Thanks for the suggestions Suuuper :)
I recently got my hands on another Fantasy Flight Games’ system called “Genesys”, and a set of its Narrative Dice. I’m trying to find a way to somewhat mimic that system in DnD, because, frankly, throwing more dice is fun!
I have realised the importance of making sure that dice role results in general are not binary pass/fail states though. However, I’m the kind of person that struggles coming up with results on the fly, so it’s a lot more work for me to predict and write for a bunch of outcomes. I have been playing around with “close calls” options for players also, so if they are only 1 or 2 off a successful roll, they bump the result up to a success if they choose to accept a penalty.
I have also started designing set-piece monster/villain fights a bit better, such that the enemy has distinct phases that it cycles through, with different move-sets in each. Each phase has its own initiative, which has interesting implications with action economy, reduces the bursts nature of 4vs1 party vs boss combat, and I think is slightly more engaging for the players overall.
I’m finding that I’m having to Homebrew a lot of side systems to be more engaging for players also. For instance, in one of my campaigns I have a weapon-smith, an alchemist, and a brewer (and a noble). With rules as written, the smith and the brewer have absolutely nothing to do with their background professions, and the alchemist can brew basic potions with the most boring dice roll possible. Luckily there is a great DM’s Guild Document I bought to provide a system for the smith. Then I wrote a simple yet fun brewing system for the brewer. Now I am trying to develop a monster parts harvesting system that is simpler and more universal than anything I can find online, as well as a parallel foraging system, so that the alchemist can actually have some guidelines on what they need to collect and combine to make the potions found in the books themselves.
It really is a balancing act between trying to get the system to do everything I want it to do for me and my players, whilst not going overboard and making it overly granular and clunky.
I swear... DnD has been more more than my Masters Degree was!