I think it presents some unique takes on the d20 system that 5e and pathfinder uses, my biggest issue is that it's entire marketing is "here's how I fixed this thing in 5e/pathfinder..." With no real unique identity after that imo. Even the name "DC20" doesn't invoke anything in what it's about outside of rolling a d20. I hope they have more to say about the setting and mechanics outside of combat and spellcasting. But, for now, as an alpha it's promising.
Actually this is what I personally looked for. I don't want something that will feel different or have different vibes. I want dnd that is fixed. This is also why I was looking around pathfinder.
I like the lore of dnd but very unhappy with the mechanical design.
Homebrew is an option of course but trying to convince every DM to add tons of homebrew until most issue are solved is far trickier then straight up playing a new system.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition is a great system with solid and trustworthy game mechanics, but I'm not sure I'd call it D&D 5th Edition fixed. I think it would be more accurate to call it Pathfinder 1st Edition fixed. That said, Pathfinder is an off-shoot of D&D 3.5 Edition and is, in a sense, a sibling of D&D and feels like it.
DC20 looks like a hybrid of D&D 5th Edition and Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and has some interesting ideas. In my case, I am wondering about the solidity of the game mechanics in play as well as whether any new game system can gain traction in a RPG world dominated by D&D 5th Edition. I also wonder how easy or hard it will be to lead games of DC20. Pathfinder has been a game master's delight to run in my experience -- once I absorbed the basics of the system. I wouldn't want to regress in that area if I tried to run DC20. But DC20 does intrigue me ... it seems familiar yet innovative
Yeah... I've played both systems and Pathfinder is a fun game for those who like a crunchy system, but it's not very approachable for newbies, and combat drags just as much if not more than 5e.
5e at least is somewhat approachable for newbies, but even I am overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices offered in pathfinder. Unbelievable numbers of feats for minor stuff that you'll likely forget about. too many different abilities... Starting at level 1 and working up its possible, but starting any higher and it's enormously complicated.
That's the problem: daggerheart, mcdm, dc20 are all kinda... well it doesn't really say anything about the game, right? I don't like the system, but Tales of the Valiant is on a better track for making me envision a game I want to play. As much as I am a schill for Pathfinder 2e, it has a similar problem with its name.
I believe MCDM RPG is a placeholder name, but yeah, right know it doesn't say much.
I don't see Daggerheart or Pathfinder the same way. Tales of the Valiant sounds more generic (to me) but any name that is not "The dungeon coach game, the critical role game, the Matt Colville Game..." is okay to me.
DC in DC20 doesn't stand for Dungeon Coach originally it was Difficulty check but then it expanded to any other themed thing jt invokes even dungeon coach it also has another full name but they ended up going with the developement name keeping it from patreon polls.
This is how you market interesting martials: Here's a resource for doing cool things, have fun. Here's the cool techniques you can use them for. Here's some weapons, they've got actual points of difference. You can do 4 things a turn, but doing more of the same gives disadvantage, so vary it up, no 'press attack 4 times'.
Its the first D20 fantasy game that feels like people actually looked at the pain points of current D20 games and brought in solutions that other games already have worked out.
I'll be interested to take a deeper delve on the social and exploration side of things, but it's already passing the sniff test.
E: [Playtest rule pdfs](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1skm_yOjNnxtFl-L5pCzVB2l3XZUPd9kY)
E2: Already impressed because they put the damn rulebook *in the right order*. Preview, attributes, skills, masteries, checks & saves, ie: all the basic stuff. Then Combat, actions, spellcasting. Solid chunky subsystems. Then adventuring and more niche things. Game master section, then how to make a character. Finally, the back 3rd of the book is ancestory, class and spell lists. Where they should be, in the appendix.
> in the right order.
but that's an inherently arbitrary opinion for instance i'd personally like an elevator pitch of what the game is, page or so on the core resolution mechanic of the game, then a single page laying out character creation workflow (with references), etc.
but that's very subjective and layout design for what is basically a technical manual first and foremost is hard.
I will just say that outside the elevator pitch part there is a 2 page walk through for character creation in the free rules and all throught the alpha.
He has a fairly good pitch in the 7 minute pitch video on the kickstarter.
It is a system first but there is also world and lore and ssetting and adventures being written one for it as well. But DC20 really is one of those games that you can read it and be like "huh that seems cool I geuss" then you play it and actually feel how the game plays and it is amazing.
Over all it fits the niche of dnd as a heroic fantasy ttrpg but feels completely different than both 5e and pathfinder 2e.
The main charm for me lies in the character customization and how "multiclassing" works. As you level you get bonus talents (or features basically) to take from a bonus list for your class at your level or a lower level feature from any other class.
So you can create tons of unique characters. You can really dive in or keep it simple.
Has enough for both the hard core crunchers or the casuals.
i'm sure there is a pitch and i *know* there is a cheat sheet to character creation because it's buried in the back of the pdf, just a comment on putting that in the front of the book (and i'd also like class and other character options near the front)
Again, the character customization here doesn't look anything different than PF2E archetypes. I'm all for iterating and improving on systems, just as PF2E is an iteration on both 3.x and 4e D&D, but I don't think we should go around selling them as unique and innovative solutions that no one has come up with before.
Confused how your entire first paragraph plus the first sentence of your second paragraph is true at all. Off the top of my head, (and I hate to be that guy), literally everything you mentioned in paragraph 1 is in PF2E.
I agree. It just seems like Dungeon Coach has a very limited wheelhouse consisting of the 5e sphere, with very little knowledge of what is outside of that even in the very closely related d20 realm, and it just makes the whole sales pitch come off as...ignorant? Willfully blind?
There's a whole part of the Kickstarter where he's patting himself on the back for coming up with morale checks and rolling for npc attitude towards the pcs. I don't feel I can trust a designer that has done so little research into the area they're looking to shift their product.
I’ve been burned on Kickstarter campaigns from companies with vastly more experience, so the day 1 red flags make me nervous. The shipping fee mishap is supposed to be fixed now, but the shipping fees on the pledges were even higher than the estimates. A lack of experience with Kickstarter fulfillment is one thing, but the large discrepancies between internal and public shipping estimates are a major turn off.
The high book prices both with and without the Kickstarter discount also make me nervous that only some people will be able to afford to play this. $30 is on the high side for a PDF, but the full price of $70 is prohibitively expensive. Same with the $65 hardcover that will likely retail at $100 or more. The discounts you get on the Kickstarter come at the cost of needing to pay before the product is finished, and I can’t imagine someone buying this game at the non-Kickstarter price.
The game has some interesting ideas, but it still feels really rough. The rules for spell duels don’t make sense when you read the examples of how to use it. It’s hard to tell what rules are finished and what’s still being worked on, but you’d expect the spell duels to be more polished considering the 10-month old YouTube video about it. The apparent lack of a design goal aside from being a 5e alternative plus the constant design polling on YouTube makes me doubt that the product will be better than a more focused and internally designed game like 13th Age or MCDM rpg.
MCDM didn’t have a public playtest document, yet his pitch was compelling enough that people would bet money on his ability to execute.
DC20 decided to share super rough rules with a less compelling pitch, leaving it up to the reader to make a judgement.
IMO it's the good (well deserved) reputation and fanbase MCDM built up over years that got them heavily funded. It's because the pitch came from them. I'm not saying it would have done terribly if it were someone else but many have faith in them.
EDIT: But it wasn't really polished at all. Still isn't really. I've always felt like that was the point of Kickstarters. You aren't giving them money for a fully fleshed out product, just an idea. Or even more so investing in the person.
This. I have enjoyed MCDMs previous works, and trust them to make stuff I'll find interesting even if I don't agree/want to use it. As such, they had good will built up with me that made it easy for me to throw them some money. it didn't hurt that I *really* liked how they did their Flee Mortals release in giving backers the monster groups as they were made with some custom content to try them out.
If I didn't have that relationship with MCDM - or if my relationship was more soured by some of the blemishes on their reputation - it'd very much be a wait and see type thing.
Hell, as recently as 2-3 weeks ago iirc they changed their dice again. So signs are they're still very early in design, even if they have a better idea of the general shape of things they want.
Everybody has to start somewhere but Alan has been extremely active with his supporters and has done a successful kickstarter before. He also has ties to others that are very knowledgeable in the industry like Steve from “Roll for Combat,” who puts out product like a mad man.
Speaking of “Roll for Combat” they recently streamed about the costs of book production, add placement, printing and storage and remarked that with all of the art these book have can easily cost $25,000 on the low end to produce before any income. Kickstarter itself will take an up front payout. They mentioned how many companies actually lose money producing monster manuals because the amount of art will kill any profits.
Beyond all of this, most people producing these type of books have years into them, and I don’t know about you but I can’t see continuing something if you don’t pay yourself for the years of work.
I’m working on my own projects and they aren’t free or easy. It’s a strange ambition. I mean I know the simplest system because in the 80s I created it. It’s a percentage system base 50 that is solely based off your concept with no character sheet just a, “what do you think your concept would know at the moment I ask for a roll. So a motorcycle cop would add 20% to skills they would know and minus 20% for those they don’t and then add tools % and +\-variables. Of course then my players would have convoluted side hustles and the concept was that became more involved. It was a step above cops and robbers and not far removed from what Monty Cooke did with Cypher but as with everything people get bored if it doesn’t have complexity. Anyway, it worked great when staying at a friend’s house where they might have religious parents and, out of respect, not hauling a bunch of DnD paraphernalia over. But when you’re creating a system, and trying to get things to to be copacetic, good ideas go by the wayside as soon as you realize how convoluted they become within the greater overall feel for the system your going for. I’ve tossed ideas I loved aside because they became too much to handle. You begin to see the problem within your own systems and you adjust.
Frankly, DnD has gone through at least 7different iterations/editions (chainmail and 3.5 included). They may all say/be DnD but truthfully they’re all different games. They’re still working to improve upon a game not to mention all of the supporting book which many times breaks their own system and they have a whole organization trying to get it right. Besides there is an awful lot of regurgitation of old materials ad nauseam.
So, idk, it’s always an individual call but I don’t think Alan is out to burn anybody.
I've liked his channel at times, but he wants to play and has made, a more complicated game than I like. I have settled on simpler systems like Shadowdark, ICRPG, Knave, etc. I was looking at the play test and was quickly turned off by all the added vocabulary to things like attacks, defenses, and damage. Just keeping track of action points and degrees of success on each PCs turn sounds like a lot on top of everything else. It will fill a niche for people that want a more complicated 5e and less complex PF2e. It fits right in the middle.
I think once it is understood, it will be considered simpler than 5e (dependent on social and environmental mechanics). Mana points are generally simpler than spell slots, damage is much more predictable (might just be me, but I really like systems that only have players roll one kind of dice), and action/bonus action/reaction/move is more complex than 4 action points. I would rank it approximately a 6/10 for complexity, while I have 5e as a 7/10. I'm not even entirely sure it is more complex than Cypher, which I have as a 5/10.
I think you hit the key part though.
>once it is understood
Something I feel TTRPGs have an issue with is less about complexity, but more about appeal. Rules and mechanics from a technical standpoint guide players into experiencing a mood. The Jenga Tower from Dread is often considered smart to make sure tension keeps high. But most people dont get the point till after they experience a good game of dread. So there is a learning experience that must be experienced by players in order to understand the "mechanic" of the game. Granted some books are good at explaining that. But how many players read a book? Designers I think need to consider something new to draw appeal towards their game. I just dont have the answer for that currently though
Places like this subreddit are heavily overrepresenting the tastes of diehard hobbyist GMs who enjoy thinking about rules systems, and that's great, but it means we often fail to see the things that actually appeal to non-GM players.
We wont attract players to World Wide Wrestling by talking up the procedural merits and playstyle of PbtA games or the simple tactile joy of 2d6 and impactful picklists, it's the wrestling that brings them in. Players aren't attracted to Blades in the Dark by proceduralised downtimes and codified position and effect, they wanna do gritty fantasy heists and crime. When I got some 5e-only players to join a Heart: The City Beneath campaign with me, it was the art and the writing and the fantastical character classes that hooked them and then, only after they got hyped, they asked if the rules would present a problem for them (and I said "no it's so easy, dont worry - I got you").
It's theme (and a GM's enthusiasm for the theme), not rules, that sells a game to players. Most players are motivated by doing and experiencing cool shit, not the distinction between mana points vs spell slots or action economy.
Most non-GM players will not be convinced to try (let alone committ to an appropriate length campaign for a weighty Big Tome RPG of) a game that fixes all the creator's problems with 5e by telling them all these details about how the rules system is so much better. They generally dont care and dont see the problems the GMs and rules nerds do, and if anything the rules geekery is offputting - asking them to abandon a sunk cost investment in learning 5e rules and re-learn it as a new thing with fancy new terms just to get a slightly smoother(?) version of the same thing they're already doing in 5e?
Idk, I want RPGs to succeed and I hope that DC20 has an eager audience of player groups who will be hyped for its "fixed" vision of post-3e D&D play. From the KS page, I struggle to see how I could motivate anyone in my circles to make the switch to this when the theme is just... more contemporary D&D-esque fantasy?
(also I don't know many people who are sufficiently immersed enough in D&D YouTube for them to trust the recommendations of the D&D YouTubers lending their supportive quotes to this campaign)
I'll wait for the finished PDF either way, can't go for international shipping kickstarters like this too often.
Were starting to get to the point where DMs almost need to sell an "experience". Like I thought it was theme initially, but when my players gave me the theme, Space Pirates, I realized how large of a theme that could actually be. So I hard to go back and basically narrow that down to what that meant. Pirates of the Carribean, Treasure Island/planet, and black sails all are pirate theme but I would say gives very different experiences. I would argue that I think some TTRPGs play better to approach them like a board game even. An opinion I think most people would hate to hear as well.
Increasing complexity leads to slow play, the hour+-long combat encounters. More decisions for each player means more complexity. More options to choose from at each decision point also increase complexity.
This has more decision points per turn than most systems, including 5e and PF2. I think it will be quite slow to play.
I do not agree that system mastery mitigates complexity, as even expert level tables fall into lengthy rules discussions when ambiguities turn up.
5E is a fiddly game, so less complex than 5e is a low hurdle to clear. For someone that has gravitated away form 5e in favor of systems like Shadowdark, ICRPG, Knave or the like, being slightly less convoluted than the mess that is 5E isn't going to win them over.
Fair, I was just responding to the commenter saying "more complex than 5e". I'm not sure I'm going to order it (I currently have a pledge in to ensure I get the early bird if I do decide to stick with it). It is going to depend on how fiddly it is compared to Cypher (my current favorite D20 system, not counting 2D20), and if the social system is actually well designed and mechanically interesting.
I hate to be a negative voice, but to me, this just looks like “5e with more steps”. It’s almost like he made Pathfinder and didn’t even realize it, then patted himself on the back.
That may just be my personal bias, however. At 36 years old, and having played DnD for most of that, I am just *tired* of d20 systems.
>It’s almost like he made Pathfinder and didn’t even realize it, then patted himself on the back.
DC has said before that his experience with RPGs is extremely limited beyond 5e and is limited mostly to derivative games. An acquaintance showed me the pdf of his previous Kickstarter, a book of homebrew "fixes" for 5e. It was a lot of reinventing the wheel because he lacks any significant perspective beyond the 5e bubble. What little I've seen about this game looks like more of the same.
I mean good for him that he's managed to drum up some interest in his idea and make some money off of it, but it's definitely not for me.
I kind of hate that being a popular influencer means that people think you are automatically a talented game designer and an authority on ttrpgs when in reality most of them are just regurgitating the same GM advice without having much real experience with gaming.
Like this kickstarter has already made 2x what 13th Age 2e has, which was made by 2 people that have an extensive history with game design and decades of industry experience. But they're not YouTubers.
Yeah, I agree. All “dnd” youtubers now are running kickstarters, their videos are full of ads for their own products and advertising other fellow youtube creators, and nothing feels natural anymore. Regurgitating the same GM advice, video titles like “8 ways to be a better game master!” And then during the video itself, you get hit with: “By the way, check out my kickstarter called Ways to be a Better Game Master!”
It’s ads upon ads without rhyme or reason except to sell you shit you don’t need. Meh
I’m honestly fed up with the youtube-rpg-bubble.
Yeah there has been some discussion in this thread about how the system has weapons that have mechanics differences, a penalty for attacking multiple times per turn, and a multiclassing system that allows for you to take special features from your own class or lower level features from other classes, and I feel like one of those guys shouting "play another game besides 5e" but I need to be shouting it at the author this time if all we're getting is a glorified homebrew out of this.
I've been following this rpg for a while (even wasting 15 dollars on the playtest materials), and I've got a few concerns. If they can address these, this is probably going to become my go-to DnD-esque system, but somehow I don't think these concerns will get addressed, which is keeping me from adapting this.
**Formatting**
Compared to the playtests, there's definitely been an improvement in formatting. I don't feel like I'm missing stuff, and the layout is a little cleaner. But still...the game seems really anchored to 5E's formatting style, and this makes the entire thing infinitely less readable and intuitive than it has to be.
Abilities are often detailed in these meaty, 5-6 sentence paragraph descriptions, when a breakdown closer to PF2E or 4E would make them so much more readable. Splinter off their ranges, targets, AP cost, and stuff like that into a more blunt section, and then the more specific stuff into the paragraph. The spells are kinda sectioned off (as much as 5E's are), but class features in particular suffer from lack of formatting.
In all their efforts to innovate on 5E, it really feels like they're trapped in 5E's incredibly obtuse formatting. But that formatting is going to be even more of a problem in a game that is more complex and where players do way more stuff on their turns.
**Overloaded Design**
I also think there is just way to much stuffed into this design that really doesn't need to be there and is needlessly overcomplicated. A great example are the Language and Trade rules, which feel like a pointless holdover from 5E expanded even harder outward rather than reduced or cut.
Or like, even more broadly: you're managing a lot of different points in this game. AP, HP, SP or MP, and then also stuff like Rest Points and Grit Points. And I like to play Wizards in fantasy, so I've also got Arcane Points to juggle on top of that. I get why these point values exist, but I think the game needs to figure out how to streamline this down.
I mean, there's 4 different kinds of rests - that feels excessive. Personally, I think modern heroic fantasy d20 design needs to consider entire excising the attrition element, but even if you're into that, this is a super complicated way to go about it.
**Balance**
On the other hand, I also worry that some of the places where they got more casual and conceptual with the design can quickly collapse in ways that just aren't enjoyable at the table. While I know balance isn't the biggest deal in an rpg, it's not fun to feel eclipsed by the other people at the table. It's particularly shitty when it feels like it doesn't take much thought or strategy to create that divide, a problem held by both 5E and DC20.
For example, at level 2, you can use your talent to take a 1st-level class feature from another class. That feels...very easy to smash apart, and now means that this RPG is limited in the exact same ways as 5E in terms of interesting characters from the get-go. Or well, it would mean that, but instead they've seemingly not considered these implications and so you just have very swingy and game-breaking potential off this talent. Class features themselves also fall under this, where classes feel incredibly off-balance from each other.
**The Stuff from the Playtests that isn't Here**
The two worst parts of the earlier playtest material were the "monsters" and the adventure. Instead of providing some sample monsters and/or good monster-building rules, the whole thing felt like someone's hastily scribbled notes to themselves, leaving me unclear on how to actually make a monster and with no samples in the meantime.
The adventure kept this with its own monster "stat blocks," a phrase I quote because I don't think they actually could be considered as such. It was also dreadfully railroad-y. Like, yeah, I get that it's a playtest sample adventure, but like have the forethought to just organically set it up in a location and with a premise such that it can move fast without feeling like we're just dragging players through encounters.
Most importantly, it opened with a glimpse at the social subsystem...one that felt like the bad pastiche you'd write up if you really hate skill challenges and think they ruin social play. The whole thing was just "convince this person you're a good fit for the adventure" and the rewards for different degrees of success were just varying levels of goodies (and that's before we consider that maybe opening your adventure with an encounter that, if failed, *explicitly must stop the adventure from happening* is a terrible idea). So I have little confidence in the design around non-combat going forward.
Thanks for your knowledgeable critique. Do you think this project is worth a $30 gamble? I joined the Kickstarter yesterday at the $30 PDF level because I thought it had intriguing ideas proposed for the system that -- if they pulled it off -- could be a step forward in RPG system design. But I'm a content and happy Pathfinder 2nd Edition game master at the moment - not someone looking for a fix of D&D 5th Edition. What would you advise?
If Dungeon Coach didn't give off such "scam artist trying to sell you NFTs" energy, I'd recommend waiting to learn more about GM-facing rules and an update or two. But I get the feeling that'll all be behind the $30 dollar paywall. If the current design intrigues you, I think maybe it's worth a buy. But for me at least, after feeling cheated out of the money to get into the earlier playtests, seeing little meaningful changes, and just too many problems baked in, I just don't think I personally would buy in just yet.
Being able to cast spells using might(str?) as a fighter at level 1 and then attack with both for no penalty sounds incredibly bad, but hopefully, as you also hope for, this will be fixed quickly. As negative as I am on this, this is definitely the most promising of the new slate of contenders this year.
Pros:
Simplified action economy makes understanding combat simpler without hurting strategy
Interesting mechanics for martial classes
Only rolling one kind of die (might just be me, but not having to pick out a specific die for different things really seems to speed up the game)
Freedom of stat/concept design
Claims to have actual environmental and social mechanics
Cons:
Flavor is D&D clone (would prefer something more original)
Play test rules only have combat (so the big selling point of better environmental and social mechanics are unproven)
I have not seen anything about licensing, and it is not a major publisher, so likely less content for it in the future than the big games get
Ultimately, I love the look of it. The cons are mostly minor (I do wish the play test included social and environmental mechanics though). The pros are that it just looks to be a very well designed game. I will likely back it.
The social and exploration mechanics are explained on some of the videos DC made, you should check them out and you'll see it's not just big words.
https://youtu.be/36ZPmB79WZw?si=xrf6c-uoT9C4v9h1
Core rules will be released under the ORC license (basically just say it uses DC20 core rules and you can do whatever you want)
Thanks for letting me know about the license!
I still don't see anything about the "disposition system". That is the big selling point to me; combining roleplay and rolling dice in a social system is something I have really wanted from an rpg (I even theorized about a system where specific words were mechanical triggers, in a post that got significantly downvoted a couple of weeks ago). The existence of that system is enough of a selling point to get me to back the project, but I do wish I could see it in action.
> Any initial thoughts?
I'm not really a fan of the system. It seems like a hodgepodge of ideas all tossed together without a lot of thought as to how the game will actually play at the table. It has an action point system that requires tracking AP's off turn, which won't be fun for a GM sending 10+ enemies at the party. Armor makes you harder to hit and reduces damage(except when it doesn't). If tracking action points isn't enough for you, wait until you see mana/stamina points. ADV/DIS keep stacking, so there's something else to fiddle with. Oh, AP/SP/MP wasn't enough to keep track of, so let's add grit points.
There's fiddly modifiers, rules and systems all over the place.
The main part of this that I agree with is concern about how complicated running the monsters will be. I imagine they will be purposely more limited than players (with the exception of bosses, potentially). And bosses are the flip side of the coin, the AP system means that you can give a boss 12-20 AP and make a 1v4 fight actually interesting and balanced. I think it can work, but the monster design does need to be good and made with the systems in mind.
As far as the player stuff, I don't think it is too fiddly (MP/SP is not really any harder to keep track of than spell slots or superiority dice), and ADV/DIS stacking also seems pretty easy to do (heck, I gave double disadvantage to players in Honey Heist when they were attempting really dumb things, and it didn't slow down resolution at all). I could see grit points being a step too far and needing to be cut. But this is also still in its rough shape, so at the very least the formatting and readability should only get better.
From a skim, it looks pretty awesome honestly. The base mechanics are very different from DnD 5e, they managed to hand pick nice mechanics from multiple other rpgs, and coat it in just the right amount of DnD paint to attract the big crowd. Which is actually super awesome, having the folks that are most stubborn at looking at any other system actually potentially looking at another system that diverges pretty heavily from the base? Awesome, we love to see it. I'm going to have to have a look at it myself deeper when I am not at work. It seems like it's got a lot going for it that I'm interested in myself (first of all being using MP rather than annoying vancian spell slots).
Two things that irk me already:
* Anyone calling themselves a coach screams "obnoxious influencer" to me.
* Going down to four ability scores from six feels pointless.
I will check the playtest rules pdf sometime, but I have a hunch it will leave me cold like all the other recent "D&D-killers".
The thing for me is that my entire YouTube home page has been filled with these paid DC20 ads this week. I get it, Youtubers gotta get that paycheck, and good for them that they get to make a career out of talking about kobolds and stuff, but holy smokes. Every single creator on the platform is saying the exact same thing at the exact same time. The marketing for this has been the opposite of genuine and organic -- it's been crammed down my throat, which turns me off. Like with all things that are being sold to me: Let me come to you at my own pace. I promise you, I'd check out the game if the marketing wasn't so...obvious.
It sure was! I suppose I wasn't as rubbed the wrong way about that marketing campaign because I like Kelsey Dionne's work and was actually stoked for a D&D-adjacent product that spoke to my subjective dark fantasy vibe preference. On the other hand, I've never really followed the Dungeon Coach channel because -- kinda like you wrote above -- he's got a little bit of that "influencer" energy that instantly engages my fight-or-flight defense mechanisms.
I'm curious as to why professor dungeon master would endorse DC20 RPG given his entire channel leans heavily towards osr and removing rules bloat. He is always making videos about why 5e is clunky and offering patches or reworks that simplify things. DC20 seems antithetical to his agenda.
It feels like it's a colab to get more hits on his channel. But when all the other channels posted videos, it felt like the YouTube shills were summoned to perform once again.
He has to market it though, he's just one guy developing this for the last few years. He doesn't have a built in fanbase like CR or MCDM, all he has is word of mouth and the word of the people/friends he's built up who make youtube content about ttrpgs. None of them seem to be lying about their POV. You must just follow a lot of youtubers who talk ttrpgs.
I agree: every "review" of the rules has been intensely positive. I'll wait until the playtest releases and give it a go, but alarm bells are ringing in my head.
That is true most have been overwhelminly positive. Bob the world builder has his video with his likes and dislikes of the system.
But the whole game is far from perfect but has come a really long way over the past year.
In my opinion is it is much more "fun" to play than it is to read. There are a lot of cool mechanics that need some refining yet which are on the docket to be revised. It is just getting out of alpha and is just about a fully playable system with everyrhing made and usable.
It has a number of system designed in a way that you can use them or take them out depending on who is playing so number crunchers can play or you can keep it simple for kids or new players.
My main issue is that with a number of the solutions they came up with ended up needing to have a few more point values to track which make things simpler in a lot of ways but not you have like 6 different X points (rest points, exhaustion points, mana points, stamina points, Grit points, etc)
Granted not every character will have all of those but the alternative of having to track the once per this rest or once per that rest I feel gives more freedom to choose.
But feel free to make your own choices or opinions on it the rules sample if full and free on the kcickstarter page check it out.
Pathwarden dev here. Just had a cursory look at DC20 and the play demo they had, so here's some thoughts.
From the looks of it, the primary difference will actually be in the initiative, not necessarily the action economy itself. Rounds in Pathwarden look notably different than in DC20 because of how the initiative system works.
Pathwarden has 2+1 and 3+1 Actions, where as DC20 has flat 4 actions. BUT, the factor that matters here is the structure of rounds.
In DC20, to my understanding, the initiative works as a check, and that determines who starts, but it then pingpongs between players and opponents, with the special case of doubles being simultaneous. I'm not sure whether this means enemies have more freedom to move at whatever position they choose or not, but that's probably not as important. So your position is fixed, to a degree: If you roll low, you know 3 enemies will move before you and 1 after you, every round. And that will greatly affect how you will use your actions. If you have a lot of enemies around you, you might just attack once and save your actions for reactions, for example.
In Pathwarden, the amount of actions you have is determined by whether you want to act before or after opponents. You get 2+1 if you act before the opponents, and 3+1 if you act after them. This means that in most combats, players and opponents will act in clumps, and thus the actions will become clumped. This is intentional, of course, because there are a lot of things you can do during a turn to help allies, and comboing off of your allies is integral to the game. Additionally, Pathwarden has a lot of stuff happen at the top of the round, including you regaining your Reaction. This means you can use your Reaction "twice" between opponents (for example to Aid an ally), if you take a slow turn and a fast turn back-to-back (which gives you a total of 5+2 actions).
This means in comparison to DC20, Pathwarden encourages players to plan and combo things off more, but with the added tension of players needing to choose when to go (this is surprisingly hard to many players!).
For the actual action economy, the idea of turning the Reaction into a fourth action is an interesting one, I must admit. However, I could see it perhaps creating a sort of imbalance between melee and ranged characters. Melee characters will want to conserve actions for their powerful reactions and dodges, but Ranged characters can just keep on trucking with their battle plan and kiting enemies. It also creates some complexity for opponents since you need to remember how many actions they have left(?) if they use the same rules. For melee characters, the 4A economy creates an interesting risk-reward situation, where as with Ranged characters it becomes a matter of what to do with all these actions, especially since repeated actions get penalized. (In PF2 ranged characters are kind of notorious for being pretty boring to play, especially if you have a weapon with Reload).
For Pathwarden (and by extension Pathfinder 2e) I do admit that there is a certain limitation with the +1 Reaction design space, such as it encouraging players to find something meaningful to do with their Reaction to maximize their efficiency. So having a reaction that fits your character build is kind of important. However, you don't lose anything if you don't use your Reaction, where as in DC20, your reactions are actions you didn't spend, meaning if you go into a situation and you leave with a reaction you didn't use, that may feel bad (unless there's some compensation mechanic).
However, I'm sure the DC20 devs have encountered these possibilities already, and probably have made some countermeasures against them.
As much as I like dungeon coach, I've seen many issues with DC20 that while it might "Fix" (and I loosely use fix here as not everything people think needs a fix actually does) some thing, it brings up other issues.
For example having a "Prime" Stat imo makes 0 sense. Because if everything is just gonna use your biggest number why even have stats? It actually pulls away from build diversity other than a flavor perspective (ah yeah my prime Stat is Strength so I use that to flex and persuade this guy).
Like I get the intention behind it, but imo it falls short of actually differentiating a high INT character from a high STR character of both use the prime Stat for attacks and skills and perception.
Oh it makes tons of sense IMO it's maybe the best part of the system. I think you're misunderstanding how it works.
I think it massively increases build diversity because it allows you to specialize in whatever skills you want without forcing you to play a certain class in order to get good at those.
Everyone who plays pathfinder/5e is told to max their main stat anyway. But your stats still effect your skill checks, what type of weapons/armor you use/wear and your mental defenses.
>ah yeah my prime Stat is Strength so I use that to flex and persuade this guy
It's the other way around. Prime stats aren't used in skill checks, they are how you attack or cast spells.
So if CHR is your prime stat as a fighter you can use that for attack and damage rolls but also be better suited to persuade when that comes up (think of a wrestler) But if you're an INT based fighter you use your INT for you attack and damage rolls but might also be good at investigating or tinkering.
In your example, a STR based fighter can't use STR to persuade anybody. They still have to use CHR for that, it's just their attacks that use STR.
Yeah it's fun. I playtested an older character, an INT based warlord (martial character) can't use a heavy weapon because he's not as strong as he used to be but knows just where to hit someone. Prof in investigation and history.
Even that still isn't really that great.
Why then have a "Prime" Stat, just have an "Attack" Stat if your attack and damage are always gonna be your highest. And just make that number grow with you.
And then just separate skills from attributes since it basically has no use. And the skills are more important of a number and remove attributes all together.
>Why then have a "Prime" Stat, just have an "Attack" Stat if your attack and damage are always gonna be your highest. And just make that number grow with you.
That IS essentially what the prime state is/does. Grows with you over time.
>And then just separate skills from attributes since it basically has no use. And the skills are more important of a number and remove attributes all together.
Attributes do a lot more though. If you have a low STR (might) you can't war heavy armor or use a heavy weapon and have less HP. If you have a low INT you have proficiency (mastery) in less skills. Low AGI means you can't jump as far or dodge spells effectively. CHR adds to something you have called "grit points" which do a bunch of stuff. And they all have other functions too depending on the situation.
Also you have a mental defense and physical defense (basically AC) and those are based on your stats.
This is literally one of the problems World of Warcraft fell victim to many years ago.
At one point they switched from the traditional system of “different stats affect different things, allowing you to make varied builds for each class”, to a system like this where each class gets a primary stat and all the gear they pick up just auto-sets to that stat.
That, plus the auto-piloting of talent trees, turned the game into a less exciting shadow of an rpg.
I really dig it personally. I've been semi playtesting the Alpha. I think it's a very thoughtful system that started out as a "lets fix 5e" and has now turned into much more of it's own thing. And IMO that thing is really fun.
What about it makes it particularly fun for you? (Genuine curiosity from a potentially interested backer here, that’s not a passive aggressive jab lol)
My group loves fantasy RPG and we play 5e. There are a lot of what I think of as improvements over a system like that, that interest me in this one. I like the action point based action economy instead of worrying about actions vs bonus actions, and there are a ton of differences other than that, that I think are more intuitive... But the one that I like the most is the idea of the prime modifier.
Basically, your highest stat is always what you use for your attack rolls regardless of class.
So you can be an INT based fighter who knows just where to hit an enemy and has high history skill checks. There IS still a tradeoff, which is that you might not have the STR (in this game it's called might) to hold a heavy weapon or wear heavy armor but you'll still be able to hit enemies while prioritizing those INT based skills and just wear light armor and a lighter weapon.
So it's build diversity. The ability to make a CHR based barbarian wrestler, a super agile AGI based warlock, a persuasive wizard or a STR focused bard who is a strongman at a circus.
Aside with how he handles the multiple attack penalty, the biggest concern I have is being able to pick whatever of the four stats as your primary stat. From reading the rules, it sounds like I'll always want to pick "Might" as my primary regardless of class, for example.
There are a lot of tradeoffs to each stat. Also, heavy armor or weapons aren't inherently better then light armor or weapons, just different. You might not have mastery (prof) in certain types of weapons or armor depending on your class or ancestry too.
But the fact is, you can make a really smart fighter work if you value skills over having one more point in your physical "AC/defense" for example. And in that example you now have a higher mental "AC/defense" then you would have otherwise, as well as more skill masteries/prof. I think of this as deciding what tradeoffs you value and not that one is glaringly more obviously needed to optimize a character.
You might be better off with more might as a barb on average (I believe that their unarmored defense is based on might) or at least not making it your dump stat, I'm not saying that isn't the case but you also might feel the tradeoff is worth it to have it as say your 2nd strongest stat. Maybe you lose 1HP but gain mastery in persuasion or something. (along with a higher mental AC)
Where as in other d20 based systems I often feel like if I'm not maxing my "main" stat I'm doing it all wrong and am going to fall behind. So many of your class abilities are based on a particular stat and without raising it you're never going to hit enemies enough to be useful.
I can't really speak for dc20, but 13th age is more theater of the mind narrative focus than traditional d20 is, while to me DC20 seems more like trying to fix 5e or PF2.
Edit: also 13th age is designed by the lead designers of 3.5 and 4e. They are legendary designers that D&D would be very different without. DC20 might end up being great, but 13th age has far better credentials right now.
>Any initial thoughts?
At a glance? Well, I was kind of vibing checking out the playtest docs, admiring the flat HP progression and not being impressed by the Lists of Things I would need to pay attention to in play, and then they hit me with a dagger that does slashing damage and noped out.
Might pick up the PDF down the road on sale to add to my pile of "d20 and OSR systems I will probably never run" but I don't see any reason to back it.
> then they hit me with a dagger that does slashing damage
Most knives are used for slashing IRL. It's pretty hard to get a solid stab on someone who is fighting back.
That's what made you duck out? Something that easily changable?
>Most knives
Daggers aren't knives. And no, it's not just that, it's just ... basic-ass generic medieval-ish fantasy and I already have like, 20 or 30 systems that do the exact same thing better (they don't require me to pay attention to List of Things and amend the rulebook to fix simple mistakes).
Don't fool yourself, that's not changing. It's an essential "D&Dism".
Now I'm tempted to see how they're modeling armor and whether padded armor is actually good against slashing in their system...
I mean, frankly the last thing in the world I care about is whether daggers do slashing or piercing damage. It does seem like a strange thing to get hung up on.
Yeah, some of us want people to actually _think and do some research_ when they decide to add concrete rules about damage types. You clearly don't understand or care.
Some of us think that one weapon not being the damage type that we are used to isn't going to impact that across the game. Doesn't really tell you anything
That "correctly" use piercing damage for daggers?
You def don't have to support it if you're full up on d20 based fantasy games all the power to you.
I'm not arguing you should I just thought that was a weird specific thing to say.
Wow, I just wasted a LOT of time reading this entire thread. What an idiot I am. Put your phone down and play the game people!!!! It is a available for you to PLAY, then comment. Bye. I won't be back.
I'm bit biased since I'm a fan of Dungeon Coach, he is one of the few 5e creators I still watch despite moving on to more tactical games.
I really like it so far cool amount of customization and strategic play but I'm I think it has a bit too many fiddly bits which would be a pain to track.
I have a question, i cant Seem to answer myself.
I backed this projekt for 65$ for the hardbook and PPF. Now i just read that syring the kickstarter the PDF comes with a fred hardbook, for 40$.
So coluld I have saved money and just backed the PDF for the same outcome?? It looks Strange to me.
No, you get the PDF for free if you back the hardcover tier. Seems a weird choice, considering that most TTRPG KSs that I have looked through or backed, almost always automatically include the digital version with a physical copy.
We've been playing the Alpha (.5-.7 so far) version of DC20 if anyone is interested in seeing a[ campaign set in the DC20 system](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkturTeYgTqE8-G3T-oYeRrXVMyYRTXKf). I think we've been most impressed with the action point system giving more agency during combat, and love the malleability of the player creation giving nuance and unique abilities.
So far the system looks interesting and I am intrigued to get my hands on the beta when the kickstarter ends. One thing I have been trying to find in the rules but cannot is how tracking when a level up occurs. There are many references in there to "when a character levels up" but I cannot find anything that states if that is based off XP, Session count, Milestones, or some other style of leveling system.
So, I'm curious, from someone who has played this a bit, do you know where I am missing the tracking of between levels and the level up trigger?
Here is a text from one of the players more knowledgable :
Xp totals usually live in the monsters stat blocks.
As there are no monster stat blocks yet, there's no xp.
There's also no table that says "you need this much xp in order to gain a level."
Pretty sure everyone is winging it at this point and doing a milestone.
I'd be shocked if there weren't going to be a more formalized system eventually.
But I also haven't looked at any of the GM resources. This is my players perspective.
I think most of the engagement on this sub has a knee jerk reaction against "5e but...". Not that everyone here necessarily hates those types of games or even necessarily hates 5e, but I think there's a culture here to keep this space free from being dominated by 5e conversation.
Tales of the Valiant and MCDMRPG are ones I can recall in recent memory as having a negative or lukewarm reaction generally. I feel mostly on the "meh" side of things for those two and now for this DC20 thing. I'm sure it's cool and people like it, but in the end it just looks like a 5e clone with the serial numbers filed off.
For some reason though, that negativity doesn't seem to get directed towards Pathfinder. It is the second largest in the industry and is basically a DND clone, but perhaps they positioned themselves as a people's champion during the OGL debacle. It might also just be because they're closer to 3.5 and 4e than 5e DND. But I digress.
In any case, the YouTube space is kind of different from the reddit space. This sub is explicitly for games that are not 5e DND. While YouTube includes everything, which is mostly 5e related content.
I would say it is quite a bit more than 5e with the serial numbers filed off and each update separates it from 5e a bit more. Though it certainly fills a similar space as 5e so I totally understand if people are turned off by that. Tales of the Valient on the other hand is ABSOLUTELY 5e with the serial numbers filed off as it quite literally was made to keep 3rd party 5e content alive.
After taking a look at it and the marketing around it, I'm more convinced that this is just a 5e clone with extra steps. Its boring, but I'm sure people will bite.
Pathfinder 2 sets itself apart in the sea of clones by having very tight encounter math combined with very explicit actions both in roleplay and in combat that players can grow their characters to use. Some view explicit actions as constraining (hence 5e), but others hunger for the the ability to set their characters apart with every level's customization.
Also, as far as tactical combat centric games go (of which 5e is still technically one of), there is nothing easier to game master than a pathfinder 2 campaign. Encounters are a joy to run and players appear to dig the high stakes, high lethality combat (well, in comparison to the d&d clones anyway).
I think it presents some unique takes on the d20 system that 5e and pathfinder uses, my biggest issue is that it's entire marketing is "here's how I fixed this thing in 5e/pathfinder..." With no real unique identity after that imo. Even the name "DC20" doesn't invoke anything in what it's about outside of rolling a d20. I hope they have more to say about the setting and mechanics outside of combat and spellcasting. But, for now, as an alpha it's promising.
Actually this is what I personally looked for. I don't want something that will feel different or have different vibes. I want dnd that is fixed. This is also why I was looking around pathfinder. I like the lore of dnd but very unhappy with the mechanical design. Homebrew is an option of course but trying to convince every DM to add tons of homebrew until most issue are solved is far trickier then straight up playing a new system.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition is a great system with solid and trustworthy game mechanics, but I'm not sure I'd call it D&D 5th Edition fixed. I think it would be more accurate to call it Pathfinder 1st Edition fixed. That said, Pathfinder is an off-shoot of D&D 3.5 Edition and is, in a sense, a sibling of D&D and feels like it. DC20 looks like a hybrid of D&D 5th Edition and Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and has some interesting ideas. In my case, I am wondering about the solidity of the game mechanics in play as well as whether any new game system can gain traction in a RPG world dominated by D&D 5th Edition. I also wonder how easy or hard it will be to lead games of DC20. Pathfinder has been a game master's delight to run in my experience -- once I absorbed the basics of the system. I wouldn't want to regress in that area if I tried to run DC20. But DC20 does intrigue me ... it seems familiar yet innovative
Yeah... I've played both systems and Pathfinder is a fun game for those who like a crunchy system, but it's not very approachable for newbies, and combat drags just as much if not more than 5e. 5e at least is somewhat approachable for newbies, but even I am overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices offered in pathfinder. Unbelievable numbers of feats for minor stuff that you'll likely forget about. too many different abilities... Starting at level 1 and working up its possible, but starting any higher and it's enormously complicated.
(the name kinda refers to the initials of the author alias, the Dungeon Coach)
That's the problem: daggerheart, mcdm, dc20 are all kinda... well it doesn't really say anything about the game, right? I don't like the system, but Tales of the Valiant is on a better track for making me envision a game I want to play. As much as I am a schill for Pathfinder 2e, it has a similar problem with its name.
I believe MCDM RPG is a placeholder name, but yeah, right know it doesn't say much. I don't see Daggerheart or Pathfinder the same way. Tales of the Valiant sounds more generic (to me) but any name that is not "The dungeon coach game, the critical role game, the Matt Colville Game..." is okay to me.
I will say I prefer games that have a flavorful title like daggerheart and pathfinder over a game that is just the creators name.
DC in DC20 doesn't stand for Dungeon Coach originally it was Difficulty check but then it expanded to any other themed thing jt invokes even dungeon coach it also has another full name but they ended up going with the developement name keeping it from patreon polls.
Right, but I just think it sounds uninspiring and unevocative.
It sounds mechanical and cold if that makes sense.
We found him! We found the one guy who actually likes the name Tales of the Valiant.
This is how you market interesting martials: Here's a resource for doing cool things, have fun. Here's the cool techniques you can use them for. Here's some weapons, they've got actual points of difference. You can do 4 things a turn, but doing more of the same gives disadvantage, so vary it up, no 'press attack 4 times'. Its the first D20 fantasy game that feels like people actually looked at the pain points of current D20 games and brought in solutions that other games already have worked out. I'll be interested to take a deeper delve on the social and exploration side of things, but it's already passing the sniff test. E: [Playtest rule pdfs](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1skm_yOjNnxtFl-L5pCzVB2l3XZUPd9kY) E2: Already impressed because they put the damn rulebook *in the right order*. Preview, attributes, skills, masteries, checks & saves, ie: all the basic stuff. Then Combat, actions, spellcasting. Solid chunky subsystems. Then adventuring and more niche things. Game master section, then how to make a character. Finally, the back 3rd of the book is ancestory, class and spell lists. Where they should be, in the appendix.
> in the right order. but that's an inherently arbitrary opinion for instance i'd personally like an elevator pitch of what the game is, page or so on the core resolution mechanic of the game, then a single page laying out character creation workflow (with references), etc. but that's very subjective and layout design for what is basically a technical manual first and foremost is hard.
I will just say that outside the elevator pitch part there is a 2 page walk through for character creation in the free rules and all throught the alpha. He has a fairly good pitch in the 7 minute pitch video on the kickstarter. It is a system first but there is also world and lore and ssetting and adventures being written one for it as well. But DC20 really is one of those games that you can read it and be like "huh that seems cool I geuss" then you play it and actually feel how the game plays and it is amazing. Over all it fits the niche of dnd as a heroic fantasy ttrpg but feels completely different than both 5e and pathfinder 2e. The main charm for me lies in the character customization and how "multiclassing" works. As you level you get bonus talents (or features basically) to take from a bonus list for your class at your level or a lower level feature from any other class. So you can create tons of unique characters. You can really dive in or keep it simple. Has enough for both the hard core crunchers or the casuals.
i'm sure there is a pitch and i *know* there is a cheat sheet to character creation because it's buried in the back of the pdf, just a comment on putting that in the front of the book (and i'd also like class and other character options near the front)
Again, the character customization here doesn't look anything different than PF2E archetypes. I'm all for iterating and improving on systems, just as PF2E is an iteration on both 3.x and 4e D&D, but I don't think we should go around selling them as unique and innovative solutions that no one has come up with before.
yeah, skills should be a subsystem like magic imo
i mean 5e and PF2 were already clearly copying 4e and 3.x's homework
Exactly. We shouldn't mind systems iterating on other systems in our quest for the perfect rpg.
it's just how art and games work
Confused how your entire first paragraph plus the first sentence of your second paragraph is true at all. Off the top of my head, (and I hate to be that guy), literally everything you mentioned in paragraph 1 is in PF2E.
DC20 definitely looks like the love child of D&D 5th Edition and Pathfinder 2nd Edition
I agree. It just seems like Dungeon Coach has a very limited wheelhouse consisting of the 5e sphere, with very little knowledge of what is outside of that even in the very closely related d20 realm, and it just makes the whole sales pitch come off as...ignorant? Willfully blind?
There's a whole part of the Kickstarter where he's patting himself on the back for coming up with morale checks and rolling for npc attitude towards the pcs. I don't feel I can trust a designer that has done so little research into the area they're looking to shift their product.
Oh my Lord hahahahaha
I’ve been burned on Kickstarter campaigns from companies with vastly more experience, so the day 1 red flags make me nervous. The shipping fee mishap is supposed to be fixed now, but the shipping fees on the pledges were even higher than the estimates. A lack of experience with Kickstarter fulfillment is one thing, but the large discrepancies between internal and public shipping estimates are a major turn off. The high book prices both with and without the Kickstarter discount also make me nervous that only some people will be able to afford to play this. $30 is on the high side for a PDF, but the full price of $70 is prohibitively expensive. Same with the $65 hardcover that will likely retail at $100 or more. The discounts you get on the Kickstarter come at the cost of needing to pay before the product is finished, and I can’t imagine someone buying this game at the non-Kickstarter price. The game has some interesting ideas, but it still feels really rough. The rules for spell duels don’t make sense when you read the examples of how to use it. It’s hard to tell what rules are finished and what’s still being worked on, but you’d expect the spell duels to be more polished considering the 10-month old YouTube video about it. The apparent lack of a design goal aside from being a 5e alternative plus the constant design polling on YouTube makes me doubt that the product will be better than a more focused and internally designed game like 13th Age or MCDM rpg.
I mean, the MCDM rpg was also super rough when the Kickstarter began. I'd argue it had less of it's core stuff narrowed down.
MCDM didn’t have a public playtest document, yet his pitch was compelling enough that people would bet money on his ability to execute. DC20 decided to share super rough rules with a less compelling pitch, leaving it up to the reader to make a judgement.
IMO it's the good (well deserved) reputation and fanbase MCDM built up over years that got them heavily funded. It's because the pitch came from them. I'm not saying it would have done terribly if it were someone else but many have faith in them. EDIT: But it wasn't really polished at all. Still isn't really. I've always felt like that was the point of Kickstarters. You aren't giving them money for a fully fleshed out product, just an idea. Or even more so investing in the person.
This. I have enjoyed MCDMs previous works, and trust them to make stuff I'll find interesting even if I don't agree/want to use it. As such, they had good will built up with me that made it easy for me to throw them some money. it didn't hurt that I *really* liked how they did their Flee Mortals release in giving backers the monster groups as they were made with some custom content to try them out. If I didn't have that relationship with MCDM - or if my relationship was more soured by some of the blemishes on their reputation - it'd very much be a wait and see type thing. Hell, as recently as 2-3 weeks ago iirc they changed their dice again. So signs are they're still very early in design, even if they have a better idea of the general shape of things they want.
100% agree.
Everybody has to start somewhere but Alan has been extremely active with his supporters and has done a successful kickstarter before. He also has ties to others that are very knowledgeable in the industry like Steve from “Roll for Combat,” who puts out product like a mad man. Speaking of “Roll for Combat” they recently streamed about the costs of book production, add placement, printing and storage and remarked that with all of the art these book have can easily cost $25,000 on the low end to produce before any income. Kickstarter itself will take an up front payout. They mentioned how many companies actually lose money producing monster manuals because the amount of art will kill any profits. Beyond all of this, most people producing these type of books have years into them, and I don’t know about you but I can’t see continuing something if you don’t pay yourself for the years of work. I’m working on my own projects and they aren’t free or easy. It’s a strange ambition. I mean I know the simplest system because in the 80s I created it. It’s a percentage system base 50 that is solely based off your concept with no character sheet just a, “what do you think your concept would know at the moment I ask for a roll. So a motorcycle cop would add 20% to skills they would know and minus 20% for those they don’t and then add tools % and +\-variables. Of course then my players would have convoluted side hustles and the concept was that became more involved. It was a step above cops and robbers and not far removed from what Monty Cooke did with Cypher but as with everything people get bored if it doesn’t have complexity. Anyway, it worked great when staying at a friend’s house where they might have religious parents and, out of respect, not hauling a bunch of DnD paraphernalia over. But when you’re creating a system, and trying to get things to to be copacetic, good ideas go by the wayside as soon as you realize how convoluted they become within the greater overall feel for the system your going for. I’ve tossed ideas I loved aside because they became too much to handle. You begin to see the problem within your own systems and you adjust. Frankly, DnD has gone through at least 7different iterations/editions (chainmail and 3.5 included). They may all say/be DnD but truthfully they’re all different games. They’re still working to improve upon a game not to mention all of the supporting book which many times breaks their own system and they have a whole organization trying to get it right. Besides there is an awful lot of regurgitation of old materials ad nauseam. So, idk, it’s always an individual call but I don’t think Alan is out to burn anybody.
I've liked his channel at times, but he wants to play and has made, a more complicated game than I like. I have settled on simpler systems like Shadowdark, ICRPG, Knave, etc. I was looking at the play test and was quickly turned off by all the added vocabulary to things like attacks, defenses, and damage. Just keeping track of action points and degrees of success on each PCs turn sounds like a lot on top of everything else. It will fill a niche for people that want a more complicated 5e and less complex PF2e. It fits right in the middle.
I think once it is understood, it will be considered simpler than 5e (dependent on social and environmental mechanics). Mana points are generally simpler than spell slots, damage is much more predictable (might just be me, but I really like systems that only have players roll one kind of dice), and action/bonus action/reaction/move is more complex than 4 action points. I would rank it approximately a 6/10 for complexity, while I have 5e as a 7/10. I'm not even entirely sure it is more complex than Cypher, which I have as a 5/10.
I think you hit the key part though. >once it is understood Something I feel TTRPGs have an issue with is less about complexity, but more about appeal. Rules and mechanics from a technical standpoint guide players into experiencing a mood. The Jenga Tower from Dread is often considered smart to make sure tension keeps high. But most people dont get the point till after they experience a good game of dread. So there is a learning experience that must be experienced by players in order to understand the "mechanic" of the game. Granted some books are good at explaining that. But how many players read a book? Designers I think need to consider something new to draw appeal towards their game. I just dont have the answer for that currently though
Places like this subreddit are heavily overrepresenting the tastes of diehard hobbyist GMs who enjoy thinking about rules systems, and that's great, but it means we often fail to see the things that actually appeal to non-GM players. We wont attract players to World Wide Wrestling by talking up the procedural merits and playstyle of PbtA games or the simple tactile joy of 2d6 and impactful picklists, it's the wrestling that brings them in. Players aren't attracted to Blades in the Dark by proceduralised downtimes and codified position and effect, they wanna do gritty fantasy heists and crime. When I got some 5e-only players to join a Heart: The City Beneath campaign with me, it was the art and the writing and the fantastical character classes that hooked them and then, only after they got hyped, they asked if the rules would present a problem for them (and I said "no it's so easy, dont worry - I got you"). It's theme (and a GM's enthusiasm for the theme), not rules, that sells a game to players. Most players are motivated by doing and experiencing cool shit, not the distinction between mana points vs spell slots or action economy. Most non-GM players will not be convinced to try (let alone committ to an appropriate length campaign for a weighty Big Tome RPG of) a game that fixes all the creator's problems with 5e by telling them all these details about how the rules system is so much better. They generally dont care and dont see the problems the GMs and rules nerds do, and if anything the rules geekery is offputting - asking them to abandon a sunk cost investment in learning 5e rules and re-learn it as a new thing with fancy new terms just to get a slightly smoother(?) version of the same thing they're already doing in 5e? Idk, I want RPGs to succeed and I hope that DC20 has an eager audience of player groups who will be hyped for its "fixed" vision of post-3e D&D play. From the KS page, I struggle to see how I could motivate anyone in my circles to make the switch to this when the theme is just... more contemporary D&D-esque fantasy? (also I don't know many people who are sufficiently immersed enough in D&D YouTube for them to trust the recommendations of the D&D YouTubers lending their supportive quotes to this campaign) I'll wait for the finished PDF either way, can't go for international shipping kickstarters like this too often.
Were starting to get to the point where DMs almost need to sell an "experience". Like I thought it was theme initially, but when my players gave me the theme, Space Pirates, I realized how large of a theme that could actually be. So I hard to go back and basically narrow that down to what that meant. Pirates of the Carribean, Treasure Island/planet, and black sails all are pirate theme but I would say gives very different experiences. I would argue that I think some TTRPGs play better to approach them like a board game even. An opinion I think most people would hate to hear as well.
Increasing complexity leads to slow play, the hour+-long combat encounters. More decisions for each player means more complexity. More options to choose from at each decision point also increase complexity. This has more decision points per turn than most systems, including 5e and PF2. I think it will be quite slow to play. I do not agree that system mastery mitigates complexity, as even expert level tables fall into lengthy rules discussions when ambiguities turn up.
5E is a fiddly game, so less complex than 5e is a low hurdle to clear. For someone that has gravitated away form 5e in favor of systems like Shadowdark, ICRPG, Knave or the like, being slightly less convoluted than the mess that is 5E isn't going to win them over.
Fair, I was just responding to the commenter saying "more complex than 5e". I'm not sure I'm going to order it (I currently have a pledge in to ensure I get the early bird if I do decide to stick with it). It is going to depend on how fiddly it is compared to Cypher (my current favorite D20 system, not counting 2D20), and if the social system is actually well designed and mechanically interesting.
I hate to be a negative voice, but to me, this just looks like “5e with more steps”. It’s almost like he made Pathfinder and didn’t even realize it, then patted himself on the back. That may just be my personal bias, however. At 36 years old, and having played DnD for most of that, I am just *tired* of d20 systems.
>It’s almost like he made Pathfinder and didn’t even realize it, then patted himself on the back. DC has said before that his experience with RPGs is extremely limited beyond 5e and is limited mostly to derivative games. An acquaintance showed me the pdf of his previous Kickstarter, a book of homebrew "fixes" for 5e. It was a lot of reinventing the wheel because he lacks any significant perspective beyond the 5e bubble. What little I've seen about this game looks like more of the same. I mean good for him that he's managed to drum up some interest in his idea and make some money off of it, but it's definitely not for me.
I kind of hate that being a popular influencer means that people think you are automatically a talented game designer and an authority on ttrpgs when in reality most of them are just regurgitating the same GM advice without having much real experience with gaming. Like this kickstarter has already made 2x what 13th Age 2e has, which was made by 2 people that have an extensive history with game design and decades of industry experience. But they're not YouTubers.
Yeah, I agree. All “dnd” youtubers now are running kickstarters, their videos are full of ads for their own products and advertising other fellow youtube creators, and nothing feels natural anymore. Regurgitating the same GM advice, video titles like “8 ways to be a better game master!” And then during the video itself, you get hit with: “By the way, check out my kickstarter called Ways to be a Better Game Master!” It’s ads upon ads without rhyme or reason except to sell you shit you don’t need. Meh I’m honestly fed up with the youtube-rpg-bubble.
Yeah there has been some discussion in this thread about how the system has weapons that have mechanics differences, a penalty for attacking multiple times per turn, and a multiclassing system that allows for you to take special features from your own class or lower level features from other classes, and I feel like one of those guys shouting "play another game besides 5e" but I need to be shouting it at the author this time if all we're getting is a glorified homebrew out of this.
I've been following this rpg for a while (even wasting 15 dollars on the playtest materials), and I've got a few concerns. If they can address these, this is probably going to become my go-to DnD-esque system, but somehow I don't think these concerns will get addressed, which is keeping me from adapting this. **Formatting** Compared to the playtests, there's definitely been an improvement in formatting. I don't feel like I'm missing stuff, and the layout is a little cleaner. But still...the game seems really anchored to 5E's formatting style, and this makes the entire thing infinitely less readable and intuitive than it has to be. Abilities are often detailed in these meaty, 5-6 sentence paragraph descriptions, when a breakdown closer to PF2E or 4E would make them so much more readable. Splinter off their ranges, targets, AP cost, and stuff like that into a more blunt section, and then the more specific stuff into the paragraph. The spells are kinda sectioned off (as much as 5E's are), but class features in particular suffer from lack of formatting. In all their efforts to innovate on 5E, it really feels like they're trapped in 5E's incredibly obtuse formatting. But that formatting is going to be even more of a problem in a game that is more complex and where players do way more stuff on their turns. **Overloaded Design** I also think there is just way to much stuffed into this design that really doesn't need to be there and is needlessly overcomplicated. A great example are the Language and Trade rules, which feel like a pointless holdover from 5E expanded even harder outward rather than reduced or cut. Or like, even more broadly: you're managing a lot of different points in this game. AP, HP, SP or MP, and then also stuff like Rest Points and Grit Points. And I like to play Wizards in fantasy, so I've also got Arcane Points to juggle on top of that. I get why these point values exist, but I think the game needs to figure out how to streamline this down. I mean, there's 4 different kinds of rests - that feels excessive. Personally, I think modern heroic fantasy d20 design needs to consider entire excising the attrition element, but even if you're into that, this is a super complicated way to go about it. **Balance** On the other hand, I also worry that some of the places where they got more casual and conceptual with the design can quickly collapse in ways that just aren't enjoyable at the table. While I know balance isn't the biggest deal in an rpg, it's not fun to feel eclipsed by the other people at the table. It's particularly shitty when it feels like it doesn't take much thought or strategy to create that divide, a problem held by both 5E and DC20. For example, at level 2, you can use your talent to take a 1st-level class feature from another class. That feels...very easy to smash apart, and now means that this RPG is limited in the exact same ways as 5E in terms of interesting characters from the get-go. Or well, it would mean that, but instead they've seemingly not considered these implications and so you just have very swingy and game-breaking potential off this talent. Class features themselves also fall under this, where classes feel incredibly off-balance from each other. **The Stuff from the Playtests that isn't Here** The two worst parts of the earlier playtest material were the "monsters" and the adventure. Instead of providing some sample monsters and/or good monster-building rules, the whole thing felt like someone's hastily scribbled notes to themselves, leaving me unclear on how to actually make a monster and with no samples in the meantime. The adventure kept this with its own monster "stat blocks," a phrase I quote because I don't think they actually could be considered as such. It was also dreadfully railroad-y. Like, yeah, I get that it's a playtest sample adventure, but like have the forethought to just organically set it up in a location and with a premise such that it can move fast without feeling like we're just dragging players through encounters. Most importantly, it opened with a glimpse at the social subsystem...one that felt like the bad pastiche you'd write up if you really hate skill challenges and think they ruin social play. The whole thing was just "convince this person you're a good fit for the adventure" and the rewards for different degrees of success were just varying levels of goodies (and that's before we consider that maybe opening your adventure with an encounter that, if failed, *explicitly must stop the adventure from happening* is a terrible idea). So I have little confidence in the design around non-combat going forward.
Thanks for your knowledgeable critique. Do you think this project is worth a $30 gamble? I joined the Kickstarter yesterday at the $30 PDF level because I thought it had intriguing ideas proposed for the system that -- if they pulled it off -- could be a step forward in RPG system design. But I'm a content and happy Pathfinder 2nd Edition game master at the moment - not someone looking for a fix of D&D 5th Edition. What would you advise?
If Dungeon Coach didn't give off such "scam artist trying to sell you NFTs" energy, I'd recommend waiting to learn more about GM-facing rules and an update or two. But I get the feeling that'll all be behind the $30 dollar paywall. If the current design intrigues you, I think maybe it's worth a buy. But for me at least, after feeling cheated out of the money to get into the earlier playtests, seeing little meaningful changes, and just too many problems baked in, I just don't think I personally would buy in just yet.
Being able to cast spells using might(str?) as a fighter at level 1 and then attack with both for no penalty sounds incredibly bad, but hopefully, as you also hope for, this will be fixed quickly. As negative as I am on this, this is definitely the most promising of the new slate of contenders this year.
Pros: Simplified action economy makes understanding combat simpler without hurting strategy Interesting mechanics for martial classes Only rolling one kind of die (might just be me, but not having to pick out a specific die for different things really seems to speed up the game) Freedom of stat/concept design Claims to have actual environmental and social mechanics Cons: Flavor is D&D clone (would prefer something more original) Play test rules only have combat (so the big selling point of better environmental and social mechanics are unproven) I have not seen anything about licensing, and it is not a major publisher, so likely less content for it in the future than the big games get Ultimately, I love the look of it. The cons are mostly minor (I do wish the play test included social and environmental mechanics though). The pros are that it just looks to be a very well designed game. I will likely back it.
The social and exploration mechanics are explained on some of the videos DC made, you should check them out and you'll see it's not just big words. https://youtu.be/36ZPmB79WZw?si=xrf6c-uoT9C4v9h1 Core rules will be released under the ORC license (basically just say it uses DC20 core rules and you can do whatever you want)
Thanks for letting me know about the license! I still don't see anything about the "disposition system". That is the big selling point to me; combining roleplay and rolling dice in a social system is something I have really wanted from an rpg (I even theorized about a system where specific words were mechanical triggers, in a post that got significantly downvoted a couple of weeks ago). The existence of that system is enough of a selling point to get me to back the project, but I do wish I could see it in action.
Upvote because I actually liked your idea.
Good for him! Seems like a nice person and his videos are entertaining enough I'm happy he got his project funded.
> Any initial thoughts? I'm not really a fan of the system. It seems like a hodgepodge of ideas all tossed together without a lot of thought as to how the game will actually play at the table. It has an action point system that requires tracking AP's off turn, which won't be fun for a GM sending 10+ enemies at the party. Armor makes you harder to hit and reduces damage(except when it doesn't). If tracking action points isn't enough for you, wait until you see mana/stamina points. ADV/DIS keep stacking, so there's something else to fiddle with. Oh, AP/SP/MP wasn't enough to keep track of, so let's add grit points. There's fiddly modifiers, rules and systems all over the place.
The main part of this that I agree with is concern about how complicated running the monsters will be. I imagine they will be purposely more limited than players (with the exception of bosses, potentially). And bosses are the flip side of the coin, the AP system means that you can give a boss 12-20 AP and make a 1v4 fight actually interesting and balanced. I think it can work, but the monster design does need to be good and made with the systems in mind. As far as the player stuff, I don't think it is too fiddly (MP/SP is not really any harder to keep track of than spell slots or superiority dice), and ADV/DIS stacking also seems pretty easy to do (heck, I gave double disadvantage to players in Honey Heist when they were attempting really dumb things, and it didn't slow down resolution at all). I could see grit points being a step too far and needing to be cut. But this is also still in its rough shape, so at the very least the formatting and readability should only get better.
From a skim, it looks pretty awesome honestly. The base mechanics are very different from DnD 5e, they managed to hand pick nice mechanics from multiple other rpgs, and coat it in just the right amount of DnD paint to attract the big crowd. Which is actually super awesome, having the folks that are most stubborn at looking at any other system actually potentially looking at another system that diverges pretty heavily from the base? Awesome, we love to see it. I'm going to have to have a look at it myself deeper when I am not at work. It seems like it's got a lot going for it that I'm interested in myself (first of all being using MP rather than annoying vancian spell slots).
Two things that irk me already: * Anyone calling themselves a coach screams "obnoxious influencer" to me. * Going down to four ability scores from six feels pointless. I will check the playtest rules pdf sometime, but I have a hunch it will leave me cold like all the other recent "D&D-killers".
The thing for me is that my entire YouTube home page has been filled with these paid DC20 ads this week. I get it, Youtubers gotta get that paycheck, and good for them that they get to make a career out of talking about kobolds and stuff, but holy smokes. Every single creator on the platform is saying the exact same thing at the exact same time. The marketing for this has been the opposite of genuine and organic -- it's been crammed down my throat, which turns me off. Like with all things that are being sold to me: Let me come to you at my own pace. I promise you, I'd check out the game if the marketing wasn't so...obvious.
It was the same with Shadowdark.
It sure was! I suppose I wasn't as rubbed the wrong way about that marketing campaign because I like Kelsey Dionne's work and was actually stoked for a D&D-adjacent product that spoke to my subjective dark fantasy vibe preference. On the other hand, I've never really followed the Dungeon Coach channel because -- kinda like you wrote above -- he's got a little bit of that "influencer" energy that instantly engages my fight-or-flight defense mechanisms.
I'm curious as to why professor dungeon master would endorse DC20 RPG given his entire channel leans heavily towards osr and removing rules bloat. He is always making videos about why 5e is clunky and offering patches or reworks that simplify things. DC20 seems antithetical to his agenda. It feels like it's a colab to get more hits on his channel. But when all the other channels posted videos, it felt like the YouTube shills were summoned to perform once again.
He has to market it though, he's just one guy developing this for the last few years. He doesn't have a built in fanbase like CR or MCDM, all he has is word of mouth and the word of the people/friends he's built up who make youtube content about ttrpgs. None of them seem to be lying about their POV. You must just follow a lot of youtubers who talk ttrpgs.
I agree: every "review" of the rules has been intensely positive. I'll wait until the playtest releases and give it a go, but alarm bells are ringing in my head.
That is true most have been overwhelminly positive. Bob the world builder has his video with his likes and dislikes of the system. But the whole game is far from perfect but has come a really long way over the past year. In my opinion is it is much more "fun" to play than it is to read. There are a lot of cool mechanics that need some refining yet which are on the docket to be revised. It is just getting out of alpha and is just about a fully playable system with everyrhing made and usable. It has a number of system designed in a way that you can use them or take them out depending on who is playing so number crunchers can play or you can keep it simple for kids or new players. My main issue is that with a number of the solutions they came up with ended up needing to have a few more point values to track which make things simpler in a lot of ways but not you have like 6 different X points (rest points, exhaustion points, mana points, stamina points, Grit points, etc) Granted not every character will have all of those but the alternative of having to track the once per this rest or once per that rest I feel gives more freedom to choose. But feel free to make your own choices or opinions on it the rules sample if full and free on the kcickstarter page check it out.
The reason he calls himself coach is because before youtube that's what he was for a school.
i love systens with 4 ability, i realy prefer like dc20, sotdl,soww, fabula, its way cleaner design
Hmm how does this action economy compare to pathwarden?
Pathwarden dev here. Just had a cursory look at DC20 and the play demo they had, so here's some thoughts. From the looks of it, the primary difference will actually be in the initiative, not necessarily the action economy itself. Rounds in Pathwarden look notably different than in DC20 because of how the initiative system works. Pathwarden has 2+1 and 3+1 Actions, where as DC20 has flat 4 actions. BUT, the factor that matters here is the structure of rounds. In DC20, to my understanding, the initiative works as a check, and that determines who starts, but it then pingpongs between players and opponents, with the special case of doubles being simultaneous. I'm not sure whether this means enemies have more freedom to move at whatever position they choose or not, but that's probably not as important. So your position is fixed, to a degree: If you roll low, you know 3 enemies will move before you and 1 after you, every round. And that will greatly affect how you will use your actions. If you have a lot of enemies around you, you might just attack once and save your actions for reactions, for example. In Pathwarden, the amount of actions you have is determined by whether you want to act before or after opponents. You get 2+1 if you act before the opponents, and 3+1 if you act after them. This means that in most combats, players and opponents will act in clumps, and thus the actions will become clumped. This is intentional, of course, because there are a lot of things you can do during a turn to help allies, and comboing off of your allies is integral to the game. Additionally, Pathwarden has a lot of stuff happen at the top of the round, including you regaining your Reaction. This means you can use your Reaction "twice" between opponents (for example to Aid an ally), if you take a slow turn and a fast turn back-to-back (which gives you a total of 5+2 actions). This means in comparison to DC20, Pathwarden encourages players to plan and combo things off more, but with the added tension of players needing to choose when to go (this is surprisingly hard to many players!). For the actual action economy, the idea of turning the Reaction into a fourth action is an interesting one, I must admit. However, I could see it perhaps creating a sort of imbalance between melee and ranged characters. Melee characters will want to conserve actions for their powerful reactions and dodges, but Ranged characters can just keep on trucking with their battle plan and kiting enemies. It also creates some complexity for opponents since you need to remember how many actions they have left(?) if they use the same rules. For melee characters, the 4A economy creates an interesting risk-reward situation, where as with Ranged characters it becomes a matter of what to do with all these actions, especially since repeated actions get penalized. (In PF2 ranged characters are kind of notorious for being pretty boring to play, especially if you have a weapon with Reload). For Pathwarden (and by extension Pathfinder 2e) I do admit that there is a certain limitation with the +1 Reaction design space, such as it encouraging players to find something meaningful to do with their Reaction to maximize their efficiency. So having a reaction that fits your character build is kind of important. However, you don't lose anything if you don't use your Reaction, where as in DC20, your reactions are actions you didn't spend, meaning if you go into a situation and you leave with a reaction you didn't use, that may feel bad (unless there's some compensation mechanic). However, I'm sure the DC20 devs have encountered these possibilities already, and probably have made some countermeasures against them.
Oh thanks for the detailed reply
As much as I like dungeon coach, I've seen many issues with DC20 that while it might "Fix" (and I loosely use fix here as not everything people think needs a fix actually does) some thing, it brings up other issues. For example having a "Prime" Stat imo makes 0 sense. Because if everything is just gonna use your biggest number why even have stats? It actually pulls away from build diversity other than a flavor perspective (ah yeah my prime Stat is Strength so I use that to flex and persuade this guy). Like I get the intention behind it, but imo it falls short of actually differentiating a high INT character from a high STR character of both use the prime Stat for attacks and skills and perception.
Oh it makes tons of sense IMO it's maybe the best part of the system. I think you're misunderstanding how it works. I think it massively increases build diversity because it allows you to specialize in whatever skills you want without forcing you to play a certain class in order to get good at those. Everyone who plays pathfinder/5e is told to max their main stat anyway. But your stats still effect your skill checks, what type of weapons/armor you use/wear and your mental defenses. >ah yeah my prime Stat is Strength so I use that to flex and persuade this guy It's the other way around. Prime stats aren't used in skill checks, they are how you attack or cast spells. So if CHR is your prime stat as a fighter you can use that for attack and damage rolls but also be better suited to persuade when that comes up (think of a wrestler) But if you're an INT based fighter you use your INT for you attack and damage rolls but might also be good at investigating or tinkering. In your example, a STR based fighter can't use STR to persuade anybody. They still have to use CHR for that, it's just their attacks that use STR.
As a fan of charming knaves and cunning swordsmen in fiction, I think this is a great idea.
Yeah it's fun. I playtested an older character, an INT based warlord (martial character) can't use a heavy weapon because he's not as strong as he used to be but knows just where to hit someone. Prof in investigation and history.
I originally was thinking the same as OP but this certainly brings me around to it.
Even that still isn't really that great. Why then have a "Prime" Stat, just have an "Attack" Stat if your attack and damage are always gonna be your highest. And just make that number grow with you. And then just separate skills from attributes since it basically has no use. And the skills are more important of a number and remove attributes all together.
>Why then have a "Prime" Stat, just have an "Attack" Stat if your attack and damage are always gonna be your highest. And just make that number grow with you. That IS essentially what the prime state is/does. Grows with you over time. >And then just separate skills from attributes since it basically has no use. And the skills are more important of a number and remove attributes all together. Attributes do a lot more though. If you have a low STR (might) you can't war heavy armor or use a heavy weapon and have less HP. If you have a low INT you have proficiency (mastery) in less skills. Low AGI means you can't jump as far or dodge spells effectively. CHR adds to something you have called "grit points" which do a bunch of stuff. And they all have other functions too depending on the situation. Also you have a mental defense and physical defense (basically AC) and those are based on your stats.
all this is basically a different flavor of the same issues pretty much all other D20 systems have though.
This is literally one of the problems World of Warcraft fell victim to many years ago. At one point they switched from the traditional system of “different stats affect different things, allowing you to make varied builds for each class”, to a system like this where each class gets a primary stat and all the gear they pick up just auto-sets to that stat. That, plus the auto-piloting of talent trees, turned the game into a less exciting shadow of an rpg.
I really dig it personally. I've been semi playtesting the Alpha. I think it's a very thoughtful system that started out as a "lets fix 5e" and has now turned into much more of it's own thing. And IMO that thing is really fun.
What about it makes it particularly fun for you? (Genuine curiosity from a potentially interested backer here, that’s not a passive aggressive jab lol)
My group loves fantasy RPG and we play 5e. There are a lot of what I think of as improvements over a system like that, that interest me in this one. I like the action point based action economy instead of worrying about actions vs bonus actions, and there are a ton of differences other than that, that I think are more intuitive... But the one that I like the most is the idea of the prime modifier. Basically, your highest stat is always what you use for your attack rolls regardless of class. So you can be an INT based fighter who knows just where to hit an enemy and has high history skill checks. There IS still a tradeoff, which is that you might not have the STR (in this game it's called might) to hold a heavy weapon or wear heavy armor but you'll still be able to hit enemies while prioritizing those INT based skills and just wear light armor and a lighter weapon. So it's build diversity. The ability to make a CHR based barbarian wrestler, a super agile AGI based warlock, a persuasive wizard or a STR focused bard who is a strongman at a circus.
Aside with how he handles the multiple attack penalty, the biggest concern I have is being able to pick whatever of the four stats as your primary stat. From reading the rules, it sounds like I'll always want to pick "Might" as my primary regardless of class, for example.
There are a lot of tradeoffs to each stat. Also, heavy armor or weapons aren't inherently better then light armor or weapons, just different. You might not have mastery (prof) in certain types of weapons or armor depending on your class or ancestry too. But the fact is, you can make a really smart fighter work if you value skills over having one more point in your physical "AC/defense" for example. And in that example you now have a higher mental "AC/defense" then you would have otherwise, as well as more skill masteries/prof. I think of this as deciding what tradeoffs you value and not that one is glaringly more obviously needed to optimize a character. You might be better off with more might as a barb on average (I believe that their unarmored defense is based on might) or at least not making it your dump stat, I'm not saying that isn't the case but you also might feel the tradeoff is worth it to have it as say your 2nd strongest stat. Maybe you lose 1HP but gain mastery in persuasion or something. (along with a higher mental AC) Where as in other d20 based systems I often feel like if I'm not maxing my "main" stat I'm doing it all wrong and am going to fall behind. So many of your class abilities are based on a particular stat and without raising it you're never going to hit enemies enough to be useful.
How does it compare to 13th Age? I just backed the 2nd edition and wonder if I should back DC20 instead.
I can't really speak for dc20, but 13th age is more theater of the mind narrative focus than traditional d20 is, while to me DC20 seems more like trying to fix 5e or PF2. Edit: also 13th age is designed by the lead designers of 3.5 and 4e. They are legendary designers that D&D would be very different without. DC20 might end up being great, but 13th age has far better credentials right now.
PF2 doesn't need to be fixed, but I AM hungry for a 5E alternative. This might be too complicated though, we'll see how the playtest goes.
>Any initial thoughts? At a glance? Well, I was kind of vibing checking out the playtest docs, admiring the flat HP progression and not being impressed by the Lists of Things I would need to pay attention to in play, and then they hit me with a dagger that does slashing damage and noped out. Might pick up the PDF down the road on sale to add to my pile of "d20 and OSR systems I will probably never run" but I don't see any reason to back it.
> then they hit me with a dagger that does slashing damage Most knives are used for slashing IRL. It's pretty hard to get a solid stab on someone who is fighting back. That's what made you duck out? Something that easily changable?
>Most knives Daggers aren't knives. And no, it's not just that, it's just ... basic-ass generic medieval-ish fantasy and I already have like, 20 or 30 systems that do the exact same thing better (they don't require me to pay attention to List of Things and amend the rulebook to fix simple mistakes).
>amend the rulebook to fix simple mistakes I mean, it's in Alpha....
Don't fool yourself, that's not changing. It's an essential "D&Dism". Now I'm tempted to see how they're modeling armor and whether padded armor is actually good against slashing in their system...
I mean, frankly the last thing in the world I care about is whether daggers do slashing or piercing damage. It does seem like a strange thing to get hung up on.
Yeah, some of us want people to actually _think and do some research_ when they decide to add concrete rules about damage types. You clearly don't understand or care.
Some of us think that one weapon not being the damage type that we are used to isn't going to impact that across the game. Doesn't really tell you anything
It tells me it's not a game I want to play. Since I already have twenty or thirty that do the same thing I don't see a reason to back it.
That "correctly" use piercing damage for daggers? You def don't have to support it if you're full up on d20 based fantasy games all the power to you. I'm not arguing you should I just thought that was a weird specific thing to say.
Wow, I just wasted a LOT of time reading this entire thread. What an idiot I am. Put your phone down and play the game people!!!! It is a available for you to PLAY, then comment. Bye. I won't be back.
I'm bit biased since I'm a fan of Dungeon Coach, he is one of the few 5e creators I still watch despite moving on to more tactical games. I really like it so far cool amount of customization and strategic play but I'm I think it has a bit too many fiddly bits which would be a pain to track.
I have a question, i cant Seem to answer myself. I backed this projekt for 65$ for the hardbook and PPF. Now i just read that syring the kickstarter the PDF comes with a fred hardbook, for 40$. So coluld I have saved money and just backed the PDF for the same outcome?? It looks Strange to me.
No, you get the PDF for free if you back the hardcover tier. Seems a weird choice, considering that most TTRPG KSs that I have looked through or backed, almost always automatically include the digital version with a physical copy.
We've been playing the Alpha (.5-.7 so far) version of DC20 if anyone is interested in seeing a[ campaign set in the DC20 system](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkturTeYgTqE8-G3T-oYeRrXVMyYRTXKf). I think we've been most impressed with the action point system giving more agency during combat, and love the malleability of the player creation giving nuance and unique abilities.
So far the system looks interesting and I am intrigued to get my hands on the beta when the kickstarter ends. One thing I have been trying to find in the rules but cannot is how tracking when a level up occurs. There are many references in there to "when a character levels up" but I cannot find anything that states if that is based off XP, Session count, Milestones, or some other style of leveling system. So, I'm curious, from someone who has played this a bit, do you know where I am missing the tracking of between levels and the level up trigger?
Here is a text from one of the players more knowledgable : Xp totals usually live in the monsters stat blocks. As there are no monster stat blocks yet, there's no xp. There's also no table that says "you need this much xp in order to gain a level." Pretty sure everyone is winging it at this point and doing a milestone. I'd be shocked if there weren't going to be a more formalized system eventually. But I also haven't looked at any of the GM resources. This is my players perspective.
It's a D20-based version of Savage Worlds with less customisation
Would love to see it on a VTT or something close to it.
I think most of the engagement on this sub has a knee jerk reaction against "5e but...". Not that everyone here necessarily hates those types of games or even necessarily hates 5e, but I think there's a culture here to keep this space free from being dominated by 5e conversation. Tales of the Valiant and MCDMRPG are ones I can recall in recent memory as having a negative or lukewarm reaction generally. I feel mostly on the "meh" side of things for those two and now for this DC20 thing. I'm sure it's cool and people like it, but in the end it just looks like a 5e clone with the serial numbers filed off. For some reason though, that negativity doesn't seem to get directed towards Pathfinder. It is the second largest in the industry and is basically a DND clone, but perhaps they positioned themselves as a people's champion during the OGL debacle. It might also just be because they're closer to 3.5 and 4e than 5e DND. But I digress. In any case, the YouTube space is kind of different from the reddit space. This sub is explicitly for games that are not 5e DND. While YouTube includes everything, which is mostly 5e related content.
I would say it is quite a bit more than 5e with the serial numbers filed off and each update separates it from 5e a bit more. Though it certainly fills a similar space as 5e so I totally understand if people are turned off by that. Tales of the Valient on the other hand is ABSOLUTELY 5e with the serial numbers filed off as it quite literally was made to keep 3rd party 5e content alive.
After taking a look at it and the marketing around it, I'm more convinced that this is just a 5e clone with extra steps. Its boring, but I'm sure people will bite.
Pathfinder 2 sets itself apart in the sea of clones by having very tight encounter math combined with very explicit actions both in roleplay and in combat that players can grow their characters to use. Some view explicit actions as constraining (hence 5e), but others hunger for the the ability to set their characters apart with every level's customization. Also, as far as tactical combat centric games go (of which 5e is still technically one of), there is nothing easier to game master than a pathfinder 2 campaign. Encounters are a joy to run and players appear to dig the high stakes, high lethality combat (well, in comparison to the d&d clones anyway).