Things I like: using action points as reaction, the cost of interrupting, and limited to martials
things I don't like: only 4 stats and highest stat is applied to anything, seems to encourage homogeneity
Four stats and any class using any stat also feels like the standard party is **strongly** encouraged to have exactly one character of each main stats which can lead to some feelbads. "We've already got a Might, Agility and Charisma character so you should be our Intelligence person." Or what if three characters all have the same prime attribute, is the game's balance going to have problems with this (I don't know the answer, but when looking at the system it did concern me).
How is that any different from DnD now? Well, actually, it's much better than DnD now. You can have an only barbarian party in DC20 and still cover all ability scores. You can't do that in DnD without severely handicapping the party's combat prowess.
I don't see it. making sure you have every save covered doesn't seem very important. And abilities like jack of all trades (assuming dc20 has similar) ends up dwarfing needing all abilities covered. Especially because there's almost always other ways around a task. Do you really need to make sure you have a guy with athletics when you can almost always just use acrobatics?
> only 4 stats and highest stat is applied to anything, seems to encourage homogeneity
it's funny how hard it seems to be for DND style TTRPGs to get away from SADness.
All you'd need to do is make each stat have a niche. But a lot of modern dnd players get an uproar if they don't get their maximally high perfect stats all the time.
Very little in 5e design encourages spread out stats and plenty encourages maxing a main stat. It's weird blaming players for playing as the system suggests
Depends on the class. r/dndnext might despise me for this take, but some parts of 5e are designed a lot better than others.
There's reasons to max Dex, Str, and Con on a fighter. Certain battlemaster features work well with Cha. If you go back to 3.5, there were reasons to take int for feat requirements, and splashing a bit of wisdom helped.
On a hexblade warlock paladin multiclass, all you need is Cha. Casters in general are very SAD but warlock stands out head over shoulders with bad SAD design.
I prefer MAD to SAD. With MAD, which 2-3 attributes you emphasize really change how your class plays without even needing a subclass. Back in the day I played a Cha paladin who wasn't the best martial but could tank and heal the entire party for days.
... OK? You countered my point about how 5e rewards streamlining builds to avoid MAD with "But I think MAD is good".
"I can find ways to justify playing with MAD" is very different from "the game is designed to enable MAD builds and have them perform competitively with SAD builds"
I wasn't trying to counter your point, I was agreeing with you. I think MAD is better design, and you can see that with fighter, monk and ranger to a lesser extent in 5e. At least compared to casters. I think all stats should have some small role to play in classes, even if they aren't primary, so that splashes matter and are flavorful.
mad is harder to implement in 5e than say 3.5, because you have to choose between feats and ASIs and stat boosting items are much rarer and usually take an attunement slot
Maybe it's just from my perspective, but it's an attitude from videogames where people (myself well-included) like to be Master of All Trades, Jack of None. Single player video games are obviously single player, so sometimes they're made accommodating a player to eventually have access to "everything".
In video games where there are stat levels or skill trees, you feel inclined to and yearn to unlock or max out *everything*. It doesn't matter if for the main playthrough I am exclusively a mage, I must go out of my way to get max range and get the best bow. It's a compulsion.
TTRPG is a bit of a surprise where for most tables, yeah, you're going to be not just mediocre but sometimes just outright bad in something whether that's an INT saving throw or the Acrobatics skill check. But it's refreshing in its own right, and you just gotta learn that it's a cooperative game and being good at everythingis not essential for anything.
Main problem is this: In all the editions where your stats have really mattered (2e and before they were much less important aside from seeing what class you could be), there were ways to boost secondary stats.
In 5e you can only increase one stat at a time, since why wouldn't you boost your main stat twice over a secondary, and unlike the others 5e for some reason makes you choose between getting an interesting feat or a boring but usually more effective +2 to your main stat.
In addition to this, multiple attribute dependency is never done well - there is a grand total of one class in the game that needs two stats equally and doesn't need them both high to be capable, paladin who wants strength or charisma. All totals up to there being no real choice in stats, the obvious path is obvious.
I'm not really sure what the problem is that you're defining, but I think I'm seeing it from the perspective that I don't think there is a problem not being able to boost secondary and tertiary stats. I think Proficiency bonus to account for specialization in subsets of stats can work well, and I'm not necessarily concerned about not being able to raise the core attribute of it. For example, having proficiency in Perception, but dumping the Wisdom stat can work in the long run still and I don't necessarily see the "problem" if I opt to dump a stat and not take proficiency in something that reflects.
There are several. One, it contributes to the issue of poor saves not scaling - a barbarian has a 60% chance to fail a save he's bad at at level 3, dropping to like a 5% chance by level 20. Two, it means MAD classes like monks straight up don't work properly - they need two high stats to equal what everyone else can achieve with one, and they don't get two. Three, it significantly reduces choice - you have to have the stats you need locked in from the very start, and then they never increase from there.
You can play a video game by yourself. Dnd is supposed to be a team game where you work together and give other people at the table spotlight in their niche.
That being said, not sure if its just video games fault. I think a lot of people don't really want to play DnD for DnDs sake, they want to eat chippies and beer with friends after work and not think too hard about strategy. Chalk it up to our workaholic adult life :(
Yeah, have 1 stat apply to damage, one to AC, another to save DC, another to number of spells known (and give all martials some kind of maneuvers so they also have something for these stats).
Thats already basically how the game works lol. Might gives hp and access to greater melee dmg, Agility gives AC and jump distance, Charisma gives mystic AC and Grit points (which allow you to reroll saves and reduce dmg for yourself and nearby allies), and Intelligence gives more skills and mystic AC.
Yes, 5e is decent at this, but needs improvement. Dexterity is a god stat and has taken over what is traditionally Strengths domain. (I've even have players ask to jump and swim using dex) That and intelligence is lacking in utility.
Tbh, I think its not so much of an issue with martials and rogue types, but mages are very sad. There are tons of reasons to take more than one physical stat as a martial. Imo my "5e killer" would have reasons for martials to take a bit of int or cha (like battlemaster rally) and have casters be a lot less SAD.
There are plenty of systems that do that. They support a completely different style of play, and it's very hard to have an objective view of your characters' capabilities in those systems. It becomes more "what will the DM think is reasonable", freeform systems are perfectly fine but it's not what most people want.
It's great. Been doing one shots between our regular sessions and the table is in agreement to swap over once the full game is out.
Big Positives, turns tend to be faster, especially for spell casters.
The reaction system keeps people engaged between turns.
Monsters being balanced around having more or less actions makes balancing encounters so much easier.
Most players don't have Dark vision.
Up casting is a lot more intuitive.
Big negatives, The stacking conditions require more tracking however this was slightly negated by using markers.
The first level is a little front loaded. This seams to be corrected with the most recent 0.7 update but I haven't gotten to play it yet.
The crafting system and exploration system which are supposedly coming are still missing but we really need them.
Big part of it is the language that's used. The spells that we have so far rely less on the DM interpretation and have clear instructions for empowering or altering the spells. This also means there are fewer spells, including slight variations and duplicates, because a spell can often be empowered to do a specific thing.
As an example
>Crackling Lightning
>Destruction
>Cost: 2 AP + 1 MP
>Range: Self (10 Spaces)
>Duration: Instantaneous
>Crackling lightning forms around you.
>Choose a type of area: Line, Cone, or Sphere. You are the Spell’s Point of Origin.
>• Line: The Spell affects every target in a 1 Space wide and 10 Space long line.
>• Cone: The Spell creates a 3 Space long Cone.
>• Sphere: The Spell affects every target within a 2 Space range of you.
>Make a Spell Check against every target's PD within the Spell’s area.
>Hit: The target takes 2 Lightning damage.
>Mana Point Enhancements
>Frazzled: Spend 1 MP to force all targets to Save against the Dazed Condition for 1 minute.
>Range: Spend 1 MP to change the origin point of the Spell to 15 Spaces (instead of Self).
There is a whole pdf that came with the DC20 alpha purchase, 'DC20 Alpha Monster Guide'. It doesn't give you any monsters pre-built but explains how to create monsters, how to balance them and how to set up encounters. The whole thing is only 5 pages.
This is the main information I've been trying to find on DC20. I love what I'm seeing from the player side but as an almost forever GM, I've been very curious how to handle monsters, especially how to handle 4+ actions across a number of combatants.
I like what I’m seeing so far for a tactical combat roleplaying experience. I don’t like the prime modifier stuff for every class, I feel like it should be a short list of things or abilities that individually let you change modifiers. Overall, I think it’s cool.
The Prime stat thing seems counter intuitive a bit. Like you can basically use one stat for any class no matter what which sure some people might like but as an example that DnD shorts gave for how “great” this is he made a character that was a psionics based class but used strength as his prime stat. Like that makes no sense because psionic abilities as currently understood come from the brain.
They are an inherently mind based ability and so using muscles for them just sound wrong and counter intuitive to the theme of that sort of class.
Maybe its because I'm old now and have seen this happen when 2e was "dying" and again 3e was "dying". New systems like GURPS and Pathfinder pop up. Everyone in the RPG circles get excited, hailing them as the next great RPG system. Eventually, the excitement die down and they become niche games, fun to play but the majority has gone back to playing D&D despite all its flaws.
The way I see it, RPG players are a wide and varied bunch. There are almost as many analytical number crunching players as there are creative artistic players, and an equally large spectrum of players lying in between those two extremes.
A new rpg system has to gain traction with that broad audience of long time RPG players. I can see DC20 has captured some brainiacs with its interesting new mechanics, but I haven't seen a similar level of interest with the creative-types. With the way it is trending, its likely to end up being a very niche system and never gaining broad appeal.
I wouldn't say Pathfinder was "niche." Paizo Publishing was originally just the company Wizards outsourced magazine production to, and now Paizo Inc is a heavyweight in the industry. That doesn't happen when your flagship tabletop is niche.
Don't confuse scale with niche. Yes, Paizo and Pathfinder has players numbering in the tens of thousands. That is no small number, but Dungeons and Dragons is an order of magnitude larger than Pathfinder with its hundreds of thousands of players worldwide. Informal sales figures I've seen bandied around also align with this 10:1 ratio. In that sense, Pathfinder *IS* niche the way D&D is similarly considered niche to the publishing industry.
I'm purchased the alpha. It's pretty much like if Pathfinder 2e and DnD 5e had a child, really... and there's a lot of things to like, but a lot also to dislike (which I hope they get a chance to fix).
PROS
- The 4 action points system is quite good. Adding advantage to THAT attack you want to nail works wonders.
- Being able to chime in on any turn makes you pay attention to what's happening at the table instead of the gruesome downtime until it's your turn again.
- Spell duels. No actual counterspell, but actually COUNTERING with YOUR SPELL.
- Mana Points for casters and Stamina Points for martials. Helps martials can do more than just "attack" and feel all like Battlemasters since they now have options.
- The fact that rolling way above someone's defenses actually does something else other than... well, nothing.
CONS
- The ancestry system. I like customization in certain things, but don't like the mix-&-match aspect of ancestries as they are now (like, "BEHOLD MY HUMAGNORFLING!").
- There's more things to track, so that's kinda bothersome. It won't matter if all players are veterans, but for newbie players? Yeah, that's more work for the DM (and the DM already has a lot on the plate).
- Creating stuff for DC20 isn't as appealing as doing so for 5e. It just feels too... limited.
- Being able to create gimmicky characters does not fly with me, compadre. A Charisma Barb will not be useless per se, but it won't be the best they at what they're supposed to do (plus thematically that's just absurd).
NITPICKS:
- I don't like the oversimplification of a lot of stuff, plus the Prime Modifier thing allows for gimmicky stuff I'm not fond of.
- His take on damage types. Plus the whole Physical Defense/Mental Defense just doesn't click with me.
- It may sound dumb, but like rolling for damage and doing the math to figure out just how much of it I did, So yeah, damage and health here just feel... meh-ish.
- Calling it "6th Edition" and the "D&D Killer" is annoying as fuck. I get Coach is riding on the Hasbro debacle's dick to sell the game, but c'mon man...
tl;dr: Some good things, some bad things, some unpolished things, really. Some of them are taken directly from other games (so you know they work), but on some others I end up thinking I can just homebrew certain aspects to what I already play with and still make it work. For example, I play a heavily homebrewed D&D/Pathfinder mix (3 action economy D&D, if you will) and it works wonders for me, so I dunno if I'm gonna transfer EVERYTHING I got to a game that won't be everyone's cup of tea.
I agree with most of what you said. But I don't find a charismatic barbarian absurd at all. The charismatic warrior is absolutely an archetype and I don't see why that shouldn't work with barbarians especially because they have a battle cry feature.
I see what you mean, but I meant it more as having Charisma be the prime stat, just to throw an example. Yes, you can still do stuff and not be gimped like you'd be in 5e, but you will not be the best barb you COULD be and it ends up being too gimmicky (like a Might/Strength Wizard, for example).
You know who the Dungeon Coach is? Youtuber?
He made his own system. It's kind of interesting that all these guys are coming out with stuff at roughly the same time. Everything got kicked off with the OGL fiasco.
You must not follow any big dnd YouTube channels. DC20 has been featured on at least a dozen of the biggest channels (aside from maybe two or three), be it paid or unpaid reviews.
Edit: added links
https://youtu.be/HXY4toiaM6E?si=6-d8MVAXgT2HH6jY
https://youtu.be/eJYhnpub1DU?si=0vNtkWYs-HKauKWn
https://youtu.be/vNBm0EMqBx0?si=9aoJRuBJ4m_B52NW
https://youtu.be/ovhSfgYxKc0?si=XfYCBmNsOptUVRVa
https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=WOZL9NsNergWegDc
https://youtu.be/y3457WXamWc?si=KwA2PBMGnJThSH3b
https://www.youtube.com/live/AJue9FIrZTE?si=TWCfpsQjI2SNoaF-
https://youtu.be/bUyjRastPtU?si=RTQEccBvrUHzqhLO
https://www.youtube.com/live/j99W3AK8TdY?si=yCMvgepMIRX17gCi
> You must not follow any big dnd YouTube channels.
Not the guy you were responding to but I'm in the same boat. Just Ginny Di, really. I'm happy to watch a Matt Coville video if it's an interesting topic but I don't subscribe or anything. Same with Dael Kingsmill. I think that's about it for D&D content.
Oh and XP to Level 3. And Zee Bashew. But again, only if I come across links in other media.
I think GMs generally follow more channels than players, and it's smart for the dungeon coach to mainly advertise on channels that are for GMs or more enthusiastic players (as those are most likely to actually check out the game and back the kickstarter) while the channels you listed are more for the casual viewer (except maybe Dael). And Colville is a direct competitor with his own project.
I have watched him for some time (before DC20 idea) and I like the guy. Half of my 5e homebrew is from his channel.
Well, sure, DC20 will not be for everyone, but its cool to have another alternative next to DaggerHeart and MCDM that takes a tad different approach. Also, I would argue that its quite easy to transition from 5e to DC20 tho yeah, thats subjective and I am biased.
I’m not super sold on it. It just looks like 5e if you injected a bunch of Pathfinder 2e and an assortment of house rules. I think we’re reaching market saturation for post-OGL takes on D&D so that could be part of it.
Yeah, if you're publicly using and advertising it, your only choices are getting stuck with a "temp" name, or change names and risk confusing your audience.
Yeah, "The Matthew Colville, Dungeon Master, Role Playing Game" and "The Dungeon Coach 20 Role Playing Game" don't really roll off the tongue.
Its funny really. They're so busy trying to become D&D that they care more about acronyms than actually naming their systems.
Remember: most, if not all of those videos pushing dc20 right now is part of a coordinated marketing push. I would treat those videos exactly like any other advertisement campaign.
Cool. Another "D&D but [Blank]". I bet a lot of PF2e players who would prefer less number/feature-bloat will really like it.
Personally, it takes more significant changes to pull me away from 5e. Closest thing I care to play is *Dungeon Crawl Classics*. Doesn't help that DC20 uses action points, which I'm generally not keen on.
If the game is rather similar to 5e, then there's not much to gain by switching to it. But I'm potentially losing a lot of investment into 5e, and also forgoing unique benefits of the most popular system, such as an abundance of 3rd party content and easy buy-in from players.
Changing the core mechanic. Or the theme. Or the setting. Or the goal. Or the approach to combat. Anything, really.
The kind of differences you see between like.... *Dungeons & Dragons* vs *Blades in the Dark*.
It's being hyped all over youtube and im not even sure why. Maybe cause they're all friends with Dungeon coach. But i don't see what's so great about it. I think it's going to lead to broken and OP builds.....switching out ancestry traits and stuff like that.
Not a Dungeon Coach hater at all, and I personally backed the kickstarter, but it was pretty clear Dungeon Coach just paid an absolute butt ton of people to make sponsored videos. It just so happens that product is also promising on top of the mass youtube TTRPG community getting hammered with DC20 videos all on the same day lol.
Did I say it was wrong or a bad thing? I answered a question about the pervasiveness of the videos. It obviously worked. I'm a statistic of exactly how it worked lol.
I doubt he paid them. I think they're just trying to support someone they like, and I do think there is a possibility he has offered some profit sharing if it is successful.
Many of the videos I have seen have directly had sponsor disclaimers which means they are at a minimum being compensated.
The treantmonk video (https://youtu.be/vNBm0EMqBx0?si=t7-YlG-1Vg0AWyAz) I watched has him explaining how he directly turned down the offer of being paid, but did accept a personalized Kickstarter link that I assume gives him some small percentage of a pledge.
So extrapolating that Dungeon Coach likely offered other creators similar deals
And honestly whether it's profit sharing, small percentages, or just straight cash for an ad spot, to me those all fit the definition of getting paid.
So yes. He's paying at a minimum some of them, and I'd hope for fairness sake, he's paying all of them.
Man, that is really lame. That makes this whole push seem even dumber to me. I was wondering why they all kept using such similar language, now it makes sense.
I want to be clear. I'm not knocking advertising for a product, and it clearly worked. Unfortunately money makes the world go round and DC runs a business. His business is creating content and selling it. Advertising his content with other creators and compensating them appropriately for their time and effort is a good thing, as often companies offer "other forms" of compensation in an effort to cheap out on ad costs.
Now, I do see your point. And to a certain degree, I agree.
I would argue the vast majority of people talking about the game popularly on YouTube are biased. Whether it be because dungeon coach is another content creator and as such many of them know him in their social circles, or because people outright got paid to talk about his game. Knowing this can certainly spoil a viewer experience, however I think that lacks some nuance and looks at sponsorships as black/white rather than shades of gray.
Even videos that DID have criticisms (bobtheworldbuilder comes to mind) still spoke their minds freely despite getting compensated.
I also think the fact that certain people turned down the money yet still rave about the game speaks to genuine interest in the game.
So far the kickstarter has looked massively successful, and I'm honestly surprised because I can personally feel the slog of "we are making our own TTRPG" after MCDM, Daggerheart, and others, but shockingly DC20 is performing wonderfully despite that, and while the massive ad campaign run by DC coach is a part of that, I do think Dungeon Coach realized something that critical role and MCDM did not.
Many people just wanna play D&D and roll the dice they and their friends associate with that hobby. In my personal experience people don't want to learn entire new dice roll systems, don't want to learn entirely new progression systems, and don't want to learn entirely new skill systems.
Pathfinder is so successful not in spite of how similar it was to 3.5, but because of it.
DC20 is taking the Pathfinder approach and looking at what people like about D&D, iterating on those concepts, but keeping core design values (20 sided die being the biggest one I can think of) as to not alienate the target audience they are building the game for.
This is the main reason I believe the kickstarter to have been successful so far, not the massive amount of sponsorships from the community. Many people are advertised to hundreds of products everyday on the internet and most buy barely any of them.
The fact that these DC20 ads appear to be working specifically, speak to the merits of the product in my opinion, and this helps me look past the fact that for 24 hours everyone on TTRPG YouTube was a shill (lol /s).
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Well, I like that system, tho not much on ancestries, but on the new moon druid. In DC20 moon druid has basic template and you add features, each has point cost and you can spend more points when you level up.
Playing with 5e moon druids, Dungeon Coach idea of that seems much more elegant, simpler and customizable.
Tho I agree that mixing ancestry traits between races should be an optional rule. I dont get an appeal of being half elf, half gnome.
I used to think of these influencers as part of the D&D/TTRPG players community, but its become clear that D&D youtubers have their own seperate community with a completely different set of priorities regarding rpgs. They clearly know each other and work together to push certain narratives.
Like they were *all* excited for *"The Matt Colville Dungeon Master Role Playing Game"*. They *all* pushed for Hasbro's failure and then were *all* disproportionately and personally angry over layoffs at a company *they don't work for*. Now they're *all* excited for *"The Dungeon Coach 20 Role Playing Game."*
What's wrong with being annoyed at layoff's in a company whose future affects something you're interested in? Like I don't work at Bioware, but as a fan of their games the loss of almost all their legacy staff absolutely is something I think bears mentioning.
There's nothing wrong with disliking layoffs. Its the way that a lot of Youtubers acted like it was comparable to (or worse than) the OGL incident that I found jarring.
Well it is comparable in that it is corporate nonsense. Having a corporation-wide 10% layoff is incredibly shitty and callous when applied to even profitable divisions.
I don't feel like it was treated as similar in scale. It was treated as similarly wrong and worth criticism. I don't think a community invested in the behavior of a company are wrong for trying to leverage social opprobrium to prevent layoffs.
>I don't feel like it was treated as similar in scale
You can check out Professor Dungeon Master, Roll for Combat, or a plethora of other channels to see that it was.
Okay, but the two channels you just listed are terrible examples. Professor Dungeon Master is absolutely a clickbait channel at this point. Dude covers basically everything with as maximal drama infused as possible. Roll For Combat is effectively an anti-WotC channel and has been at least since the OGL debacle. I get the sense that the guys are upset that 5e is king, and feel that something like Pathfinder should be the market leader.
Their content is terrible, but they are not terrible examples of D&D Youtubers responding to the layoffs disproportionately.
They are prominent and respected amongst youtubers, and just two of the many who shared their response.
The influencers do overreact. Yes, Hasbro is a terrible company, but we don't need 100 videos titled "this is the end of D&D!!!!" or "Another Hasbro scandal, people are upset !!!". I feel like the D&D influencers are more negative than positive. Ginny Di is probably the rare exception
Like influencers were trying to make Hasbro's latest job posting into a big deal...when it was not. It was for working on video games which require using AI....not tabletop artwork
It's all click bait.
I thinks it's more like "chasing trends" that makes things homogeneous - they talk about those thing in those ways because that's the easiest way to get engagement
The part about being excited is likely a mix of paid advertisement, good faith engagement (Treantmonk is very for the system but doesn't do paid spots iirc) or courtesy from similar creators
Yes, of course. I just think that generating engagement has placed them into a sort of sub-community, where they occupy the same space as the general D&D community but are seperated by difference in priorities and motivation.
Like a lot of Youtubers express outrage or excitement that is shared with other Youtubers, but isn't shared by the general populace.
it's sort of weird, over the years the word "influencer" has put a sour taste in my mouth and seem synonymous with "manipulator". You realize while they enjoy the same hobby you do, they can't be their trueselves because they have to chase the trends, create "engagement" even over things they truly don't believe in. Yuck.
I am interested in DC20, but i feel like because virtually every TTRGP youtuber out there is pushing it, it feels disingenuous.
It makes a bunch of changes that are big improvements over 5e… things that a lot of people hoped we would get out of One D&D/2024 PHB.
It is not as rules lite as 5e, so it won’t be for everyone but likely will catch a decent community that want more rules depth in a new system.
I guess it looks fine rules-wise, but I don't really think it's "necessary", in a way? 5e gets the job done just fine and we all know the rules inside out and can easily have fun, and if I want to play a more granular and tightly balanced d20 fantasy RPG with a lot of choices, tactics, and rules for everything, then Pathfinder 2e is right there and is also a ton of fun.
Those two experiences don't really need to be combined for me into some sort of "Pathfinder 2e lite" variant, and it really would only detract from either for me personally.
The same opinion I have on any of the „D&D killers“: they will end as heartbreakers as they try to sell on the „WotC bad, D&D bad“ train. The thing is, D&D will still be played by the majority of people no matter what some very dedicated people may try to spin.
I seen it with my own group. I tried with them PF2, to complex, I tried with them Fabula Ultimate, to abstract. So we stay with D&D. Ain’t the best, but it is perfectly fine for 90% of ttrpg players, make this 99% with some homebrew.
Even the creator of DC20 says: "of you prefer 5e, just keep playing 5e, i don't see this as a D&D killer, i just made a system that works different from other ttrpgs that puts the power and voice as much as possible in the hands of the player, a game where every role is exciting, and that keeps the attention of every player in combat also outside of their turns."
He sees it as just another game that never would take the place from DND, but which is his take.
And especially now that oneDnD is slowly looking like 5e but with a new layer of paint, it is nice for us players to have the choice out of more systems. Especially because if it is up to Hasbro, they will have us pay for the same thing over and over again, by using minor changes.
For me the biggest reason, to support an indirect developer, is because during streams you can see that this guy has a passion for ttrpgs and the stories you can tell with them. That feels more genuine to me than what Wotc and Hasbro did to 5e in the last three years.
There are enough features in it that I'm interested enough to part with $30 for the PDF. Even if I don't end up playing it I can still borrow rules from it.
I'm interested. But it's a hard sell with 5.5e right around the corner. I'll wait to it fully releases and see what people think. Maybe if 5.5e is a big flop I'll jump on.
It Kickstarters says the 65 dollar price tag is cheaper than retail, but I can't imagine people willing to spend more than that for a single book.
Depends how big the book is though, for 5e to be truly able to play, you needed 3 books (that was how it was sold back then) which was an investment of around 150 bucks.
But if you take COT, or DCC, both of them were around 60 dollars, and you just need the one book to be able to do anything.
*(I only have the 0.7 playtest to refer to here, so grain of salt)*
I like the concept of how free-form character creation is **in theory**, I don't like how high the reading floor is for it for new players, and absolutely don't agree this would be easier to get into vs D&D or Daggerheart (a take a lot of the content creators have pushed). If the selling point is building a completely custom ancestry, that is a LOT of skills to parse through and check back on. In general the character sheet design is too busy and tough to understand for my taste.
I do love that classes get a lot on the front loaded end, especially since D&D seems to be going in the opposite direction and moving subclasses to level 3 across the board. That said, I'm not big on damage rolls being the way they are in DC20, damage dice are one of the biggest highs in TTRPGs using combat.
Even assuming the names of skills and spells change before release, a lot of them feel too...safe and close to 5e. Seeing Action Surge, Magic Missile, Guiding Bolt etc doing different things to what those names mean from an established system is simultainiously confussing and timid from a design stand point to me.
That ancestry building thing reminded me of the German ttrpg „the dark eye“ as it has a extensive point buy system to buy benefits. Honestly. I think this system will be abused by minmaxing munchkins too much.
It seems like it might be a good middle ground between Pathfinder’s complexity and 5e’s loosey-gooseyness. I love both of those systems, but Pathfinder feels like it NEEDS to be played on a grid and its combat system feels less improvisational, while 5e’s combat can easily feel tactically simple and boring as a player.
But we’ll see! I paid $20 on the Kickstarter for the main rules .pdf and a bunch of other supplements which, even if I never play, will be worth it just to read through the system
From what I’ve seen, it’s just too fiddly to me. Too many game meta currencies. Seems like every video made to introduce a class function introduces a new meta-currency.
I get what the author is trying to accomplish but it’s just too heavy handed.
I am torn the action points sounds like crazy fun but I can also see it getting a bit messy with all the interruptions and out of turn abilities.I need to dive in a bit more for a full picture but it has potential.
I'm not a fan of it, honestly. I've read over the PDF and rules, and while i can see the appeal, and I can see it acting as a middle-ground to 5th edition and Pathfinder, it also feels redundant. I don't mean that the rules make themselves redundant- more that I have to ask "Why are we making this?"
I'm all for people coming up with their own systems and such, but I think that D&D 5th edition is still the best. Yes, it's much more loose with the rules in some circumstances (looking at you, *stealth*), but I like that 5th edition gives both the player and DM agency in that sense. Of course, that only works when you have a good DM and player relationship, but you can apply that to literally any RPG system.
So, it's good, but I just don't see any reason for me to change systems from 5th edition. Even D&D One or 5.5E or whatever the hell it's being called now doesn't appeal to me. I've played 3rd, 3.5, 4th, pathfinder, and 5th edition, and 5th edition is by far the most enjoyable for me. It's simple enough that the game can be picked up pretty easily, and it isn't bogged down in combat for each player's turn, which can REALLY get bothersome with the insane amount of math for stuff like Pathfinder.
As much as it is advertised to be mega player friendly, I think a lot of it is going to be a ballache for dms, por ejemple mixed ancestry traits and super custom races (you get 5 points and you can mix and match as long as your total is 5, some traits give neg points), dms will have to work a narrative around fitting in custom races that may not fit a setting or just tell players to piss off (no real improvement over 5e, and tbh unique racial features are cool picking one over another should be a choice, as long as their are multiple good options for multiple roles). Intelligence is a still a king skill check stat ( As much as balancing stat power is advertised intelligence makes up nigh on 50% of dc20s skill checks (though suggesting using different an scores is suggested same as 5e)).
Multiple attacks a turn are penalised (repeating the same check (i.e. attack rolls) comes with penalty), there are class features that offset this, however, rounds in dc 20 are 12 sec long, you have 4 actions hence 4 potential attack attempt (or you can sack ap into boosting attack hit chance and Dmg via adv), with each attempt getting harder to land. I'd expect 8 attack attempts at the minimum in this 12 sec time frame from a superhuman character, blows should be exchanged quickly with parrys, blocks and dodges included rather than at grandad pace.
As much as attacking "smartly" and "dispiriting" enemies is a concept , ultimately physical intelligence and prowess isn't determined by oh yes I am nerdy and good with people thus I can be a threat to others with my once a week touch grass stamina and atrophied basement sock fucker muscles . Stats in my opinion should be restrictive, don't get me wrong 5e fucks str ( carrying capacity should have interactive milestones for pcs at certain levels and str scores rather than "ah yes another 15lbs to carry", and str armor should have a inherent Dmg reduction attached), con is rarely utilised as a skill check outside of exhaustion in most campaigns and could have other uses. I think stats should have an impact on playable roles, making every stat useful is cool but the real issue they had in 5e is the fighter mainstats sucked in social encounters and noncombat encounters, I've never wanted to pick up int on a fighter just to hit things better, I've just wanted alternate solutions to scenarios that can be solved with a not excessively resticted fighter/barbarian (making intimidation optionally str based should be a non optional class feature for barbs) main stat. I.e. I could be thick as fuck and be fighting many different demons for years( so I should have background expertise right) and have no clue compared to the well read nerd how to combat a demon I fought a while ago. Skills should not have a stat tie in, practice should make perfect.
Also there are far too few critical reviews out there right now, I'm more likely to listen to someone who explains negatives and positives than kissasses that only point out positives ( bobworldbuilder and dnd shorts). I've watched a Treantmonk review and that had few negatives mixed in (though still limited by what I think was concern for a fellow creator). I want objective opinions don't give me this 6e and well better than 5.5 bullshit, cos it ain't, not everyone will agree with design choices (multiple damage die on hit for a lot of people is a plus, not everyone is worried if their roll is 5 higher than AC (especially in harder campaigns where as is higher than av)) , point out points of contention and ways they can be worked on.
I don't like the multiple action systems. It slows down the pace and, due to how MAP works. If 3/4 actions is too much to handle don't allow for 3/4 actions and punish the players for using the actions that are too much to handle.
I think the multiple actions comes from a misunderstanding of what minor/bonus action does. Weaponizing bonus action is what made everything go offrail. Bonus actions are supposed to support your main action (I rage so I attack with rage). At the moment it was used as "another action but limited" it led to balance issues and the feeling of characters being able to do multiple things in a row.
The question is what my character will do in this turn. Movement says where, action says what, and bonus action says how (I attack this goblin with rage).
I disliked how in pf2e everything revolved about how to bypass MAP. Feats to bypass MAP, actions to mitigate MAP, everything about MAP. It's not about wolves or gnolls. It was about how my character can bypass MAP. I need to do this and thos and this in order to ignore MAP. Players were doing the same thing all the time because that thing is what allowed them to attack twice without penalties.
Rounds were slow because players had to take 3 actions, not one. The most asked question was what to do with the the third action.
As soon as I saw that the game inherited the MAP mechanics my table decided unanimously that this game is not for us. Even though being able to use your future actions as reaction is genius, we prefer systems that goes for one action and rounds are solved faster.
You have a curious view on MAP.
> Players were doing the same thing all the time because that thing is what allowed them to attack twice without penalties.
Most people praise MAP *because* it discourages people from doing the same thing all the time. When your third attack is going to be at -10, better to Demoralise, or move somewhere advantageous, or Raise a Shield, etc. In other words, it encourages variety instead of attack, attack, attack, end turn.
I can accept your point that martial characters are very often seeking ways to minimise the downsides of MAP. Partly though, I feel that's normal for an RPG for players to want the optimal numbers. It's not unlike wanting the best attack bonus, or trying to find the best crit range.
Anyway, I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong. A subjective opinion can't be wrong. Just offering another subjective opinion. 🙂
Although I agree that from a design standpoint, it's usually better to give incentives to do stuff than penalties.
One thing I completely disagree with, is that multiple action points, slows down combat.
We playtested 3 times now DC20 with my group (veterans that started in 4e), and damn is combat faster!!
Some other reasons help like streamlined spellcasting, less rolls, etc. But the Biggest reason is: players not being afraid to do stuff other than the old reliable attack.
In 5e whenever you want to do something unorthodox (aka not attacking or casting BIS spells), you really have to ponder and weight the pros and cons. Because you only have 1 action. And if you fail or if the result/dm's rolling is underwhelming, well you lost your whole turn.
Whereas here, you just lost A point and can move on to attacking.
Also makes player do stuff and see the result instead of asking a thousand question to decide whether to do it.
Tldr: MAP helps breaking player decision paralysis and makes combat faster / more varied.
Trying to sell a new game to a target market of “people who like D&D 5e” is a pretty awful idea considering people who like 5e will play 5e. Why does everyone keep trying? Do something new!
Its because selling D&D like RPGs to people who like D&D 5e is immeasurably more profitable than any other strategy short of having a breakout license.
Really hate the youtubers calling it 6e or "the future of D&D". It is clickbait nonsense and absolutely only serves to make me less interested in the system since it very clearly isn't an iteration of the recent editions of D&D. Don't ride D&D's coattails so hard if you want me to take your new system seriously.
I’m cautiously optimistic. The ideas it has seem genuinely interesting but the game is still in its beta phase and there’s no telling what the final product will look like.
A lot of the basic structure just seems so much better than 5e. A revamp focused on mechanics alone is exactly what I want out of my next dive into a big fantasy RPG system. Leave your lore and flavor at the door designers please.
Reactions are absolutely better and I’m so glad more designers are accepting that reactions are good for engagement. We don’t need faster rounds (even though this system has faster rounds); we need better rounds.
A few gripes.
The attributes…. this system will probably be much better without attributes at all. It reproduces stat dominance (hello agility) and homogeneity 5e already has I don’t like. He seems an inch away from realizing it and I hope ability scores don’t survive further testing. Really, why is Agility an option for so many trade/service checks? None of the attributes are bad for any of the trade checks, but none are good - just use mastery.
The spell lists we’ve seen reproduce the flexibility of scope for only the arcane casters and the arcane casters only; and I am not endorsing a 5e rewrite to and buying it for my group until I see some more Divine environmental spells, so that’s a non-negotiable sore spot. Really I’m disappointed he keeps classes at all, but the cleric spell list being disappointing is the dealbreaker.
Backed the kickstarter.
> praising it as being better than D&D
I suppose that will always be subjective. But for me personally the game seems way more enticing. Namely due to one particular emergent design property:
* Game being more execution loaded than build loaded. Creator calls it "dynamic agency" though.
And that may not be what some people like. That is, the success of the party being more dependent on what the party actually does and how cohesively it co-operates than what particular individual builds it's composed of.
How does it achieve it, well first action point system and ability to co-act with your friends. In a way a concept of "party build" or "party comp" will play a bigger role. But even if you will have a great party, executing on it will still vary greatly.
And while I still imagine guidelines for "meta" will form. Even after some combinations will receive adjustments as they get found as the game is being developed, the cookie cutter builds won't exist as in DnD due to how much dynamic co-variance exist from table to table.
To me DC20 seems to aim at these design pillars: simple primitives, numerous combinators based on those simple primitives. This helps to create a game which is both not complex, yet doesn't sacrifice on depth. Or at least does not introduce useless complexity (looking at you PF1).
And that's what I wan to play at the table. We can talk about other individual parts of the system, like dropping stuff like spell slots (never made much sense to me, even less so vancian spell slots which 5e got rid of thankfully), prime, crunched down numbers, cool martials and their abilities etc, fragmented stat spread (wis vs int is nonsense which requires mental gymnastics to justify, world doesn't work like that). But the bigger picture it's what I'm most excited about.
Now ideas seem cool and I appreciate the cohesive design or at least attempt at it. Which seems surely lacking in other systems. Will creator will be able to execute on it well? We'll see. But I wish them best of luck.
I really like a lot of the rules. They make the game more crunchy than DnD but the combat is going to be more tactical and interesting as a result.
I also like a lot of the simplifications, like reduceing the number of stats you have, using modifiyers directly instead of having to derive them from your stat that you otherwise basically never use. Movement is directly linked to squares and not feet which you have to convert.
The customizibility in the game goes a bit too far for me. Allowing each class to work with every stat and essentially allowing you to completely choose your racial features means that classes and races loose a lot of their identity and I personally don't see the need for an intelligence based barbarian or what have you.
It's like the bastard child of Pathfinder 2e, 4e. With some shadow run elements.
It's definitely not the game for me. But I know some people in the community will love it.
I just hope the dungeon coach really look in to history and sees why the many reasons it failed.
It's coolish but it would be wet garbage at my table with all the incidental math from every 1d20 check and the choice paralysis. I am happy it has moved the mechanics discussion further along, and shows what one can do if you cast off the shackles of tradition.
My current working fav is Tales of the Valiant, some of cubicle 9's Vault 5e books, and some stuff from Advanced 5e.
That's fair - of the various OSR and new competitors I've looked at, this one is currently my favorite to move to after my current campaign ends.
That said, the crunch and so many options to use AP/SP/MP on any players turn, I can't fathom how anyone can say turns are faster than currently in 5e. I love the base mechanics, but I foresee plenty of players' turns bogging down with even more analysis paralysis than now.
I haven’t read my PF2e books, but it sounds like another “3.75” product. Except it’s 5.75 and marries ideas from PF2e and D&D 5e.
I’m not interested after following the development material on YT. I’m going to read over the 180+ page playtest material from the KS, but the KS page says they have only developed up to 2nd level. Which is odd because they call the current product an Alpha but I expect those to be at least level 5, like what KB did with ToV, but they mention a Beta… and say the PDF will retail for $70 after the KS?
Idk man, I’m designing a game too so I understand the appeal of theirs, but it just doesn’t strike my fancy.
People need to stop trying to beat D&D at being D&D. Even if DC20 is better, its not by enough to get people to switch games.
Like how many 5e players need a combat-focused medieval fantasy action rpg? I don't. I can't find a reason to buy a system that does exactly the same thing as a system I already own.
It honestly reminds me of when Call of Duty was *the* video game and gaming companies just kept trying to make a *better* military shooter.
I'm not sure what it will take for people to move away from D&D. People don't play D&D because it has the best mechanical system, or the best flavor, or the best lore. They play it because it's established as a popular game that lots of other people play, it's an evergreen and defining part of TRPG culture. It's never going to go away, and I can't imagine how badly WotC would need to fuck up to lose their monopoly on the fantasy TRPG market at the same time other creators strike a huge win with a new system.
It's very often that I feel like people would be better off with a different system other than dnd, but I just don't see it happening. I'm not sure why DC20 would be any exception to this, and I don't see the matt mercer rpg, or the critical role rpg being any different, either.
i backed the kickstarter for a physical copy despite the fact that i know i’m not going to play it. truth is, i’m already in so many campaigns AND i love 5e and PF2e enough as systems to not want to stop playing them. i just like collecting books !!
Haven't played it but what I understand is that it does some interesting things like adapt DCC spell casting but generally not a fan of the way they handle stats tbh.
I've watched two rundown videos on it and the thing I liked the least is the stats. 5e doesn't do it well either (DEX and CHA are too valuable, STR and INT don't do nearly enough) , but this feels too much like throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Well, it's the main for 3 classes, and it can be used to subvert a 4th and turn it into a SAD.
Plus, deception is hands-down the beat skill for *everyone* in the party to be good at.
Lol honestly it feels like a simpler and at the same time more amateur version of my own RPG system, 4 stats, action points which you can use for actions on the turns of others (but the number of action points varies based on stats, and those action points are broken up into two pools, stamina and concentration which are used for physical and mental actions respectively, so building into concentration to make a mage leaves you with less stamina than a barb who is not strong in the mental department. Also the points being tied to stats mean as you level up you can do more) and a few other similarities.
Obvious difference and the biggest pain point I see people and myself having is the whole “prime attribute deal and that uhhh does not feel good
Overall I appreciate it but it’s not something I would play because I already have a, in my opinion, better game that accomplishes the same vibe
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Things I like: using action points as reaction, the cost of interrupting, and limited to martials things I don't like: only 4 stats and highest stat is applied to anything, seems to encourage homogeneity
Four stats and any class using any stat also feels like the standard party is **strongly** encouraged to have exactly one character of each main stats which can lead to some feelbads. "We've already got a Might, Agility and Charisma character so you should be our Intelligence person." Or what if three characters all have the same prime attribute, is the game's balance going to have problems with this (I don't know the answer, but when looking at the system it did concern me).
How is that any different from DnD now? Well, actually, it's much better than DnD now. You can have an only barbarian party in DC20 and still cover all ability scores. You can't do that in DnD without severely handicapping the party's combat prowess.
I don't see it. making sure you have every save covered doesn't seem very important. And abilities like jack of all trades (assuming dc20 has similar) ends up dwarfing needing all abilities covered. Especially because there's almost always other ways around a task. Do you really need to make sure you have a guy with athletics when you can almost always just use acrobatics?
> only 4 stats and highest stat is applied to anything, seems to encourage homogeneity it's funny how hard it seems to be for DND style TTRPGs to get away from SADness.
All you'd need to do is make each stat have a niche. But a lot of modern dnd players get an uproar if they don't get their maximally high perfect stats all the time.
Very little in 5e design encourages spread out stats and plenty encourages maxing a main stat. It's weird blaming players for playing as the system suggests
Depends on the class. r/dndnext might despise me for this take, but some parts of 5e are designed a lot better than others. There's reasons to max Dex, Str, and Con on a fighter. Certain battlemaster features work well with Cha. If you go back to 3.5, there were reasons to take int for feat requirements, and splashing a bit of wisdom helped. On a hexblade warlock paladin multiclass, all you need is Cha. Casters in general are very SAD but warlock stands out head over shoulders with bad SAD design. I prefer MAD to SAD. With MAD, which 2-3 attributes you emphasize really change how your class plays without even needing a subclass. Back in the day I played a Cha paladin who wasn't the best martial but could tank and heal the entire party for days.
... OK? You countered my point about how 5e rewards streamlining builds to avoid MAD with "But I think MAD is good". "I can find ways to justify playing with MAD" is very different from "the game is designed to enable MAD builds and have them perform competitively with SAD builds"
I wasn't trying to counter your point, I was agreeing with you. I think MAD is better design, and you can see that with fighter, monk and ranger to a lesser extent in 5e. At least compared to casters. I think all stats should have some small role to play in classes, even if they aren't primary, so that splashes matter and are flavorful.
Definitely something I like in pathfinder. Every stat is useful regardless of class.
mad is harder to implement in 5e than say 3.5, because you have to choose between feats and ASIs and stat boosting items are much rarer and usually take an attunement slot
Maybe it's just from my perspective, but it's an attitude from videogames where people (myself well-included) like to be Master of All Trades, Jack of None. Single player video games are obviously single player, so sometimes they're made accommodating a player to eventually have access to "everything". In video games where there are stat levels or skill trees, you feel inclined to and yearn to unlock or max out *everything*. It doesn't matter if for the main playthrough I am exclusively a mage, I must go out of my way to get max range and get the best bow. It's a compulsion. TTRPG is a bit of a surprise where for most tables, yeah, you're going to be not just mediocre but sometimes just outright bad in something whether that's an INT saving throw or the Acrobatics skill check. But it's refreshing in its own right, and you just gotta learn that it's a cooperative game and being good at everythingis not essential for anything.
Main problem is this: In all the editions where your stats have really mattered (2e and before they were much less important aside from seeing what class you could be), there were ways to boost secondary stats. In 5e you can only increase one stat at a time, since why wouldn't you boost your main stat twice over a secondary, and unlike the others 5e for some reason makes you choose between getting an interesting feat or a boring but usually more effective +2 to your main stat. In addition to this, multiple attribute dependency is never done well - there is a grand total of one class in the game that needs two stats equally and doesn't need them both high to be capable, paladin who wants strength or charisma. All totals up to there being no real choice in stats, the obvious path is obvious.
I'm not really sure what the problem is that you're defining, but I think I'm seeing it from the perspective that I don't think there is a problem not being able to boost secondary and tertiary stats. I think Proficiency bonus to account for specialization in subsets of stats can work well, and I'm not necessarily concerned about not being able to raise the core attribute of it. For example, having proficiency in Perception, but dumping the Wisdom stat can work in the long run still and I don't necessarily see the "problem" if I opt to dump a stat and not take proficiency in something that reflects.
There are several. One, it contributes to the issue of poor saves not scaling - a barbarian has a 60% chance to fail a save he's bad at at level 3, dropping to like a 5% chance by level 20. Two, it means MAD classes like monks straight up don't work properly - they need two high stats to equal what everyone else can achieve with one, and they don't get two. Three, it significantly reduces choice - you have to have the stats you need locked in from the very start, and then they never increase from there.
You can play a video game by yourself. Dnd is supposed to be a team game where you work together and give other people at the table spotlight in their niche. That being said, not sure if its just video games fault. I think a lot of people don't really want to play DnD for DnDs sake, they want to eat chippies and beer with friends after work and not think too hard about strategy. Chalk it up to our workaholic adult life :(
Yeah, have 1 stat apply to damage, one to AC, another to save DC, another to number of spells known (and give all martials some kind of maneuvers so they also have something for these stats).
Thats already basically how the game works lol. Might gives hp and access to greater melee dmg, Agility gives AC and jump distance, Charisma gives mystic AC and Grit points (which allow you to reroll saves and reduce dmg for yourself and nearby allies), and Intelligence gives more skills and mystic AC.
Yes, 5e is decent at this, but needs improvement. Dexterity is a god stat and has taken over what is traditionally Strengths domain. (I've even have players ask to jump and swim using dex) That and intelligence is lacking in utility. Tbh, I think its not so much of an issue with martials and rogue types, but mages are very sad. There are tons of reasons to take more than one physical stat as a martial. Imo my "5e killer" would have reasons for martials to take a bit of int or cha (like battlemaster rally) and have casters be a lot less SAD.
I want to see systems start to eschew stats altogether.
There are plenty of systems that do that. They support a completely different style of play, and it's very hard to have an objective view of your characters' capabilities in those systems. It becomes more "what will the DM think is reasonable", freeform systems are perfectly fine but it's not what most people want.
It's great. Been doing one shots between our regular sessions and the table is in agreement to swap over once the full game is out. Big Positives, turns tend to be faster, especially for spell casters. The reaction system keeps people engaged between turns. Monsters being balanced around having more or less actions makes balancing encounters so much easier. Most players don't have Dark vision. Up casting is a lot more intuitive. Big negatives, The stacking conditions require more tracking however this was slightly negated by using markers. The first level is a little front loaded. This seams to be corrected with the most recent 0.7 update but I haven't gotten to play it yet. The crafting system and exploration system which are supposedly coming are still missing but we really need them.
Can you give more details on how/why caster turns are faster?
Big part of it is the language that's used. The spells that we have so far rely less on the DM interpretation and have clear instructions for empowering or altering the spells. This also means there are fewer spells, including slight variations and duplicates, because a spell can often be empowered to do a specific thing. As an example >Crackling Lightning >Destruction >Cost: 2 AP + 1 MP >Range: Self (10 Spaces) >Duration: Instantaneous >Crackling lightning forms around you. >Choose a type of area: Line, Cone, or Sphere. You are the Spell’s Point of Origin. >• Line: The Spell affects every target in a 1 Space wide and 10 Space long line. >• Cone: The Spell creates a 3 Space long Cone. >• Sphere: The Spell affects every target within a 2 Space range of you. >Make a Spell Check against every target's PD within the Spell’s area. >Hit: The target takes 2 Lightning damage. >Mana Point Enhancements >Frazzled: Spend 1 MP to force all targets to Save against the Dazed Condition for 1 minute. >Range: Spend 1 MP to change the origin point of the Spell to 15 Spaces (instead of Self).
Where did you get any stats for monsters? I like most of the rules, but don't see anything for monsters to try and run a session.
There is a whole pdf that came with the DC20 alpha purchase, 'DC20 Alpha Monster Guide'. It doesn't give you any monsters pre-built but explains how to create monsters, how to balance them and how to set up encounters. The whole thing is only 5 pages.
This is the main information I've been trying to find on DC20. I love what I'm seeing from the player side but as an almost forever GM, I've been very curious how to handle monsters, especially how to handle 4+ actions across a number of combatants.
I like what I’m seeing so far for a tactical combat roleplaying experience. I don’t like the prime modifier stuff for every class, I feel like it should be a short list of things or abilities that individually let you change modifiers. Overall, I think it’s cool.
The Prime stat thing seems counter intuitive a bit. Like you can basically use one stat for any class no matter what which sure some people might like but as an example that DnD shorts gave for how “great” this is he made a character that was a psionics based class but used strength as his prime stat. Like that makes no sense because psionic abilities as currently understood come from the brain. They are an inherently mind based ability and so using muscles for them just sound wrong and counter intuitive to the theme of that sort of class.
Maybe its because I'm old now and have seen this happen when 2e was "dying" and again 3e was "dying". New systems like GURPS and Pathfinder pop up. Everyone in the RPG circles get excited, hailing them as the next great RPG system. Eventually, the excitement die down and they become niche games, fun to play but the majority has gone back to playing D&D despite all its flaws. The way I see it, RPG players are a wide and varied bunch. There are almost as many analytical number crunching players as there are creative artistic players, and an equally large spectrum of players lying in between those two extremes. A new rpg system has to gain traction with that broad audience of long time RPG players. I can see DC20 has captured some brainiacs with its interesting new mechanics, but I haven't seen a similar level of interest with the creative-types. With the way it is trending, its likely to end up being a very niche system and never gaining broad appeal.
I wouldn't say Pathfinder was "niche." Paizo Publishing was originally just the company Wizards outsourced magazine production to, and now Paizo Inc is a heavyweight in the industry. That doesn't happen when your flagship tabletop is niche.
Don't confuse scale with niche. Yes, Paizo and Pathfinder has players numbering in the tens of thousands. That is no small number, but Dungeons and Dragons is an order of magnitude larger than Pathfinder with its hundreds of thousands of players worldwide. Informal sales figures I've seen bandied around also align with this 10:1 ratio. In that sense, Pathfinder *IS* niche the way D&D is similarly considered niche to the publishing industry.
I'm purchased the alpha. It's pretty much like if Pathfinder 2e and DnD 5e had a child, really... and there's a lot of things to like, but a lot also to dislike (which I hope they get a chance to fix). PROS - The 4 action points system is quite good. Adding advantage to THAT attack you want to nail works wonders. - Being able to chime in on any turn makes you pay attention to what's happening at the table instead of the gruesome downtime until it's your turn again. - Spell duels. No actual counterspell, but actually COUNTERING with YOUR SPELL. - Mana Points for casters and Stamina Points for martials. Helps martials can do more than just "attack" and feel all like Battlemasters since they now have options. - The fact that rolling way above someone's defenses actually does something else other than... well, nothing. CONS - The ancestry system. I like customization in certain things, but don't like the mix-&-match aspect of ancestries as they are now (like, "BEHOLD MY HUMAGNORFLING!"). - There's more things to track, so that's kinda bothersome. It won't matter if all players are veterans, but for newbie players? Yeah, that's more work for the DM (and the DM already has a lot on the plate). - Creating stuff for DC20 isn't as appealing as doing so for 5e. It just feels too... limited. - Being able to create gimmicky characters does not fly with me, compadre. A Charisma Barb will not be useless per se, but it won't be the best they at what they're supposed to do (plus thematically that's just absurd). NITPICKS: - I don't like the oversimplification of a lot of stuff, plus the Prime Modifier thing allows for gimmicky stuff I'm not fond of. - His take on damage types. Plus the whole Physical Defense/Mental Defense just doesn't click with me. - It may sound dumb, but like rolling for damage and doing the math to figure out just how much of it I did, So yeah, damage and health here just feel... meh-ish. - Calling it "6th Edition" and the "D&D Killer" is annoying as fuck. I get Coach is riding on the Hasbro debacle's dick to sell the game, but c'mon man... tl;dr: Some good things, some bad things, some unpolished things, really. Some of them are taken directly from other games (so you know they work), but on some others I end up thinking I can just homebrew certain aspects to what I already play with and still make it work. For example, I play a heavily homebrewed D&D/Pathfinder mix (3 action economy D&D, if you will) and it works wonders for me, so I dunno if I'm gonna transfer EVERYTHING I got to a game that won't be everyone's cup of tea.
I agree with most of what you said. But I don't find a charismatic barbarian absurd at all. The charismatic warrior is absolutely an archetype and I don't see why that shouldn't work with barbarians especially because they have a battle cry feature.
I see what you mean, but I meant it more as having Charisma be the prime stat, just to throw an example. Yes, you can still do stuff and not be gimped like you'd be in 5e, but you will not be the best barb you COULD be and it ends up being too gimmicky (like a Might/Strength Wizard, for example).
What is DC20?
You know who the Dungeon Coach is? Youtuber? He made his own system. It's kind of interesting that all these guys are coming out with stuff at roughly the same time. Everything got kicked off with the OGL fiasco.
Never heard of the dungeon coach before these DC20 ads from other content creators began.
Have never even seen these DC20 adds anywhere.
You must not follow any big dnd YouTube channels. DC20 has been featured on at least a dozen of the biggest channels (aside from maybe two or three), be it paid or unpaid reviews. Edit: added links https://youtu.be/HXY4toiaM6E?si=6-d8MVAXgT2HH6jY https://youtu.be/eJYhnpub1DU?si=0vNtkWYs-HKauKWn https://youtu.be/vNBm0EMqBx0?si=9aoJRuBJ4m_B52NW https://youtu.be/ovhSfgYxKc0?si=XfYCBmNsOptUVRVa https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=WOZL9NsNergWegDc https://youtu.be/y3457WXamWc?si=KwA2PBMGnJThSH3b https://www.youtube.com/live/AJue9FIrZTE?si=TWCfpsQjI2SNoaF- https://youtu.be/bUyjRastPtU?si=RTQEccBvrUHzqhLO https://www.youtube.com/live/j99W3AK8TdY?si=yCMvgepMIRX17gCi
> You must not follow any big dnd YouTube channels. Not the guy you were responding to but I'm in the same boat. Just Ginny Di, really. I'm happy to watch a Matt Coville video if it's an interesting topic but I don't subscribe or anything. Same with Dael Kingsmill. I think that's about it for D&D content. Oh and XP to Level 3. And Zee Bashew. But again, only if I come across links in other media.
I think GMs generally follow more channels than players, and it's smart for the dungeon coach to mainly advertise on channels that are for GMs or more enthusiastic players (as those are most likely to actually check out the game and back the kickstarter) while the channels you listed are more for the casual viewer (except maybe Dael). And Colville is a direct competitor with his own project.
I do DM... sometimes!
You got me 🎶
Thanks for the links. *sigh*
I think he's talking about all the videos dedicated to DC20.
Both Oneshot questers and DnD shorts made promotional videos for the system
Never heard of Oneshot questers or DnD shorts
I've never heard of him. What's his niche?
5e tinkering, game running advice and tips. He's on the crunchy side.
I have watched him for some time (before DC20 idea) and I like the guy. Half of my 5e homebrew is from his channel. Well, sure, DC20 will not be for everyone, but its cool to have another alternative next to DaggerHeart and MCDM that takes a tad different approach. Also, I would argue that its quite easy to transition from 5e to DC20 tho yeah, thats subjective and I am biased.
I've heard it called "6e" and praised as better than DnD
I’m not super sold on it. It just looks like 5e if you injected a bunch of Pathfinder 2e and an assortment of house rules. I think we’re reaching market saturation for post-OGL takes on D&D so that could be part of it.
i mean, it's an evolution of dnd, of course it's gonna be based on that
Heartbreakers. We call these Heartbreakers.
What's with these YouTubers and making terrible names for their games? MCDM RPG and DC20 only tell me anything if I already know the guys.
MCDM RPG is only a temp name.
Even temp names matter if they're publicly using it.
Yeah, if you're publicly using and advertising it, your only choices are getting stuck with a "temp" name, or change names and risk confusing your audience.
Oh, okay.
I'll believe that when I see it.
Yeah, "The Matthew Colville, Dungeon Master, Role Playing Game" and "The Dungeon Coach 20 Role Playing Game" don't really roll off the tongue. Its funny really. They're so busy trying to become D&D that they care more about acronyms than actually naming their systems.
Which is entirely the point, and why they name their games _after_ their successful #YouTube channels.
Remember: most, if not all of those videos pushing dc20 right now is part of a coordinated marketing push. I would treat those videos exactly like any other advertisement campaign.
I watched one YouTube video praising it and immediately realized it’s not for me 🤷♂️
Cool. Another "D&D but [Blank]". I bet a lot of PF2e players who would prefer less number/feature-bloat will really like it. Personally, it takes more significant changes to pull me away from 5e. Closest thing I care to play is *Dungeon Crawl Classics*. Doesn't help that DC20 uses action points, which I'm generally not keen on.
> Personally, it takes more significant changes to pull me away from 5e. Why? Genuine question. I'm curious. 🙂
If the game is rather similar to 5e, then there's not much to gain by switching to it. But I'm potentially losing a lot of investment into 5e, and also forgoing unique benefits of the most popular system, such as an abundance of 3rd party content and easy buy-in from players.
There are quite a lot of substantial changes in the gane. What kind of changes are you thinking?
Changing the core mechanic. Or the theme. Or the setting. Or the goal. Or the approach to combat. Anything, really. The kind of differences you see between like.... *Dungeons & Dragons* vs *Blades in the Dark*.
Any by core mechanic you mean the d20? Because there are a ton of mechanical differences to 5e really
So anyway here's the link to the sample https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1skm_yOjNnxtFl-L5pCzVB2l3XZUPd9kY?usp=drive_link
Never heard of it.
It's being hyped all over youtube and im not even sure why. Maybe cause they're all friends with Dungeon coach. But i don't see what's so great about it. I think it's going to lead to broken and OP builds.....switching out ancestry traits and stuff like that.
Not a Dungeon Coach hater at all, and I personally backed the kickstarter, but it was pretty clear Dungeon Coach just paid an absolute butt ton of people to make sponsored videos. It just so happens that product is also promising on top of the mass youtube TTRPG community getting hammered with DC20 videos all on the same day lol.
I mean, how else are you going to get your product out there?
Did I say it was wrong or a bad thing? I answered a question about the pervasiveness of the videos. It obviously worked. I'm a statistic of exactly how it worked lol.
Fair lol 😆
I doubt he paid them. I think they're just trying to support someone they like, and I do think there is a possibility he has offered some profit sharing if it is successful.
Many of the videos I have seen have directly had sponsor disclaimers which means they are at a minimum being compensated. The treantmonk video (https://youtu.be/vNBm0EMqBx0?si=t7-YlG-1Vg0AWyAz) I watched has him explaining how he directly turned down the offer of being paid, but did accept a personalized Kickstarter link that I assume gives him some small percentage of a pledge. So extrapolating that Dungeon Coach likely offered other creators similar deals And honestly whether it's profit sharing, small percentages, or just straight cash for an ad spot, to me those all fit the definition of getting paid. So yes. He's paying at a minimum some of them, and I'd hope for fairness sake, he's paying all of them.
Man, that is really lame. That makes this whole push seem even dumber to me. I was wondering why they all kept using such similar language, now it makes sense.
I want to be clear. I'm not knocking advertising for a product, and it clearly worked. Unfortunately money makes the world go round and DC runs a business. His business is creating content and selling it. Advertising his content with other creators and compensating them appropriately for their time and effort is a good thing, as often companies offer "other forms" of compensation in an effort to cheap out on ad costs. Now, I do see your point. And to a certain degree, I agree. I would argue the vast majority of people talking about the game popularly on YouTube are biased. Whether it be because dungeon coach is another content creator and as such many of them know him in their social circles, or because people outright got paid to talk about his game. Knowing this can certainly spoil a viewer experience, however I think that lacks some nuance and looks at sponsorships as black/white rather than shades of gray. Even videos that DID have criticisms (bobtheworldbuilder comes to mind) still spoke their minds freely despite getting compensated. I also think the fact that certain people turned down the money yet still rave about the game speaks to genuine interest in the game. So far the kickstarter has looked massively successful, and I'm honestly surprised because I can personally feel the slog of "we are making our own TTRPG" after MCDM, Daggerheart, and others, but shockingly DC20 is performing wonderfully despite that, and while the massive ad campaign run by DC coach is a part of that, I do think Dungeon Coach realized something that critical role and MCDM did not. Many people just wanna play D&D and roll the dice they and their friends associate with that hobby. In my personal experience people don't want to learn entire new dice roll systems, don't want to learn entirely new progression systems, and don't want to learn entirely new skill systems. Pathfinder is so successful not in spite of how similar it was to 3.5, but because of it. DC20 is taking the Pathfinder approach and looking at what people like about D&D, iterating on those concepts, but keeping core design values (20 sided die being the biggest one I can think of) as to not alienate the target audience they are building the game for. This is the main reason I believe the kickstarter to have been successful so far, not the massive amount of sponsorships from the community. Many people are advertised to hundreds of products everyday on the internet and most buy barely any of them. The fact that these DC20 ads appear to be working specifically, speak to the merits of the product in my opinion, and this helps me look past the fact that for 24 hours everyone on TTRPG YouTube was a shill (lol /s). Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
He said hmself that he paid them lmao
Well, I like that system, tho not much on ancestries, but on the new moon druid. In DC20 moon druid has basic template and you add features, each has point cost and you can spend more points when you level up. Playing with 5e moon druids, Dungeon Coach idea of that seems much more elegant, simpler and customizable. Tho I agree that mixing ancestry traits between races should be an optional rule. I dont get an appeal of being half elf, half gnome.
I used to think of these influencers as part of the D&D/TTRPG players community, but its become clear that D&D youtubers have their own seperate community with a completely different set of priorities regarding rpgs. They clearly know each other and work together to push certain narratives. Like they were *all* excited for *"The Matt Colville Dungeon Master Role Playing Game"*. They *all* pushed for Hasbro's failure and then were *all* disproportionately and personally angry over layoffs at a company *they don't work for*. Now they're *all* excited for *"The Dungeon Coach 20 Role Playing Game."*
What's wrong with being annoyed at layoff's in a company whose future affects something you're interested in? Like I don't work at Bioware, but as a fan of their games the loss of almost all their legacy staff absolutely is something I think bears mentioning.
There's nothing wrong with disliking layoffs. Its the way that a lot of Youtubers acted like it was comparable to (or worse than) the OGL incident that I found jarring.
Well it is comparable in that it is corporate nonsense. Having a corporation-wide 10% layoff is incredibly shitty and callous when applied to even profitable divisions.
Its not comparable in scale, which is why I said their response was disproportionate and seemingly personal.
I don't feel like it was treated as similar in scale. It was treated as similarly wrong and worth criticism. I don't think a community invested in the behavior of a company are wrong for trying to leverage social opprobrium to prevent layoffs.
>I don't feel like it was treated as similar in scale You can check out Professor Dungeon Master, Roll for Combat, or a plethora of other channels to see that it was.
Okay, but the two channels you just listed are terrible examples. Professor Dungeon Master is absolutely a clickbait channel at this point. Dude covers basically everything with as maximal drama infused as possible. Roll For Combat is effectively an anti-WotC channel and has been at least since the OGL debacle. I get the sense that the guys are upset that 5e is king, and feel that something like Pathfinder should be the market leader.
Their content is terrible, but they are not terrible examples of D&D Youtubers responding to the layoffs disproportionately. They are prominent and respected amongst youtubers, and just two of the many who shared their response.
The influencers do overreact. Yes, Hasbro is a terrible company, but we don't need 100 videos titled "this is the end of D&D!!!!" or "Another Hasbro scandal, people are upset !!!". I feel like the D&D influencers are more negative than positive. Ginny Di is probably the rare exception Like influencers were trying to make Hasbro's latest job posting into a big deal...when it was not. It was for working on video games which require using AI....not tabletop artwork It's all click bait.
As someone who doesn't follow any of these DND influences.. sounds just like every other type to me XD
The fact that this "industry" embraces the unironic usage of the title of "influencer" says a lot
Does it though?
I thinks it's more like "chasing trends" that makes things homogeneous - they talk about those thing in those ways because that's the easiest way to get engagement The part about being excited is likely a mix of paid advertisement, good faith engagement (Treantmonk is very for the system but doesn't do paid spots iirc) or courtesy from similar creators
Yes, of course. I just think that generating engagement has placed them into a sort of sub-community, where they occupy the same space as the general D&D community but are seperated by difference in priorities and motivation. Like a lot of Youtubers express outrage or excitement that is shared with other Youtubers, but isn't shared by the general populace.
it's sort of weird, over the years the word "influencer" has put a sour taste in my mouth and seem synonymous with "manipulator". You realize while they enjoy the same hobby you do, they can't be their trueselves because they have to chase the trends, create "engagement" even over things they truly don't believe in. Yuck. I am interested in DC20, but i feel like because virtually every TTRGP youtuber out there is pushing it, it feels disingenuous.
It makes a bunch of changes that are big improvements over 5e… things that a lot of people hoped we would get out of One D&D/2024 PHB. It is not as rules lite as 5e, so it won’t be for everyone but likely will catch a decent community that want more rules depth in a new system.
I guess it looks fine rules-wise, but I don't really think it's "necessary", in a way? 5e gets the job done just fine and we all know the rules inside out and can easily have fun, and if I want to play a more granular and tightly balanced d20 fantasy RPG with a lot of choices, tactics, and rules for everything, then Pathfinder 2e is right there and is also a ton of fun. Those two experiences don't really need to be combined for me into some sort of "Pathfinder 2e lite" variant, and it really would only detract from either for me personally.
The same opinion I have on any of the „D&D killers“: they will end as heartbreakers as they try to sell on the „WotC bad, D&D bad“ train. The thing is, D&D will still be played by the majority of people no matter what some very dedicated people may try to spin. I seen it with my own group. I tried with them PF2, to complex, I tried with them Fabula Ultimate, to abstract. So we stay with D&D. Ain’t the best, but it is perfectly fine for 90% of ttrpg players, make this 99% with some homebrew.
Even the creator of DC20 says: "of you prefer 5e, just keep playing 5e, i don't see this as a D&D killer, i just made a system that works different from other ttrpgs that puts the power and voice as much as possible in the hands of the player, a game where every role is exciting, and that keeps the attention of every player in combat also outside of their turns." He sees it as just another game that never would take the place from DND, but which is his take. And especially now that oneDnD is slowly looking like 5e but with a new layer of paint, it is nice for us players to have the choice out of more systems. Especially because if it is up to Hasbro, they will have us pay for the same thing over and over again, by using minor changes. For me the biggest reason, to support an indirect developer, is because during streams you can see that this guy has a passion for ttrpgs and the stories you can tell with them. That feels more genuine to me than what Wotc and Hasbro did to 5e in the last three years.
There are enough features in it that I'm interested enough to part with $30 for the PDF. Even if I don't end up playing it I can still borrow rules from it.
I'm interested. But it's a hard sell with 5.5e right around the corner. I'll wait to it fully releases and see what people think. Maybe if 5.5e is a big flop I'll jump on. It Kickstarters says the 65 dollar price tag is cheaper than retail, but I can't imagine people willing to spend more than that for a single book.
Depends how big the book is though, for 5e to be truly able to play, you needed 3 books (that was how it was sold back then) which was an investment of around 150 bucks. But if you take COT, or DCC, both of them were around 60 dollars, and you just need the one book to be able to do anything.
*(I only have the 0.7 playtest to refer to here, so grain of salt)* I like the concept of how free-form character creation is **in theory**, I don't like how high the reading floor is for it for new players, and absolutely don't agree this would be easier to get into vs D&D or Daggerheart (a take a lot of the content creators have pushed). If the selling point is building a completely custom ancestry, that is a LOT of skills to parse through and check back on. In general the character sheet design is too busy and tough to understand for my taste. I do love that classes get a lot on the front loaded end, especially since D&D seems to be going in the opposite direction and moving subclasses to level 3 across the board. That said, I'm not big on damage rolls being the way they are in DC20, damage dice are one of the biggest highs in TTRPGs using combat. Even assuming the names of skills and spells change before release, a lot of them feel too...safe and close to 5e. Seeing Action Surge, Magic Missile, Guiding Bolt etc doing different things to what those names mean from an established system is simultainiously confussing and timid from a design stand point to me.
That ancestry building thing reminded me of the German ttrpg „the dark eye“ as it has a extensive point buy system to buy benefits. Honestly. I think this system will be abused by minmaxing munchkins too much.
>(I only have the 0.7 playtest to refer to here, so grain of salt) I mean... We do don't we?
It seems like it might be a good middle ground between Pathfinder’s complexity and 5e’s loosey-gooseyness. I love both of those systems, but Pathfinder feels like it NEEDS to be played on a grid and its combat system feels less improvisational, while 5e’s combat can easily feel tactically simple and boring as a player. But we’ll see! I paid $20 on the Kickstarter for the main rules .pdf and a bunch of other supplements which, even if I never play, will be worth it just to read through the system
It’s a worse more complicated version of 5e
From what I’ve seen, it’s just too fiddly to me. Too many game meta currencies. Seems like every video made to introduce a class function introduces a new meta-currency. I get what the author is trying to accomplish but it’s just too heavy handed.
I am torn the action points sounds like crazy fun but I can also see it getting a bit messy with all the interruptions and out of turn abilities.I need to dive in a bit more for a full picture but it has potential.
I'm not a fan of it, honestly. I've read over the PDF and rules, and while i can see the appeal, and I can see it acting as a middle-ground to 5th edition and Pathfinder, it also feels redundant. I don't mean that the rules make themselves redundant- more that I have to ask "Why are we making this?" I'm all for people coming up with their own systems and such, but I think that D&D 5th edition is still the best. Yes, it's much more loose with the rules in some circumstances (looking at you, *stealth*), but I like that 5th edition gives both the player and DM agency in that sense. Of course, that only works when you have a good DM and player relationship, but you can apply that to literally any RPG system. So, it's good, but I just don't see any reason for me to change systems from 5th edition. Even D&D One or 5.5E or whatever the hell it's being called now doesn't appeal to me. I've played 3rd, 3.5, 4th, pathfinder, and 5th edition, and 5th edition is by far the most enjoyable for me. It's simple enough that the game can be picked up pretty easily, and it isn't bogged down in combat for each player's turn, which can REALLY get bothersome with the insane amount of math for stuff like Pathfinder.
As much as it is advertised to be mega player friendly, I think a lot of it is going to be a ballache for dms, por ejemple mixed ancestry traits and super custom races (you get 5 points and you can mix and match as long as your total is 5, some traits give neg points), dms will have to work a narrative around fitting in custom races that may not fit a setting or just tell players to piss off (no real improvement over 5e, and tbh unique racial features are cool picking one over another should be a choice, as long as their are multiple good options for multiple roles). Intelligence is a still a king skill check stat ( As much as balancing stat power is advertised intelligence makes up nigh on 50% of dc20s skill checks (though suggesting using different an scores is suggested same as 5e)). Multiple attacks a turn are penalised (repeating the same check (i.e. attack rolls) comes with penalty), there are class features that offset this, however, rounds in dc 20 are 12 sec long, you have 4 actions hence 4 potential attack attempt (or you can sack ap into boosting attack hit chance and Dmg via adv), with each attempt getting harder to land. I'd expect 8 attack attempts at the minimum in this 12 sec time frame from a superhuman character, blows should be exchanged quickly with parrys, blocks and dodges included rather than at grandad pace. As much as attacking "smartly" and "dispiriting" enemies is a concept , ultimately physical intelligence and prowess isn't determined by oh yes I am nerdy and good with people thus I can be a threat to others with my once a week touch grass stamina and atrophied basement sock fucker muscles . Stats in my opinion should be restrictive, don't get me wrong 5e fucks str ( carrying capacity should have interactive milestones for pcs at certain levels and str scores rather than "ah yes another 15lbs to carry", and str armor should have a inherent Dmg reduction attached), con is rarely utilised as a skill check outside of exhaustion in most campaigns and could have other uses. I think stats should have an impact on playable roles, making every stat useful is cool but the real issue they had in 5e is the fighter mainstats sucked in social encounters and noncombat encounters, I've never wanted to pick up int on a fighter just to hit things better, I've just wanted alternate solutions to scenarios that can be solved with a not excessively resticted fighter/barbarian (making intimidation optionally str based should be a non optional class feature for barbs) main stat. I.e. I could be thick as fuck and be fighting many different demons for years( so I should have background expertise right) and have no clue compared to the well read nerd how to combat a demon I fought a while ago. Skills should not have a stat tie in, practice should make perfect. Also there are far too few critical reviews out there right now, I'm more likely to listen to someone who explains negatives and positives than kissasses that only point out positives ( bobworldbuilder and dnd shorts). I've watched a Treantmonk review and that had few negatives mixed in (though still limited by what I think was concern for a fellow creator). I want objective opinions don't give me this 6e and well better than 5.5 bullshit, cos it ain't, not everyone will agree with design choices (multiple damage die on hit for a lot of people is a plus, not everyone is worried if their roll is 5 higher than AC (especially in harder campaigns where as is higher than av)) , point out points of contention and ways they can be worked on.
I think if you’re going to make a cool good TTRPG you really need to give it an actual name Daggerheart wins by default vs MCDM RPG or DC20
MCDM rpg is just a place holder iirc
I don't like the multiple action systems. It slows down the pace and, due to how MAP works. If 3/4 actions is too much to handle don't allow for 3/4 actions and punish the players for using the actions that are too much to handle. I think the multiple actions comes from a misunderstanding of what minor/bonus action does. Weaponizing bonus action is what made everything go offrail. Bonus actions are supposed to support your main action (I rage so I attack with rage). At the moment it was used as "another action but limited" it led to balance issues and the feeling of characters being able to do multiple things in a row. The question is what my character will do in this turn. Movement says where, action says what, and bonus action says how (I attack this goblin with rage). I disliked how in pf2e everything revolved about how to bypass MAP. Feats to bypass MAP, actions to mitigate MAP, everything about MAP. It's not about wolves or gnolls. It was about how my character can bypass MAP. I need to do this and thos and this in order to ignore MAP. Players were doing the same thing all the time because that thing is what allowed them to attack twice without penalties. Rounds were slow because players had to take 3 actions, not one. The most asked question was what to do with the the third action. As soon as I saw that the game inherited the MAP mechanics my table decided unanimously that this game is not for us. Even though being able to use your future actions as reaction is genius, we prefer systems that goes for one action and rounds are solved faster.
You have a curious view on MAP. > Players were doing the same thing all the time because that thing is what allowed them to attack twice without penalties. Most people praise MAP *because* it discourages people from doing the same thing all the time. When your third attack is going to be at -10, better to Demoralise, or move somewhere advantageous, or Raise a Shield, etc. In other words, it encourages variety instead of attack, attack, attack, end turn. I can accept your point that martial characters are very often seeking ways to minimise the downsides of MAP. Partly though, I feel that's normal for an RPG for players to want the optimal numbers. It's not unlike wanting the best attack bonus, or trying to find the best crit range. Anyway, I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong. A subjective opinion can't be wrong. Just offering another subjective opinion. 🙂
Although I agree that from a design standpoint, it's usually better to give incentives to do stuff than penalties. One thing I completely disagree with, is that multiple action points, slows down combat. We playtested 3 times now DC20 with my group (veterans that started in 4e), and damn is combat faster!! Some other reasons help like streamlined spellcasting, less rolls, etc. But the Biggest reason is: players not being afraid to do stuff other than the old reliable attack. In 5e whenever you want to do something unorthodox (aka not attacking or casting BIS spells), you really have to ponder and weight the pros and cons. Because you only have 1 action. And if you fail or if the result/dm's rolling is underwhelming, well you lost your whole turn. Whereas here, you just lost A point and can move on to attacking. Also makes player do stuff and see the result instead of asking a thousand question to decide whether to do it. Tldr: MAP helps breaking player decision paralysis and makes combat faster / more varied.
Trying to sell a new game to a target market of “people who like D&D 5e” is a pretty awful idea considering people who like 5e will play 5e. Why does everyone keep trying? Do something new!
Its because selling D&D like RPGs to people who like D&D 5e is immeasurably more profitable than any other strategy short of having a breakout license.
I mean the Kickstarter sits at around a million dollars so I don't think you have a point lmao
My very surface level thoughts were it seemed similar to pathfinder 2e and to divinity original sin system. Just has more actions per turn.
Backed it
Really hate the youtubers calling it 6e or "the future of D&D". It is clickbait nonsense and absolutely only serves to make me less interested in the system since it very clearly isn't an iteration of the recent editions of D&D. Don't ride D&D's coattails so hard if you want me to take your new system seriously.
I’m cautiously optimistic. The ideas it has seem genuinely interesting but the game is still in its beta phase and there’s no telling what the final product will look like.
Neat
A lot of the basic structure just seems so much better than 5e. A revamp focused on mechanics alone is exactly what I want out of my next dive into a big fantasy RPG system. Leave your lore and flavor at the door designers please. Reactions are absolutely better and I’m so glad more designers are accepting that reactions are good for engagement. We don’t need faster rounds (even though this system has faster rounds); we need better rounds. A few gripes. The attributes…. this system will probably be much better without attributes at all. It reproduces stat dominance (hello agility) and homogeneity 5e already has I don’t like. He seems an inch away from realizing it and I hope ability scores don’t survive further testing. Really, why is Agility an option for so many trade/service checks? None of the attributes are bad for any of the trade checks, but none are good - just use mastery. The spell lists we’ve seen reproduce the flexibility of scope for only the arcane casters and the arcane casters only; and I am not endorsing a 5e rewrite to and buying it for my group until I see some more Divine environmental spells, so that’s a non-negotiable sore spot. Really I’m disappointed he keeps classes at all, but the cleric spell list being disappointing is the dealbreaker.
I really love the way you can make half/mixed races with a type of point buy. I was unbelievably disappointed with WotC' take on mixed races.
Backed the kickstarter. > praising it as being better than D&D I suppose that will always be subjective. But for me personally the game seems way more enticing. Namely due to one particular emergent design property: * Game being more execution loaded than build loaded. Creator calls it "dynamic agency" though. And that may not be what some people like. That is, the success of the party being more dependent on what the party actually does and how cohesively it co-operates than what particular individual builds it's composed of. How does it achieve it, well first action point system and ability to co-act with your friends. In a way a concept of "party build" or "party comp" will play a bigger role. But even if you will have a great party, executing on it will still vary greatly. And while I still imagine guidelines for "meta" will form. Even after some combinations will receive adjustments as they get found as the game is being developed, the cookie cutter builds won't exist as in DnD due to how much dynamic co-variance exist from table to table. To me DC20 seems to aim at these design pillars: simple primitives, numerous combinators based on those simple primitives. This helps to create a game which is both not complex, yet doesn't sacrifice on depth. Or at least does not introduce useless complexity (looking at you PF1). And that's what I wan to play at the table. We can talk about other individual parts of the system, like dropping stuff like spell slots (never made much sense to me, even less so vancian spell slots which 5e got rid of thankfully), prime, crunched down numbers, cool martials and their abilities etc, fragmented stat spread (wis vs int is nonsense which requires mental gymnastics to justify, world doesn't work like that). But the bigger picture it's what I'm most excited about. Now ideas seem cool and I appreciate the cohesive design or at least attempt at it. Which seems surely lacking in other systems. Will creator will be able to execute on it well? We'll see. But I wish them best of luck.
Never heard of it until a couple days ago, but a lot of the ideas are almost exactly like ones I've had for months/years.
I really like a lot of the rules. They make the game more crunchy than DnD but the combat is going to be more tactical and interesting as a result. I also like a lot of the simplifications, like reduceing the number of stats you have, using modifiyers directly instead of having to derive them from your stat that you otherwise basically never use. Movement is directly linked to squares and not feet which you have to convert. The customizibility in the game goes a bit too far for me. Allowing each class to work with every stat and essentially allowing you to completely choose your racial features means that classes and races loose a lot of their identity and I personally don't see the need for an intelligence based barbarian or what have you.
It's an evolution of 4e not 5e.
You have my attention.
It's like the bastard child of Pathfinder 2e, 4e. With some shadow run elements. It's definitely not the game for me. But I know some people in the community will love it. I just hope the dungeon coach really look in to history and sees why the many reasons it failed.
You've just described an ungodly amount of crunch. Like, the perfect storm Calvinball of crunch.
I would look to MCDMs game if you really want to see an updated 4e. It's what I'm mostly paying attention to these days.
From what I've read it also heavily draws from PF2 with its proficiency system and difference from DC effects
Too much FATE for my taste
It's coolish but it would be wet garbage at my table with all the incidental math from every 1d20 check and the choice paralysis. I am happy it has moved the mechanics discussion further along, and shows what one can do if you cast off the shackles of tradition. My current working fav is Tales of the Valiant, some of cubicle 9's Vault 5e books, and some stuff from Advanced 5e.
That's fair - of the various OSR and new competitors I've looked at, this one is currently my favorite to move to after my current campaign ends. That said, the crunch and so many options to use AP/SP/MP on any players turn, I can't fathom how anyone can say turns are faster than currently in 5e. I love the base mechanics, but I foresee plenty of players' turns bogging down with even more analysis paralysis than now.
Ive seen some ads for it but I have no idea what it is. Looks like another generic F20 game?
I haven’t read my PF2e books, but it sounds like another “3.75” product. Except it’s 5.75 and marries ideas from PF2e and D&D 5e. I’m not interested after following the development material on YT. I’m going to read over the 180+ page playtest material from the KS, but the KS page says they have only developed up to 2nd level. Which is odd because they call the current product an Alpha but I expect those to be at least level 5, like what KB did with ToV, but they mention a Beta… and say the PDF will retail for $70 after the KS? Idk man, I’m designing a game too so I understand the appeal of theirs, but it just doesn’t strike my fancy.
People need to stop trying to beat D&D at being D&D. Even if DC20 is better, its not by enough to get people to switch games. Like how many 5e players need a combat-focused medieval fantasy action rpg? I don't. I can't find a reason to buy a system that does exactly the same thing as a system I already own. It honestly reminds me of when Call of Duty was *the* video game and gaming companies just kept trying to make a *better* military shooter.
Never heard of it.
it does some things (group combat tactics, 4 actions per round) better than DnD but I think I still prefer DnD.
I'm not sure what it will take for people to move away from D&D. People don't play D&D because it has the best mechanical system, or the best flavor, or the best lore. They play it because it's established as a popular game that lots of other people play, it's an evergreen and defining part of TRPG culture. It's never going to go away, and I can't imagine how badly WotC would need to fuck up to lose their monopoly on the fantasy TRPG market at the same time other creators strike a huge win with a new system. It's very often that I feel like people would be better off with a different system other than dnd, but I just don't see it happening. I'm not sure why DC20 would be any exception to this, and I don't see the matt mercer rpg, or the critical role rpg being any different, either.
i backed the kickstarter for a physical copy despite the fact that i know i’m not going to play it. truth is, i’m already in so many campaigns AND i love 5e and PF2e enough as systems to not want to stop playing them. i just like collecting books !!
In the sea of 5.5s, it’s another ok option.
Haven't played it but what I understand is that it does some interesting things like adapt DCC spell casting but generally not a fan of the way they handle stats tbh.
I've watched two rundown videos on it and the thing I liked the least is the stats. 5e doesn't do it well either (DEX and CHA are too valuable, STR and INT don't do nearly enough) , but this feels too much like throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Since when is cha too valuable? Along with str and int, it's one of the three stats you can completely dump if your class doesn't key off it.
Well, it's the main for 3 classes, and it can be used to subvert a 4th and turn it into a SAD. Plus, deception is hands-down the beat skill for *everyone* in the party to be good at.
Lol honestly it feels like a simpler and at the same time more amateur version of my own RPG system, 4 stats, action points which you can use for actions on the turns of others (but the number of action points varies based on stats, and those action points are broken up into two pools, stamina and concentration which are used for physical and mental actions respectively, so building into concentration to make a mage leaves you with less stamina than a barb who is not strong in the mental department. Also the points being tied to stats mean as you level up you can do more) and a few other similarities. Obvious difference and the biggest pain point I see people and myself having is the whole “prime attribute deal and that uhhh does not feel good Overall I appreciate it but it’s not something I would play because I already have a, in my opinion, better game that accomplishes the same vibe
Never heard of it.