The customizable ancestry sounds like a really fun idea. I swear something like 1 in 5 new players tries to build a unique mixed species character only to be told D&D doesn’t have any have rules for that.
I worry about scope creep. So far Dungeon Coach is a beast though, I hope he doesn't burn out. He really should get a couple more people on his team that can see his vison out.
I think he said elsewhere that part of his goal (especially now that they're so heavily funded) is to be able to hire people to help them do more stuff and do stuff faster
My group and I have been looking for another system. Alan's 5e improvement work put him on our radar and then when he put out DC20, it made sense to check it out. I came up playing D&D 2e. DC20 is SO good we are immediately continuing our campaign with DC20. I've playtested and reviewed other new systems and to me DC20 feels and plays the best. Cheers!!
Awesome interview! And thanks for showcasing DC20 last year, I wouldnt have found out about it without your video and Ive already run 3 one shots in DC20! Love playing ot so far, might even like it more than 5th edition
This sounds like the Pathfinder 1e for 5e. Lots of really cool streamlining and complex reimaginings of what D&D is trying to do. Love the ancestry stuff and Initiative sounds a LOT faster. Spells are by far the most interesting change though. Love that.
Great interview Treantmonk. I think a more elegant solution to Help action dogpiling across the game would be to allow people to add their help dice, but only the highest result rolled out of the help die pool gets added to the resulting check.
What I like in D&D 5e (or 5.5e) is its simplicity and customisation. DC20 being even more simple and more customisable is interesting! and the fact that you can "evolve" spells is a great plus!
I don't know about balance wise, but thematically it would be interesting to have the charisma grit points give disadvantage on enemy saving throwing as well. Like during the swordfight, the fighter taunt the enemy giving a moment of weakness.
I DMed my first DC20 game last night. I love the system so far, but two of my players hated some things about it that I wasn't expecting. 1) Low move speed. According to them, only 4 spaces was detrimental to melee martial builds because turns were often wasted trying to move within melee range. (Granted, the combat I ran had above average running around, so maybe that was my bad.) 2) They hated the ability to give yourself advantage. They wanted advantages to be reserved for literal "tactical advantage" rather than just, "I use willpower to do this one thing more effectively." 3) One of the two missed rolling for damage. I was kind of disappointed by their reaction, but one of my other players loved it.
You can move multiple times per turn, so up to 16 spaces in 1 round or 80ft, yes it takes your whole turn, but the 5e equivalent is 60ft with the dash action. For example, you can move 3 times and still attack, which is 60ft of move and a left over action to use. Adv might just take some getting used to, I did limit it to 1 per instance to add a bit of extra variety, but sounds like this is just a framing thing? You are still spending resources (AP) to gain the benefit, it's not free.
@@subterranean327 always gonna be difficult, people like what's comfy :) My group has done a lot of playing multiple systems before so they are much more open to trying things.
What if for the Encounter DC issue, anyone who helps loses “X” number of action points? Don’t remember exactly how it all works but that at least might balance cost/reward? Gameplay wise it’s like”you’re reacting in a hurry, so you can’t do everything you normally would”
I've DMed about 10 sessions now with DC20 (a few 1 shots, and the first 2 chapters of icewindale), been having a blast. There's a few bits an pieces I'm not super happy with, but it's an alpha! and tbh 5e has just as many if not more of those. The system is just fun to play, and much more player expressive.
Thanks for sticking with and giving a spotlight to the creators making their own systems in the wake of all this! I highly appreciate it, and gladly support you, DC, MCDM and co! Keep up the good work ^^
I am not sure scaling wall spells for extra spaces will matter that much. Needs to be like extra defense / hp. I would never cast a wall that doesnt block the spaces I want to block
If the most important factor in "do I cast this wall" is whether it blocks the areas you want it to block, doesn't scaling the area mean that it will be used in more situations? More resilient walls is fine but the area is way more important imo
I’m actually excited to see how DC20 is going to roll in the next months. I think it will be really fun to play with friends in long term campaigns, especially if the team keep updating and bringing in new content!
I really appreciate both of you spending the time. For me, I don't know that I'd be as interested in trying something really close to D&D (i.e. lots of rules geared towards combat in a medieval setting) unless the word of mouth was just so good that I couldn't help myself OR OneD&D turns out to be just significantly worse than 5E and/or far too expensive to keep playing. We tried out Call of Cthulu and really liked it. I picked up Shadowdark, and we're going to try that too. We've tried others where combat was hardly there. I'm just not the kinda person that cares what Hasbro is doing enough to switch to something that smells mostly the same. Even if quality becomes an issue, I just pick up 3rd party supplements where there's plenty of great quality. But I sincerely wish you good luck. I'm glad you're following your passion. I think that's awesome.
I’m glad to see you covering systems other than D&D, such as your MCDM video and this one on DC20. Your videos are always thorough and interesting. I would like to see one on Rob Schwalb’ s Shadow of the Weird Wizard.
DungeonCoach, I would suggest deeper examination the ORC License before using. It has quite a few issues, and it may be better to separate CC-BY 4.0 an SRD, or wait for the ELF License.
@@Franimus CC does have the limitation of requiring an SRD (a good idea regardless) and opening all exact expressions up, but not trademarks, etc. I do still recommend it even if it doesn't require further sharing of mechanics below it, though that is part of why the ORC License was created, since the OGL had issues even if largely trusted before the debacle. I'd love if you could link where Dungeon Dudes mentioned this, or more detail on where I could look that up to show other people, since a LOT of people are on the ORC License hype-train when they often haven't even read it with a layperson examination, let alone one with a legal dictionary and examination of case law relevence. I may not be a lawyer, but I did do that, and was on the server where it was developed, and helped close a few loopholes. Unfortunately, a multitude of issues were ignored, which make it a VERY risky license to use, unless you're the first licensor to offer material going downstream, and separate it all into an SRD. Because it automatically opens up more than intended through vague terms and conflicting 'clarifications', it really doesn't work well for licensees downstream who should be warry of opening up too much. At least with CC all they have to do is credit those they gained valuable expressions from, and aren't required to open up their own works, so it serves them more by limiting liability from using those creative expressions. The value CC offers to the upstream licensors is the credit, and possibility that the downstream works will generate traffic toward their upstream creations.
Thanks for making these videos Chris! Love the system and love the direction it’s heading and the design decisions. It’s great to get additional eyes on this!
For the racial traits, I would have them grouped by general themes. All traits dealing with physicality would be grouped together, which would be any applicable traits from dwarves, giants, etc. Another could be mental traits for any intelligence/etc. that you'd find in elves, gnomes, etc. That way people won't see it as my dwarf doesn't have this trait, but should. You can still have the default builds as an example, but present them in their thematic groups to help people not associate a given trait with a specific race and preventing themselves from choosing it.
I almost feel like every gamer should, or at least should try. It would help folks appreciate what goes into a game, and might give a better understanding of how different mechanics feel and/or work.
@@BigusGeekus Certainly. I've been trying systems for 30 or so years. Though there does come a point in time when you become tired of the new mechanic of the moment.
So glad to see more DC20. I bought into alpha back when you did your first video on it and I'm hoping to do a play test with some ither archmages soon, but I have to see if I can't find a video of play test first just to be sure I understand what I'm doing. So many great ideas but very different from 5e so will take some getting used to. You mentioned you play tested, would you do a short video reviewing that experience? I know there are things being worked on like initiative, but your thoughts on things like spell casting, character creation, and how easy it was to translate as a DnD player would be very helpful.
I main spell caster, and i think spells in 5e were a bit over tuned in higher levels, i would be fine with the 6th or 7th level spells spell power being the max you can obtain in levels 1-20 your thoughts? Less raw power more flexibility ( im aware we are in a mana point system now)
Lots of good stuff in here. I like a lot of the decisions. Not partial to MP as it starts to feel too video gamey to me, but making spells more modular is definitely something I approve of. The action point system has potential. I also have long thought that aiming to make all ability score useful to all classes is the best thing you can do to improve the D20 systems, and I think it's good he veered away from his original idea, which would have eroded the definition of each ability score. Like his playtesters commented, the ancestry system makes being a mixed ancestry objectively better in most cases. Yes, as The Dungeon Coach said, you can reflavor a mixed ancestry as a non-mixed ancestry, but that doesn't seem like the best solution. I definitely like it better than Treantmonk's "grey goo" suggestion, though. ;-) I prefer Mr. Welch' HALF systems, and having the GM limit which are available.
If I were given the job of improving the ancestry system, I'd add additional traits to ancestries that can be just picked if you're fully of that ancestry but you can pay more points to take those traits otherwise
What a great brainstormer! A little manic, but a lot of great ideas. The Spell system reminds me of Powers in Marvel SHRPG. Start with a base power, add stunts, beef up the power level, etc.
Hi Chris, thanks for the video. I hope the dc20 community grows and with Allan and all the other good people working on the project I am happy to support them 😀👍
So I haven't played DC20 MCDM or other dnd killers... but I have to admit dc20 seems like my favorite. I also think it's awesome that it was made by dungeon coach and not someone with a giant following. And that Treantmonk is signal boosting it... it just sort of shows dc20 strength is in the game design.. not the marketing or artwork. Again haven't played any of it... so I reserve final judgment. But anyone who has a soft spot for indie design... wouldn't be cool if Dungeon Coach beats out Colville and Critical Role?!?
This was a really cool video with many interesting concepts and ideas. Some of them seem to me as though they try to solve problems no one has but most sounded fun and effective. I always like to hear/read about alternative systems.
The idea adopted for Ancestry sounds very sensible, but why not extend that to class/sub-class and save all the headache around needing to prep 30 sub-classes? Abandon the idea of class, and just allow players to select from a menu of features, the more powerful of which have pre-requisites so that nobody can just pick all the "best" options. So you need to take "Cast level 1 Arcane Spells" before you can take "Cast Level 2 Arcane Spells", and "Fight in Medium Armour" before "Fight in Heavy Armour", and "Martial Combat Proficiency" before "Extra Attack" and so on. It allows customised characters without needing to specify classes, sub-classes and multiclassing rules, and allows players to ultra-specialise on one aspect of the game or spread their capability shallowly across all. If it's well constructed, probably neither of those extremes would be the "best" option, with a broad sweet spot somewhere in the middle of having a few core capabilities and a few secondaries. Then you can also abandon "level" - if a player wants to take all the "low level" features they can. It makes a game much more "logical" (hence immersive) and easy to develop characters in - I know because I've played RPGs like this a lot, but none were high fantasy which seems to be much more stuck in the shadow of D&D.
I think I understand what he is saying about not being locked into playing a single race, but I don't like the solution. Having a regular dwarf be just inferior to a halfling dwarf is kind of silly. Every player would be incentivised to play a mix between two fantasy races, which some people would want, but shouldn't you be able to play a regular elf and not have it just be a worse version of a goliath elf or whatever? These fantasy races exist for a reason, because people like the themes that they have, not every character should have to be a hybrid between themes or be punished mechanically. I think either have all racial traits be interchangeable, or have certain set ones and certain generic ones or something like that, which from what I gather is close to what it is already. The crucial difference being that hybrid races aren't inherently better.
@@TreantmonksTemple Why was he saying that halfling dwarves are better than regular dwarves then? Was that just because the traits gained from being a hybrid halfling were being viewed as better?
I'm the Eddie he mentioned in the video that works with him on DC20. I've already got an Ancestry update in front of him that provides small costs to multi ancestry, so being 1 ancestry feels good. The cost is small for 2 Ancestries but there. It's a little taxing for 3 Ancestries, but that's a lot of options gained.
@greatestoldone7658 I think he was saying you could take Brave from halfling to fit the dwarf character you wanted, but physically still just play a dwarf. Ideally the 2 points for Brave would be balanced against losing 2 points of dwarf features. In reality this will be very hard to balance, but that's inevitable with any system like this.
I converted MCDM's Talent/Psion class into DC20. Only one level from The Talent, Level 18, didnt "fit" and had to be rolled into DC20's Level 8 Class Capstone with the 5e Level 20 Capstone. Part of me wanted to make the level 18 feature into a class talent. It wasnt too bad. Tuning the Actions and bonus actions and damage was the only "tricky part." If you are looking to convert classes into DC20 so you can get into higher level play, its a fun exercise. Using the weapon tables from 5e and DC20 make it a little easier for damage.
The sound is not very good. But the information content is great. 👍🏻 Excellent interview. DC20 looks amazing. I recommend watching the whole video. 🙂👍🏻
Dungeon Coach, The energy and effort is spectacular. But I think 5e doesn't need more and more rules, but less and less. The ideas are great, but the bolt on strategy is Byzantine. Keep up the good work! I will prolly participate in the Kickstarter. If there is a cheap "just the book" option.
After receiving sonic vulnerability for two turns, you should remove the effect and instead the PC has deafness affect because after prolonged sound exposure the blood rushes to the ears. Deafness is an affect that could last the rest of the session as well, because it takes a long time to fade irl.
Man my head is spinning with so many 5e fresh take options !!! Honestly I’d rather see games move towards a more creative, ‘different’ approach than the pile of ‘new 5Es’. I guess that’s where the MCDMs and Daggerheart come in.
My biggest issue with alternative systems like ICRPG, Shadow Dark, etc is they drop the core books and them there really isnt a lot of official follow up. I simply dont have time to create adventures. I really hope DC20 doesnt just drop a one and done rulebook.
As someone with no prior knowledge, listening to this what I got was it's like D&D but more simplified. Fewer abilities, streamlined upcasting, 'multiclassing' racial choices. When it's something so similar to what is known it's hard to tell the differences without more examples
I recommend looking into the system more to see the differences. Classes have a familiar feel but work differently. For example, Spellcasters have actual Class Features rather than just different Spell Lists, so they feel unique to play even with the same Spells another Spellcaster might have. Combat is more engaging because of the change to Action Economy, you have 4 Action Points which you can spend on Actions or Reactions. If you spend AP on Reaction, then you have less to spend on your next turn, but that's okay. You sort of spread your turn around the round, which keeps you engaged in Combat even on other Player's turns. If feels more interactive and dynamic. There's lots of other cool innovations in DC20. Even if you don't end up liking the system, you'll probably find some stuff you might want to use as homebrew for your D&D or PF games.
That's understandable. I felt similar beforehand. It's not exactly reinventing the wheel but for me it does what I want from DnD and more while eliminating a few bigger issues like martial/spellcaster gap.
They are a lot of interesting thing in DC20, but I think DC20 and Tales of the Valiant really got the whole ancestry part of the game wrong by making it a complicated mechanical choice. I think it should be an easy flavourful choice. I have played a little Baldurs Gate 3 and I really think they got it right.
Well, if they take my advice it will be more complicated. As it is now you pick your ancestry and you're done. (As Alan mentions it can be customized, but you don't need to)
@@TreantmonksTemple It fine to have some more complicated games for gamers that want to try something else, I just not think that any those games are to be "the next D&D". What really has been great about D&D has been it's ability to bring new people to the hobby.
@@sortehuseI wouldn't consider dnd simple or even very beginner friendly. If anything it's long term popularity is the reason for it bringing in new people to the hobby, not because it's particularly intuitive or beginner friendly compared to other games
@@TreantmonksTemple I think you can have both, present players with presets and ways to easily mix two or so ancestries, but also have a "variant" rule opening up all features. Makes it easy for inexperienced players or those who don't want to finetune as much to choose their traits, but also offers customizability to those willing to dig deeper into the system. Seems like the best of two worlds!
@@Doople D&D long term popularity is one of the reasons that it bring new players into the hobby. I agree could be more beginner friendly, but it's not that hard to teach. Making a new role playing game that is both less know and more complicated is perfectly fine, but it isn't going to take over from D&D.
How can you "help" during initiative? Just make it so that you simply can't help instead of limiting it to 1. Or my favorite, alternating actions: PC, NPC, PC, NPC...
I am surprised to hear that not all classes will make it to the core game. I understand that creating subclasses for all of them and balancing them around each other is hard, but why then even create them?
Love most of the system, but i do dislike group initative. It makes things to swingy especially in larga numbers if you have like 6 heroes and maybe 12 baddies to have 1 full side go first.
Initiative + help, just make it so each person who helps uses an action in the first round. So you can roll (free) or help (costs an action). You for sure go first if only one person rolls and everyone helps, but it could cost you 1-4 actions in round 1… oof.
One question, can i make an artificer/inventor/rune smith type class? I wanna make a moderately armored int and dex build that uses ranged weapons. a class that makes it own magical weapon and upgrades it as part of the class or subclass features.
Im glad hes experimenting with initiative, but imo any system that involves people choosing to help or not fails because it will be too slow at the table. Also its just math, so there is a solution; optimisers will exploit the math and other groups wont, making encounter DCs worthless. Imo this will inevitably go back to everyone rolling individually.
Problem with ancestry is that cultural/behavioural traits should not be part of ancestry. Those should be part of backgrounds, or a separate category being "upbringing".
I really like DC20s ideas but he always comes across as very much a sales person which puts me off a little bit. Understand he has to make a living and respect to him for putting so much energy into something but it always just feels a bit too much sales
I bought the DC20 alpha access because you recommended Treant. I generally liked what I saw with the exception of one thing. I do not like how they dropped Wisdom. Outside of roleplaying how do I build a smart character but one who does not know when NOT to do something. Just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you should. The mechanics as written, unless I grossly misunderstood them, doesn't work that way. The intelligence prime merges them and I think looses something as you strive for simplicity. Personally I would get rid of intelligence, split it the concept for Mental, and have wisdom and something like Reason/Logic. Charisma I don't mind one but prefer it broken up in two. Leave one as Charisma just as is but add something like Manipulation, which is how well you can lie/deceive. There is a natural split between someone who just draws attention, natural magnetic personality as it were, and how well they can lie. This removes raw intelligence and appearance allowing the player to determine that not race, etc.
I'll be skipping this. Too many things to dislike and I don't need the game to be simple to play. If I'm jumping systems I'll go to Pathfinder or Power by Apocalypse instead.
You can’t replace a system that you just remove the mechanics of the problems instead of innovating and improving upon it, plus it’s just weird to not have high strength and be able to lift a strength based weapon due to high intelligence, four stats when six wasn’t enough, making weapons more simple when they already were a far shot from a half of the reality of them, on and on and on, no this isn’t the future, something like the D20 core system is
So many cool ideas in this system, but ease of play isn't being looked after imo. Ancestries are an easy example of this. Core rules should just be the standard options, as they are, with sub-ancestries to customize. Customizing rules, from half-ancestries to full custom options should be in the dmg for ppl to expand their experience once they are familiar with the system. Too many choices when learning a new game is a big turn off to a lot of ppl
Why does everyone think Silvery Barbs is OP? Have you actually used it? So far, across 4 castings, it has never saved me from being hit, and the advantage has only had an effect once (it let me claim Sneak Attack damage). Compared to Shield, which would have saved me from all 4 hits (plus others in the same rounds from other foes), but not let me claim the Sneak Attack damage once, it's clear that Shield is the more OP choice - because SB causes rerolls which might not differ from the original result, whereas Shield is a static modifier that has a high chance of changing the result and is *also* persistent! Judging SB based on the *best* possible outcome is not an accurate assessment, because that best possible outcome is unlikely. I realise that my experience is close to worst possible outcome, so it would also be inaccurate to say the SB is worthless, but it seems to me to be a reasonably balanced spell that I'm just having bad luck with.
I think it’s more due to spell saves that you can use offensively when things succed in their save from your spells, making them reroll the save is atrong. An enemy failing a spell save can completely change an encounter. I am not saying shield isn’t over powered but no one is claiming silver barbs is to strong for negating a single attack, it’s about spell saves
@@Commodore468 Fair point, it has an extra use case (and a good one!) compared to Shield, but it's still only a re-roll (and there are other ways to achieve that too, some of which consume no resources, although most are higher level), so it still isn't all-powerful. It's a good cheap tweaker of probabilities, but not the totally OP monster that so many people call it. Also remember you have a limited number of spell slots, and your DM should be pushing you to the limit every day so that you need to carefully consider whether any particular casting is the right thing to do (if you get a long rest after every encounter then spells like SB do become totally OP). Once I get Magical Ambush I won't use SB for save effects very often if ever - it's kind of the inverse of Indomitable (if they saved on two rolls a reroll is highly unlikely to change that, and even without Magical Ambush the reroll is not going to often cause a strong save to fail - Bane and Mind Sliver are better for that).
@@user-fc7sv5ln6m I would argue arcane trickster is not a great user of it since your spells are not nearly as useful as the full caster, and you can use it in conjunction with magical ambush. It also turn advantage to disadvantage, if they succeed from advantage and then you silvery barb they take the lower roll of the 2 so they went from advantage to disadvantage since the just roll 1 new dice, a lot of things have magical resistance to give them better save chances instead of really good saves. It’s also not concentration like bane or an action like mind sliver. It is fun to stack mind sliver eloquence bards mechanic and mind sliver to really make things fail.
@@Commodore468 I submit that really shows that Eloquence Bard (properly built) is close to OP, not Silvery Barbs in isolation. YMMV. Actually, with fewer and weaker spells than a full caster, it may be important for me to land them. Also, I use Mind Sliver to help my allies land spells more than my own, and if I'd had a chance yet, I would have used SB the same way, but so far it's always been a desperate attempt to save myself from hits when scouting so I can get back close to my allies :)
My big issue with customizable ancestry is that playing "an elf" or "A dwarf" is substantially underpowered compared to being 3 or 4 races. You picked human? Instead of going for 5 different kinds of resistances or immunities? Okay guess you're not going to contribute this game. Oh cool you're a studious human wizard. Great. Greg is an elf-human-dwarf-giant-halfling who's immune to fear, can wear platemail and a shield, is immune to sleep, and can throw a house.This sysem is so extreme in that regard that picking to play ANY classic fantasy archetype is like playing a deliberately underpowered 5e character
Meh, you might be right. But I think you underestimate how much people are excited about moving away from the big dogs and toward indie creators. It's a societal phenomenon that's only picking up speed, especially in the TTRPG space.
The customizable ancestry sounds like a really fun idea. I swear something like 1 in 5 new players tries to build a unique mixed species character only to be told D&D doesn’t have any have rules for that.
I worry about scope creep. So far Dungeon Coach is a beast though, I hope he doesn't burn out. He really should get a couple more people on his team that can see his vison out.
Yeah I was super excited for this but now I wonder if it will actually ever release.
@@jimmyredd kickstarter is June 4th! (I think). It's coming out for sure, and I think it's going to be a power house with ttrpgs
I think he said elsewhere that part of his goal (especially now that they're so heavily funded) is to be able to hire people to help them do more stuff and do stuff faster
My group and I have been looking for another system. Alan's 5e improvement work put him on our radar and then when he put out DC20, it made sense to check it out. I came up playing D&D 2e. DC20 is SO good we are immediately continuing our campaign with DC20. I've playtested and reviewed other new systems and to me DC20 feels and plays the best. Cheers!!
Thanks for doing this interview; appreciate your interest and input into alternative systems (to 5e) like DC20.
Awesome interview! And thanks for showcasing DC20 last year, I wouldnt have found out about it without your video and Ive already run 3 one shots in DC20! Love playing ot so far, might even like it more than 5th edition
I want this to succeed, if for no other reason than to have someone this joyful and enthusiastic about their creation make it work.
This sounds like the Pathfinder 1e for 5e. Lots of really cool streamlining and complex reimaginings of what D&D is trying to do. Love the ancestry stuff and Initiative sounds a LOT faster.
Spells are by far the most interesting change though. Love that.
Huge fan of DC 20 myself! Thanks Chris for helping Alan get the info out to others!
Great interview Treantmonk. I think a more elegant solution to Help action dogpiling across the game would be to allow people to add their help dice, but only the highest result rolled out of the help die pool gets added to the resulting check.
What I like in D&D 5e (or 5.5e) is its simplicity and customisation. DC20 being even more simple and more customisable is interesting! and the fact that you can "evolve" spells is a great plus!
I don't know about balance wise, but thematically it would be interesting to have the charisma grit points give disadvantage on enemy saving throwing as well. Like during the swordfight, the fighter taunt the enemy giving a moment of weakness.
I DMed my first DC20 game last night. I love the system so far, but two of my players hated some things about it that I wasn't expecting.
1) Low move speed. According to them, only 4 spaces was detrimental to melee martial builds because turns were often wasted trying to move within melee range. (Granted, the combat I ran had above average running around, so maybe that was my bad.)
2) They hated the ability to give yourself advantage. They wanted advantages to be reserved for literal "tactical advantage" rather than just, "I use willpower to do this one thing more effectively."
3) One of the two missed rolling for damage.
I was kind of disappointed by their reaction, but one of my other players loved it.
You can move multiple times per turn, so up to 16 spaces in 1 round or 80ft, yes it takes your whole turn, but the 5e equivalent is 60ft with the dash action. For example, you can move 3 times and still attack, which is 60ft of move and a left over action to use.
Adv might just take some getting used to, I did limit it to 1 per instance to add a bit of extra variety, but sounds like this is just a framing thing? You are still spending resources (AP) to gain the benefit, it's not free.
@@JottoHearthStone Yes, I tried to argue all those points, but I guess they just haven't warmed up to it yet lol
@@subterranean327 always gonna be difficult, people like what's comfy :) My group has done a lot of playing multiple systems before so they are much more open to trying things.
They don't have to like it either. Maybe try a system the other two might have interest in.
People forget how often they roll low in 5e when they hear you don't roll damage in DC20 even though the higher you roll, the higher your damage is.
Once again, very excited about that game. Can’t wait for the kickstarter and convert my dnd groups to DC20. I think it’s going to be well worth it!
What if for the Encounter DC issue, anyone who helps loses “X” number of action points? Don’t remember exactly how it all works but that at least might balance cost/reward? Gameplay wise it’s like”you’re reacting in a hurry, so you can’t do everything you normally would”
I've DMed about 10 sessions now with DC20 (a few 1 shots, and the first 2 chapters of icewindale), been having a blast.
There's a few bits an pieces I'm not super happy with, but it's an alpha! and tbh 5e has just as many if not more of those.
The system is just fun to play, and much more player expressive.
Thanks for sticking with and giving a spotlight to the creators making their own systems in the wake of all this!
I highly appreciate it, and gladly support you, DC, MCDM and co!
Keep up the good work ^^
So excited for dc 20! It’s so streamlined and easy to play.
I am not sure scaling wall spells for extra spaces will matter that much. Needs to be like extra defense / hp. I would never cast a wall that doesnt block the spaces I want to block
If the most important factor in "do I cast this wall" is whether it blocks the areas you want it to block, doesn't scaling the area mean that it will be used in more situations? More resilient walls is fine but the area is way more important imo
@@ausiidndsure, but to cover more area you just could spend more mana
I’m actually excited to see how DC20 is going to roll in the next months. I think it will be really fun to play with friends in long term campaigns, especially if the team keep updating and bringing in new content!
I love the dc20 system and have run a few small games with friends.
I really appreciate both of you spending the time. For me, I don't know that I'd be as interested in trying something really close to D&D (i.e. lots of rules geared towards combat in a medieval setting) unless the word of mouth was just so good that I couldn't help myself OR OneD&D turns out to be just significantly worse than 5E and/or far too expensive to keep playing. We tried out Call of Cthulu and really liked it. I picked up Shadowdark, and we're going to try that too. We've tried others where combat was hardly there. I'm just not the kinda person that cares what Hasbro is doing enough to switch to something that smells mostly the same. Even if quality becomes an issue, I just pick up 3rd party supplements where there's plenty of great quality. But I sincerely wish you good luck. I'm glad you're following your passion. I think that's awesome.
Seems like such a fun system. Every bit of polish seems to really make it shine even more.
That was a fantastic interview Chris! You should do more. Plus it was fun watching you help him articulate his points.
I’m glad to see you covering systems other than D&D, such as your MCDM video and this one on DC20. Your videos are always thorough and interesting. I would like to see one on Rob Schwalb’ s Shadow of the Weird Wizard.
DungeonCoach, I would suggest deeper examination the ORC License before using. It has quite a few issues, and it may be better to separate CC-BY 4.0 an SRD, or wait for the ELF License.
This is what I was looking for - dungeon dudes said they are reluctant to make content under ORC systems and would prefer CC.
@@Franimus CC does have the limitation of requiring an SRD (a good idea regardless) and opening all exact expressions up, but not trademarks, etc. I do still recommend it even if it doesn't require further sharing of mechanics below it, though that is part of why the ORC License was created, since the OGL had issues even if largely trusted before the debacle.
I'd love if you could link where Dungeon Dudes mentioned this, or more detail on where I could look that up to show other people, since a LOT of people are on the ORC License hype-train when they often haven't even read it with a layperson examination, let alone one with a legal dictionary and examination of case law relevence.
I may not be a lawyer, but I did do that, and was on the server where it was developed, and helped close a few loopholes. Unfortunately, a multitude of issues were ignored, which make it a VERY risky license to use, unless you're the first licensor to offer material going downstream, and separate it all into an SRD.
Because it automatically opens up more than intended through vague terms and conflicting 'clarifications', it really doesn't work well for licensees downstream who should be warry of opening up too much. At least with CC all they have to do is credit those they gained valuable expressions from, and aren't required to open up their own works, so it serves them more by limiting liability from using those creative expressions. The value CC offers to the upstream licensors is the credit, and possibility that the downstream works will generate traffic toward their upstream creations.
Thanks for making these videos Chris! Love the system and love the direction it’s heading and the design decisions. It’s great to get additional eyes on this!
For the racial traits, I would have them grouped by general themes. All traits dealing with physicality would be grouped together, which would be any applicable traits from dwarves, giants, etc. Another could be mental traits for any intelligence/etc. that you'd find in elves, gnomes, etc. That way people won't see it as my dwarf doesn't have this trait, but should. You can still have the default builds as an example, but present them in their thematic groups to help people not associate a given trait with a specific race and preventing themselves from choosing it.
As long as you keep the point values, you totally could.
It feels like we have entered an age where everyone makes their own system.
I almost feel like every gamer should, or at least should try. It would help folks appreciate what goes into a game, and might give a better understanding of how different mechanics feel and/or work.
@@BigusGeekus Certainly. I've been trying systems for 30 or so years. Though there does come a point in time when you become tired of the new mechanic of the moment.
So glad to see more DC20. I bought into alpha back when you did your first video on it and I'm hoping to do a play test with some ither archmages soon, but I have to see if I can't find a video of play test first just to be sure I understand what I'm doing. So many great ideas but very different from 5e so will take some getting used to.
You mentioned you play tested, would you do a short video reviewing that experience? I know there are things being worked on like initiative, but your thoughts on things like spell casting, character creation, and how easy it was to translate as a DnD player would be very helpful.
I'll definitely be backing once DC20 hits Kickstarter.
Good job with the interview. Kept my attention.
I main spell caster, and i think spells in 5e were a bit over tuned in higher levels, i would be fine with the 6th or 7th level spells spell power being the max you can obtain in levels 1-20 your thoughts? Less raw power more flexibility ( im aware we are in a mana point system now)
Lots of good stuff in here. I like a lot of the decisions. Not partial to MP as it starts to feel too video gamey to me, but making spells more modular is definitely something I approve of. The action point system has potential. I also have long thought that aiming to make all ability score useful to all classes is the best thing you can do to improve the D20 systems, and I think it's good he veered away from his original idea, which would have eroded the definition of each ability score.
Like his playtesters commented, the ancestry system makes being a mixed ancestry objectively better in most cases. Yes, as The Dungeon Coach said, you can reflavor a mixed ancestry as a non-mixed ancestry, but that doesn't seem like the best solution. I definitely like it better than Treantmonk's "grey goo" suggestion, though. ;-) I prefer Mr. Welch' HALF systems, and having the GM limit which are available.
If I were given the job of improving the ancestry system, I'd add additional traits to ancestries that can be just picked if you're fully of that ancestry but you can pay more points to take those traits otherwise
Dynamic saves was a leap of a good design on top of many good designs on DC20.
Great video. I'm all for DC20.
What a great brainstormer! A little manic, but a lot of great ideas. The Spell system reminds me of Powers in Marvel SHRPG. Start with a base power, add stunts, beef up the power level, etc.
Hi Chris, thanks for the video. I hope the dc20 community grows and with Allan and all the other good people working on the project I am happy to support them 😀👍
So I haven't played DC20 MCDM or other dnd killers... but I have to admit dc20 seems like my favorite.
I also think it's awesome that it was made by dungeon coach and not someone with a giant following. And that Treantmonk is signal boosting it... it just sort of shows dc20 strength is in the game design.. not the marketing or artwork.
Again haven't played any of it... so I reserve final judgment.
But anyone who has a soft spot for indie design... wouldn't be cool if Dungeon Coach beats out Colville and Critical Role?!?
Definitly want it to be big, hopefully!
This was a really cool video with many interesting concepts and ideas. Some of them seem to me as though they try to solve problems no one has but most sounded fun and effective. I always like to hear/read about alternative systems.
The idea adopted for Ancestry sounds very sensible, but why not extend that to class/sub-class and save all the headache around needing to prep 30 sub-classes? Abandon the idea of class, and just allow players to select from a menu of features, the more powerful of which have pre-requisites so that nobody can just pick all the "best" options. So you need to take "Cast level 1 Arcane Spells" before you can take "Cast Level 2 Arcane Spells", and "Fight in Medium Armour" before "Fight in Heavy Armour", and "Martial Combat Proficiency" before "Extra Attack" and so on. It allows customised characters without needing to specify classes, sub-classes and multiclassing rules, and allows players to ultra-specialise on one aspect of the game or spread their capability shallowly across all. If it's well constructed, probably neither of those extremes would be the "best" option, with a broad sweet spot somewhere in the middle of having a few core capabilities and a few secondaries. Then you can also abandon "level" - if a player wants to take all the "low level" features they can. It makes a game much more "logical" (hence immersive) and easy to develop characters in - I know because I've played RPGs like this a lot, but none were high fantasy which seems to be much more stuck in the shadow of D&D.
Fully agree with Chris' idea for ancestry!!
I think I understand what he is saying about not being locked into playing a single race, but I don't like the solution. Having a regular dwarf be just inferior to a halfling dwarf is kind of silly. Every player would be incentivised to play a mix between two fantasy races, which some people would want, but shouldn't you be able to play a regular elf and not have it just be a worse version of a goliath elf or whatever? These fantasy races exist for a reason, because people like the themes that they have, not every character should have to be a hybrid between themes or be punished mechanically.
I think either have all racial traits be interchangeable, or have certain set ones and certain generic ones or something like that, which from what I gather is close to what it is already. The crucial difference being that hybrid races aren't inherently better.
Regardless of your ancestry, or mix of ancestries, you'll have 5 points in perks total, so ideally, it shouldn't make a difference mechanically.
@@TreantmonksTemple Why was he saying that halfling dwarves are better than regular dwarves then? Was that just because the traits gained from being a hybrid halfling were being viewed as better?
I'm the Eddie he mentioned in the video that works with him on DC20. I've already got an Ancestry update in front of him that provides small costs to multi ancestry, so being 1 ancestry feels good. The cost is small for 2 Ancestries but there. It's a little taxing for 3 Ancestries, but that's a lot of options gained.
@greatestoldone7658 I think he was saying you could take Brave from halfling to fit the dwarf character you wanted, but physically still just play a dwarf.
Ideally the 2 points for Brave would be balanced against losing 2 points of dwarf features.
In reality this will be very hard to balance, but that's inevitable with any system like this.
I converted MCDM's Talent/Psion class into DC20. Only one level from The Talent, Level 18, didnt "fit" and had to be rolled into DC20's Level 8 Class Capstone with the 5e Level 20 Capstone. Part of me wanted to make the level 18 feature into a class talent.
It wasnt too bad. Tuning the Actions and bonus actions and damage was the only "tricky part."
If you are looking to convert classes into DC20 so you can get into higher level play, its a fun exercise.
Using the weapon tables from 5e and DC20 make it a little easier for damage.
This was awesome Chris!! Do more interview style content you are very thoughtful!
47:35 Rifts Glitter Boy reference? Oh man! Taking me WAY back to Palladium. NICE.
Honestly, the grit system has me genuinely interested in this game. Such a cool idea.
I have always been a fan of the Dungeon Coach
The sound is not very good. But the information content is great. 👍🏻 Excellent interview. DC20 looks amazing. I recommend watching the whole video. 🙂👍🏻
Sorry about that
Nice interview
Dungeon Coach,
The energy and effort is spectacular.
But I think 5e doesn't need more and more rules,
but less and less.
The ideas are great,
but the bolt on strategy is Byzantine.
Keep up the good work!
I will prolly participate in the Kickstarter.
If there is a cheap "just the book" option.
After receiving sonic vulnerability for two turns, you should remove the effect and instead the PC has deafness affect because after prolonged sound exposure the blood rushes to the ears. Deafness is an affect that could last the rest of the session as well, because it takes a long time to fade irl.
Man my head is spinning with so many 5e fresh take options !!! Honestly I’d rather see games move towards a more creative, ‘different’ approach than the pile of ‘new 5Es’. I guess that’s where the MCDMs and Daggerheart come in.
Good job with the interview.
As someone who is also trying “fix” D&D it’s a bit overwhelming how many are trying to fill WotC’s shoes right now. Still, I love the enthusiasm.
My biggest issue with alternative systems like ICRPG, Shadow Dark, etc is they drop the core books and them there really isnt a lot of official follow up. I simply dont have time to create adventures. I really hope DC20 doesnt just drop a one and done rulebook.
As someone with no prior knowledge, listening to this what I got was it's like D&D but more simplified. Fewer abilities, streamlined upcasting, 'multiclassing' racial choices. When it's something so similar to what is known it's hard to tell the differences without more examples
I recommend looking into the system more to see the differences.
Classes have a familiar feel but work differently. For example, Spellcasters have actual Class Features rather than just different Spell Lists, so they feel unique to play even with the same Spells another Spellcaster might have.
Combat is more engaging because of the change to Action Economy, you have 4 Action Points which you can spend on Actions or Reactions. If you spend AP on Reaction, then you have less to spend on your next turn, but that's okay. You sort of spread your turn around the round, which keeps you engaged in Combat even on other Player's turns. If feels more interactive and dynamic.
There's lots of other cool innovations in DC20. Even if you don't end up liking the system, you'll probably find some stuff you might want to use as homebrew for your D&D or PF games.
That's understandable. I felt similar beforehand. It's not exactly reinventing the wheel but for me it does what I want from DnD and more while eliminating a few bigger issues like martial/spellcaster gap.
They are a lot of interesting thing in DC20, but I think DC20 and Tales of the Valiant really got the whole ancestry part of the game wrong by making it a complicated mechanical choice. I think it should be an easy flavourful choice. I have played a little Baldurs Gate 3 and I really think they got it right.
Well, if they take my advice it will be more complicated. As it is now you pick your ancestry and you're done. (As Alan mentions it can be customized, but you don't need to)
@@TreantmonksTemple It fine to have some more complicated games for gamers that want to try something else, I just not think that any those games are to be "the next D&D". What really has been great about D&D has been it's ability to bring new people to the hobby.
@@sortehuseI wouldn't consider dnd simple or even very beginner friendly. If anything it's long term popularity is the reason for it bringing in new people to the hobby, not because it's particularly intuitive or beginner friendly compared to other games
@@TreantmonksTemple I think you can have both, present players with presets and ways to easily mix two or so ancestries, but also have a "variant" rule opening up all features.
Makes it easy for inexperienced players or those who don't want to finetune as much to choose their traits, but also offers customizability to those willing to dig deeper into the system. Seems like the best of two worlds!
@@Doople D&D long term popularity is one of the reasons that it bring new players into the hobby. I agree could be more beginner friendly, but it's not that hard to teach. Making a new role playing game that is both less know and more complicated is perfectly fine, but it isn't going to take over from D&D.
I have NO idea how the dungeon coach thinks monsters are easier to run in his system. His monster creation guide doesn't make sense at all
How can you "help" during initiative? Just make it so that you simply can't help instead of limiting it to 1. Or my favorite, alternating actions: PC, NPC, PC, NPC...
I was wondering about the defense and save thing as well
I am surprised to hear that not all classes will make it to the core game. I understand that creating subclasses for all of them and balancing them around each other is hard, but why then even create them?
Love most of the system, but i do dislike group initative. It makes things to swingy especially in larga numbers if you have like 6 heroes and maybe 12 baddies to have 1 full side go first.
1 full side doesn't go first. It's one creature that goes first, and then you alternate.
Initiative + help, just make it so each person who helps uses an action in the first round.
So you can roll (free) or help (costs an action).
You for sure go first if only one person rolls and everyone helps, but it could cost you 1-4 actions in round 1… oof.
One question, can i make an artificer/inventor/rune smith type class? I wanna make a moderately armored int and dex build that uses ranged weapons. a class that makes it own magical weapon and upgrades it as part of the class or subclass features.
Do we know yet what max level is? When I DM for 5e, I usually tell me players to plan on a players max level capped at ~10-12.
Im glad hes experimenting with initiative, but imo any system that involves people choosing to help or not fails because it will be too slow at the table. Also its just math, so there is a solution; optimisers will exploit the math and other groups wont, making encounter DCs worthless.
Imo this will inevitably go back to everyone rolling individually.
Awesome
Whatever person he keeps referencing with the dwarf/Goliath ancestry basically being a stocky human clearly took it straight from VLDL D&D
Race package discounts are probably what people want.
Is there a risk of Cronenberging your ancestry and the entire setting with it?)
Honestly kinda like the sound of this game more than the MCDM one
The underwhelming lack of views on this should tell you about all you need when it comes to whether or not it's the next D&D.
Problem with ancestry is that cultural/behavioural traits should not be part of ancestry. Those should be part of backgrounds, or a separate category being "upbringing".
Seems like the mana system exaggerates the martial/caster divide
Both Treantmonk videos this week were not about D&D :(
Yea, wasn't happy about that myself either.
I fail to see how that is a bad thing.
I really like DC20s ideas but he always comes across as very much a sales person which puts me off a little bit. Understand he has to make a living and respect to him for putting so much energy into something but it always just feels a bit too much sales
I bought the DC20 alpha access because you recommended Treant. I generally liked what I saw with the exception of one thing.
I do not like how they dropped Wisdom. Outside of roleplaying how do I build a smart character but one who does not know when NOT to do something. Just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you should. The mechanics as written, unless I grossly misunderstood them, doesn't work that way. The intelligence prime merges them and I think looses something as you strive for simplicity.
Personally I would get rid of intelligence, split it the concept for Mental, and have wisdom and something like Reason/Logic.
Charisma I don't mind one but prefer it broken up in two. Leave one as Charisma just as is but add something like Manipulation, which is how well you can lie/deceive. There is a natural split between someone who just draws attention, natural magnetic personality as it were, and how well they can lie.
This removes raw intelligence and appearance allowing the player to determine that not race, etc.
I'll be skipping this. Too many things to dislike and I don't need the game to be simple to play. If I'm jumping systems I'll go to Pathfinder or Power by Apocalypse instead.
You can’t replace a system that you just remove the mechanics of the problems instead of innovating and improving upon it, plus it’s just weird to not have high strength and be able to lift a strength based weapon due to high intelligence, four stats when six wasn’t enough, making weapons more simple when they already were a far shot from a half of the reality of them, on and on and on, no this isn’t the future, something like the D20 core system is
So many cool ideas in this system, but ease of play isn't being looked after imo. Ancestries are an easy example of this. Core rules should just be the standard options, as they are, with sub-ancestries to customize. Customizing rules, from half-ancestries to full custom options should be in the dmg for ppl to expand their experience once they are familiar with the system. Too many choices when learning a new game is a big turn off to a lot of ppl
Why does everyone think Silvery Barbs is OP? Have you actually used it? So far, across 4 castings, it has never saved me from being hit, and the advantage has only had an effect once (it let me claim Sneak Attack damage). Compared to Shield, which would have saved me from all 4 hits (plus others in the same rounds from other foes), but not let me claim the Sneak Attack damage once, it's clear that Shield is the more OP choice - because SB causes rerolls which might not differ from the original result, whereas Shield is a static modifier that has a high chance of changing the result and is *also* persistent! Judging SB based on the *best* possible outcome is not an accurate assessment, because that best possible outcome is unlikely. I realise that my experience is close to worst possible outcome, so it would also be inaccurate to say the SB is worthless, but it seems to me to be a reasonably balanced spell that I'm just having bad luck with.
I think it’s more due to spell saves that you can use offensively when things succed in their save from your spells, making them reroll the save is atrong. An enemy failing a spell save can completely change an encounter. I am not saying shield isn’t over powered but no one is claiming silver barbs is to strong for negating a single attack, it’s about spell saves
@@Commodore468 Fair point, it has an extra use case (and a good one!) compared to Shield, but it's still only a re-roll (and there are other ways to achieve that too, some of which consume no resources, although most are higher level), so it still isn't all-powerful. It's a good cheap tweaker of probabilities, but not the totally OP monster that so many people call it. Also remember you have a limited number of spell slots, and your DM should be pushing you to the limit every day so that you need to carefully consider whether any particular casting is the right thing to do (if you get a long rest after every encounter then spells like SB do become totally OP). Once I get Magical Ambush I won't use SB for save effects very often if ever - it's kind of the inverse of Indomitable (if they saved on two rolls a reroll is highly unlikely to change that, and even without Magical Ambush the reroll is not going to often cause a strong save to fail - Bane and Mind Sliver are better for that).
@@user-fc7sv5ln6m I would argue arcane trickster is not a great user of it since your spells are not nearly as useful as the full caster, and you can use it in conjunction with magical ambush. It also turn advantage to disadvantage, if they succeed from advantage and then you silvery barb they take the lower roll of the 2 so they went from advantage to disadvantage since the just roll 1 new dice, a lot of things have magical resistance to give them better save chances instead of really good saves. It’s also not concentration like bane or an action like mind sliver. It is fun to stack mind sliver eloquence bards mechanic and mind sliver to really make things fail.
@@Commodore468 I submit that really shows that Eloquence Bard (properly built) is close to OP, not Silvery Barbs in isolation. YMMV. Actually, with fewer and weaker spells than a full caster, it may be important for me to land them. Also, I use Mind Sliver to help my allies land spells more than my own, and if I'd had a chance yet, I would have used SB the same way, but so far it's always been a desperate attempt to save myself from hits when scouting so I can get back close to my allies :)
My big issue with customizable ancestry is that playing "an elf" or "A dwarf" is substantially underpowered compared to being 3 or 4 races. You picked human? Instead of going for 5 different kinds of resistances or immunities? Okay guess you're not going to contribute this game. Oh cool you're a studious human wizard. Great. Greg is an elf-human-dwarf-giant-halfling who's immune to fear, can wear platemail and a shield, is immune to sleep, and can throw a house.This sysem is so extreme in that regard that picking to play ANY classic fantasy archetype is like playing a deliberately underpowered 5e character
It’s not 6e. Stop pretending
Meh, you might be right. But I think you underestimate how much people are excited about moving away from the big dogs and toward indie creators. It's a societal phenomenon that's only picking up speed, especially in the TTRPG space.
It can't be 6E anyway. To do that he'd have to have made five editions.