Glömmerska
Certified Blood Ritualist
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2021
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- 140
Different games, different players, different ways of having fun. Gameplay decisions driven by realism, greed, or optimization. Premises skipped or abandoned, unusual ideas adopted. There are lots of reasons to play TTRPG's, and even more to play some systems over others.
I've struggled with finding players outside of D&D 5e for a while, but broke out by playing Mythras about 2 years ago. The system instantly clicked for me, and eventually clacked for my regular group too, after their initial skepticism. I wanted to explore WHY exactly that happened by comparing how Mythras and D&D drive gameplay decisions through their systems. This is not meant as an indictment or denigration of either system, just what I've seen in my groups through the years.
Let's observe gameplay drivers of D&D. I do not mean to say these are primarily what drives these systems as a whole, rather, what is most optimal or encouraged by its mechanics. What rewards you, in the system?
Obtaining more HP, combat abilities, and spells for blasting monsters means that even if you leveled up from helping the duke remove a curse on his heir, you've improved at combat. Even if it comes from other sources, ultimately, all actions cause you to foremost become better at violence. Skills improve too, but they will always be packaged with learning how to swing your sword faster too.
Of course, you can just homebrew the system! Break its knees and twist its bones around until it whimpers. Let the players start a bakery, invest in the cow trading market, and pay taxes. No matter how many surgeries you perform though, that frankenbeast will still want to delve some dungeons.
Historically, the way D&D has attempted to sew this frankenbeast up is to allow certain actions be only available through features or feats. This can work well if it suits the genre fiction: only allowing players who take Craft Staff make such magic staves feels interesting and impactful. A problem arises in the later editions, when some concepts are only available through a feature or feat, a button granting permission to do a specific task.
For example, the Chef feat allows you to do make special snacks and improve resting healing. By introducing this feat though, it implies that the only characters who can get a mechanical benefit from cooking must have this feat. Similarly, due to the existence of Imposter, only level 13 Rogues can be good enough mimics or actors. Hereafter, I will call this concept the Mundane Constraint.
Of course, there is also the early "skill" system in AD&D/2e that restricted things like Listening and Climbing Walls to the Thief only, but later supplements make those options more broadly applicable to other classes
We are used to saying that constraint breeds creativity. Limited tools or resources forces you to come up with novel solutions to problems. However, there is a problem with gating those solutions, especially if the players are drawing from real experience, behind mechanical barriers ("I can't clean this animal because I don't have this feat? I do this all the time when I hunt, it's super easy!").
The Mundane Constraint subtly shifts the available play space from "whatever we can think of" to "what buttons can we push on our character sheet". If the only hammers in your bag are Attack More and Cast Big Spell, you'll start every problem solving session by looking for nails. This firmly keeps the focus on what the system wants: violence. And it's no surprise! That's where most of the rules are, it's where most of the interesting mechanical interactions happen. Framing auxiliary buttons around it is natural.
Let's now look at the gameplay drivers for optimization in Mythras, what is encouraged most by its mechanics.
Mundane Constraint is actually stricter in Mythras than in the later editions of D&D. If you don't have Literacy, you can't even attempt the check, full stop. This is reminiscent of Trained Only skills in D&D, but the difference being that my players find it far easier to abstract it into Mythras. If you were never taught to fish with a rod, you can't just pick one up and expect a catch. Even if you personally know a lot about it, your character doesn't.
Gronk doesn't know how to read, and certainly can't navigate the Bureaucracy of the city's crime laws, but he feels good when his Survival and Craft(Leatherworking) skills are able to be used when staking out an enemy encampment.
Sarlas can not just read, but write! An exceptional Literacy and Deceit actually allows them to intercept, and re-write the battle plans headed to the enemy front...
A lack of access to skills more faithfully fulfills the idea of constraint as creativity, as they have limited options. If there is some wild solution they come up with ("Let's dam the river to dry out their water supply!") that requires a new skill (Engineering), then the learning and execution of that skill is an adventure in itself that tells us a lot about that character's expertise and life experience.
These are just some general observations I've had, but I wanted some outside input from you folks to see if you've had similar ideas or experiences!
I've struggled with finding players outside of D&D 5e for a while, but broke out by playing Mythras about 2 years ago. The system instantly clicked for me, and eventually clacked for my regular group too, after their initial skepticism. I wanted to explore WHY exactly that happened by comparing how Mythras and D&D drive gameplay decisions through their systems. This is not meant as an indictment or denigration of either system, just what I've seen in my groups through the years.
D&D Gameplay Drivers
Let's observe gameplay drivers of D&D. I do not mean to say these are primarily what drives these systems as a whole, rather, what is most optimal or encouraged by its mechanics. What rewards you, in the system?
- The core premise of the early editions was dungeon delving. This is what all of the main books supported: strange monsters, deadly dungeons and grimy environs. XP as gold made greed the motivating factor. To be greedy was to play the game optimally, as those players would accumulate more levels, magic items, and power. Stats are inferior to strategy.
- 3.x games similarly encourage greed. To keep on track for the expected wealth-by-level, you'd need a certain amount of wealth. To do otherwise makes encounter planning as a DM difficult. XP from death also encourages violence. Though it is oft disparaged, the murderhobo is the most optimal way to play unless the DM takes special precautions to discourage that behavior.
- 4e introduces carefully crafted systems for skills and combat abilities, which grow on their own from levels obtained from violence. Abilities encourage violence for its own sake, as that is where the core meat of the mechanics lie. Greed is still present, but expected wealth is more tightly baked into the system, with explicit callouts in DMG to include lavish treasure hoards.
- 5e, with XP from violence, largely avoids greed, as magic items are not expected nor necessary for progression (aside from certain monster resistances).
Obtaining more HP, combat abilities, and spells for blasting monsters means that even if you leveled up from helping the duke remove a curse on his heir, you've improved at combat. Even if it comes from other sources, ultimately, all actions cause you to foremost become better at violence. Skills improve too, but they will always be packaged with learning how to swing your sword faster too.
Buttons, Feats, and the Mundane Constraint
Of course, you can just homebrew the system! Break its knees and twist its bones around until it whimpers. Let the players start a bakery, invest in the cow trading market, and pay taxes. No matter how many surgeries you perform though, that frankenbeast will still want to delve some dungeons.
Historically, the way D&D has attempted to sew this frankenbeast up is to allow certain actions be only available through features or feats. This can work well if it suits the genre fiction: only allowing players who take Craft Staff make such magic staves feels interesting and impactful. A problem arises in the later editions, when some concepts are only available through a feature or feat, a button granting permission to do a specific task.
For example, the Chef feat allows you to do make special snacks and improve resting healing. By introducing this feat though, it implies that the only characters who can get a mechanical benefit from cooking must have this feat. Similarly, due to the existence of Imposter, only level 13 Rogues can be good enough mimics or actors. Hereafter, I will call this concept the Mundane Constraint.
Of course, there is also the early "skill" system in AD&D/2e that restricted things like Listening and Climbing Walls to the Thief only, but later supplements make those options more broadly applicable to other classes
We are used to saying that constraint breeds creativity. Limited tools or resources forces you to come up with novel solutions to problems. However, there is a problem with gating those solutions, especially if the players are drawing from real experience, behind mechanical barriers ("I can't clean this animal because I don't have this feat? I do this all the time when I hunt, it's super easy!").
The Mundane Constraint subtly shifts the available play space from "whatever we can think of" to "what buttons can we push on our character sheet". If the only hammers in your bag are Attack More and Cast Big Spell, you'll start every problem solving session by looking for nails. This firmly keeps the focus on what the system wants: violence. And it's no surprise! That's where most of the rules are, it's where most of the interesting mechanical interactions happen. Framing auxiliary buttons around it is natural.
Mythras Gameplay Drivers
Let's now look at the gameplay drivers for optimization in Mythras, what is encouraged most by its mechanics.
- In order to maximize XP rolls, you need a high CHA and to stay around settlements, or, if you have a low CHA, you need to actively avoid them. There is a focus on communities as a driving force for how your character behaves.
- To be powerful in combat, you'll need a high STR, SIZ for damage modifier, and 3 action points, so a high DEX and INT. But high numbers here means less XP or luck points, which are also important. Since your stat distribution doesn't change after character creation (outside rare circumstances), you are forced to interact with the skills system more. What skills you do or don't know define your character. Training through communities allows you to advance your skills the fastest.
- A lot of fun rules are around the combat. It is fierce, fast and dangerous. Violence is fun! However, foes, particularly humanoids, will rarely fight to the death, making parley or de-escalation a viable option. Neither the players nor the bandits want to risk their limbs over a petty dispute. This means violence isn't always optimal. It's more of an emergent, urgent problem that needs to be addressed or handled carefully, rather than an expectation that is required to increase in power (you'll get XP rolls regardless).
- To gain big bonuses to any skill, you can invoke your Passions. This means aligning your character or plot driven goals with your Passion is optimal since you'll succeed on tasks more. This also ties to the communities built around cults, which are the trainers of not just skills, but often the creators of Passions through Oaths.
Mythras' Mundane Constraint
Mundane Constraint is actually stricter in Mythras than in the later editions of D&D. If you don't have Literacy, you can't even attempt the check, full stop. This is reminiscent of Trained Only skills in D&D, but the difference being that my players find it far easier to abstract it into Mythras. If you were never taught to fish with a rod, you can't just pick one up and expect a catch. Even if you personally know a lot about it, your character doesn't.
Gronk doesn't know how to read, and certainly can't navigate the Bureaucracy of the city's crime laws, but he feels good when his Survival and Craft(Leatherworking) skills are able to be used when staking out an enemy encampment.
Sarlas can not just read, but write! An exceptional Literacy and Deceit actually allows them to intercept, and re-write the battle plans headed to the enemy front...
A lack of access to skills more faithfully fulfills the idea of constraint as creativity, as they have limited options. If there is some wild solution they come up with ("Let's dam the river to dry out their water supply!") that requires a new skill (Engineering), then the learning and execution of that skill is an adventure in itself that tells us a lot about that character's expertise and life experience.
These are just some general observations I've had, but I wanted some outside input from you folks to see if you've had similar ideas or experiences!