# D&D General Fantasy heartbreaker mechanics…



## overgeeked

Well, it looks like a lot of people are suddenly interested in doing fantasy heartbreakers again so let’s have a thread for it.


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## DMZ2112

_So passes Denethor, son of Ecthelion.  And so pass also the days of Gondor that you have known; for good or evil they are ended. Ill deeds have been done here; but let now all enmity that lies between you be put away, for it was contrived by the Enemy and works his will._ 

Anyway, I've got this system where the core mechanic involves a package of pre-sliced bologna and a bottle of flat Sierra Mist.

Seriously, did you know that if you roll three of the same kind of die but only read the middle result, it imparts a bell curve on the result of the roll?  Sorcery, I know, but embracing the black arts is a small price to pay for a good statistical distribution.


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## TwoSix

DMZ2112 said:


> Anyway, I've got this system where the core mechanic involves a package of pre-sliced bologna and a bottle of flat Sierra Mist.



I’ve homebrewed this to use honey ham and Mountain Dew, but the core mechanic still works great.


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## Irlo




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## Reynard

The definition of Fantasy heartbreaker is a game that doesn't acknowledge game design has advanced beyond 1981 D&D.

So the OSR.


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## Sacrosanct

Reynard said:


> The definition of Fantasy heartbreaker is a game that doesn't acknowledge game design has advanced beyond 1981 D&D.
> 
> So the OSR.



Not really.  It's really any knock off of any D&D system where a good idea is buried beneath bad mechanics.  Just ask the guy who coined the term in the first place:

_The basic notion is that nearly all of the listed games have one great idea buried in them somewhere.... That's why they break my heart, because the nuggets are so buried and bemired within all the painful material I listed above._ - Ron Edwards, 2002


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## Vaalingrade

Reynard said:


> The definition of Fantasy heartbreaker is a game that doesn't acknowledge game design has advanced beyond 1981 D&D.
> 
> So the OSR.



I have never heard this definition nor seen a heartbreaker that was OSR


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## Reynard

Vaalingrade said:


> I have never heard this definition nor seen a heartbreaker that was OSR



The definition I remembered was that they were games designed by people that did not acknowledge gaming had evolved past AD&D.

The OSR bit was a joke.


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## TwoSix

Sacrosanct said:


> Not really.  It's really any knock off of any D&D system where a good idea is buried beneath bad mechanics.  Just ask the guy who coined the term in the first place:
> 
> _The basic notion is that nearly all of the listed games have one great idea buried in them somewhere.... That's why they break my heart, because the nuggets are so buried and bemired within all the painful material I listed above._ - Ron Edwards, 2002



Yea, although the usage of the term has broadened a bit over the last 20 years, and isn't necessarily a pejorative.  It can also be used for any of the myriad games that are "like D&D but I made it better (for my values of better)".


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## DND_Reborn

DMZ2112 said:


> Seriously, did you know that if you roll three of the same kind of die but only read the middle result, it imparts a bell curve on the result of the roll?



Yep, love 3d20 take middle for D&D:





y = -0.075x2 + 1.575x - 0.775 is the equation for 3d20 take middle.

It doesn't generate a "bell curve" necessarily, but it is a nicely symmetrical distribution.



DMZ2112 said:


> Sorcery, I know, but embracing the black arts is a small price to pay for a good statistical distribution.



Sorcery was just an early name for mathematics after all.


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## Mannahnin

Sacrosanct said:


> Not really.  It's really any knock off of any D&D system where a good idea is buried beneath bad mechanics.  Just ask the guy who coined the term in the first place:
> 
> _The basic notion is that nearly all of the listed games have one great idea buried in them somewhere.... That's why they break my heart, because the nuggets are so buried and bemired within all the painful material I listed above._ - Ron Edwards, 2002






Reynard said:


> The definition I remembered was that they were games designed by people that did not acknowledge gaming had evolved past AD&D.
> 
> The OSR bit was a joke.






TwoSix said:


> Yea, although the usage of the term has broadened a bit over the last 20 years, and isn't necessarily a pejorative.  It can also be used for any of the myriad games that are "like D&D but I made it better (for my values of better)".




Yeah, I think there's more to it than just that piece of what Edwards wrote.  I understand that them having "one great idea" is what breaks HIS heart, but I encountered the term years before I ever saw it in Forge context. 

Generally used for any indie game published out of someone's home as a labor of love aiming to challenge big games like D&D and failing utterly, thus breaking their heart.  We saw these for decades, advertised in the back pages of Dragon, or sold by the author at a table they rented at a local convention or mighty GenCon itself!  The 90s saw an explosion of them as cheap desktop publishing became available.  I've still got copies of a handful.  Synnibarr is a classic example of this sort of game.

I definitely agree that a very common element was that many of them clearly were trying to be "D&D but better".  "Why would anyone want to play D&D when MY game has... [a "realistic" spell point system!, a "realistic" hit location and DR system!, a realistic setting based on real Medieval Europe; trust me I have a Masters degree in Medieval History!, etc.]"  And a lot of them did show signs of being created by people who really weren't familiar with games _other than _D&D.


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## Mannahnin

DND_Reborn said:


> Sorcery was just an early name for mathematics after all.




(quoted from _Turjan of Miir (The Dying Earth)_) (Jack Vance)
In this fashion did Turjan enter his apprenticeship to Pandelume. Day and far into the opalescent Embelyon night he worked under Pandelume's unseen tutelage. He learned the secret of renewed youth, many spells of the ancients, and a strange abstract lore that Pandelume termed "Mathematics."

"Within this instrument," said Pandelume, "resides the Universe. Passive in itself and not of sorcery, it elucidates every problem, each phase of existence, all the secrets of time and space. Your spells and runes are built upon its power and codified according to a great underlying mosaic of magic. The design of this mosaic we cannot surmise; our knowledge is didactic, empirical, arbitrary. Phandaal glimpsed the pattern and so was able to formulate many of the spells which bear his name. I have endeavored through the ages to break the clouded glass, but so far my research has failed. He who discovers the pattern will know all of sorcery and be a man powerful beyond comprehension."

So Turjan applied himself to the study and learned many of the simpler routines.

"I find herein a wonderful beauty," he told Pandelume. "This is no science, this is art, where equations fall away to elements like resolving chords, and where always prevails a symmetry either explicit or multiplex, but always of a crystalline serenity."


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## Whizbang Dustyboots

overgeeked said:


> Well, it looks like a lot of people are suddenly interested in doing fantasy heartbreakers again so let’s have a thread for it.



I have come all the way back around multiple times on race as class, from hating it, to seeing it as elegant simplicity, to finding it restrictive, to wanting it as an option alongside standard choices. (I'd probably rename "elf" to "elf mageblade" or something, though.)

I cannot fathom ever going back to a game with to-hit or saving throw matrices or charts for thieves skills. d20 resolution systems for me, thanks.

I like advantage/disadvantage, because it simplifies what can be an unwieldy Lego tower of bonuses and penalties to keep track of for each character.

Despite people earnestly telling me that law/chaos/neutrality is better than standard alignments, I've never actually seen an explanation of how or why that would be. That said, the old World of Darkness nature/demeanor system seems to create more believable characters. Let cosmic Good and Evil (and sure, Law and Chaos) be factions in a game world, rather than something every level one PC starts off committed to.

The Powered by the Apocalypse playbook system is _wonderful._ It works great in Monster of the Week to create veteran monster hunters whose connections were established in a previous episode, but it also works great in Beyond the Wall to create parties whose characters are naturally interwoven together. Anyone who hasn't played BtW should pick it up (ASAP, really, since I haven't heard how Flatland is responding to the OGL debacle).

I quite like the contemporary idea that monstrous people are just people. As we know from the real world, anyone can be evil or good, so there's no shortage of enemies to stick swords into, if that's what your players are after. If I were creating a monster book, I would make it clear that Bandits, Slavers, Cultists and others in the opponents section could be of any ancestry, either homogeneously or heterogeneously. I'm creating/reskinning a new monstrous people for my #dungeon23 adventure and, from the jump, I'm noting that while _most_ of them believe in a demonic creation myth and are demon worshipers, there's evidence that they were a pre-existing people whose leadership have taken them down this path and killed anyone who acknowledged their previous identity. I'm even going to provide a way for players to play one as a PC, should they choose (and once they find out the secrets of this group).

3E incantations are better than 5E ritual magic. A wizard doing a ritual spell during downtime is just a bookkeeping exercise. The barbarian piecing together an incantation from tomb walls and scraps of paper he has to get untrustworthy sages to translate for him, that he then casts in desperate hope to save his people, is epic.

I like the idea of games where there's a progression of abilities or skills based on different dice sizes (Kids on Bikes, Tails of Equestria), but the jump from d12 to d20 is way too big. If you're going to use that kind of system (and playing with more dice can be fun), you need to use the whole Zocchi dice spectrum for a smoother progression. I taught my youngest how to play RPGs with Tails from Equestria and the moment anyone got to the d20 level, it basically short-circuited the game, since that PC now could dominate adventures.


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## Reynard

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> I disagree with both of these sentences.
> 
> There certainly _are_ games that don't reflect current game design knowledge and there are certainly are OSR games like that, but there are plenty of games that do.
> 
> Fantasy heartbreakers are someone's pet fantasy RPG that doesn't have any real chance of being played by anyone other than the author, as they are often just a collection of house rules and little more.



See? There are tons of definitions, so there's no real reason to fight about it.


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## James Gasik

TwoSix said:


> Yea, although the usage of the term has broadened a bit over the last 20 years, and isn't necessarily a pejorative.  It can also be used for any of the myriad games that are "like D&D but I made it better (for my values of better)".



I don't know if it counts (I never played the game), but this comment made me immediately think of these ads from Dragon magazine:


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## Whizbang Dustyboots

Reynard said:


> See? There are tons of definitions, so there's no real reason to fight about it.



I actually went and nuked the post for that reason.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots

James Gasik said:


> I don't know if it counts (I never played the game), but this comment made me immediately think of these ads from Dragon magazine:
> 
> View attachment 271939



Talislanta, of course, was famous for having "no elves," but a ton of elf-like species.


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## Mannahnin

James Gasik said:


> I don't know if it counts (I never played the game), but this comment made me immediately think of these ads from Dragon magazine:



Talislanta is a pretty good example, though Bard Games had an actual budget, lasted for years and put out a bunch of books and multiple editions.  It also had a d20-based universal resolution chart!  And all that awesome PD Breeding-Black art!


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## Vaalingrade

no elves... or art direction.


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## Ondath

James Gasik said:


> I don't know if it counts (I never played the game), but this comment made me immediately think of these ads from Dragon magazine:
> 
> View attachment 271939



Somebody call @Snarf Zagyg, I think we found the perfect system for him.

But oh wait, it's made by *BARD *games? Wow, total monkey's paw situation.


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## Snarf Zagyg

Ondath said:


> Somebody call @Snarf Zagyg, I think we found the perfect system for him.
> 
> But oh wait, it's made by *BARD *games? Wow, total monkey's paw situation.




OMG. I loved Talislanta, and I bought the Compleat Alchemist, Compleat Adventurer, and Compleat Spell Caster.

Good times! But yeah, seriously unfortunate name choice. Just have to pretend it's an acronym, I guess.


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