I agree that a majority of systems in DnD are baked around combat. But as a 20 year veteran, I definitely feel like 80+% of every campaign I have played has been role-playing, story entrenched, and environmental based content. Combat wasn't super often unless we were delving into something deep, but fights feel more impactful that way ( Especially since big fights can take a whole session sometimes 😅). With that being said, I feel like this campaign setting could be a really interesting and entertaining way to go about a fantasy campaign. I can imagine quite a few ways to make some awesome story beats and fun combat encounters. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

The potions system sounds really great, and it sounds worth the money for the setting, but maybe not great for a combat-heavy game system, like you said. Strategically, I think it makes sense to attach a setting to 5e when possible as a matter of name recognition. But, a setting with mismatched mechanics can be clunky...even broken. I hope it goes well for them.

@TheRPGBlender

11 ай бұрын

Definitely have some interesting ideas! And I for sure get the monetary reasons for 5e...given the near million they have raised. Just a shame that it is necessary rather than being system neutral, or for a more appropriate system

I'm actually looking forward to obojima but After I run it once I'm definitely going to port it to another, more fitting system.

@TheRPGBlender

11 ай бұрын

Perfectly fair! Let us know which system it worked better with when you do!

I’ve backed it even though I don’t play DND, I play Homebrew. The Potions System was the main hook along with the flavor. I’m hoping it can inspire me for elsewhere!

@TheRPGBlender

11 ай бұрын

I definitely think the potion mechanics are great!

I love Ghibli and its whimsical world, but from what I've seen I would indeed simply pull it apart and take a more Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke Route. The Corruption seems to come from there and it feels more Ghibli-esque. Or I'd go ham with Ponyo, Kiki's & Howl's moving Castle, if you catch my meaning. There is so much to be used. Rivergods, Kappa's to Spirits of Death or Tanuki's being trouble some. Besides who wouldn't want to travel Nekobus style? Or trying to enchant your own makeshift plane. So many ideas so little time. The origami mage sounds pretty fun. Or working with magical contracts for your powers. Sorcerers could have gained their powers by eating fallen stars & Bards could have perhaps more magical instruments with wills of their own like a Wild Magic Bard in need of that high performance and persuasion to get them out of trouble.

Welp in my opinion, combat isn't the main part of dnd, social interactions and story are just as much if not more important. It depends on the game tho. Also we can have both whimsical world and conflict 👍

Hey, i‘m planning on running a ghibli/steampunk campaign for my players and you seem somewhat knowledgeable on that, do you have any knowledge of modules or other stuff i could use as materials other than tales of the tall grass

I like your talk about creature stat-blocks and how they relate to the creature description. Good to think about while designing my own RPG, hoping for more of a focus on exploration

I was very disappointed to see it was for 5e. It deserves its own rules. The models and map I have would not do this game justice. That being said, I'll likely get the pdf to mine the book for inspiration

the art looks so good

I have to say starting your video off by misrepresenting the studio Ghibli franchise as not focusing on war and violence (see princess mononoke, valley of the wind, grave of the fireflies, howls moving castle) and misrepresenting d&d is not a a great way to begin your criticisms . It's like you completely threw out the TTRP OF THE TTRPG genre.

@kori228

3 ай бұрын

those Ghibli movies you mention are set in and/or have a backdrop of war, but the combat is not the focus of the movie. It's still focused on the characters. And only Princess Mononoke (and maybe Nausicaa?) actually has the characters fight on screen. those early Ghibli movies ultimately portray war as negative and focus on escaping the harshness of reality to the whimsey of a simple life.

You bring up some really valid points and I’m glad I came across your video as I was fully on the hype train the second I saw it but now you’ve brought these points up I may not just annihilate my wallet with the biggest package so thank you for bringing a more level headed perspective however I do wanna bring up that perhaps the legend of Zelda aspects may be part of the world as you slaughter tons of enemies in loz but never see anything visceral or blood mainly a puff of smoke so they may have some other planes and make it so death isn’t nearly as visceral as it is to regular dnd? Mainly spitballing but definitely subscribing now (maybe try the campaign setting when it’s realised?)

The title "Tales from the Tall Grass" makes me think of Pokémon rather than Studio Ghibli. 😅

@TheRPGBlender

11 ай бұрын

Didn't even think about that, but that's fair!

I agree with everything you say except when it pertains to the rush mechanic, ghibli films use wind often to associate with playfulness. An overexcited dragon very well may knock over its playmate in a race as they roll down a hill.

the college of masks subclass is inspired by majora's mask, but youre right, definitely more studio ghibli than legend of zelda.

@TheRPGBlender

11 ай бұрын

I hadn't even considered Majora's mask actually, it just felt like a lifting of the Master of Masks from 3.5. But that is a valid inspiration!

idk I'm excited personally

@TheRPGBlender

10 ай бұрын

Nothing wrong with that! These are my opinions only, and if you thought what you saw tickled your interest - enjoy it!

Aounds like it would fit very well in with Legend of the 5 Rings rpg from Fantasy Flight. I can kiiinda see what maybe the idea behind some of the monsters are but, it feels like they made the art and lore, then slapped rules on the monsters just to have something there. Hopefully they'll provide more flsvor to the game down the road but atm, not my cup o tea.

I'm probably the main target for this because we'll I grew up with ghibli and loved it so much I'll get this off of nostalgia alone hope it's actually good and it's not just good art and generic substance

Agreed George! It is so frustrating seeing 5e homebrew books like this. Cause it does not actually focus on what 5E's mechanics are mostly about (as you said) which is combat. It combines a grouping of movies that are pretty different in tone and theme to a game that is combat focused. When there are games that fit better into the Studio Ghibli aesthetic. There's another other kickstarter I found like this too (not ghibli but still uses 5e as the system)😅.

@TheRPGBlender

11 ай бұрын

A lot of them... Always. Everything has to fit into D&D no matter how forced. Two more preview ads just popped up in my feed for Lovecraftian and Folk Horror settings. Like... OK... Now we are getting the opposite problem! Here it is "you shouldn't want to kill these creatures" and there it will be "you shouldn't be able to kill these creatures". Neverending! Despite the "outrage" every time Hasbro does something iffy

@Blerdy_Disposition

11 ай бұрын

@@TheRPGBlender Every month is a new outrage and its kinda tiring. I just wish more folks spent less time using 5e and more time creating cool system agnostic resources or tools or games.

Should have been system agnostic but with D&D 5E being the biggest ttrpg right now I get it. I agree with your recommendation at the end to take the setting and some items and stuff to repurpose for other game settings. Imagine Obojima Island being explored but investigators in a Call of Cthulhu game. The looming darkness spreading feels very eldritch horror to me.

Great content, well funded opinion and highly helpful, subscribed

What do you think, as it now approaches 900k? Are the potion mechanics worth the price? Am I wildly off base in my criticisms? Are you backing it?

why dont they just modify gurps?

I'm not sure what stat blocks this guy looks at but I don't know what ones have actions or abilities for "being friendly" the stat block of anything is FOR COMBAT and then the other aspects of a creature are RPed by the GM... not very hard to understand... am I missing something here?

It kind of reminds me of Humblewood. You read that setting and it's at the same time cute woodland critters being adorable, but at the same time it's D&D so they shank one another. And then the ultimate thing that is causing so many problems in the setting is just some guy that you stab to death to solve the problem of displaced refugees and so on. We had way more fun with that setting when we changed the system to homebrew Mouse Guard. Another problem with Obojima is that well, the company is from Portland, and its team is like, 8 caucasian people and one person with a Sri Lankan last name. Doesn't really scream "we know how to portray Japanese folklore in an authentic way". And yeah, the setting looks like it would fit in much better with some other game. Something like Fellowship, or some other PbtA. Something that lets you get lost in the weirdness of a setting rather than see every strange creature you come across and go "how do I kill this one and what loot it will drop?"...

@TheRPGBlender

11 ай бұрын

Ya know, I've always wanted to try Mouse Guard. One of these days I'll give it a full look. And definitely another possible issue there with appropriate representation. But then, being quite honest, nothing about the project made me think they would be aiming to do a good job representing folklore in the first place... Just capitalizing on the iconic imagery. Such a shame it'll be just another hunting guide instead of a true explorer's toolkit as the inspiration deserves

Pronounced correctly, if you read it in katakana. It’s an italian word, so « ghi » should be pronounced as in « gi-ft ». I would say that both are correct ☺️.

I agree, I was ready to go for a pretty heavy back and then went through the play-test material and came away deeply unimpressed. Ghibli like and D&D can work, Nausica, Princess Monoke, Castle in the Sky, or even the world building in Howl's Moving Castle are a good fit. But I just wasn't seeing a path to that here. And the quality of the play test stuff was not great. Not awful but more what I would expect from on the curve of novice homebrewers than professional content. The monsters on top of just being monsters had poorly written mechanics which weren't interesting. And the masks bard didn't look fun, and was a page and a half subclass. Battle Master can get away with the mechanical density because it's Battle Master (and because base fighter has so little), but most subclasses should be much simpler and have a clearer gameplay identity which ties to its concept. Even the potion mechanics I'm dubious about how well it would actually run at the table. Most of the book is supposed to be setting, and maybe that will be great but none of it was shown, which is another red flag. The artwork and design is very pretty but $2.5M is nuts, there wasn't anything in the campaign to show the actual quality of the content will be there for it to be worth running.

D&D has become a lot more accessible over the years, and in the time that I've looked it over I've seen massive campaign settings that fit the theme, are made with high quality attention to detail and mechanics, but are most importantly free. I can understand people being used to paying for resources like this, but I personally don't think I have much of a reason to when I can get similar/higher quality products for free. I'm not saying the physical dice and books should be free, but campaign settings and these sorts of systems are becoming much more accessible without having to spend money.

Dungeons and Dragons is a Tabletop Role Playing Game. Warhammer is a Tabletop Skirmish game.