Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[puke]

Like: D20 modern.

Yeah, D20 Modern and True20 (which are similar) are both very good.  I wish there was a flexable point based character progression system rather than classes and levels, but it isnt that hard to mod in.  I like the abstract (similar to Shadowrun or M&M) damage system, and really everything about it. 

I think it could use an update and a fresh edition that maybe consolidated attack bonus, skills, and saves.  but really its pretty good.

I'm also reminded of Starwars Saga edition.  I dont like 4e D&D, but Saga was sort of proto-4e rules and was a bit simpler and less monster-smash focused.  The character class types were desticnt yet flexible, and you could combine them in interesting ways for lots of variety.  I like how they treat auto-fire as an area of effect attack, I thought that was really inovative.  Its not gritty at all, but they do a good job of capturing the space opera feel of starwars.

And just a cautionary note for those people who are recommending games without playing them (yeah, I like FATE too, but I've played and GM'd it): be carefull there.  I was really in love with the Dream Pod Nine "Shilouette" system as used in Heavy Gear, Tribe 8, and Gear Krieg.  Until I played it.  Or rather, tried to run it a couple times.  The bell curve was way to steep, and I knew what any given result was going to be before I asked anyone to roll dice.  The large variety of stats and with narrow ranges sounded good on paper, but players had a hard time feeling diferentiated even though they were. The dice mechanics were easy for me to understand, but players used to other games had a really hard time getting used to the novelty of it.  And the novel dice mechanics didnt ADD anything (ORE has wierd dice mechanics, but at least they add something). It's a system designed by programmers and nerds, and it falls down in actual play.

dont get me wrong, I've been a programer, I am a nerd, and I am not saying there is anything wrong with FATE.  I love it.  But go easy on recomending something you have not personally field tested.

[ndkid]

I tend to be a very non-main-stream ttrpger. The last game of D&D I played was 3.0 back around 2000. D&D is, in my view, a system that does not greatly encourage role-playing, but does greatly encourage tactical thinking, and optimizing characters as either damage dealers or force multipliers (mostly via healing the damage dealers).

To expound on that thought, I tend to feel there are two important qualities to role-playing games: mechanics and universe/genre. Some games, of course, have no genre, and aim to be a generic system that can be used anywhere. Of those, the two I'm most familiar with are GURPS and HERO. Of those, I think GURPS is far better at less cinematic games and settings, while HERO does far better with the more cinematic ones. GURPS has a weaker characteristic system (4 stats, 6-14 is the approximate human range) than HERO (10 stats, 0-20 is the approximate human range), but a far chunkier (and, in my opinion, better) skill system. Both have similar systems for handling powers/spells, mostly consisting of base effect * positive modifiers to power/negative modifiers to power.

For diceless systems, I'm mainly familiar with Amber and Nobilis. Amber is less strongly tied to its universe than Nobilis, but both would take work to change the genre on. Of the two, I find Amber less interesting. While I enjoyed the Amber books, I don't find the universe one that really pulls me in as a character. The universe of Nobilis, on the other hand, with the players taking on roles that literally control a single aspect (usually) of reality, is more intriguing to me. I also find the mechanics that Nobilis put in place (one uses MP to power their superhuman abilities, including changing the nature of their aspect of reality, and gets MP back for roleplaying, mostly) far superior.

For fantasy role-playing, I've settled on a couple of favorites over the years. I tend to like my fantasy to be low fantasy, with a grittier, more simulationist style. Ars Magica has a fairly gritty setting, with several non-standard suggested practices. The magic system is also my favorite magic system ever: 5 verbs, 10 nouns, and effects are made up of one of each, with low power spontaneous effects being possible on the fly, or more powerful singular effects being able to be researched in down-time. It's based on 13th century Europe as it existed, but the system can be shifted to work in other areas where you want long-term characters with powerful magic.

I'm also a fan of Legend of the Five Rings, especially for groups that are more interested in playing roles that are less like modern Western tropes. The system is more complicated than D&D, but still toward the easier end of the scale, I think, as it has pseudo levels and classes. It really shines in its setting, which is well fleshed out, and its genre elements, which have decent mechanics for groups that have problems handling them just through role-play.

[Draco18s]

I really like Dogs in the Vinyard.  It isnt for everyone.  It is a pretty dry endictment of frontier religion in the early US.  Mormonism explicitly.  You play teenage thought-police enforcing community standards.  It can be played darkly, where there are no demons -- or lightly and altruistically where there are.  The mechanics emphasize social conflict, and it uses buckets of dice.  Really.  Buckets.

I forgot about Dogs in the Vinyard.  I played one game (our GM was Jewish, but you know, it was still great).  I love the rules.  The entire GM section is "Say yes, or roll dice."  The player section is "you're the dogs of the church, what you say is law."  It is in fact entirely valid to walk into a town, declare the entire place too corrupt to be fixable, and burn the place to the ground.  You might get a lecture later, but technically you did the "right" thing (ahh, tehcnichally correct...the best kind of correct).

[puke]

Also Eclipse Phase is pretty badass.  It's the current darling of my gaming group, being sci-fi horror.  Lots of transhumanism and body jumping.  A sort of Brin meets Banks meets Reynolds meets Morgan mashup of literature influences.  The rules are like a thined down and streamlined version of SR4, which is understandable based on where the games creators came from.

you can get the books as free PDFs under a CC license, so theres no excuse not to give it a gander.  And its well worth dropping a little money on.  Hard to explain without lots of text and tangents, there is alot going on with it.  I encourage you to take a look at their website and community and their PDFs and such.

[Grakelin]

One recent RPG that I tried and enjoyed is Atomic Highway (search it on DrivethruRPG, where I found it). It's the closest thing to a good Mad Max style post-apocalyptic RPG I have found, and it is quite simple to play. The downside is that not all the skills are useful in any way.

EDIT: Which I should indicate as being worse than in other RPGs because there are about sixteen of them.

[puke]

Apocalypse World is a good post apocalypic game.  The rules fit the setting pretty well, but some people find the writing style overbearing.  They (the authors) want you to play the game their way, or fuck off.  I can see how it could rub you wrong.

Also, Warhammer RPGs are pretty great.  WFRP 1 and 2 were both great systems, 2 really shines.  3rd ed is a bit non traditional and wierd, characters on cards and unique game-specific dice, so I'm not so keen on that.  Seems like they were trying to merge it with Talisman or something. 

On the sci-fi side of Warhammer, 40K-RP (Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch) has absolute shit for character generation and rules (not as bad as palladium, but they could have done much better) but I'll put up with just about anything to enjoy gaming a little bit in that setting.  The books are poorly organized, rules and content are strewn randomly through chapters full of fluff.  Basically, the same writing style they have had since Rick Priestly wrote the first Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader book over 20 years ago.  Which is to say, a pain in the ass to find things and play the game, but an absolute pleasure to paw through and find hidden gems on every page.

[Farce]

I uh, don't actually play any, but I go to /tg/ and like to read through rulebooks for chargen and stuff.

In general,v it's really fun to go through the rules and see what kind of inspirations for characters I get.  Random generating systems like the Lifepath thing or even just rolling for stats are fun for me.  Feats-and-flaws point buy things are also fun.

When I first read it in 7th Sea, I thought the roll-and-keep system was pretty cool.

I love Deadland's setting.  Cowboys and zombie-cowboys fighting ghoasts-and-stuff in the Wild West and crazy steampunk SCIENCE, and all that.  I also really like that the system uses poker hands and chips and all that, very thematic.

[Majestic7]

I've been playing and running games for 15 years. Basically, I'll play anything with an interesting plot and/or strong atmosphere, regardless of the system or the setting.

I've been running Traveller for years and years and years; it was my first RPG love. There is a long Conan campaign too, you can find the campaign log here:
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/conan-ae

The log is kind of frozen, but there has been talk about resurrecting it.

In general, the genres I like are horror, dark fantasy and science fiction. I'll play anything though; D&D can be fun, in a relaxing mindless way. I don't really like 4th Edition though. It just somehow feels bland, lacks spirits, feels more like a board game than D&D. Unfortunately 3.5 has lots of mathematical problems Pathfinder doesn't touch; I think the optimum is to play 3.5 akin to the Acheronian Edition rules in the Obsidian Portal.

Lately I've been running mainly post-apocalyptic steampunk of my own making and setting. It rans under the project name Purgatory, but that might still change. (Mainly because there is already a game called Purgatory.) When I'm GM, I like mysteries and inter-personal conflicts between player characters. I try to put them in moral dilemmas; usually in situations where the "dark" path offers tangible rewards and the "bright" path offers only problems. More often than not players/characters take the dark path and then come up with all kinds of rationalisations why it is okay. Hehe, I think it is kind of realistic psychological drama.

[diamok]

You all might like this site and though out of date (sort of) there is a ton of info.
http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/index.html

Take care,

[Neonivek]

Oddly enough after a while I started to fall out of love with those really REALLY broken systems with really interesting stories.

For example Exalted. ANY credit to running a high essence exalted game without it turning to crud does NOT go to the Exalted system itself. Which is odd because for a while there I really REALLY loved Exalted. The problem is it is one of those systems that breaks itself without the players needing to bend... anything.
-The same goes to Scion... a 3 part series. Which breaks itself halfway through part 2 whether the players intended to or not.

I like open creation games such as Mutants and Masterminds, FateRPG, Herosystem, and others. I just like having that power of building my character.

[puke]

For example Exalted. ANY credit to running a high essence exalted game without it turning to crud does NOT go to the Exalted system itself.

Ouch.  Played this twice.  Seemed like someone liked WoD, but wanted crunchier rules.  I dont think I've seen a game with weapon speeds since AD&D 2, "Players Options".  First game ran slow and painful as we tried to use the combat rules without any external aids.  Second game ran well because the GM had this "initiative wheel" like a code wheel but for tracking changing initiative scores.  I dont think I'd ever try to run Exalted, looked like way too much work to be fun.

[Neonivek]

Once you get a hang of Exalted it can be fun.

The major problem is that the only one who hates exalted more then anyone else is Exalted. People have outright banned artifacts and manses simply because it would, and I am telling you it will, break the game almost instantly.

Then there are the perfect defenses. Even if we were to get beyond how outright broken some of the perfect defenses get (Scene longs for example), their real problem is that they are so easy to pull off that they slow the game down to crippling proportions. I've had fights go hours long because both sides couldn't hit eachother.

Of course this is ignoring the outright exploits. Manses take too long to build? Well then Celestial Sorcery has you covered. Your a royal fairfolk? Create an endless army of powerful almighty fairfolk to do your bidding and tie them to your vehicle. Your a Sidereal? Well you can chose whether or not you even participate in the game or not. Lunar? Well thanks to the new trait system you can have SUPER charms early.
-Heck one person broke Fairfolk by having a TECHNICALLY legal artifact that was essentially a Excellency charm that fairfolk could use.

Then there is social combat... Skip it. There is also mass combat... Skip it (actually mass combat COULD work... in a game focused on mass combat)

[Glowcat]

For example Exalted. ANY credit to running a high essence exalted game without it turning to crud does NOT go to the Exalted system itself. Which is odd because for a while there I really REALLY loved Exalted. The problem is it is one of those systems that breaks itself without the players needing to bend... anything.
-The same goes to Scion... a 3 part series. Which breaks itself halfway through part 2 whether the players intended to or not.

Those kind of self-breakages are exactly what led me to create this thread. I want to know what elements make or break the system, especially at the high levels. What's difficult is keeping the spirit of the game intact while balancing it.

I'm also huge on building your own character without much restriction, which is probably why I dislike DnD's limitations (even though 2nd->3rd edition was a major improvement there) compared to skill-based freeform character building.

[Draco18s]

Those kind of self-breakages are exactly what led me to create this thread. I want to know what elements make or break the system, especially at the high levels. What's difficult is keeping the spirit of the game intact while balancing it.

The magic system must always function the same as the not-magic system (ShadowRun does this well; sure there are some things magic can do that tech can't, but there are things that tech can do that magic can't).  The modified Blue Planet game I played also did this well (except that the GM couldn't explain to me how magic worked from the in-character point of view).

Likewise any other "subsystems" should function as closely to the generic rules as possible.  ShadowRun does this very poorly when it comes to the Matrix.  The hacker might as well pick up his character, snag a laptop, go into another room, play a completely unrelated game, while everyone else does the face shooting for monetary rewards part of the mission.  Half an hour later the hacker can come back and let everyone know if he succeeded or failed.  D&D 3.5's grapple rules are kind of like this too.

Always playtest your gear/magic spells/etc. with a group of munchkins.  You don't want spells that look like this:

Slow (Physical) (p.178)
Type: P • Range: LOS (A) • Duration S • DV: (F ÷ 2) + 3
This spell saps the kinetic energy of moving objects (relative to the manasphere, which in most cases is the Earth) in its area of effect. Movement in the area is limited to one meter per second, enough to mitigate damage from bullets, explosions, or falls. The spell ends when the caster stops sustaining it or the amount of mass moving in the area of effect exceeds 200 kg per hit on the Spellcasting Test. This spell does not change forces (such as gravity), just speed.
This spell is often used by special forces for HALO insertions without a parachute.

What's that?  A spell that makes the caster (and everyone standing around him) immune to bullets!?

Or an item that contains another item costing more than the former.  SR3 had a survival knife (a mere $300) that contained--among other things--a stun patch...worth $600.  War! has a monofillament grenade costing about $400 a pop.  Each one contains quote, "hundreds of meters of monowire" which if we cross-reference, a single meter costs "hundreds of [dollars] to produce."

[HLBeta]

I'm a great fan of Paranoia, both for its madcap betrayal and deliciously faux-Orwellian setting. The system works well for pick-up games since character creation is a string of die rolls and a bit of equipment selection that should take five minutes or less even with new players and while I normally hate chargen systems that lock out the player this one works. It actively discourages players from developing attachments to their characters, so my friends were less inclined to ostracize me after I murdered them four times before getting them branded communist mutants and flushed from the clone banks. Better yet, the game actively discourages player cooperation by ensuring that every player has differing and often mutually exclusive hidden agendas. The GM's job is more to simply hand his players lots of high-tech but badly documented weaponry and mediate the resulting fireball.

The game derives a great deal of its humor from denying the players access to key information, up to and including information on the operation of their own equipment (thermonuclear hand grenades anyone?) or any mutant powers they may posses. Knowledge of the game's rules beyond character generation is forbidden to players and the laws of Alpha Complex mandate immediate termination and flushing of anyone who displays knowledge of the rules. Better yet, there's very little need to reference the rules after that since most of the GM section comes down to "roll dice and then declare success for the funniest outcome." This handily avoids issues with a particular problem member of our group, who will often try to delay play for 15 minutes while he cracks open an unfamiliar sourcebook to dig up the exact rules on anything outside the most basic elements of the combat system. This lead to a great game where he started complaining about rules errata so one of the other players fried him for displaying knowledge of the rules before being fried by yours truly for displaying knowledge of the rules in his ability to identify knowledge of the rules. It's surprisingly easy to get a favorable debriefing if you're the only survivor.

The game does include some progression rules that may lend themselves to campaign play, but in a good round it's very rare to have more than one or two players survive. Not to mention how very easy it is to get killed in the debriefing if things get out of hand.