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All of D&D Reduced to Two Charts (Patreon)

Published:
2023-02-05 16:28:17
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

D&D Beyond crashed? Use this. 

--PDM

P.S. Stuff like this is probably why I didn't get an invite for a meeting with Kyle Brink like the cool YouTube kids. Oh well. 

Comments

Graham Kane

I think Deathbringer should do his own in-person “interview” with WOTC top brass.

MrGunn

Thanks PDM! Never lost an analog character sheet or rule book from dropping it. Never forget kids, the ‘Cloud’ is just some other person’s data center…

Graham Kane

Btw I really like the idea of these charts for impromptu games and one shots. Maybe even for teaching very young kids the concepts of RPG’s.

Nick

I love this. If you understand these fundamentals you can build interesting flavor rules around these!

Juandissimo Magnanimo

You and Sly should have a "simple off" I can DM that session with one finger!

MrGunn

I just bought the Paizo Core Rules for $5 Humble Bundle. The first thing I did was check out the the character sheet, man that thing is complicated. Ability scores and bonuses, saving throws, feats, skills, perception, weapon stats and on and on.. geez-o-pete, who wants to deal with all that complexity. Boiling the rules down to the absolute minimum is a real eye opener, the core is so simple, action vs a number to beat.

Jay
>>101228325

True. I remember reading somewhere that everything you put on the "Cloud" also becomes the intellectual property of Microsoft. I will likely fact check myself on this later but it is worth looking into. One reason I still haven't upgraded to Windows 11. As I understand it everything is on the cloud.

Andrew
>>101229234

I can see back end complexity as being helpful for people who are having trouble imagining a character, as long as all that complexity can be distilled down to a small number of useful numbers for game play--I think of it similar to a Car Wars design---there's a lot that goes into it--it's very crunchy under the hood, but during game play all you need is five numbers---this is my armor, this is my handling class, this is my top speed, this is my acceleration, this is my chance to hit. How you get those numbers depends entirely on your budget and what you think will be most effective in the arena. I see complex character creation in a similar light, and for some players it's actually quite helpful. Here's what I mean by that--in my experience, when players are interested in creating a new character, they often only have a very vague idea of what they want their character to be, and that character really starts taking shape as you start picking and choosing abilities--a good example is a rogue I was working with one my players on as their backup character and as henchman for one of our main PCs. The way she started to tailor this rogue and a story emerged--she wasn't a thief, but a lock smith's apprentice--so she turned out to be a really good safe cracker and trap expert. And she's going to approach a PC because there is only so much she can learn inside her Master's workshop.

MrGunn
>>101228325

Jay, to the best of my knowledge no cloud service can own your IP or personal files. Specifically OneDrive (MS' cloud service) has numerous protections in place to restrict access to and use of your data unless you specifically authorize it. There is even and encrypted 'vault' for OneDrive files you may wish to store. Trouble usually arises with the use of 3rd party applications to whom you may inadvertently grant elevated privileges to. There have also been documented cases of public 3rd party files and apps gaining access to user data, for example malicious public GitHub library that many developers used was recently in the news as creating exploits for bad actors to steal data from the cloud. The main benefit of OneDrive is that you can have both local and cloud copies of a file, with automatic backups. Which in the case of catastrophic failure will allow you to recover your data from the cloud from the last recovery point. I had this happen once, very useful. Overall cloud services are relatively safe assuming you use all possible safeguards, MFA, 2MFA, local encryption, and other security best practices.

Joel A.

Thanks for the charts, Professor!

MrGunn
>>101229234

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I was attempting to say that Paizo has a lot of mechanical complexity and every added rule slows the game down. Most complexity I have come to eschew as unnecessary, but simply optional, Reaching a happy rules heavy/light balance that you and your players enjoy is what matters. One of my main problems with D&D 3.5e and 5e is the straying from pure a class based system to a hybrid one. Adding skills and feats to the game has created a much more complex hybrid game. A class should automatically confer a wide range of skills and abilities on a PC without having to spell each one out. Why have classes at all if you are going to dilute them with skills and feats, just add sub-classes or allow the player and GM to make their own. Hyperboria does a good job with sub-classes, but is just as complex as the D&D it is based on. If you want a skill based game, BRP, Runequest & HarnMaster all qualify, but skill based games come with their own problems. What you described is character background/motivation generation based on chosen abilities. For character creation random tables can be your friend, Deathbringer Deluxe and Knave offer random tables for character creation. Finally, you do not have to limit your abilities to rules as written. Low Fantasy Gaming has this to say on P15 of the Deluxe Colour Edition: Every 3rd level, devise one new ability, trait or theme for your adventurer. Feel free to borrow feats, class abilities, perks and so on from other RPGs, modified to suit LFG. The advancement need not be limited to traditional class themes, allowing for a degree of multi-classing. The open nature of these Unique Features requires some table discussion to keep things balanced and consistent with the genre of your game. TTRPGs are games of imagination and fantasy, don't limit yourself to a particular game designer's view of a what a good game is, let your imagination soar; slice, dice, add remove things and find that game which pleases yourself and your players best.

Frederic Schmitt

Deathbringer should do the interview. Damn you, Bob World Builder!

Michael Carson

I...think this may have just become my normal game system.

Andrew
>>101229234

I hear you, and I totally agree, there are systems where abilities start getting in the way, and that's when they are a problem. My best friend and I were talking about the campaign he is currently working on--and he is wanting to incorporate a lot more tech in his game than I use. He wants tech to augment the experience, not intrude on the experience. He's a lot more savvy than I am, but I still think it's going to be tricky. For me, if I'm interfacing with tech, or rule books, I'm not connected to my game table and to my players. That's my own personal standard. Do I have to look up spells every now and then---sure. There's no way to have all of them committed to memory. But I try to keep that as rare as possible.

baldrage

You just wrote an algorithm for an AI DM!

Ken Siwek
>>101229234

I was thinking of trying out Pathfinder but made the mistake (or had the great fortune) of watching The Rules Lawyer discuss how... uh...RICH the combat experience can be and not limited by optimal play. That example was so overly complicated that I decided to avoid the Pathfinder experience altogether.

Elvis Ramone
>>101228325

Fun story, me and my brother have and will continue to have the ability to misplace everything. Once we could save character sheets to a computer and just print them out it should have been the lifesaver. But no! We did not uploaded updated sheets immediately. We would loose the characters almost as soon as the sessions were over, go to play the next session, spend 30 minutes updating the six month old sheets, print them, go to the table and somewhere A and B we would find the sheets from last week, right where they were left, maybe with cat fur on them. Good times.

MrGunn
>>101229234

I don't intend to play Pathfinder, but I do collect RPG systems and for USD 5.00 for the core rule books, the bestiary, and support charity too, I could not resist.

Frank Matthews

Lowkey just need a bare minimum character sheet and that’s my new system

Lee Caddick

XD I love it, and it's a great reminder that the fun is a three-way between player, dice and dm.

Frederic Schmitt

I will ask all my DnD-friends to think about this.

RUNEHAMMER

I appreciate the levity, but the word 'all' is terribly abused here... games are SO MUCH MORE than a core success mechanic...

Trevor Strugatsky
>>101538667

It depends on how much of the creativity you want to exercise yourself and how much you want to outsource to a game designer. Looking at the artwork in 5E, I prefer these rules personally.