this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
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My character has an 18 strength.
DM) ok, roll dice to force the gate open.
My character has an 18 charisma.
DM) ok, it only works if you personally also have an 18 charisma and can act it out.
Heaven forbid I try and get my players to actually roleplay in this roleplaying game.
When the DM makes that face, they already know that outcome. The rest is just for fun.
Always bothered me. Means that anyone who can't improv well is locked to low char characters.
Not with that attitude. When I dm id accept some uhm-ing, erm-ing fumbling players as buttery smooth talkers if they have the rolls.
So...you go to bed with them if they roll a 20? Irl?
Do you not?
Well, it was a joke...imagine ducking someone who said something cringe, just because they rolled a 20.
I guess who am I to say no?
I mean, my partner of 15 years started as a fling who accidentally lit himself on fire trying to do a party trick before I decided to sleep with him.
Nice
I'll be saying that when we hit 69 years together
So, did you fix him?
Fix what? He's always been great, haha.
The burns, did you fix the burns?
They weren't too bad, and they were on his other hand, so they didn't even get in the way later that night
Well playing dnd is a good low stakes way to improve.
Unless you are uncomfortable with the situation and it ruins the game for you, sure.
What the player says determines what the character says - but the dice determine how they say it.
It's just like everything else, the player chooses what to attack, but the dice say how it goes.
Naturally, the player's choice of words could give them a boost or hinder them. Also, I wouldn't let the player just "roll to seduce." You gotta rp a little if you want a rp reward.
Man I've so many times been required to say word for word what my character says in my charisma rolls, but because I suck at improv it's been bad. I've gotten nat 20s this way but my DM is like "well what you said is cringy so it wouldn't fly". Literally every DM I have ever had ignored the dice roll and only cared about the improv
That sucks. I love when my players rp something terrible but roll great.
player: "I seduce the kobold bartender by telling her I like the thickness of her musk?
:: 20+8 in cha bonuses ::
Dm: "She drops the glass mug she was washing, staring into your eyes with a startled expression on her face. She doesn't react to the loud shattering of the glass as it hits the floor, she only leans in close and says breathing into your ear as a sharp claw caresses your cheek right under your eye. 'No ones ever talked to me like that before. follow me to my bedroom'
dm: roll a perception check
:: 2 , no bonuses ::
You believe every word she says and follow her up the stairs.
Then just let them imagine the worst and decide what happens next session
They suck then. Tell them their skills are inferior.
Oof. That's definitely not how it should go.
But GMing isn't something the rulebook is all that good at teaching people how to do, so stuff like this is quite common :(
"Incredibly, despite the cringe, it works!" They can still have a dig and throw a little shade, but the game is as the game does.
When playing checkers and you say "King me" they dont refuse to do it because you didnt do a flourish.
Facts and sometimes I'll give them advantage or disadvantage based on the lead up and the back ground I have established for the character.
No lead up, the barmaid's been through some shit recently? disadvantage my friend.
Chatting before hand, the party are frequent flyers to the bar, the barmaid is single, AND the barmaid is looking for a relationship? Advantage bud, you earned it.
My players and I all love to roleplay so we're fine with this sort of thing. That said; generally I encourage a little roleplay up front, then we see the roll. Then depending on whoever thinks of the funniest outcome first, the player either adds something to reflect the roll's outcome, or I find some reason why whatever they said up front did/didn't work. Either way, it's great fun for all of us!
On the rare occasion I run for a different/new table though? Nope, not unless I see the players showing initiative by roleplaying without my prompting, I'll assume we're here to play it straight.
It also bothers me when someone's character has like 7 charisma, but the player still acts like the sales guy he is in real life.
I was playing a max charisma warlock and the wizard with his whole 13 charisma kept trying to lead all the conversations. Irritating.
Personally, I think D&D's social skills are so bad they should just rip charisma out of the game. I'd rather they no-ass it than half-ass it.
Intelligence is also an issue.
A friend of mine who is IRL quite smart and loves riddles was playing a really dumb dwarf. He had serious issues sticking to his character and halfway though the campaign he abandoned trying to play dumb alltogether.
But it can also go the other way round.
I'm the same way, I play a really dumb barbarian (before the dm changed the house rules, I've just kept the original stats) an am also in charge of our Ledger... So I try to pretend that I'm making mistakes but the spreadsheet says otherwise.. Oops
Maybe people should just stop playing D&D. It's a game mired in ancient game design and forced through a cheese grater of updates over the years to try and make it OK.
Also it's owned by Hasbro.
There are dozens of better role playing games. Some identical to D&D with better rules, others excellent with imaginative worlds that aren't just rehashes of lord of the rings and Arthurian legends.
I would love a few recommendations, if you don't mind. I played mostly Warhammer 2nd edition but can't seem to get around to the latest 4th edition. It feels convoluted and not "balanced", if that makes sense. Every few sessions I keep thinking there has to be a better and/or less complicated system out there.
I mostly want the rules to get out of the way of the story we are playing, but still want some depth, differentiation and player choices. And I need a decent magic system, which seems to be the hardest to get right.
Any ideas ?
I'm a GURPS fanboy. Complexity is determined entirely by how many rules the GM and players agree to - I've got a player with dozens of skills and several wonky abilities who plays side by side with an 8-skill player. They both do well, and both have what they want - one character is just more detailed than the other.
The trick with GURPS is to pull in the bare minimum of rules that you need for the kind of game you want. If you don't like how a rule works? Swap it out!
I've enjoyed the Ironsworn line too, for a different feel. That's a much less complicated system that can also be played GM-less, it works narrative elements into the engine - the story dictates how the rules apply!
If you want some of that DnDness, I really liked 13th age, and Fanatsycarft. They are on opposite sides of the complexity spectrum. I liked those more than either PF. Ryutama taught me a lot of things about RPGs but a half assed combat system means I can't recommend it., especially for a longer campaign. However if you're interested in something on the experimental side, then I think its perfectly lovely for a one shot.
Daggerheart is new, and Im not particularly interested in CR, so I haven't really checked out Daggerheart beyond a cursory scan of the PDF.
I enjoyed the heck out of Icon. Exalted is also fun for your fantasy needs. Its a different flavor from dnd though, both mechanically and the kinds of stories they want you to tell. If you're looking for more flexible, open ended stories, fantasy or otherwise, I really liked Fate Accelerated.
Thats just if youre looking on the fantasy side of things. On the Sci fi side, Ive been playing Cyberpunk Red and really liking it (although fatigue has yet to set in.) I really liked Shadowrun 4e, and I recommend that to anyone who wants to dip into that (Karmagen optional rule and Chummer.exe are you best friends). Lancer is a heck of a thing.
Blades in the dark and other forged in the dark systems are famous for being an early breakout in RPG game design. I've run a blades in the dark campaign and it was awesome.
Check out the YouTube channel "Quinns Quest" and I'm confident you can comfortably try any game he has reviewed to get a better roleplaying experience than D&D.
If you want DND with working rules, Pathfinder 2e is what people recommend. Not first edition. I'm not a huge fan since it's still basically DND.
If you want a lightweight system that's mostly about narrative, I'm a fan of Fate. But Fate is absolutely not a crunchy system, and it's largely up to the group to agree on what makes sense. Like, if you want character differentiation you can lean on "aspects as permission" and it's right there. (That is, stuff that's true about your character permits you to try stuff. The barbarian can't even try to decipher the runes, because nothing about his character implies he could do that. You can't just blindly roll something. The wizard can try, because of course wizards know runes)
The core rules are free, but you can find books with more specifics. I think there's a Dresden files book people like? They don't provide a complex magic system in the core books, but it has some ideas and the toolkit book has more.
I also liked the chronicles of darkness games, but they're generally all modern day occult. You can take the core rules and move them to fantasy, if you wanted. It's pretty light and I like it more than DND in all the ways I care about.
Thank you for the detailed answer!
I played Pathfinder for a few sessions, but didn't care much for the combat system. I tend to favor conditions over hitpoints these days, and from what I recall Pathfinder was very A+B-C. "Wounded-Dying-Dead" systems are a bit too simplified, but I find around 15 hp to be the maximum I enjoy tracking.
Fate looks interesting for sure. It isn't what is was looking for, but the quick rules' overview I just watched was very intriguing. I might try to find a session to watch to get a better idea of how the system plays out.
Now Chronicles of Darkness... is not the medieval-fantasy setting I was looking for, but the system hits all the right spots. Around 10hp max, but with pretty much "wounded-dying-dead" superimposed - 9 attributes which combine to give various sub-stats - enough skills to cover basic situations, but room for specialisation as you see fit - rolling lots of dice for epic situations, but counting them fairly simply - and role playing elements integrated into the system through vices and virtues.
From what I quickly watched, I love it. I might try to adapt it to medieval fantasy, or just play a a short campaign in the intended world to get a feel for it. Really cool any way, thanks again.
Old world of Darkness had a few splats in different time periods, including Vampire: the Dark ages, which might suit your needs or give you ideas. You could probably cobble together some kind of Berserk esqe setting.
Daggerheart. 🤘🏼
Yeah, but have you tried to convince people of anything? They don't care. They just want to do the thing with their friends. Any sort of "here's a better game" is going to smash into "did i make a bad choice? i spent all this time and money on D&D and they're saying it's bad? now i feel bad. this other person is making me feel bad. they're wrong and stupid"
Some people might on their own decide to try other games. A lot of them are just going to enjoy hanging out with their friends. (Have you talked to casual D&D players? The kind that don't post on obscure websites. Their house rules are bizarre)
I would love for D&D to be a niche game that focused on retro dungeon crawling instead of the most popular RPG. I don't think it's going to happen.
That is not the definition of identical
Based on context I assume they mean in regard to setting and broad strokes mechanics