How would you compare or rate D&D's mechanics to other tabletop systems?

Guess how I know you're a blind fantard who'll defend this shit to the death, way past the point of rationality?

Two words, kiddo: investment bias.

Checkmate.

Exactly. A millions splatbooks on '''''different''''' generic fantasy settings, new spells, new classes, lewd shit, and whatever else is going does not equate to DnD being some kind of perfect omnisystem that can run anything.

If we're expanding this to D20 in general, then let's all laugh at D20 Modern.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that underneath all your posturing, your reasons for liking DnD over the others will turn out to be entirely subjective.

> It was indeed a boardgame for the better part of the game's life cycle

Absolutely untrue. D&D was a departure from wargames. It's like saying an airplane is a bicycle because the first one was made in a bike shop and from bike parts. Even the very first games went far beyond just adventuring into dungeons.

And, that "specific purpose" was pretty damn broad, which is evident by the sheer range of all the various subsystems of early D&D and now the more generally applicable approach of recent editions. The "specific" purpose of D&D was basically "run any kind of fantasy game", and it's got all the supplements, subsystems, and adventures to prove that point.

I think that one reason people coming from other games tend to see D&D as being "board game" like is because unlike many other games, combat in D&D is actually fun and not a game of "mother-may-I".

Want some genuinely awful combat? Try something diceless like Amber Diceless, or feel the awkwardness of a Fate battle. It's like some Gaia-tier shit.

D&D got super-popular because it has an obvious "default session" (Go to the dungeon, get treasure) which can be built up into more by the players or the GM. All of the rules dumped on top of that concept aren't particularly important. The game's popularity peaked in the 80s and has been in long-term decline since then, although an aging playerbase has more disposable income to throw at it.

>your reasons for liking DnD over the others will turn out to be entirely subjective
how in the shit could it not be

Cute opinion. Too bad the majority of roleplayers don't share it.

>Too bad the majority of roleplayers don't share it.
I guess.

I'm gonna say your reasons for not liking DnD over the others will turn out to be entirely subjective.

I just hope you're not going to be dumb enough to try and argue like your personal opinions are objective. Please, don't be that dumb.

>combat in D&D is actually fun
Yep, saying "I full attack" every round sure is fun.

But more than that, combat-oriented DnD campaigns suck. Coming from a wargame background, this is how they feel to me: it's like playing an endless series of demo games for a skirmish wargame system. It's like when you go to a gaming store, or an expo, or a con, and a demo agent there says something like "have you ever considered playing Infinity?" before setting up the trial game. You get a team of badasses to stomp all over his generic mooks, which is intentional because it is meant to advertize the game. Dungeon crawls are like a dozen of those games in a row, games where you nearly always win without losses, and with maybe a slightly harder fight at the end. If I want a combat game fix them skirmish wargames do this so much better, because the other guy is going all out to beat you. DMs in a PnP rarely do this because a) they RP the bad guys and b) a TPK is something they want to avoid, even to the point of fudging dice behind the screen. I find this increadibly unsatisfying and while I don't fundamentally hate combat in a PnP, I see it as a means to an end and not the end itself.

The majority of roleplayers who use Roll20: a grid-tool.

Do you know how many games dont use grids or models?

>Twilight is good literature
>the Kardashians are superb role models
Popular opinion =/= truth, and you must be braindead, desperate, or both to even try to invoke it.

Cute opinions. Seems like you just suck at the game and would rather blame the system than yourself.

What's that I hear? The majority of roleplayers have a great old time with the system? It's like a distant sound of cheering come from beyond the horizon.
>ahhhhh ahhhhhhh

Oh, if only you weren't such a whiny bitch.

I never do, I simply have little time for those who pretend that theirs are.

Now is when you pretend that you meant them as opinions all along.

0/10, pathethic.

Popular opinion is that Twilight sucks and the Kardashians are a train wreck that a lot of idiots watch. Neither make up the majority of all purchases or viewers like good ol D&D.

Might want to try again with your analogy, because D&D's dominating popularity (don't forget it always sweeping just about every single design award every time an edition is published) puts it on a much higher level than simply things that you don't like that somehow ended up getting popular.

>fantard
>kiddo
>checkmate
I can't believe I'm replying to this shitpost

user, Fifty Shades of Grey is the most popular book series.

>Popular opinion is that Twilight sucks and the Kardashians are a train wreck
I GUESS THAT'S WHY THEY'RE SO POPULAR

Fuckin' moron.

You're replying because you're mad. You're failing to argue with it because you know it's true. You're looking like a fool in this thread because you are one.

>combat-oriented DnD campaigns suck.
Pretty much. It's a shame that Tomb of Horrors didn't shake them out. At least he tried.

But the majority of readers don't read Fifty Shades of Gray like the majority of roleplayers play D&D. D&D hasn't just been the most popular system since day one, it's also the game that more people play than all the other games combined.

And, Fifty Shades of Gray has been almost universally panned by critics, while D&D has had more awards thrown its way than you did the last time you competed in the Special Olympics.

>But the majority of readers don't read Fifty Shades of Gray like the majority of roleplayers play D&D
strong disagree
>awards
Name a single well-respected tabletop roleplaying game critic.

You keep squawking about popularity and awards, but you don't articulate why those things mean anything. Presumably you must believe that 'the people' and the award commitee have their reasons for their views. However, here you're just going around and around without ever actually placing down a concrete reason for DnD's supposed high quality. Your argument has no substance, it's the debate equivalent of a pyramid scheme.

>muh appeal to authority!!!
sorry sweetie, but that's an informal fallacy. It works if they authorities are real authorities ;)

...

>Name a single well-respected tabletop roleplaying game critic.

How about all of them? As in, the various D&D editions just about Sweep every single major Game Awards.

Calling it "critically acclaimed" would be an understatement in regards to how well it's received by industry experts.

>How about all of them?
..."no"

>he thinks that all tabletop roleplaying game critics are well-respected

Because, we're talking opinions, and nothing is concrete because everyone has a different opinion on what's good and what's bad.

And, before you burst a vein, understand that I know that D&D has flaws, so don't bother listing what you happen to think they are. Just be aware that comparatively, other games tend to be a lot worse in other capacities, and in the end it all comes down to the games trying to appeal to different groups.

You just happen to be in the minority group. Nothing wrong with that, except when you sort of forget that or try to deny that.

>industry experts

>Because, we're talking opinions, and nothing is concrete because everyone has a different opinion on what's good and what's bad.
Yes. So you explain yourself. Other people disagree with you, and explain themselves. Of course it's ultimately irrational, but we all have the same basic brains so we all have the same basic ir/rationality.

You don't point to popularity.

As in, go ahead and name a critic, any critic that is responsible for handing out awards, and you're going to end up with them handing out those awards to D&D. Everything from the ENnies to the Origins Awards, D&D wins every single time.

You think your opinion is worth more than theirs? Mr. Anonymous guy on the internet?

so...name any critic? That is well respected. You have to remember that, user. Here's a hint: there aren't any.
>You think your opinion is worth more than theirs? Mr. Anonymous guy on the internet?
Obviously.

>Other people disagree with you, and explain themselves.
They're "explaining" their opinions like they think those really matter.
They support all their arguments in a subjective fashions that are not worth even debating, yet they insist on trying to get someone to debate their opinions with them?

No thanks,
I'd much rather just remind them that their opinions are that of a minority and thus can't be used to as substance in their arguments, because they have no real foundation and the majority of people disagree with them.

It's like listening to someone try to explain their "rational" or "objective" reasons for hating chocolate ice cream. Sure, you can come up with a list ten feet long about all the reasons you hate it, but most of it is just going to be tedious bullshit, and calling you out on that bullshit will just encourage you to get more defensive and even more tedious.

All that really needs to be said is "I like chocolate ice cream, and most people do too, so quit expecting everyone to take your opinion as something worthy of debate. You just don't like it."

What exactly are the qualifications for a rpg critic?

Critique RPGs.

>ENnies judges are well-respected critics
They're the winners of a popularity contest on ENworld. Take a look at ennie-awards.com/blog/2018-judges/ and see the results.

>Origins
A more respected award, but D&D doesn't win anything close to the majority of the RPG categories. They did the double in '14 and '15 and picked up best supplement for Eberron in '05, but those were their only awards from 2003 on. (I don't have access to award history prior to that.) 5 awards out of a possible 30 is not that impressive. If you're just concerned with the new hotness at Origins, it's FFG's Star Wars which swept in '16 and was still fan favourite this year.

So what exactly separates the guys handing out awards from random assholes on the internet.

D&D isn't published every year, you know.

Looking at the judges for the ENnies i'm not really seeing anything that makes them anymore qualified to judge rpgs than your average random blogger.

It's a response to the overblown claim in that:
>the various D&D editions just about Sweep every single major Game Awards.

Editions came out in 2003 (no Origin award), 2008 (no Origin award), and 2014 (Origin award). There were also D&D supplements printed in all competition years, usually more than the number printed for any other game, but they only won the supplement award three times in fifteen years. This isn't a sweep. It's competitive, but only the most crazed haters are saying that D&D is the worst.

D&D is the worst of the RPGs you're likely to face. Even if I hate Fate much more than D&D, I understand that it's better at doing what it's trying to do -- I just hate what it's trying to do.

Although it's only "better". It still sucks.

But that goes for all campaign oriented RPGs featuring combat, well apart from like paranoia and such where PCs dying is kind of part of the point of playing.
If the PCs die the campaign is usually over or suffers a severe loss of tempo. So everything is designed to make that not happen.

Somewhere along the line, we got this informal roleplaying pact where the players would get to do lots of work making their characters, the GM would get to do lots of work making their story, and the group would meet up for a show and tell once a week in which everyone is meant to avoid messing up one another's stuff. I'm not sure that it's a bad thing, but it's hard to call it a game.

Functional but uninspired. DnD is probably the only popular game that legitimately feels slapped together, with no regard for design principles or knowledge of how far the medium has come since Chainmail.

just roll a new character my dude

3rd came out in 2000 (and won the award gama.org/origins-awards/sample-page/origins-awards-winners-the-2000s/the-2000-origins-awards/). Are you sure 3.5 was even eligible for nomination in 2003?

Still, that's definitely critical acclaim, which is the centerpiece of the argument.

4e not winning is a bit of a snub in my opinion, but it's at least a point to show that the editions of D&D that did win didn't win solely on account of them being D&D.

>You think your opinion is worth more than theirs? Mr. Anonymous guy on the internet?

Not him, but by the fact that he is anonymous and cannot be bought or coherced to speak a specific opinion his opinion can matter more than that of a suposed expert.

Yeah but if everyone needs to do that then it's almost like starting a new campaign

Why would all the PCs die?

Think of it this way. Single player video games are almost always literally designed to be beaten. Does that make them not games?

that randos on Veeky Forums aren't paid by the major rpg companies

Maybe the dragon breathed fire on them. What a stupid question, full party wipes can happen.

Not really.

...yes, they really can. Unless the DM specifically prevents it

No, not unless it's a dungeon crawl or something. Otherwise there's always things people can do to ensure some people get out alive.

This is all assuming you haven't done something so big that it is, in fact, the end of the campaign.
>e.g. set off the nuke in the BBEG's lair

>Are you sure 3.5 was even eligible for nomination in 2003?
100%. Origins doesn't have strict eligibility criteria. It's possible that the judges felt that 3.5 wasn't a significant achievement relative to 3.0.

>4e not winning is a bit of a snub in my opinion
You need to acknowledge that you're in the minority on that, so your opinion doesn't have any substance in this argument.

In campaigns like that, the primary stake of each battle should not be "the PCs' lives". But it seems like RPG authors have yet to figure that out.

Not always, no. Especially if the DM actually plays "against" the players, in which case he can kill them all at will at any time.

Oops, meant for .

It is not always... But generally, what else could it be? You are facing off against the orcs, the are gonna eat you if you lose.

>100%. Origins doesn't have strict eligibility criteria. It's possible that the judges felt that 3.5 wasn't a significant achievement relative to 3.0.

Regardless of that, 3.0 did win the award.

>You need to acknowledge that you're in the minority on that,

It lost to Mouseguard, which is an okay system, but I really don't think that I'm in the minority when I say that 4e is an overall better system, especially with nearly a decade of hindsight.
In fact, 4e also ended up collecting a fair number of ENnie awards that year, including Product of the Year, Best Game, Best Monster, and Best Rules.

Anything that's important to the PCs, from objects to people to concepts. Of course, if they're murderhobos and the only thing important to them is their own lives, that can't work.

Did 5e step away from binary outcomes for tests?

Nearly any system I've played so far boils down to try to do something -> test to see if you succeeded. Lots of the systems designed in the last 4 years seem to be branching out to tertiary results like succeed-with-cost or the snowballing problems you see in PbtA games.

Ok, but i am talking about the essence of combat between small groups of people, especially when the NPC side is immoral evil monsters, which often entails that you die if you lose. Entirely regardless of whether the PCs have other things to care about, they will of course value their lives, which also are the thing that most generally will be jeopardized.

There's been systems with degree of success for many years

Not surprising. What were some of the older ones?

Disregarding your irrelevant opinions, are we to understand that the definition of D&D sweeping the Origins awards - and there really isn't anything else worth talking about - is wins for 3rd, 5th, and Eberron?

>hindsight
Ignoring your irrelevant opinions and only dealing with matters of fact, I refer you to the Origins Hall of Fame. 0D&D and AD&D are in it, nothing D&D afterwards. Other HoF RPGs are Call of Cthulu, Traveller, Pendragon, and Amber Diceless.

>ENnies
The ENnies are awarded by amateur judges selected by the denizens of a D&D fansite. They're about as relevant to this discussion as the Indie RPG awards.

Eeeeeeh shadowrun I think?

>there really isn't anything else worth talking about

That's your opinion, and one that attempts to disregard every other game awards and to pretend that the Origins is the end-all-be-all (which D&D still managed to secure wins for their major releases outside of the black sheep of the family).

>Ignoring your irrelevant opinions and only dealing with matters of fact

I get that you're trying to be funny, but you're dealing with matter of opinions as well.

And, EN World, like Gen Con, started as D&D centric because D&D really was the only game with enough of a following. It has expanded over the years, to the point where recent ENnies were sponsored by Indie game publishers.

I get a feeling that you're kind of just trying to get everyone distracted from the main point, and the main point is that D&D isn't just popular, but critically acclaimed. Dramatically critically acclaimed as well if you decide not to dismiss everything except Origins.

6/10. D&D provides a decent framework for what it's designed to do (provide wargame rules for fantasy adventures) but it's not even the best option for what it does. If you honestly need me to name names, you're a newfag.

It's one of the worst introductions to the hobby, though.

> If you honestly need me to name names, you're a newfag.

You sound scared.

the think is that this so called "critics" are worth shit. Nothing ensures that this people are actually qualified for the task.
And popularity is worth shit also, because it's a fact that the majority of people don't like actually good movies, music or books.

NB4 "Just run Burning Wheel, bro. Weeds out the bad players."

BW is the best system for my least favourite kind of game.

That's, what? Like a solid 6/10?

>pretend that the Origins is the end-all-be-all
The reason that Origins is pretty much it is because there aren't very many RPG game awards and most of them are given by fan sites. If you had other respectable awards to call up you'd have mentioned them rather than pretending that the ENnies are anything serious.

>you're trying to be funny
Actually, I'm just trying to be scornful. If it's entertaining people as well, I consider that a bonus.

You can't rank things in numbers you barbarian. It is what I said it is; the best system for the sort of narratively-driven game where narrative pieces slot together to form the campaign (I don't like that).

> You can't rank things in numbers you barbarian.
7/10 diss

I like DND because it actually feels like an RPG as opposed to a group improv session.

"rpg critics" aren't paid by anyone either

how unprofessional

they are paid in some kind of manner, maybe not with money, but they are definitely paid

Better than GURPS

No, we're not.

It's not a profession. It's a hobby. Critics are hobbyists too. Some of us have written and designed other RPGs. That's all.

Everyone's a critic.

I grace the insides of my toilet bowl with shit that's better than GURPs.