Scouting ahead, the party rogue tiptoes through the dungeon. She hears a loud snoring on the other side of a partially open door. Carefully slipping through the doorway, she sees a sleeping orc. Scattered about the room are several empty wine bottles, and she can smell the alcohol on the orc's breath from here. While killing a sleeping foe isn't exactly sporting, she can't risk leaving any of them alive. She draws her dagger and holds it to the monster's throat...
What happens next? Well, that depends on the edition. In some RPGs, the rogue gets a free hit in before initiative is rolled. Or maybe initiative is rolled right away, but the orc can't act in the first round. Maybe the rogue gets advantage on the roll, maybe she auto crits, maybe she gets some sort of "coup de grace" bonus. In some editions, the orc's armor makes the AC so high that the rogue still misses, even though she was holding the dagger to the orc's bare throat.
If I were the DM, she wouldn't even have to roll. Not to attack, not for damage. A single drunk, sleeping orc with an exposed throat does not present enough of a challenge to warrant a roll. IMO, that would be a roleplay scenario. But some DMs want to roll for everything. For them, as soon as a weapon is drawn, it's a combat scenario.
Note that I'm not here to tell anyone that they're having fun wrong. Whatever is fun for you is your business, assuming the rest of the table is having fun too. Most of my rambling rants are just me thinking out loud, and musing about things I'd like to see. It's not my place to criticize what other people enjoy, though I probably do it more than I mean to.
A few months ago I posted a blog on Simplified Death and Dying Rules, which got a bit of negative feedback. Granted, the internet is a minefield. I could tweet "kittens are cute" and get 100 responses claiming I hate dogs.
But regarding my blog about dying rules, I wasn't suggesting they change the rules in 5e or any other existing system. It was more of a general "If I were to design an RPG" kind of thing. I think about that a lot, what elements I would put in an RPG.
My primary goal would be to keep the rules as simple as possible, and keep the character sheets small. I'd love to have all my stats printed on a playing card. I'd cut out D&D's system of having both stats and stat bonuses, and just use the bonuses. I'd also trim the six stats down to three.
There's an indie RPG called "Warrior, Rogue, and Mage" which gives you three stats: Warrior, Rogue, and Mage. If you're rolling a check that is something a Rogue would do (like sneaking), you roll the die and add your Rogue stat. Attacking with an axe? Roll your Warrior stat. And so on. I haven't played it, but I can get behind the idea. Though I think they missed the boat by not calling it "WTF" (Wizard, Thief, Fighter).
For my own RPG, I think I'd go with the stats "Brains, Brawn, and Style". Brains would be a combo of INT & WIS, Brawn would be STR & CON, and Style would be DEX & CHA. Instead of a long list of skills taking up room on the character sheet, I'd probably just have you roll one of the three main stats for whatever skill they govern.
I'd also reduce the spell list to remove redundancies, instead turning the variations into customizations. Like instead of Acid Splash, Fireball, Magic Missile, etc, you'd have one basic projectile spell. You would decide if it's fire, acid, etc. Higher level customizations of the same spell would change things like how many squares it hits, whether it's multiple projectiles, whether it auto-hits, if it leaves a zone, overall range, ongoing damage, status effects, and so on.
Similarly, all healing spells would be reduced to a single spell, with variations for range, whether it heals other status effects, raises the dead, etc. The D&D 5e PHB's chapter on spells is 82 pages long. I bet my own RPG wouldn't need more than 10 pages of spells.
A lot of people look at the size of an RPG's rulebook and are reluctant to learn the hobby. I believe that at its core, D&D is a very simple game. The PHB might be over 300 pages long, but most people don't use more than twenty pages of it. Personally I think Monopoly is harder to learn. Someday I want to run an RPG where the rulebook isn't much thicker than that of a board game.
But then we have powergamers and rules lawyers. I honestly believe that 70% of the rules are just patches to keep certain players from exploiting the rules. And another 20% is there to keep killer DMs from going on a power trip. That final 10% is all that's needed to run the game, and in the perfect gaming group, that 10% is all they'd need to print.
So when I say, "With the right group, you barely need dying rules at all," that's all I mean. It's not that I think D&D overdid dying rules, or that I get confused by all of Pathfinder 2E's rules, or that my current group is anything less than perfect. I'm just saying that....sometime in the future.... in addition to several dozen other RPGs I'd like to play... I want to try a truly simple RPG, with a group that is just as enthusiastic as I am to try it.
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