Diablo is getting a board game and tabletop RPG that will “continue the lore and story” of the video games
Blizzard devs are working with tabletop studio Glass Cannon Unplugged on the adaptations.
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More surprising is the confirmation that Diablo: The RPG will be built on a new “unique” gameplay system, rather than slapping a Deckard Cain mask over Dungeons & Dragons 5E or something.
At least there's that. It might still be terrible, but I immediately lose interest in any game that's just reskinning "The World's Most Popular Role-playing Game."
In this case I'd actually not mind that much, since D&D5e and Diablo both are pretty much the same genre (High Fantasy with a lot of fireballs). Maybe slice all HP in half to make it a bit more lethal on both sides, but that's it.
It's way worse for stuff like "Adventures in Middle-Earth" and "Beneath the Monolith". Like, how? Those genres aren't remotely the same.
Fair point. I think it would still take a lot of work, though, since Diablo includes a lot of fast-paced, high-powered stuff, while 5e kind of falls apart and turns into a slog at higher levels. To put it another way, it handles up to the heroic level fine, but the epic levels can feel like a drag, and WotC's solution was to mostly publish adventures that stop at level 15. Cutting HP would be a part of it, maybe streamlining some stuff, creating a different inventory system...
So it can be done. But the fact that it's not D&D also means there's a higher floor to how much thought was put into the game, you know? Sometimes designers put the work in, but sometimes they just pick D&D to be lazy or as a cash grab.
Speaking of Adventures in Middle-Earth, I haven't played it, but I heard the 5e edition is actually pretty good. You're right in that Tolkien's fantasy is way different from the high-fantasy superheroics of 5e, but I heard it had great rules for going on a journey, which 5e mostly glosses over (at least in practice).
In a world where there's the system The One Ring, I don't see a point in doing any other Middle Earth system. Perfection has already been achieved (for this specific setting).
Concerning high-level play, I think having way lower HP for everybody would also fix a lot of things, since the main issue is that battles take forever due to having to whittle down ridiculous HP sponges.
I guess as the devil's advocate, the publisher put out both. So it seemed like it was the high-effort way to both create a bespoke system, and appeal to the people who are completely stuck on D&D.
Lowering HP would absolutely go a long way, you're right. I think limiting or disabling multiclassing would also help, but that would be an extremely unpopular change that most people would ignore anyway. :/
"Beneath the Monolith" was also put out by the same company that produced the original setting with its bespoke system (Numenera/Cypher System). They just know which way the wind blows and strive to maximize their profits.
Multiclassing is an optional rule in D&D5e, not allowing it should not be controversial.
You're right that multiclassing an optional rule, but in practice, I think nearly every player assume it's in use unless the DM says otherwise (and they will likely complain if the DM says otherwise). So I'd bet that if a ruleset basedo n 5e disabled multiclassing, people would either complain about it, or ignore that part and then complain when it breaks the game.
It is interesting, but it'd also be cool to see Blizzard introducing their fanbase to one of the popular indie systems like Cypher, Cortex, etc.
Oh for sure! It's really just treating D&D as the default that I have a problem with, not using an existing system per se. Sometimes it works, but a lot of the time making D&D support a radically different style of play is a bad idea. It also tends to suggest that either the designer doesn't really know that much about RPGs, or the publisher doesn't care and just wants to cash in on what's popular. If they picked even another existing system, that at least suggests they're aware of other games, and probably picked something they thought was a good fit.
Again, this is just speaking in generalities. There are good games based on 5e. It's a red flag, but not a deal breaker.
