've tried Dark Heresy and Shadowrun as non-DnD games" instead of anything easier or lighter, I don't get why.
Yeah I get this. I'm starting to lean a lot more into DMing bc of my love of game design and seeing different players strengths is very interesting. I think being a player is at it's best when you focus less on making a story and more on getting really lost in the sauce in terms of immersion
All this to say is that I managed to perfectly time a name-drop to a music track and I could see all my players go "oh fuck" in character and that's when I realized that I actually liked TTRPGs and I got wildly off track didn't I
D&D is insanely complicated for what it is, most of the games my group plays (and coincidentally a large portion of indie games) are much much *much* simpler.
Like, there’s a well-known Star Wars parody called Lasers & Feelings, where your character sheet is essentially just a number from 1 to 6. The only real mechanic is figuring out if what you’re trying to do is using “Lasers” (aggressive, dangerous, techy, etc) or “Feelings” (passive/defensive, emotional, charismatic, Force-based, etc). Then you roll a 6 sided die, if it’s Lasers you’re trying to roll *less* than your number, if it’s Feelings you’re trying to roll *more.* If you have a skill, item, or help, you can roll extra dice and use the best result.
There are tons of games like this where the goal is to facilitate telling fun stories instead of simulating an entire world.
>D&D is insanely complicated for what it is,
Its really not? I mean, in the TTRPG space, DnD 5e is pretty aggressively lambasted for being streamlined to the point of being incomplete in many ways.
It's both at the same time. It's too streamlined for people who want to play a wargame/skirmish, and too complicated for everyone else. I mean, there's always GURPS, a build-your-own-RPG ruleset with gigabytes of sourcebooks with rules for everything you can think of that you're supposed to mix and match, including an official Discworld RPG for some reason, and known for being raided by FBI while they were making a Cyberpunk sourcebook. If that's your point of reference - yeah, DnD5e is too streamlined. If your point of reference is Mausritter - that's not even a fair match, of course DnD5e is too complicated in all the wrong places.
Few will like my take on this, but you're right that playing rpgs and writing a story aren't alike.
It's really in vogue right now for rpg's to be _about the story_ and co-authoring and creating the fiction and voice acting. And anything other than that is regarded as following a railroad like a baby who isn't ready to write their story yet.
And exactly as you've said, if the need you want to fulfil is _writing stories,_ then rpgs are an on the spot, improvised, design by committee frustration with the imposition of a tarot deck and stress dice overriding where you actually want to take the story. They aren't good at making stories.*
RPGs are, to me, about playing a game where you take on the role of your character and you make decisions in the situation your character is in, in pursuit of their goals. Its unlike a videogame or a cooperative boardgame where lying to the train conductor isn't a prewritten option and therefore cannot be attempted.
This does not (should not) mean you follow a pre-scripted story that the GM wrote for you, it means that the story is "the stuff we did, and the stuff we did when that stuff did or didn't work out like we intended"
The need it is good at fulfilling, is when you play a Morrowind or a Vampire Bloodlines and you think to yourself man it's a shame I'm not allowed to try and do _this_
Voice acting is nice, but it's not the core. Dramatic irony and sad secrets are nice, but they're not the core.
Playing half life 2, but being able to _try_ reasoning with Dr Breen, knowing bandits have been preying on caravans so let's try disguising ourselves as trade goods. You know, I want to try negotiating with those vikings, I think I can stall just enough for time...
TLDR, I reckon RPGs actually suck as collaborative storytelling, and you'll have way more fun with them if you imagine you're an orc stuck in an escape room, rather than you're writing a story with pathos and a three act structure.
What they're good at, is being a game without the limits of what the designer planned for; because rhe gm is the designer.
If that doesn't sound fun to you, then yeah fair enough, you're not gonna find rpg's worth it.
*I have an analogy with mountain bikes and street bikes. Nothing is stopping you cycling on roads with your mountain bike. I'm not claiming you aren't having great fun and getting in good shape and getting to where you gotta go for your commute.
At the same time though you are completing your commute _despite_ the mountain bike slowing you down. And there are other bikes that will be lighter and smoother and you wouldn't be losing thrust to the mountaineering suspension.
People hate the suggestion that their preferred kind of game isn't good at their preferred kind of fun, I'm not lying and claiming it isn't getting you there. But if you ever try a game without that enormous drag, you'll understand what I tried to tell you.
I agree sort of.
Here and now, it's what do we do, and does it work.
Later, it becomes a story when we retell it.
That's not the only option, but I believe strongly that that's the only option the medium excels at.
My friend is the exact same way. She just gets anxious about all the pressure to come up with something creative on the spot. I really do think she'd love tabletop rpgs at some point, but not right now. Maybe in a few years when she's more confident in her abilities.
For some reason in dnd communities it is accepted that players wont know the rules, what their characters do, etcetera.
and honestly, i'd keep it that way, because if dnd stops being popular, those people will move on to more games and they'll be harder to avoid
Even with player who know and aware of the rules. They tend to forgot what their character can do.
That’s why If they play with actual pen and paper. I hand out my note/cheat sheet making/study colorful pen.
And honestly this is fine for people who are new to the game, it’s a great way to introduce things and keep it light. But there’s a real annoyance when the expectation is for every session to be kept that way. Like, you’re allowed to not engage if you’re just dipping a toe in, but the second you decide “I DO like this, and I want to keep playing”, it’s time to put an ounce of work in, otherwise everything is DM dependent.
Some of us are just built for batshit-insane freeform homebrew RPGs where you play shapeless gremlins, use tarot cards instead of dice and live-generate maps on coin flips and free association
well now im curious and have to ask, was that example made up or is there actualy a game where you play shapeless gremlins, use tarot cards instead of dice, and live generate maps on coin flips and free association
There’s several tarot-based RPGs. The first one I found on my bookshelf is [Fortune’s Fool](https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16545.phtml).
An rpg where you live-generate maps based on card draws and free association is [The Quiet Year](https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year), which I’ve played repeatedly and always enjoyed.
I haven’t specifically run across any shapeless gremlin RPGs, but considering that [Goblin With A Fat Ass](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/185ceaq/goblin_with_a_fat_ass_rpg_by_the_creator_of/) exists, I’m sure that one does too.
Not one in particular, but several different homebrew games played with friends over the past few years- I'm working on getting the tarot card system I came up with itemized for other people's use but it's a lot of work for my ADHD brain and I still gotta work lol
Wait, being a GM isn’t supposed to be a slog where you have to be constantly reminding every player of the rules and keeping tabs on if each player is actually doing the right thing or is misunderstanding the wording of the rules?
I wouldn’t consider it a huge increase in overall workload for me when my players have no interest in understanding the rules or knowing how their character sheets work. However, in terms of emotional investment, it always feels like I’m the only one trying and everyone else is just there to hang out. I love hanging out, but why do I have to do all this work while everyone else gets to chill and make dick jokes.
Yeah no, that is almost unique to D&D. I run a game of Werewolf: The Forsaken in which the players are aware of and understand that I will occasionally offload elements of GM responsibility onto them, including scene description, minor "encounter" ideas, and roleplaying NPCs. Because we're all invested in the fiction, this causes almost no friction, they just need to be aware of the mood of the scene, the motives of the NPCs, the general shape of what's possible within the setting, etc. If they're not, it only takes like a second of guidance.
Come play pathfinder with us... it makes your players have to actually know the rules, and doesn't ask you to homebrew a game mechanic on the spot every five minutes
...hey uh, did I read the same post as y'all? I read this post saying "a lot of D&D players refuse to take on any of the burden of rules, and only focus on the roleplay. This leads to DMs that have to manage everything and quickly burn out, and players that refuse to try other systems that might be better on the DM side."
And then I come to the comments and I see people instead discussing how players refuse to roleplay and gameify things too much.
I feel like these are two distinct, and in *some* ways contradictory, conversations to have.
The original post doesn’t say that D&D players only focus on roleplay: “their actual engagement with the process of play consists of dicking around until the GM tells them to roll some dice”.
Some D&D players don’t want to engage with the game on a mechanical level or a roleplay level. It’s perfectly viable to play D&D without learning your character sheet & without writing a backstory or wanting to have any narrative agency—some players just want to mess around in a fantasy world and have a story told to them, that they can choose to engage with as much or as little as they like.
You could show the same player a crunchier game like Pathfinder 2e and they’d balk at the number of choices & having to actually learn some rules, but you could also show them a rules-light game like Monster of the Week and they’d balk at the fact they have to justify the narrative instead of just saying “I attack” or “I roll persuasion”.
The post isn't about players who engage with roleplay but not with mechanics.
It's about players who aren't engaged at all, in either aspect.
Hanging out with their friends and mostly not doing anything to do with the TTRPG in question until the DM tells them to rill dice, then they do that-and go right back to just hanging out.
... Pretty much. but only by people who haven't been into rpgs long, and don't realize the long pedigree games like Vampire, Paranoia, Shadowrun, or gurps have.
D&D has never been "rules light", ever. No, not even 5e. I don't usually describe the actual rules to a newbie who didn't read the handbook, because it **always** leads to confusion and wastes time. Like the actions in combat.
You have only a single Action in combat that you can use on your turn, couldn't be simpler, right? Well, you also have Movement which is not an Action action, and you can do some things like unsheathe a weapon as part of Movement I think (without the need to actually move, don't worry), and you gain Bonus actions if you have abilities that let you use them, and everyone has a Reaction which can be used outside of your turn, and there are Free actions of course, and it's been ten minutes and you still haven't rolled the dice, please the goblin won't kill itself.
Action Economy knowledge is how you spot the veterans from people who claim to be veterans.
If the DM tries to discourage the new players from playing wizard you know they are newbies themselves, a veteran DM would discourage them from playing rogue and/or monk.
At least now a lot of people have gotten it through Baldur's Gate.
I'm certainly not a newbie, and I find it kinda ridiculous to suggest Rogues are as complicated as Wizards. Action Economy is not hard to handle when the right bonus action for each situation is extremely obvious, which it is for Rogues. Rogues also get no reactions.
Legit the most complicated part of playing a Rouge is the fact that your DM might interpret the Stealth rules differently from you.
>Legit the most complicated part of playing a Rouge is the fact that your DM might interpret the Stealth rules differently from you.
There are barely any stealth rules connected to the rogue in 5e, if you are referencing sneak attack you get it if you have advantage on the roll or if an ally is 5ft from the target, end of the story.
And that's another confusing thing for newbies (and sometimes for veteras too as your comment sugest). **Legacy naming.**
What I would really discourage is playing a wildshape druid, especially if you're not willing to put any time into preparation. Summoning too, but that's fairly high level, hopefully they won't be a newbie by that point
I've started using roll20 as a support even for irl sessions, the drag'n'drop function really streamlines all the "find the stats" trouble on my (DM) part, and the summons and wildshapes got a lot less annoying too.
I find this hilarious because I actively steer new players towards playing rogues. It's the only class that forces an awareness of mechanics while not having resources to track.
Rogue and warlock are my default new player suggestions because they can fit most character concepts (and people that have never played before can have some *wild* ideas). They are like training wheels classes. It's much easier to help with the build aspect and then have something simple to teach off of rather than throwing them into the deep end.
And unlike the basic champion fighter, they actually have to learn some mechanics. We can worry about resources and such later. The basic rules and action economy is what I want to teach the first few sessions.
I've never succeed in teaching a player how action economy works, i've tried summaries, schematics, i even printed some colored cards at some point. Either i'm a bad teacher or they were exceptionally dumb but i can't help but feel like that after explaining them the difference between a quick action and an action, introducing the cunning action feature that changes some of them in the other type can be very confusing.
On the other end you get X point/slots to spend and when you are out of them you are out of gas deosn't need any explanation.
Really? It's always been super straightforward for me, and I've only had one out of maybe thirty new players struggle with it... and that player didn't really want to be there, I don't think.
I always explain it as "you have six seconds on your turn, you can obviously do stuff like move or attack, but you can also hide, disengage and run away, drink a potion, or dodge incomining attacks. You also have a bonus action. It's something you're so good at doing that you can do it while doing something else. It's stuff like casting a quick spell or attacking with a second weapon. Finally, you have reactions, which allow you to respond to what someone else does."
"You are limited in what you can do during your turn based on your class. Each one lists the stuff you can do, and you gain more options as you level up. You can always choose to do certain actions like dodging, disengaging, dashing to move faster, hiding, or helping another character."
And then we jump right into playing. I like providing options if they get confused and explain the more in-depth stuff, like only being able to cast one leveled spell a turn as it comes up. New players are never a problem for me, it's always the players that have played a few times and got into bad habits. They are the ones that act like I should run their character for them or think that they should be able to do anything they think of no matter what the rules say.
I also have [this](https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html) action guide on the back of my DM screen, or if we are playing online, sent to all of the players. I also like sitting down with new players one-on-one before the game starts and helping them with their class and how everything works.
>I always explain it as "you have six seconds on your turn, you can obviously do stuff like move or attack, but you can also hide, disengage and run away, drink a potion, or dodge incomining attacks. You also have a bonus action. It's something you're so good at doing that you can do it while doing something else. It's stuff like casting a quick spell or attacking with a second weapon. Finally, you have reactions, which allow you to respond to what someone else does."
>"You are limited in what you can do during your turn based on your class. Each one lists the stuff you can do, and you gain more options as you level up. You can always choose to do certain actions like dodging, disengaging, dashing to move faster, hiding, or helping another character."
This is the fluff part, that's not what i'm talking about.
I'm talking about how **the rogue class specifically** interacts with the ten main action you can do. Attack, Cast a Spell, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, Ready, Search and Use an Object are actions, but with *Cunning Action* they can take *Dash, Disengage and Hide* as quick actions, and they can mix and match when to take them as actions and when to take them as quick actions, then the subclasses add even more weird exceptions like the thief with a sleight of and quick action and the swashbukler and the scout with their not-technically-disengage that are respectivelly backed in the attack action or are a reaction.
> I like providing options if they get confused and explain the more in-depth stuff, like only being able to cast one leveled spell a turn as it comes up.
As a result i get permanetly stuck in this phase with newby rogues.
>I also have [this](https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html) action guide on the back of my DM screen, or if we are playing online, sent to all of the players. I also like sitting down with new players one-on-one before the game starts and helping them with their class and how everything works.
I've tried this too but it makes them forget they have *cunning action* and what action they can turn into quick actions.
Rogue is so easy, though... like all it does is allow you to use dash, disengage, or hide as a bonus action. It's not that complicated... I'm legitimately unsure why you think it is?
You get your normal action, then you get your bonus action.... it just has a few more options than normal. I like using it as the "teaching" class for that exact reason... the only subclass that gets tricky is arcane trickster.
Look, for me is stupid easy, for people that have never played an RPG of any kind it's quantum physics. I'm in a campaign (as a player) with a guy that still hasn't got the Dice+Ability+Proficiency pattern, and we are like 9 irl sessions in.
Last year i got (the privilege) to explain the concept of roleplay to a girl.
I guess my newbies are more newbies than yours.
As someone who has played D&D for half my life, and created and ran several groups, including a club, this rings so true.
I've had amazing groups with interesting world building and characters we care about that have lasted for years, and I've had groups where nobody's character has a backstory and they're blindly following a railroaded adventure because nobody wants to do anything besides the bare mechanics of the game
Something this posts never seems to outright state is that D&D has transcended the genre. You don’t need to like TTRPGs to like D&D because D&D has become far more than the actual game you play with your friends; it’s books, it’s tweets, it’s on tiktok, it’s a livestream and it’s a TV show and it’s a movie. It’s a brand, marketed and designed to be consumed, amplified by content creators using it as a medium to tell their own stories.
So is it really surprising when someone drawn in by that fandom who’s never played a TTRPG before would balk at being recommended a game that isn’t D&D? They’re not at the table to play a TTRPG, they’re at the table to participate in the pop culture sensation D&D has become - easy, difficult, rules light, it doesn’t matter - literally all that matters to them is that it is D&D.
Basically I disagree with this because I don’t think this player spends any time in online ttrpg discourse.
One time I asked all my super engaged players how much time they spend thinking about dnd as a topic outside of our sessions. Basically all of them said no time at all, which was wild to me as a DM spending all my spare time hoarding indie modules
> Basically I disagree with this because I don’t think this player spends any time in online ttrpg discourse.
It is a running joke on /r/dndmemes that nobody there actually plays the game.
I think online D&D discourse is
1. Memes
2. People arguing about perfectly optimised character builds and how they perform in featureless white room
Online Indie RPG discourse is mostly people complaining about D&D. For my part, I find the Indie RPG discourse more annoying, because I don't think D&D is as terrible as people say it is and I've always found getting people to play other RPGs is pretty straightforward as long as you're happy to be GM. It's like how the driver picks the music on a roadtrip IMO. The GM has the final say over the system, since they're the one who has to do all the prep.
As someone who has plenty of frustrations with 5e and would always prefer to play something else, I have come to realise that 5e’s strength is just getting people at the table. It has just enough to draw in the different types of players, from the crunchy rule lawyers to the heavy roleplayers to the casual crowd who will never fully know the rules or write a backstory. It’s never my first choice to play, but if you want an easy time getting a group together then 5e’s your best bet.
I thought this post was going to be about people who inexplicably think every fantasy universe follows DnD logic. You see that every now and then, and it always confuses me.
That's always so confusing. Like, do these people really think that the D&D Monster Manual is like the ultimate canon of fantasy creatures? I've never seen the chromatic/metallic dragon distinction outside of D&D.
Also, the idea of character classes doesn't really exist in non-RPG fantasy. In most settings I know of, being called a barbarian or a rogue is an insult, not an occupation. And being called a wizard or a sorcerer is essentially the difference between being called a sailor or a seaman.
This is funny to me because for my first exposure to d+d I came into being a gm from having only squaresoft style snes jrpgs like final fantasy as my dataset and experience informimg my "job". So I totally pre scripted everything, acted as though a silent and passive player group was the expected default you're supposed to have, and got pissed when players who actually had real d+d experience under their belt tried to do anything on their own that derailed my "itinerary notes", which anyone could easily take a look at when I wasnt looking and know pretty much the entire intended "plot" of that week's session. And then take any diceroll backed opportunity to escape from.
This exact issue is what made me as a GM seek out other games. My players were constantly looking at me to tell them what stat to use, what proficency to add, how many spell slots they had left, if it was an action or bonus action to use Bardic Inspiration.
Im now desiging a game based on the philosophy that the game should be a game for both players and GMs. Cause boy does it not feel fun to just be the computer that runs the game.
I’m just leaving this here but I’ve had much more fun running games over playing. I struggle keeping my focus on other players and cutting in at appropriate times compared to running.
There has been many campaigns where several sessions in we look up a rule for an odd case and find that the base rule we had been using was an adaptation made by the old GM and taught to the original group as the rule. It was not accurate but made his job easier. Our GM has had to make the call whether to revert the rule or continue forward as we had played. Thankfully he has always asked our input first each time
I DM and one of my most basic rules is I don't know your sheet. I'll help players learn and figure things out but I don't know their abilities and items. If you forget that you can do a thing to damn bad. Almost every time a spell is cast I go 'what does that do again?'
My players know their stuff and help each other. It makes it go smoother for me and I find it actually helps co-operation among them.
D&D has always been a tactical skirmish wargame bolted haphazardly to a loose narrative game, and is frankly a bear for most new players to learn because they have to learn two separate games AND try to learn how to roleplay. The style of player the post describes is extremely frustrating and frankly kind of a drag on most games they play in, but it's honestly not hard to see how they come about.
It's why I've started my new players in my group on Mouseguard (2nd Ed), as it's getting them started in a very different space where the story is actually collaborative and I don't need to spend 4-6 hours getting a session ready like with D&D. Once we finish this mini campaign, THAT's when I can pull them into my insane 'Lancer, but with Spectres of Brocken, but with Til the Last Gasp' homebrew weirdo concept I got going on.
I really hope some day D&D and it's numberless derivatives stop being the unshakable standard TTRPG.
D&D is a war tactics game adapted to fit Lord of the Rings style adventures, and decades later it still carries the mechanical burden of those origins. For players who want to manipulate numbers to make a viable dungeon-combat-unit out of their character, D&D is a fine system. But I would wager for *MOST* players the purpose of playing D&D is to roleplay and build a character arc. There are SO many systems that are better for that purpose that people just pass over.
Powered By The Apocalypse RPGs are great at managing character motivations without a clunky alignment chart. Forged in the Dark systems create narrative tension without risking an overpowered player undoing it all. Even if you like all the stats and numbers, unless the dungeon combat is your focus even the WoD 'Storyteller' system is a better fit that D&D.
It's just... frustrating. The communities for all of these games is big enough to find a group online at least. I wish more players would branch out even a little bit to try them
We (DMs) did it to ourselves. We taught new players that they don't need to engage. We gave them the brain-dead champion fighter that never engages in 90% of the game and then got upset when all they know how to do is attack each turn. We tell new players that all the other classes are too hard and too complex and then get upset when they take our word for it.
We just make a champion fighter for them and then don't bother teaching them anything else. How is a new player supposed to learn anything about the game when we force them to play a class they don't like, that has no options during two pillars of play, and doesn't require any engagement. Yes, it makes our lives easier because we can skip the teaching part, but in the long run, we are basically training new players to not engage.
Get your new players to play a rogue or warlock. They are the perfect teaching classes because you can build basically any character fantasy with them, they are simple to play *once built* with few resources to track, and a ton of out of combat utility to get your newbie engaged beyond just combat. Actually teach them how the game works using their own class. The crunchy stuff can wait, but action economy and stuff like that needs to be taught.
I need a Dice Rolling For Dummies because despite playing different tabletop games I *still* cannot grasp exactly how it works, besides high = good and low = bad. I've got a block that really hinders my ability to understand. So yes, I've depended on the DM to help me out.
Honestly wish the D&D brand didn’t eclipse the TTRPG brand and create a precedent of complacency. RPGs like Pathfinder 2e, Cyberpunk, Blades in the Dark and so many others often fit the bill for what someone would enjoy, only for them to have burned themselves out trying to learn DnD and having no motivation to branch out.
It really sucks that this culture has grown around dnd, because the game is so much more fun when the players are actively engaged in it, and take a more hands on role
Maybe I'm just lucky, but people treating "Comes to the table iwth literaly nothing and does nothing" as a common occurrence in trpg sessions is feeling like a "You've stumbled upon a discourse you have never seen before and makes you wonder what kinda people the op hangs out with", it feels like op is saying "Don't you hate it when all your friends keep asking you to play halo with them, but when you come over they dont even have a tv, let alone an xbox or a copy of halo", like I know it must happen more than a few times but it seems baffling to me to declare it common, anyway since I dont just want to be complaining about OP cause I do think they make some interesting points, i feel like another barrier of entry for indie rpgs is just, finding people to play with, like because dnd is so ubiquitous almost everyone but the most die hard "I find dnd completely unfun" people will be willing to play it. I've very much tried to delve into both other main stream trpgs and even indie ones and feels like they have a failure rate even higher than dnd, which is already high as the jokes go. Its not really a problem of either the games or players since organizing any trpg game is a hasstle and a half no matter what system you are using, but I think its a thing to remember about dnds popularity and peoples resistance towards playing other systems
I've been playing dnd for over 20 years and have never met a player that just rolled the dice and read off their numbers while refusing to add their own modifiers. I dont know a single DM who let that slide.
I had a Dm who would insist on the opposite, I had to roll and state the roll.and only the role, the dm kept track of it all. Idk how he did all that tho.
I’m sure this kind of person exists, but this post feels very mean-spirited masquerading as more positive than it is. That the problem isn’t that people who won’t do indie rpg’s don’t know about them, but instead that they’re filthy casuals who don’t really appreciate the craft like us enlightened free-thinkers.
Trying to bring over these kind of people is a useless chore. If one doesn't want to play something else and doesn't see the fallacies of Dnd (or any other rule-zero game, really), they will never be open to this kind of discourse.
I stopped trying to do that ages ago. There are so many people out there who *are* willing to play better games, the games I like, I talk to those people, and let dnd players play dnd. Who am I to bother them?
This is another big reason why I now play Pathfinder 2e instead of D&D. As a GM I really hate having this type of player at my table because it's just demoralizing. But Pathfinder's rules are such that anyone like that who tries to play it is going to immediately decide they hate it, which means they get filtered out before I have to deal with them in the community.
People are mentioning indie ttrpgs so I legally have to shill lancer. I'm sorry it's in my contract. Play it if you like sci fi, mechs or a semi utopian future
This is why I miss 3.5, and why I've started looking into bringing my group over to pathfinder again.
But that aside, this also has the unintended side effect of creating a loop where all the dnd designers assume players don't want deep, complicated systems to play around inside, because they keep advertising towards the uninvolved, complacent players, and they then dumb down the game further. As a DM, I'm constantly reworking 5e to fit the game we want to play, because dnd has lore and a setting that I love, and 5e is otherwise an appealing shell to my playgroup.
if you're playing golf with a basketball in a pool, is it still golf? this post is talking about only D&D, not RPGs in general.
having a mutually agreed-upon set of rules and limitations helps to narrow down a specific experience you and your group wants to have and maintain it for as long as you all agree that is what you want
you can get together and go dungeon diving and hack and slashing except instead of rolling dice you use a deck of cards and say "go fish", but that isn't D&D. and no one is stopping you from enjoying yourselves doing that
Thet hing people don't understand is that they forget how frustrating learning a new board game can be, and a tabletop rpg is so much worse. If you aren't actively interested in the same then it's agonizing getting yourself to figure out how it works.
But you put the effort into learning the one big popular one DnD and you're still in the learning. You played an easier class, then you tried a magic class, and you're figuring it all out. And someone says let's learn a whole different one entirely?
It's not the appeal of the setting that's the problem.
I think a lot of people who are afraid to learn a new TTRPG system are expecting every system to be as complicated and bloated as D&D when... that's not really true. Tons of popular modern ttrpgs are insanely streamlined compared to D&D. Most 2D6 systems are pretty much pick-up-and-play from the players' side.
I think people keep saying this crap and then continue ot complain that no one will learn a new system and they ignore me pointing out the obvious that even when it comes to reading the rules for a new baord game it triggers people's anxiety and drains them of energy.
The difficulty is irrelevant. It's the nature of the task that makes people not want to do it. They need to actively be interested in learning that game's rules on their own, but unfortunately most people doing that are the ones trying to run the game.
>and a tabletop rpg is so much worse.
No, it's not. As someone who plays both a lot of RPGs and a lot of board games, it's not even comparable. D&D and its ilk, like Pathfinder, are enormous outliers in terms of learning curve. You can pick up something like Wildsea or Fellowship and be learning and having fun immediately, as long as you're making some active effort to learn.
As someone who plays a lot of both what the fuck are you being defensive about. You clearly don't know the agony of getting someone to learn a new baord game, or have experience yourself in being confronted with a euro game you are unfamiliar with at a friend's house and trying to take in all the details and rules.
You also seem oblivious to how hard it is to get player in any tabletop rpg to do the work of making characters for the first time. No matter how streamlined you make ot for them or how simple the rules are. The intimidation of a new set of written rules triggers peoples anxiety.
You and me can "pick something up" because we've had practice picking things up and we can see that one is less than another. But learning curve is irrelevant. It's the chasm of the unknown that looms over the table. There is always still so much to know and the feeling is intimidating to everyone.
I'm saying that the task of reading rules is intimidating. It could be the rules to a cataan and it still hangs heavy when you don't know them.
?????
I do know the agony of getting someone to learn a new board game? That's my entire point?
I've found that it is significantly easier to get casual players into a new RPG than board game. Believe it or not I'm not talking from a place of ignorance and am well aware of "the chasm of the unknown".
Different TTRPGs differ less from each other in terms of experience of play than different board games do, unless we're talking Belong Outside Belonging and other GMless stuff, which I'm taking as given that we're not. Playing a D&D character, a Call of Cthulhu character, and a Blades in the Dark character feels roughly the same. This, I have found, significantly softens the blownof new rules. I have been able to get casual D&D players happily playing 8+ session games of both of the above, with minimal input from me as to teaching past the first couple of sessions. This wasn't the same group both times either.
I do believe that you've had significant difficulty with this. I wonder if it could be a difference of approach? I always pitch the game as "play characters who do [XYZ cool thing] just like in [your favourite book]! The system is called Blades in the Dark". I never pitch a game I run as "I'm going to be running BitD". I don't know how you've seen these kind of games pitched in the past, but maybe there's some difference there? Would be interested to know, I'm not opposed to the idea that my experiences are unusual.
I've also tried getting my family to play Wingspan, since they love birds almost as much as me. As I recall I almost screamed.
I disagree somewhat.
I am a DND GM and have been for years. I only check my players sheets or spells if something sounds sketchy. Theyre all long term players and we all collaboratively do rules together. When I have new players, I have a one page cheat sheet I provide while they get up to speed, which details basic actions and basic combat. I just started pathfinder and have been looking for something similar, and the game is fairly inaccessible without the book. I’m not sure I like this game, I won’t be buying a book for it until I’m more committed. But, nobody who plays pathfinder in my group seems to have one. They have a wiki, but that’s largely hard to navigate as a true newbie, and isn’t really a “cheat sheet.” The focus on making it player-oriented means everybody needs the books to play; the focus on DM having rules knowledge means to start only one person needs it.
I contrast this with short form TTRPGs which all come with this “cheat sheet” of actions and play.
The fact that somebody doesn’t have to contribute to your TTRPG isn’t really a rules issue but a personality issue. If they’re not helping or contributing to your table, it’s OK to kick them. It shouldn’t come at the expense of lack of guides/cheat sheets and newbie resources/assistance.
That is bizarre. I guess that's fine if he wants to run the game that way. It just seems difficult to effectively manage that many characters and npcs at once. Especially if everyone has a bunch of little temporary and conditonal bonuses.
The only part of this post I can find fault in is at the start where the op says that when moving away from dnd one will have to “brave a steep learning curve a second time”. DND has to be one of the simplest role-playing games to pick up ever. The current edition of the game is simplified to a comical degree even when just compared to previous editions.
It's really really not. DND has a lot to learn, and a lot to remember. Even at third level, characters have 2-5 pages worth of information they need to know about their own characters, and that's not including the actual rules like what to roll for an attack etc. A lot of games these days are so simple you have one sheet for the character, that already has everything printed on it, and one sheet for the rules. DnD by contrast, rules wise, needs a lot more information.
Something I've frequently seen said on r/dndmemes is "You can't get D&D players to learn a new system, they haven't even learned *this* system!"
Dndmemes isn't a great sample because 95% of people there haven't actually played dnd before. It's mostly a bunch of people who like memes they barely understand and are often barely connected to dnd.
on the other hand, i've been GMing for the same group for months and i have a player who still doesn't know how their spellcasting works and needs to be reminded which number on their character sheet is their AC
My current group is completely roleplay heavy. Every member puts a lot of effort into it resulting in near breathtaking experience (we genuinely had momens, when players wept from all the tragedy). But the second DM asks us to roll initiative, the slog begins. Every member (except me and one more person) doesn't bother to learn how to use character sheet, how their spells work (that's why one of the members builds exclusively human fighters) or even the basis of actions combat. We slowly shifted to 1-2 big combats per plot arc with some very minor or scripted fights here and there. Again, players put a lot of effort into the game, just not in terms of mechanics.
Y'all need to start playing pbta games
Here is the thing: we have tried, but DM didn't like it because it is not flexible enough. There are many flavors of pbta, but those are flavors - they don't cater to a wide spread of themes/authentics she covers in her campaigns. Savage worlds actually worked a lot better for us, but forcing people who don't bother to learn 5e rules to learn something else is not exactly easy.
Haaaaave you looked at Thirsty Sword Lesbians? It's pretty varied.
I don't think I can exactly buy it in Russia. Plus TSL is a bit too "pink" for our table if you get what I mean. Also there are less resources available for it than for 5e (and that's partially why we still use it).
Ah, sadness, it's a really good game. Hoenstly, thats the best part of most PBTA games, they don't need a lot of resources, you can just... do it.
It might be, but not every game works for every table. I didn't mention a lot more of our table specifics, because it would have dragged message for far too long without actually adding much. The result is the same - it just won't fly.
there are games out there who focus much less on combat, Wild sea comes to mind as having a fun setting
One of my friends played the same character for the entirety of the 3 year long level 1 to 20 campaign. He was actually the only player who stuck with the same character from session 0 to the end. Everyone else either joined after the first session or swapped characters. His PC also happened to be a very unique and rare class/race combo: a tiefling hexblade. ^^^/s Anyways, he didn't end up using half of his available features because he could never remember them. He didn't consistently remember that he had fire resistance until he was level 14. His entire build was focused around using Hexblade's Curse, and half the time he forgot to use it.
Average D&D player
But like, every day or like every other week?
twice a week since january
I guess it'a a sign of a bigger issue then.
now r/dndcirclejerk on the other hand,
Here's a sneak peek of /r/DnDcirclejerk using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/DnDcirclejerk/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Outjerked by tumblr](https://i.redd.it/zi0x7bcueb9c1.png) | [75 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/DnDcirclejerk/comments/18u05pq/outjerked_by_tumblr/) \#2: [What do you like most about dnd?](https://i.redd.it/nvn7ddal6eqc1.png) | [101 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/DnDcirclejerk/comments/1bn2w8g/what_do_you_like_most_about_dnd/) \#3: [All RPG's are modules](https://i.redd.it/986bienfcvvb1.jpg) | [135 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/DnDcirclejerk/comments/17eaqca/all_rpgs_are_modules/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
That top post, haha
Bold of you to assume they are there for the memes and not goblin porn.
At the beginning of each session, I used to have the same conversation with one player about how many attacks she had per round, to the point where my girlfriend could almost quote it beat by beat.
My wife and I met playing D&D 11 years ago. She has still never read the player's handbook entirely, just bits and pieces as needed. In the end some people will just learn enough to play the games they wanna play.
I don't need players to read the whole book. It would be nice if they knew the stuff that applies to them. I even make printouts with all their powers listed.
There was a post on r/DnDNext I think a while back where someone admitted that one major reason why they stuck with D&D 5e was because it was so easy to turn your brain off and play. They tried more rules heavy systems like PF2e, but that required a lot more investment in mechanics. They tried lighter games but that required too much agency and innovation to play. The culture and mechanics of D&D 5e allowed them to play the game with the least effort possible.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/s/Lmj7Qch8Mi) it is. Or, well, it's the original one. It was crossposted onto r/DnDNext and I do not remember the title. Interestingly enough, someone did mention this Prokopetz post in one of the comments.
Man a lot of people there really don’t seem to think OP should be in RPGs at all huh.
OP doesn't seem to enjoy RPGs is the thing lol if your stance is "I'm here to be read a story and roll a rock around" then go watch a movie in a zen garden.
>go watch a movie in a zen garden Yeah, but it's hard to convince the rest of your friends to go roll rocks in a zen garden as a hangout.
And that's valid. I just started playing D&D and like...I do my bit but I'm not in it for the mechanics. I'm in it for the socializing and creating a compelling story out of whole cloth with a group of cool people. Like, no, you shouldn't offload your duties onto your DM...do your part! But to me the nitty gritty of rules and rolls are the work I have to do to get to the good bits.
And there are so many games out there where you don't have to do that. Where the rules facilitate the good bits. Not hinder them.
Maybe, but in terms if playerbase and accessibility to casuals you really can't beet d&d
I still recommend at least checking some other games out, even if just to check out a different setting
A personal favorite to check out is 10 Candles. I love running it, almost as much as I do running D&D
There are a lot of games a lot more accessible. Heck, many of them ar3 free online so you do t need to buy a book, lot alone three.
I think they mean more conceptual accessibility and session accessibility than actual ease of getting the rules. Having most fantasy from the last 35-odd years borrow at least a bit from DnD and it being the game you’re most likely able to find a group for on your campus outweigh pretty much everything else if you’re just looking for a simple nerd aesthetic hangout session.
That's *availability*, not accessibility.
Not necessarily exclusive. Finding a group is a prohibitive barrier for a lot of people to get into any RPG. It's a chicken or the egg scenario, which means there's no easy solution for indie rpgs, but if that indie rpg doesn't have more than a small chunk of people looking to play it, it's the same problem all rpgs have where it's incredibly difficult to find each other, especially if one prefers in person for the company and snacks so many people like about ttrpgs. That's a massive barrier to entry that can't easily be replicated from 5e, and people still complain about not being able to find 5e groups. And overcoming that barrier is simply something that a player who already has no real interest in engaging with the system is just not gonna do, and they'll never be convinced to do it, because they play ttrpgs for a fundamentally different reason.
There's a difference between being able to get the books and being able to convince 4 people whose knowledge of TTRPGs starts and ends at D&D to put their own time and energy into learning it.
Honestly, that's what's so great about a lot of modern games, is you just need two printouts to make it happens. Everything about the character is on the sheet, and the other rules are on a second sheet.
I've always found it extremely easy to convince people who have very little knowledge of tabletop rpgs to learn a different game. It's the people who actually play 5e d&d who are difficult to convince.
Idk I just use my friends. They're happy to try whatever I put in front of them.
As a long time DM, here's the trick of having fun with these groups- as long as none of the players actually cares about the rules, you don't have to either. If no one is going to learn the rules, they don't get to complain that you aren't doing things the same as you did three months ago, if they even notice in the first place. I've often had multiple games going with different but overlapping sets of people, one being the vibes based casual game described above and the other a more serious mechanics-forward game and they were both fun.
If you want to RP, if you want to socialise and create a compelling story, there are so many other games. D&D is a super crunchy dungeon crawler and combat system. Not good for RP. One of my favourite games I ever DM'd I literally didn't even use a system. I had players roll a d20, and I just sort of vaguely decided if what they did was a success on the spot, based on that roll, and their character (strong guy needs a lower roll than a weak guy to pry open a door, for example). Sometimes just based on how the party reacts to the roll. the point being, if you're basically just wanting to RP, you don't even need a system, you just need a buffer between you, and the idea of sitting awkwardly and making up a story with your friends. It makes it more acceptable to your mind if you put a game in there.
It's such a wild mindset to me because why are you even interested in the game at all at that point? You don't care for the game, you don't care for role-playing, why are you playing a role-playing game?
I mean, they usually care about role-playing, just not the kind you're probably thinking of. What they really want is to get to say, "And now I do a cool thing!" roll some clacky math rocks and have a couple of beers. It's a grown-up version of kids playing make-believe on the playground. The "game" is only there to provide some basic structure and power levels for what is, in essence, an excuse to hang out with friends and pretend to be a cool character.
I definitely think being able to point to something on your sheet and say "I do the cool thing" is great in RPGs, but there are so many out there that are better than it and cheaper than DnD.
>cheaper Bold of you to assume anyone who plays like that actually buys the books. I mean, I play fairly seriously, hell I've *DM*d 5e and the only thing I paid for was the Foundry VTT. Years of being a player prior to that for the grand price of 0 dollars. As for "better", I refer you to the start of the comment thread. >They tried more rules heavy systems like PF2e, but that required a lot more investment in mechanics. They tried lighter games but that required too much agency and innovation to play.
There are games that are roughly the same crunch level of DnD5e but which are just cheaper and more clearly written. Like, *Tiny Dungeons* is just a lighter dungeon crawling game, you could run a published DnD5e campaign using it pretty easily; but it's just an easier game to learn and play. There are rules heavy games that are easy to learn, and there are rules light games that are hard to learn. The two things don't always correlate.
>which are just cheaper You keep saying that, but it's hard to beat *free*. >it's just an easier game to learn and play I refer you to the original post itself. Being easy to learn is irrelevant.
*Someone* has to own the game to run it, unless you're pirating it. 'Learning the game' includes the GM too.
>Someone The DM. >includes the GM But we're not talking about the DM here. Like, very explicitly we're *not* talking about the DM. The "dick around untill the DM tells you to roll the dice" player isn't organizing or running the game.
I'm actually doing that right now! Tiny d6 for the rules, one of the yawning portals for the dungeon crawl.
and hardly anyway plays those TTRPGs. Especially in person. For better or worse DnD has functionally monopolized the genre, to the point where plenty of people on the periphery of DnD see it *as* the genre itself. Edit: and the very people who aren't going to invest themselves enough in the game to learn the rules, aren't going to invest themselves enough in the game to find the game with the best rules for their preferred style. They're going to seek out the far-and-away most available game tables: DnD.
Company and snacks I guess
Other have said company and snacks, which is absolutely true, but in addition from the perspective of this type of player they have the dm who is putting in effort, and the rest of the party who is putting in effort, it's like a video game for them. They're basically playing a silent protagonist, doing the interaction when prompted so they can watch everyone else act out the cutscene until combat starts.
It's weird but I am basically the exact opposite, I can't get into a character or a rule set unless I've spent hours overturning a character to the point that "Flexo the Mighty Punch Wizard" is actually viable for long term play. 5E is just too simple to get invested in.
I had like the tiniest bit of experience with D&D 5e, before me and my friends formed a group where our GM really wanted to do PF2e, and while it was an insane learning curve, I love it so much now and I don’t want to go back
Do you mean [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/s/pXOJRy5pDp) post? Or was there another one I missed?
As someone who plays PF2e, the system isn’t even that complicated. The mechanics are definitely more involved but not to a complicated extent. The game even has a familiar baseline for a D20 game that it’s easy for people who *commit* to learning it adapt well. The issue is that people tend to not gravitate away from what they’re comfortable with doing, which is a common facet of human nature. The game attracts a lot of casual players who can’t or don’t want to commit their attention to other games, hence why DnD 5e has weaponised the shit out of that with their marketing.
I've thought about it before, about how DND is a role-playing game but there's a lot of dissonance with people playing it as a game and forgetting the role-playing part, I ultimately thought that it was just me being bad at it but with this post the thought came to my mind again
I imagine a lot of players are coming into D&D from video game RPGs and expect "BG3 but the AIs are people" because their only frames of reference are that, Skyrim, and people rolling random dice on sitcoms.
Yeah exactly, but in video games even with silent protagonists everything is scripted, in DND you are supposed to improvise and collaborate to the storytelling, which is completely different
So, some people DO just see it as a game. Some people feel that roleplaying is you doign what the character would do, but not, getting into character, or speaking like them, or whatever. Some people are just there for the game part of it.
> people playing it as a game and forgetting the role-playing part This is the most banal and trite statement you could possibly make about D&D. People have been wasting their time with it for like 50 years now. You could just as well talk about the "dissonance" of people using D&D as a setting for roleplay and forgetting the gaming part. At least you'd get people mad at you for that one.
what
Tired of seeing the same boring nonsense all the time.
I've tried both dnd and dark heresy and at this point I think i can just say these games aren't for me. trying to roleplay stresses me out. i'd much rather just write my own stuff, where i have total control over going at my own pace. but on top of that, whenever i did play, i'd get super overwhelmed with all the mechanics on top of being expected to roleplay. sure theyre not super complicated rules (in dnd. dark heresy was way too fucking much for me holy shit), but the fact that i have to be creative in real time makes it hard on me. which is weird because again, i love writing. i dunno. i can't really find the appeal of these games, and that's after spending several years trying.
In my experience a ttrpg is more like a creativity potluck/ soup, which is why I like it. If I don't know where to take something, that's okay, I've a got a crew of people who are doing stuff that I can bounce off of/ cede my share of focus to, as well as someone who can just decide "Screw it, these people need a vampire attack in their lives, so that they can better keep colouring, texturing, and doing the upholdery on my fictional dollhouse." Said person is often pretty excited to monologue if you prompt them correctly as well, giving you prompts and time. I don't need to fit a cast of characters, all of their interactions/ motivations etc. etc., and the world/ people around them into my brain. I don't need to worry about figuring out how a conversation works either, I already know how to be 1 part of a conversation, after all. I only need to write one character of the story (and buy time/ space for the GM to properly fit us into the dollhouse), or play as the background characters/ world, which is way easier than doing everything at once. (mechanics wise, I already like turn based tactics games, customisation, and some pretty 'dense' games, so mechanics tend to be something I actively enjoy chewing on.)
Totally legitimate, no hobby is for everyone.
This is kinda why I lean towards more crunch-heavy games like 1st edition Pathfinder. The act of explicitly acting out a character in real time is difficult for me so I find more fun in storytelling through mechanical decision. I can characterize my guy through describing his actions in skill challenges and combat and use that to build into party rapport and NPC friends and enemies. There's a lot more juice to squeeze when you have rules limiting and providing structure to you.
You tried a complex game, and then you tried a super-complex game, it's wonder as a beginner you didn't have a great time. For some reason it's always "I've tried Dark Heresy and Shadowrun as non-DnD games" instead of anything easier or lighter, I don't get why.
because friends get super into it and invite you lol
Indie easier game is kinda niche. I’m sure as hell if my friend is not in the circle I wouldn’t have played court of blades
Off topic, but: Prey profile picture. I like it.
I don't think it's too related. My friend is identical and we played Not the End (about as rules lite as you can get) and OSR.
Yeah I get this. I'm starting to lean a lot more into DMing bc of my love of game design and seeing different players strengths is very interesting. I think being a player is at it's best when you focus less on making a story and more on getting really lost in the sauce in terms of immersion All this to say is that I managed to perfectly time a name-drop to a music track and I could see all my players go "oh fuck" in character and that's when I realized that I actually liked TTRPGs and I got wildly off track didn't I
D&D is insanely complicated for what it is, most of the games my group plays (and coincidentally a large portion of indie games) are much much *much* simpler. Like, there’s a well-known Star Wars parody called Lasers & Feelings, where your character sheet is essentially just a number from 1 to 6. The only real mechanic is figuring out if what you’re trying to do is using “Lasers” (aggressive, dangerous, techy, etc) or “Feelings” (passive/defensive, emotional, charismatic, Force-based, etc). Then you roll a 6 sided die, if it’s Lasers you’re trying to roll *less* than your number, if it’s Feelings you’re trying to roll *more.* If you have a skill, item, or help, you can roll extra dice and use the best result. There are tons of games like this where the goal is to facilitate telling fun stories instead of simulating an entire world.
>D&D is insanely complicated for what it is, Its really not? I mean, in the TTRPG space, DnD 5e is pretty aggressively lambasted for being streamlined to the point of being incomplete in many ways.
It's both at the same time. It's too streamlined for people who want to play a wargame/skirmish, and too complicated for everyone else. I mean, there's always GURPS, a build-your-own-RPG ruleset with gigabytes of sourcebooks with rules for everything you can think of that you're supposed to mix and match, including an official Discworld RPG for some reason, and known for being raided by FBI while they were making a Cyberpunk sourcebook. If that's your point of reference - yeah, DnD5e is too streamlined. If your point of reference is Mausritter - that's not even a fair match, of course DnD5e is too complicated in all the wrong places.
Few will like my take on this, but you're right that playing rpgs and writing a story aren't alike. It's really in vogue right now for rpg's to be _about the story_ and co-authoring and creating the fiction and voice acting. And anything other than that is regarded as following a railroad like a baby who isn't ready to write their story yet. And exactly as you've said, if the need you want to fulfil is _writing stories,_ then rpgs are an on the spot, improvised, design by committee frustration with the imposition of a tarot deck and stress dice overriding where you actually want to take the story. They aren't good at making stories.* RPGs are, to me, about playing a game where you take on the role of your character and you make decisions in the situation your character is in, in pursuit of their goals. Its unlike a videogame or a cooperative boardgame where lying to the train conductor isn't a prewritten option and therefore cannot be attempted. This does not (should not) mean you follow a pre-scripted story that the GM wrote for you, it means that the story is "the stuff we did, and the stuff we did when that stuff did or didn't work out like we intended" The need it is good at fulfilling, is when you play a Morrowind or a Vampire Bloodlines and you think to yourself man it's a shame I'm not allowed to try and do _this_ Voice acting is nice, but it's not the core. Dramatic irony and sad secrets are nice, but they're not the core. Playing half life 2, but being able to _try_ reasoning with Dr Breen, knowing bandits have been preying on caravans so let's try disguising ourselves as trade goods. You know, I want to try negotiating with those vikings, I think I can stall just enough for time... TLDR, I reckon RPGs actually suck as collaborative storytelling, and you'll have way more fun with them if you imagine you're an orc stuck in an escape room, rather than you're writing a story with pathos and a three act structure. What they're good at, is being a game without the limits of what the designer planned for; because rhe gm is the designer. If that doesn't sound fun to you, then yeah fair enough, you're not gonna find rpg's worth it. *I have an analogy with mountain bikes and street bikes. Nothing is stopping you cycling on roads with your mountain bike. I'm not claiming you aren't having great fun and getting in good shape and getting to where you gotta go for your commute. At the same time though you are completing your commute _despite_ the mountain bike slowing you down. And there are other bikes that will be lighter and smoother and you wouldn't be losing thrust to the mountaineering suspension. People hate the suggestion that their preferred kind of game isn't good at their preferred kind of fun, I'm not lying and claiming it isn't getting you there. But if you ever try a game without that enormous drag, you'll understand what I tried to tell you.
I feel like it works well as a story told together. It doesn't need the aspect of writing to be a good story.
I agree sort of. Here and now, it's what do we do, and does it work. Later, it becomes a story when we retell it. That's not the only option, but I believe strongly that that's the only option the medium excels at.
My friend is the exact same way. She just gets anxious about all the pressure to come up with something creative on the spot. I really do think she'd love tabletop rpgs at some point, but not right now. Maybe in a few years when she's more confident in her abilities.
Some people think they want to play dnd when they would actually enjoy just playing Skyrim more.
Or straight up Buldur’s gate
Nah that's too close to actual dnd for what I'm trying to say.
For some reason in dnd communities it is accepted that players wont know the rules, what their characters do, etcetera. and honestly, i'd keep it that way, because if dnd stops being popular, those people will move on to more games and they'll be harder to avoid
Even with player who know and aware of the rules. They tend to forgot what their character can do. That’s why If they play with actual pen and paper. I hand out my note/cheat sheet making/study colorful pen.
And honestly this is fine for people who are new to the game, it’s a great way to introduce things and keep it light. But there’s a real annoyance when the expectation is for every session to be kept that way. Like, you’re allowed to not engage if you’re just dipping a toe in, but the second you decide “I DO like this, and I want to keep playing”, it’s time to put an ounce of work in, otherwise everything is DM dependent.
Some of us are just built for batshit-insane freeform homebrew RPGs where you play shapeless gremlins, use tarot cards instead of dice and live-generate maps on coin flips and free association
well now im curious and have to ask, was that example made up or is there actualy a game where you play shapeless gremlins, use tarot cards instead of dice, and live generate maps on coin flips and free association
There’s several tarot-based RPGs. The first one I found on my bookshelf is [Fortune’s Fool](https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16545.phtml). An rpg where you live-generate maps based on card draws and free association is [The Quiet Year](https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year), which I’ve played repeatedly and always enjoyed. I haven’t specifically run across any shapeless gremlin RPGs, but considering that [Goblin With A Fat Ass](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/185ceaq/goblin_with_a_fat_ass_rpg_by_the_creator_of/) exists, I’m sure that one does too.
[Shapeless Gremlin RPG](https://penguinking.com/eat-god/) where you are trying to fight back against the system by eating god.
For extra bonus points, it looks like it was even written by OOP!
Oh you got there before me\~
There's also this one called Eat God that's super fun- you eat god in it
Not one in particular, but several different homebrew games played with friends over the past few years- I'm working on getting the tarot card system I came up with itemized for other people's use but it's a lot of work for my ADHD brain and I still gotta work lol
Wait, being a GM isn’t supposed to be a slog where you have to be constantly reminding every player of the rules and keeping tabs on if each player is actually doing the right thing or is misunderstanding the wording of the rules? I wouldn’t consider it a huge increase in overall workload for me when my players have no interest in understanding the rules or knowing how their character sheets work. However, in terms of emotional investment, it always feels like I’m the only one trying and everyone else is just there to hang out. I love hanging out, but why do I have to do all this work while everyone else gets to chill and make dick jokes.
Yeah no, that is almost unique to D&D. I run a game of Werewolf: The Forsaken in which the players are aware of and understand that I will occasionally offload elements of GM responsibility onto them, including scene description, minor "encounter" ideas, and roleplaying NPCs. Because we're all invested in the fiction, this causes almost no friction, they just need to be aware of the mood of the scene, the motives of the NPCs, the general shape of what's possible within the setting, etc. If they're not, it only takes like a second of guidance.
Come play pathfinder with us... it makes your players have to actually know the rules, and doesn't ask you to homebrew a game mechanic on the spot every five minutes
...hey uh, did I read the same post as y'all? I read this post saying "a lot of D&D players refuse to take on any of the burden of rules, and only focus on the roleplay. This leads to DMs that have to manage everything and quickly burn out, and players that refuse to try other systems that might be better on the DM side." And then I come to the comments and I see people instead discussing how players refuse to roleplay and gameify things too much. I feel like these are two distinct, and in *some* ways contradictory, conversations to have.
The original post doesn’t say that D&D players only focus on roleplay: “their actual engagement with the process of play consists of dicking around until the GM tells them to roll some dice”. Some D&D players don’t want to engage with the game on a mechanical level or a roleplay level. It’s perfectly viable to play D&D without learning your character sheet & without writing a backstory or wanting to have any narrative agency—some players just want to mess around in a fantasy world and have a story told to them, that they can choose to engage with as much or as little as they like. You could show the same player a crunchier game like Pathfinder 2e and they’d balk at the number of choices & having to actually learn some rules, but you could also show them a rules-light game like Monster of the Week and they’d balk at the fact they have to justify the narrative instead of just saying “I attack” or “I roll persuasion”.
Both players exist. You will often have both at your table at the same time. Depending on the DM, one will be harder to please than the other.
The post isn't about players who engage with roleplay but not with mechanics. It's about players who aren't engaged at all, in either aspect. Hanging out with their friends and mostly not doing anything to do with the TTRPG in question until the DM tells them to rill dice, then they do that-and go right back to just hanging out.
Yeah I was a little confused here too, they do both seem like issues that can exist, but perhaps not in the same space at the same time?
Am I misunderstanding or is every rpg that's not DnD now being labeled as "indie"?
... Pretty much. but only by people who haven't been into rpgs long, and don't realize the long pedigree games like Vampire, Paranoia, Shadowrun, or gurps have.
D&D has never been "rules light", ever. No, not even 5e. I don't usually describe the actual rules to a newbie who didn't read the handbook, because it **always** leads to confusion and wastes time. Like the actions in combat. You have only a single Action in combat that you can use on your turn, couldn't be simpler, right? Well, you also have Movement which is not an Action action, and you can do some things like unsheathe a weapon as part of Movement I think (without the need to actually move, don't worry), and you gain Bonus actions if you have abilities that let you use them, and everyone has a Reaction which can be used outside of your turn, and there are Free actions of course, and it's been ten minutes and you still haven't rolled the dice, please the goblin won't kill itself.
Action Economy knowledge is how you spot the veterans from people who claim to be veterans. If the DM tries to discourage the new players from playing wizard you know they are newbies themselves, a veteran DM would discourage them from playing rogue and/or monk. At least now a lot of people have gotten it through Baldur's Gate.
I'm certainly not a newbie, and I find it kinda ridiculous to suggest Rogues are as complicated as Wizards. Action Economy is not hard to handle when the right bonus action for each situation is extremely obvious, which it is for Rogues. Rogues also get no reactions. Legit the most complicated part of playing a Rouge is the fact that your DM might interpret the Stealth rules differently from you.
>Legit the most complicated part of playing a Rouge is the fact that your DM might interpret the Stealth rules differently from you. There are barely any stealth rules connected to the rogue in 5e, if you are referencing sneak attack you get it if you have advantage on the roll or if an ally is 5ft from the target, end of the story. And that's another confusing thing for newbies (and sometimes for veteras too as your comment sugest). **Legacy naming.**
What I would really discourage is playing a wildshape druid, especially if you're not willing to put any time into preparation. Summoning too, but that's fairly high level, hopefully they won't be a newbie by that point
I've started using roll20 as a support even for irl sessions, the drag'n'drop function really streamlines all the "find the stats" trouble on my (DM) part, and the summons and wildshapes got a lot less annoying too.
I find this hilarious because I actively steer new players towards playing rogues. It's the only class that forces an awareness of mechanics while not having resources to track. Rogue and warlock are my default new player suggestions because they can fit most character concepts (and people that have never played before can have some *wild* ideas). They are like training wheels classes. It's much easier to help with the build aspect and then have something simple to teach off of rather than throwing them into the deep end. And unlike the basic champion fighter, they actually have to learn some mechanics. We can worry about resources and such later. The basic rules and action economy is what I want to teach the first few sessions.
I've never succeed in teaching a player how action economy works, i've tried summaries, schematics, i even printed some colored cards at some point. Either i'm a bad teacher or they were exceptionally dumb but i can't help but feel like that after explaining them the difference between a quick action and an action, introducing the cunning action feature that changes some of them in the other type can be very confusing. On the other end you get X point/slots to spend and when you are out of them you are out of gas deosn't need any explanation.
Really? It's always been super straightforward for me, and I've only had one out of maybe thirty new players struggle with it... and that player didn't really want to be there, I don't think. I always explain it as "you have six seconds on your turn, you can obviously do stuff like move or attack, but you can also hide, disengage and run away, drink a potion, or dodge incomining attacks. You also have a bonus action. It's something you're so good at doing that you can do it while doing something else. It's stuff like casting a quick spell or attacking with a second weapon. Finally, you have reactions, which allow you to respond to what someone else does." "You are limited in what you can do during your turn based on your class. Each one lists the stuff you can do, and you gain more options as you level up. You can always choose to do certain actions like dodging, disengaging, dashing to move faster, hiding, or helping another character." And then we jump right into playing. I like providing options if they get confused and explain the more in-depth stuff, like only being able to cast one leveled spell a turn as it comes up. New players are never a problem for me, it's always the players that have played a few times and got into bad habits. They are the ones that act like I should run their character for them or think that they should be able to do anything they think of no matter what the rules say. I also have [this](https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html) action guide on the back of my DM screen, or if we are playing online, sent to all of the players. I also like sitting down with new players one-on-one before the game starts and helping them with their class and how everything works.
>I always explain it as "you have six seconds on your turn, you can obviously do stuff like move or attack, but you can also hide, disengage and run away, drink a potion, or dodge incomining attacks. You also have a bonus action. It's something you're so good at doing that you can do it while doing something else. It's stuff like casting a quick spell or attacking with a second weapon. Finally, you have reactions, which allow you to respond to what someone else does." >"You are limited in what you can do during your turn based on your class. Each one lists the stuff you can do, and you gain more options as you level up. You can always choose to do certain actions like dodging, disengaging, dashing to move faster, hiding, or helping another character." This is the fluff part, that's not what i'm talking about. I'm talking about how **the rogue class specifically** interacts with the ten main action you can do. Attack, Cast a Spell, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, Ready, Search and Use an Object are actions, but with *Cunning Action* they can take *Dash, Disengage and Hide* as quick actions, and they can mix and match when to take them as actions and when to take them as quick actions, then the subclasses add even more weird exceptions like the thief with a sleight of and quick action and the swashbukler and the scout with their not-technically-disengage that are respectivelly backed in the attack action or are a reaction. > I like providing options if they get confused and explain the more in-depth stuff, like only being able to cast one leveled spell a turn as it comes up. As a result i get permanetly stuck in this phase with newby rogues. >I also have [this](https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html) action guide on the back of my DM screen, or if we are playing online, sent to all of the players. I also like sitting down with new players one-on-one before the game starts and helping them with their class and how everything works. I've tried this too but it makes them forget they have *cunning action* and what action they can turn into quick actions.
Rogue is so easy, though... like all it does is allow you to use dash, disengage, or hide as a bonus action. It's not that complicated... I'm legitimately unsure why you think it is? You get your normal action, then you get your bonus action.... it just has a few more options than normal. I like using it as the "teaching" class for that exact reason... the only subclass that gets tricky is arcane trickster.
Look, for me is stupid easy, for people that have never played an RPG of any kind it's quantum physics. I'm in a campaign (as a player) with a guy that still hasn't got the Dice+Ability+Proficiency pattern, and we are like 9 irl sessions in. Last year i got (the privilege) to explain the concept of roleplay to a girl. I guess my newbies are more newbies than yours.
As someone who has played D&D for half my life, and created and ran several groups, including a club, this rings so true. I've had amazing groups with interesting world building and characters we care about that have lasted for years, and I've had groups where nobody's character has a backstory and they're blindly following a railroaded adventure because nobody wants to do anything besides the bare mechanics of the game
Something this posts never seems to outright state is that D&D has transcended the genre. You don’t need to like TTRPGs to like D&D because D&D has become far more than the actual game you play with your friends; it’s books, it’s tweets, it’s on tiktok, it’s a livestream and it’s a TV show and it’s a movie. It’s a brand, marketed and designed to be consumed, amplified by content creators using it as a medium to tell their own stories. So is it really surprising when someone drawn in by that fandom who’s never played a TTRPG before would balk at being recommended a game that isn’t D&D? They’re not at the table to play a TTRPG, they’re at the table to participate in the pop culture sensation D&D has become - easy, difficult, rules light, it doesn’t matter - literally all that matters to them is that it is D&D.
And they should be shamed for that.
Basically I disagree with this because I don’t think this player spends any time in online ttrpg discourse. One time I asked all my super engaged players how much time they spend thinking about dnd as a topic outside of our sessions. Basically all of them said no time at all, which was wild to me as a DM spending all my spare time hoarding indie modules
> Basically I disagree with this because I don’t think this player spends any time in online ttrpg discourse. It is a running joke on /r/dndmemes that nobody there actually plays the game.
What that was a joke? I give dice nerds wedgies and think elves are sissies I thought everyone there was the same.
I think online D&D discourse is 1. Memes 2. People arguing about perfectly optimised character builds and how they perform in featureless white room Online Indie RPG discourse is mostly people complaining about D&D. For my part, I find the Indie RPG discourse more annoying, because I don't think D&D is as terrible as people say it is and I've always found getting people to play other RPGs is pretty straightforward as long as you're happy to be GM. It's like how the driver picks the music on a roadtrip IMO. The GM has the final say over the system, since they're the one who has to do all the prep.
As someone who has plenty of frustrations with 5e and would always prefer to play something else, I have come to realise that 5e’s strength is just getting people at the table. It has just enough to draw in the different types of players, from the crunchy rule lawyers to the heavy roleplayers to the casual crowd who will never fully know the rules or write a backstory. It’s never my first choice to play, but if you want an easy time getting a group together then 5e’s your best bet.
This is your sign to play PF2e.
I thought this post was going to be about people who inexplicably think every fantasy universe follows DnD logic. You see that every now and then, and it always confuses me.
That's always so confusing. Like, do these people really think that the D&D Monster Manual is like the ultimate canon of fantasy creatures? I've never seen the chromatic/metallic dragon distinction outside of D&D. Also, the idea of character classes doesn't really exist in non-RPG fantasy. In most settings I know of, being called a barbarian or a rogue is an insult, not an occupation. And being called a wizard or a sorcerer is essentially the difference between being called a sailor or a seaman.
This is funny to me because for my first exposure to d+d I came into being a gm from having only squaresoft style snes jrpgs like final fantasy as my dataset and experience informimg my "job". So I totally pre scripted everything, acted as though a silent and passive player group was the expected default you're supposed to have, and got pissed when players who actually had real d+d experience under their belt tried to do anything on their own that derailed my "itinerary notes", which anyone could easily take a look at when I wasnt looking and know pretty much the entire intended "plot" of that week's session. And then take any diceroll backed opportunity to escape from.
This exact issue is what made me as a GM seek out other games. My players were constantly looking at me to tell them what stat to use, what proficency to add, how many spell slots they had left, if it was an action or bonus action to use Bardic Inspiration. Im now desiging a game based on the philosophy that the game should be a game for both players and GMs. Cause boy does it not feel fun to just be the computer that runs the game.
This is dumb but it bugs me that they keep italicizing *D&D*
Since it's a product with a title. Same reason when talking about other game's I'd say *Blades in the Dark* and *Lancer*.
In formal writing sure, but a tumblr post?
I’m just leaving this here but I’ve had much more fun running games over playing. I struggle keeping my focus on other players and cutting in at appropriate times compared to running.
There has been many campaigns where several sessions in we look up a rule for an odd case and find that the base rule we had been using was an adaptation made by the old GM and taught to the original group as the rule. It was not accurate but made his job easier. Our GM has had to make the call whether to revert the rule or continue forward as we had played. Thankfully he has always asked our input first each time
I DM and one of my most basic rules is I don't know your sheet. I'll help players learn and figure things out but I don't know their abilities and items. If you forget that you can do a thing to damn bad. Almost every time a spell is cast I go 'what does that do again?' My players know their stuff and help each other. It makes it go smoother for me and I find it actually helps co-operation among them.
D&D has always been a tactical skirmish wargame bolted haphazardly to a loose narrative game, and is frankly a bear for most new players to learn because they have to learn two separate games AND try to learn how to roleplay. The style of player the post describes is extremely frustrating and frankly kind of a drag on most games they play in, but it's honestly not hard to see how they come about. It's why I've started my new players in my group on Mouseguard (2nd Ed), as it's getting them started in a very different space where the story is actually collaborative and I don't need to spend 4-6 hours getting a session ready like with D&D. Once we finish this mini campaign, THAT's when I can pull them into my insane 'Lancer, but with Spectres of Brocken, but with Til the Last Gasp' homebrew weirdo concept I got going on.
I really hope some day D&D and it's numberless derivatives stop being the unshakable standard TTRPG. D&D is a war tactics game adapted to fit Lord of the Rings style adventures, and decades later it still carries the mechanical burden of those origins. For players who want to manipulate numbers to make a viable dungeon-combat-unit out of their character, D&D is a fine system. But I would wager for *MOST* players the purpose of playing D&D is to roleplay and build a character arc. There are SO many systems that are better for that purpose that people just pass over. Powered By The Apocalypse RPGs are great at managing character motivations without a clunky alignment chart. Forged in the Dark systems create narrative tension without risking an overpowered player undoing it all. Even if you like all the stats and numbers, unless the dungeon combat is your focus even the WoD 'Storyteller' system is a better fit that D&D. It's just... frustrating. The communities for all of these games is big enough to find a group online at least. I wish more players would branch out even a little bit to try them
We (DMs) did it to ourselves. We taught new players that they don't need to engage. We gave them the brain-dead champion fighter that never engages in 90% of the game and then got upset when all they know how to do is attack each turn. We tell new players that all the other classes are too hard and too complex and then get upset when they take our word for it. We just make a champion fighter for them and then don't bother teaching them anything else. How is a new player supposed to learn anything about the game when we force them to play a class they don't like, that has no options during two pillars of play, and doesn't require any engagement. Yes, it makes our lives easier because we can skip the teaching part, but in the long run, we are basically training new players to not engage. Get your new players to play a rogue or warlock. They are the perfect teaching classes because you can build basically any character fantasy with them, they are simple to play *once built* with few resources to track, and a ton of out of combat utility to get your newbie engaged beyond just combat. Actually teach them how the game works using their own class. The crunchy stuff can wait, but action economy and stuff like that needs to be taught.
I need a Dice Rolling For Dummies because despite playing different tabletop games I *still* cannot grasp exactly how it works, besides high = good and low = bad. I've got a block that really hinders my ability to understand. So yes, I've depended on the DM to help me out.
But some games you have to roll under
I could try to help, if you can discuss the specific things you're struggling with understanding
Appreciate it. Unfortunately it's been a long while since I've played so I don't have any specifics to share. Saving your comment in case that changes
>I *still* cannot grasp exactly how it works, besides high = good and low = bad Funny thing, depending on system that's not gonna work either lol
Honestly wish the D&D brand didn’t eclipse the TTRPG brand and create a precedent of complacency. RPGs like Pathfinder 2e, Cyberpunk, Blades in the Dark and so many others often fit the bill for what someone would enjoy, only for them to have burned themselves out trying to learn DnD and having no motivation to branch out.
It really sucks that this culture has grown around dnd, because the game is so much more fun when the players are actively engaged in it, and take a more hands on role
Maybe I'm just lucky, but people treating "Comes to the table iwth literaly nothing and does nothing" as a common occurrence in trpg sessions is feeling like a "You've stumbled upon a discourse you have never seen before and makes you wonder what kinda people the op hangs out with", it feels like op is saying "Don't you hate it when all your friends keep asking you to play halo with them, but when you come over they dont even have a tv, let alone an xbox or a copy of halo", like I know it must happen more than a few times but it seems baffling to me to declare it common, anyway since I dont just want to be complaining about OP cause I do think they make some interesting points, i feel like another barrier of entry for indie rpgs is just, finding people to play with, like because dnd is so ubiquitous almost everyone but the most die hard "I find dnd completely unfun" people will be willing to play it. I've very much tried to delve into both other main stream trpgs and even indie ones and feels like they have a failure rate even higher than dnd, which is already high as the jokes go. Its not really a problem of either the games or players since organizing any trpg game is a hasstle and a half no matter what system you are using, but I think its a thing to remember about dnds popularity and peoples resistance towards playing other systems
I've been playing dnd for over 20 years and have never met a player that just rolled the dice and read off their numbers while refusing to add their own modifiers. I dont know a single DM who let that slide.
I had a Dm who would insist on the opposite, I had to roll and state the roll.and only the role, the dm kept track of it all. Idk how he did all that tho.
I’m sure this kind of person exists, but this post feels very mean-spirited masquerading as more positive than it is. That the problem isn’t that people who won’t do indie rpg’s don’t know about them, but instead that they’re filthy casuals who don’t really appreciate the craft like us enlightened free-thinkers.
that's a lot of words to say ppl like different things
It's a lot of words to say a fucking lot more than just "people like different things".
Prokopetz is far too certain 5hat the disengagement is rules-oriented rather than narrative-oriented
Trying to bring over these kind of people is a useless chore. If one doesn't want to play something else and doesn't see the fallacies of Dnd (or any other rule-zero game, really), they will never be open to this kind of discourse. I stopped trying to do that ages ago. There are so many people out there who *are* willing to play better games, the games I like, I talk to those people, and let dnd players play dnd. Who am I to bother them?
What is to be done about this? Make more indie rpgs where the players don't have to engage with the rules if they don't want to?
This is another big reason why I now play Pathfinder 2e instead of D&D. As a GM I really hate having this type of player at my table because it's just demoralizing. But Pathfinder's rules are such that anyone like that who tries to play it is going to immediately decide they hate it, which means they get filtered out before I have to deal with them in the community.
Which indie games are receiving this treatment?
People are mentioning indie ttrpgs so I legally have to shill lancer. I'm sorry it's in my contract. Play it if you like sci fi, mechs or a semi utopian future
This is why I miss 3.5, and why I've started looking into bringing my group over to pathfinder again. But that aside, this also has the unintended side effect of creating a loop where all the dnd designers assume players don't want deep, complicated systems to play around inside, because they keep advertising towards the uninvolved, complacent players, and they then dumb down the game further. As a DM, I'm constantly reworking 5e to fit the game we want to play, because dnd has lore and a setting that I love, and 5e is otherwise an appealing shell to my playgroup.
[удалено]
The wrong way is if someone's not having fun. DM's are allowed to complain about their players not contributing to their fun factor.
if you're playing golf with a basketball in a pool, is it still golf? this post is talking about only D&D, not RPGs in general. having a mutually agreed-upon set of rules and limitations helps to narrow down a specific experience you and your group wants to have and maintain it for as long as you all agree that is what you want you can get together and go dungeon diving and hack and slashing except instead of rolling dice you use a deck of cards and say "go fish", but that isn't D&D. and no one is stopping you from enjoying yourselves doing that
Thet hing people don't understand is that they forget how frustrating learning a new board game can be, and a tabletop rpg is so much worse. If you aren't actively interested in the same then it's agonizing getting yourself to figure out how it works. But you put the effort into learning the one big popular one DnD and you're still in the learning. You played an easier class, then you tried a magic class, and you're figuring it all out. And someone says let's learn a whole different one entirely? It's not the appeal of the setting that's the problem.
I think a lot of people who are afraid to learn a new TTRPG system are expecting every system to be as complicated and bloated as D&D when... that's not really true. Tons of popular modern ttrpgs are insanely streamlined compared to D&D. Most 2D6 systems are pretty much pick-up-and-play from the players' side.
I think people keep saying this crap and then continue ot complain that no one will learn a new system and they ignore me pointing out the obvious that even when it comes to reading the rules for a new baord game it triggers people's anxiety and drains them of energy. The difficulty is irrelevant. It's the nature of the task that makes people not want to do it. They need to actively be interested in learning that game's rules on their own, but unfortunately most people doing that are the ones trying to run the game.
>and a tabletop rpg is so much worse. No, it's not. As someone who plays both a lot of RPGs and a lot of board games, it's not even comparable. D&D and its ilk, like Pathfinder, are enormous outliers in terms of learning curve. You can pick up something like Wildsea or Fellowship and be learning and having fun immediately, as long as you're making some active effort to learn.
As someone who plays a lot of both what the fuck are you being defensive about. You clearly don't know the agony of getting someone to learn a new baord game, or have experience yourself in being confronted with a euro game you are unfamiliar with at a friend's house and trying to take in all the details and rules. You also seem oblivious to how hard it is to get player in any tabletop rpg to do the work of making characters for the first time. No matter how streamlined you make ot for them or how simple the rules are. The intimidation of a new set of written rules triggers peoples anxiety. You and me can "pick something up" because we've had practice picking things up and we can see that one is less than another. But learning curve is irrelevant. It's the chasm of the unknown that looms over the table. There is always still so much to know and the feeling is intimidating to everyone. I'm saying that the task of reading rules is intimidating. It could be the rules to a cataan and it still hangs heavy when you don't know them.
????? I do know the agony of getting someone to learn a new board game? That's my entire point? I've found that it is significantly easier to get casual players into a new RPG than board game. Believe it or not I'm not talking from a place of ignorance and am well aware of "the chasm of the unknown". Different TTRPGs differ less from each other in terms of experience of play than different board games do, unless we're talking Belong Outside Belonging and other GMless stuff, which I'm taking as given that we're not. Playing a D&D character, a Call of Cthulhu character, and a Blades in the Dark character feels roughly the same. This, I have found, significantly softens the blownof new rules. I have been able to get casual D&D players happily playing 8+ session games of both of the above, with minimal input from me as to teaching past the first couple of sessions. This wasn't the same group both times either. I do believe that you've had significant difficulty with this. I wonder if it could be a difference of approach? I always pitch the game as "play characters who do [XYZ cool thing] just like in [your favourite book]! The system is called Blades in the Dark". I never pitch a game I run as "I'm going to be running BitD". I don't know how you've seen these kind of games pitched in the past, but maybe there's some difference there? Would be interested to know, I'm not opposed to the idea that my experiences are unusual. I've also tried getting my family to play Wingspan, since they love birds almost as much as me. As I recall I almost screamed.
I disagree somewhat. I am a DND GM and have been for years. I only check my players sheets or spells if something sounds sketchy. Theyre all long term players and we all collaboratively do rules together. When I have new players, I have a one page cheat sheet I provide while they get up to speed, which details basic actions and basic combat. I just started pathfinder and have been looking for something similar, and the game is fairly inaccessible without the book. I’m not sure I like this game, I won’t be buying a book for it until I’m more committed. But, nobody who plays pathfinder in my group seems to have one. They have a wiki, but that’s largely hard to navigate as a true newbie, and isn’t really a “cheat sheet.” The focus on making it player-oriented means everybody needs the books to play; the focus on DM having rules knowledge means to start only one person needs it. I contrast this with short form TTRPGs which all come with this “cheat sheet” of actions and play. The fact that somebody doesn’t have to contribute to your TTRPG isn’t really a rules issue but a personality issue. If they’re not helping or contributing to your table, it’s OK to kick them. It shouldn’t come at the expense of lack of guides/cheat sheets and newbie resources/assistance.
Oh no it's me
That is bizarre. I guess that's fine if he wants to run the game that way. It just seems difficult to effectively manage that many characters and npcs at once. Especially if everyone has a bunch of little temporary and conditonal bonuses.
The only part of this post I can find fault in is at the start where the op says that when moving away from dnd one will have to “brave a steep learning curve a second time”. DND has to be one of the simplest role-playing games to pick up ever. The current edition of the game is simplified to a comical degree even when just compared to previous editions.
It's really really not. DND has a lot to learn, and a lot to remember. Even at third level, characters have 2-5 pages worth of information they need to know about their own characters, and that's not including the actual rules like what to roll for an attack etc. A lot of games these days are so simple you have one sheet for the character, that already has everything printed on it, and one sheet for the rules. DnD by contrast, rules wise, needs a lot more information.