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Freylorn
2009-08-27, 01:57 PM
Hey there everybody - long time lurker, first time posting here though.

I've come to notice that you all seem to have a good deal of knowledge/experience with a lot of systems. I personally have only really played D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, D&D 4e, and Shadowrun 4.0.

I mainly play 3.5 and 4e nowadays, didn't really find Shadowrun to my liking although I've given it a good shot. But now, I'm starting to think of branching out and trying a new system. Only problem is, there's about six million of 'em!

So I was thinking: if I told you guys/gals what I was looking for in a system, could you possibly bounce some ideas off of me? I'd really appreciate it!

Key points for me:

- Balance. This is one of the reasons I prefer 4e to 3.5, much better party balance. In particular this is a huge selling point for me.

- Fast combat. This is where 4e is starting to lag for me, fights tend to take a good amount of time. 3.5 was much quicker when it came to fights, I've noticed - although that probably ties very heavily into the balance issue and the rocket tag style.

- No/Few magic items. This is something about D&D in general that I've never really been a huge fan of. I was originally considering just starting a new campaign with 4e and a house-rule that would eliminate all magic items and instead give players an inherent enhancement bonus to their defenses and attack at levels 2/7/12/17/22/27, but as you can see, I've opted to try and broaden my (and my players') horizons instead.

- D&D-esque setting. I know setting is fairly malleable, but I'm just mentioning this to avoid systems that are heavily tied into their settings, such as Star Wars or Shadowrun. This is by far the least important criteria of mine, though, so if you know of any systems that fit all the above but not this one, feel free to toss 'em at me!

Well, that should just about do it. I doubt I'm violating any forum rules here, if I am, please feel free to let me know. Again, looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Delaney Gale
2009-08-27, 02:09 PM
New World of Darkness might give you somewhere to start, although to make a D+Dish setting you'll probably have to do a lot of world-building. (I only specify nWoD because I haven't used oWoD, not because of a preference).

- Balance: There aren't "classes", there are skills and merits that say what the character can do.

- Fast combat: Your characters are SQUISHY. Health is hard to come by, damage is easy to deal, and healing is more realistic in time span. There's a lot of incentive NOT to get into combat because of that, and combat also rarely takes more than a few rounds.

- No/few magic items: As many or as few as you want- most games have none, and characters are well-balanced without them.

-D+Desque setting would be the stumbling block of nWoD here- it's written for a modern time period. They even have skills called "Computers" and "Drive". However, my boyfriend wrote a nWoD setting in 1888 London with limited changes to the system, so you could probably pull that off with a D+Desque setting as well.

Typewriter
2009-08-27, 02:15 PM
I second the WoD thing as long as you're good at retaining information and fighting through walls of flavor text to extract rules.

And the good thing about it is that you can put it into almost any setting/time frame and it will work when you eliminate a few powers. If you're just using it as a system that your store/gameplay rest on you can easily drop it into a fantasy setting(though Prometheans at the very least wouldn't work so well without electricity every where).

Glimbur
2009-08-27, 03:07 PM
The Savage Worlds system is fairly simple but allows many different powers. It can be set in a Swords and Sorcery setting, I suspect there's a book with powers and races and such specific to such a setting but I am not familiar enough to know for certain.

RISUS is rules light. It's balanced, fast, magic can be as sparse or common as you want, and it's free (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm).

Dixieboy
2009-08-27, 03:17 PM
New World of Darkness might give you somewhere to start, although to make a D+Dish setting you'll probably have to do a lot of world-building. (I only specify nWoD because I haven't used oWoD, not because of a preference).

- Balance: There aren't "classes", there are skills and merits that say what the character can do.

- Fast combat: Your characters are SQUISHY. Health is hard to come by, damage is easy to deal, and healing is more realistic in time span. There's a lot of incentive NOT to get into combat because of that, and combat also rarely takes more than a few rounds.

- No/few magic items: As many or as few as you want- most games have none, and characters are well-balanced without them.

-D+Desque setting would be the stumbling block of nWoD here- it's written for a modern time period. They even have skills called "Computers" and "Drive". However, my boyfriend wrote a nWoD setting in 1888 London with limited changes to the system, so you could probably pull that off with a D+Desque setting as well.Chiming in with oWoD, one should consider both. (NwoD supposedly has better mechanic, while OwoD has better fluff)

Well the fast combat goes right out in oWoD.

Combat can last five hours real time if you are fighting a sufficiently anoying enemy.

However if you don't have crap for luck and your Storyteller doesn't pin you against enemies with soaking from heck you should be fine.

OwoD has a "DArk ages" and a "Victorian" setting though, which fits D&D quite nicely, though less high-fantasy and more bloodsucking in alleyways.

Magic items cannot be avoided if you are a mage or a werewolf, however vampires have very few and can easily be disregarded. (Dunno about mummy and demon)

There are a kind of "classes", this being what kind of monster you are. (Mortals do not have any such thing, not being a monster and all. But who wants to play an average human in WoD?)
Vampire has clans/bloodlines.
Werewolf has a race/class/clan thing going on.
Demon and mummy i Don't know, i guess they have something similar.

Balance is a bit skewed, (Depending on the game) but everyone can be useful.

Sir Homeslice
2009-08-27, 03:21 PM
- Balance: There aren't "classes", there are skills and merits that say what the character can do.

The balance in nWoD is atrocious at best.

Eddums
2009-08-27, 03:26 PM
WHFRP certainly seems to fit the bill on a few counts. It's balanced, certainly in terms of within the party, but also as a system. The Careers mechanic is great, and limiting it by environment as a DM can stop any particular builds you don't want from coming up.

The combat system takes a bit of getting used to, but only about one session. Once you've got ot down, it's fast, your players will die if they're stupid, and actions certainly have to be thought about. I feel it's a credit to the system that having to consider one's actions fairly thoroughly doesn't slow down the action.

Magic items are rare, and not all that powerful, for the most part. Exact frequency and powers is very much up to the DM, but none of the pre-made adventures feature terribly powerful items, and many of the pre-made items are useful, such as magic tools/potions/provisions, rather than especially powerful.

Fantasy. Fairly generic, can be low-down, dark fantasy, or high, noble fantasy, as you like. This is basically up to the DM, and the Players. The world accomodates either.

Thatguyoverther
2009-08-27, 03:48 PM
Do Hero System!

It's great. It's all point buy so everything is pretty balanced. Items are included in the point cost of characters, depending on the games power level, so there shouldn't be a whole lot to worry about. Combat is fast paced but can slow down a bit if you tack on some of the optional rules.

It was originally designed for super heroic games but it's an infinitely customizable system, and works great with fantasy, sci-fi, and horror settings. I've personally played as superheros, a Mech pilot, a wizard, a pirates captain, various superheros and a bizarre half-plant bio weapon turned hero all using the same system.

You only need one book to simulate setting or character, although there are a plethora of splat books that add ideas there aren't any additional rules/feats/spells to learn.

The system is so amazing that sometimes it makes me cry. :smallbiggrin:

It does have some drawbacks. Character Creation involves huge amounts of math and is almost impossible without access to the Hero Designer software. The other drawback is that not many people have heard of or use the system so finding other players will be difficult unless you're willing to teach them the rules. The final drawback is that it's not available for free online. You'd have to purchase the book, on the upside the book comes with the Hero Designer software.

erikun
2009-08-27, 10:00 PM
I rather like the nWoD rules, but I think it would take a bit to "D&Desqueize" them enough to work smoothly. I would think that Changling or Mage would work best for fantasy characters.

The Burning Wheel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_Wheel) takes quite a long time to create a character, but combat it quick and simple. The setting is medieval fantasy by default, which is good, as it could take some time to design new lifepaths (character creation) and skills. You "level up" skills by using them, not with XP, so there is a bit more to keep track of in that reguard.

Qin: the Warring States (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12349.phtml) and Legend of the Five Rings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Five_Rings) are two more systems that come to mind, although the setting of fantasy China/Japan may not be quite what you're looking for.

elliott20
2009-08-27, 11:13 PM
The Burning Wheel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_Wheel) takes quite a long time to create a character, but combat it quick and simple. The setting is medieval fantasy by default, which is good, as it could take some time to design new lifepaths (character creation) and skills. You "level up" skills by using them, not with XP, so there is a bit more to keep track of in that reguard.


This I definitely don't agree with. While shorter, unimportant combat can be done really quickly via the "I corner him and stab him" rule, ACTUAL combat can take forever to set up.

Burning Wheel is arguably just the D&D system applied more towards a simulationist bent.

Not to say this is not a good game. (On the contrary, I think it's a brilliant game) But short, fast, and easy? hardly.

My pick goes to a hack of the Fate 3.0 (AKA Spirits of the Century) system or Prime Time Adventures cribbed in a fantasy setting.

a SotC Hack (I think Dresdon Files already does this, in fact) would allow your characters to function primarily off of their character aspects, which can easily encapsulate magic stuff, and Prime Time Adventures is just about the leanest game mechanic I've ever seen.

Of course, both of those are fairly abstract so your mileage may vary.

bosssmiley
2009-08-27, 11:21 PM
Hey there everybody - long time lurker, first time posting here though.

So I was thinking: if I told you guys/gals what I was looking for in a system, could you possibly bounce some ideas off of me? I'd really appreciate it!

Key points for me:

- Balance.
- Fast combat.
- No/Few magic items.
- D&D-esque setting.


Labyrinth Lord (http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.htm), or possibly WFRP or Dragon Warriors if you like your fantasy extra dark. :smallbiggrin:

Kizara
2009-08-27, 11:34 PM
*pastes rant*

I highly reccomend GURPS!

From someone that started with, played and still is generally rather fond of 3.x DnD, I can attest that GURPS is awesome in the following ways:

1) Less balance headaches! Sure, its not completely gone, but its an easier foundation to start with to houserule problems away.

2) More versitile! If you like homebrewing even a little bit, you'll love GURPS because you almost homebrew each character in that you can customize each trait, advantage (kinda like Feats) and so forth to a very large degree.

Which leads us too...

3) More character customization! Between making interesting personality elements with disadvantages (like Klepomania and Klutz, or Bloodlust and Callous, just to name 4 of like 100 options), choosing EXACTLY the skills you want (no more class skills, or classes at all for that matter), make EXACTLY the character you want to play!.

4) More tactical, interesting and diverse combat! Like combat in 3.5? Ever use anything from Unearthed Arcana? Well this is going to be like crack for you! Combat involves active defenses (shield blocks, dodges and parries) and an actual hit is huge! With comprensive rules for damage types, injuries, disabling a limb, hit locations, per-second rounds that allow for maximum simultaniety and more, its the deepest, best combat simulation that isn't a pain in the arse to run!

5) Its not 4ed! AT ALL! If you dislike 4E for ANY reason beyond "they stopped making 3.x stuff", you'll like GURPS, as its literally the exact opposite design direction.

Which leads to...

6) Its realistic! Most of the game is designed to be realistic and simulationist-oriented. There are rules (and comprehensive and good ones) for more cinematic, and/or silly games, the default assumption is a more gritty and realistic RPG. I can't even begin to list how many rules it has that are more realistic then 3ed. Also, it isn't as hyper-gritty as some systems. Although far more realistic then DnD, it still isn't as random or brutal as other systems.

7) Its easier to run! While its not easier to LEARN, its actually far easier to run as you don't have to keep track of dozens of bonuses, skills don't become totally broken after 6th level (there is no 6th level, and the skill system in general is way better, if a bit finely cut for my taste). Also, it uses 3d6 instead of d20, so its less luck-oriented and crits are less common-place. However, when they do come up (especially in combat), its a BIG deal, as you can't defend against a crit and it can easily do more or more lethal damage.

8) Its more adaptable! Want to run a sci-fi game with fantasy magic, lightsaber swords, phasors and Firefly-class transports? Its never been easier.

9) As much simluation as you want! The rules are set up that they go very deep, but you can use as many as you want. You don't have to use the hit locations, bleeding, and tactical movement rules (for instance). The game works perfectly fine (if shallow, it feels like DnD) this way, but it works that much better with all the 'optional' rules in play. These rules aren't like the lame Death From Massive Damage 3ed rule, they are progressive levels of simulation.


To reiterate: no or little gamism, no MMORPG conventions, no "rule of cool" bullcrap (except for some things that make a point of saying "this is cinematic, not for use in realistic games"), less caster imbalance (and its far, far easier to fix and control), a much better, more tactical and more immersive combat system, better and more customizable character options, etc etc... awesome!!!


Now, there ARE some downsides:

1) Its not as plug-and-play. If you want to say, play a Druid, the game supports this, but you have to do some homework and effort in putting it together. The more unique or specialized the concept the more this comes up. Its rather rewarding when you do tho. Take a look at my thread (on this page) about the paladin I made up.

2) The fineness of how the skills are cut can be annoying. Is it really neccessary to have pickpocketing, filtch and sleight-of-hand to all be seperate skills? You gain a whole lot more then you lose here. And while playing skill monkeys can be expensive, its also more valuable to your group because you really contribute in ways that others need and can't be easily replaced by magic.

3) Its a lot to take in. The amount of options and the complexity of the rules (compared to the basic concepts of 3ed) are a bit more of a learning curve and is a bit more intimidating then 3ed. However, there's quite a bit less rules-lawyering needed in general, as the rules are almost to a whole very natural and intuitive. More then once I have thought "I don't know how they do X, but I would do it like 'such and such'." and then found the actual rule for it and been impressed that it was almost exactly what I already had in mind.

elliott20
2009-08-27, 11:48 PM
Kizara, if anything, you'd think the drawbacks you named are precisely the reason the OP shouldn't touch GURPS with a 10 foot pole.

he wants something that is easy to pick up, easy to play, and fast to run. GURPS might be super customizable, but like you said, there is a high investment cost / learning curve involved.

Kizara
2009-08-27, 11:54 PM
Kizara, if anything, you'd think the drawbacks you named are precisely the reason the OP shouldn't touch GURPS with a 10 foot pole.

he wants something that is easy to pick up, easy to play, and fast to run. GURPS might be super customizable, but like you said, there is a high investment cost / learning curve involved.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't read the OP completely or the rest of the thread... :smallredface:

I just saw that he had DnD experience, and I've just absolutely loved GURPS and found it the most rewarding experience since I first discovered 3.0 and organized roleplaying in general. So I wanted to share the love.

Anyways... GURPS really is awesome, but its not rules-light. However, its less RULESY then 3/4e DnD in running the game.

Another_Poet
2009-08-28, 12:05 AM
WHFRP certainly seems to fit the bill

I second this!

By the way, WHFRP stands for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay :)

elliott20
2009-08-28, 12:08 AM
To be perfectly honest, I didn't read the OP completely or the rest of the thread... :smallredface:

I just saw that he had DnD experience, and I've just absolutely loved GURPS and found it the most rewarding experience since I first discovered 3.0 and organized roleplaying in general. So I wanted to share the love.

Anyways... GURPS really is awesome, but its not rules-light. However, its less RULESY then 3/4e DnD in running the game.

that's like saying Paris Hilton has less money than Bill Gates. It's really not saying much. I remember trying to put together a GURPS game and that sucker took me the better half of my freshmen year semester and it STILL wasn't enough.

Kizara
2009-08-28, 12:22 AM
that's like saying Paris Hilton has less money than Bill Gates. It's really not saying much. I remember trying to put together a GURPS game and that sucker took me the better half of my freshmen year semester and it STILL wasn't enough.

From what I've heard from others, the 4E GURPS rules are much more refined, better presented and easier to cross-reference. This might be why you had such a hard time before, but I learned the basics of the system in a couple hours, and have a solid understanding of it after playing (and running it, in turns) for a few sessions. I'm hardly a prodigy in such matters.

Really, GURPS isn't Rolemaster or Munckin, its not unreasonable, and although there's alot of depth to the rules they are intuitive. Its not designed for casual gamers however, or fast-and-loose gameplay. This contributes to why I love it (that's not elitism there, its just appreciating something geared to your preference) and why it has the reputation it does. You have to be at least a little serious about roleplaying to go to the effort to make your character with GURPS, and to learn the system in general, but you don't have to be crazy-making-your-own-language hardcore. Also, I find it very satisfying because you really feel your character is well-defined and individualized to exactly what you want to play, instead of "I'm a fighter with power attack" or "I'm a strong hero".

elliott20
2009-08-28, 12:40 AM
well, my problem was that I was trying for too much too quickly and ended up having to go back a lot to fix things. so yeah, it's not IMPOSSIBLE, just hard.

Haven
2009-08-28, 12:49 AM
Mutants and Masterminds. I cannot stress my love for it enough. Balance is good (as long as your GM vetoes blatantly unbalanced stuff), combat is quite fast (no attacks of opportunity, few or no situational modifiers to keep track of, etc), no loot (a major selling point to me too), and it's modular enough that it can run in just about any setting, including D&D-esque (they recently released a supplement that's apparently about this, Warriors & Warlocks, but it's not necessary and from what I've heard is kind of lacking anyway).

Character creation takes longer than D&D, but in a pinch you can just grab one of the sample characters and be perfectly effective (there's actually a ten-dollar book called "Instant Heroes" that's dedicated to doing this), since all you really need to do to be an effective member of the team in this game is hit your caps.

caden_varn
2009-08-28, 06:07 AM
WHFRP is a good little system - I rather enjoy it. Good balance, fast combat, fairly simple system. Decent fluff as well.

Earthdawn is another good system - reasonable balance, fast combat, simple and consistent mechanics, although I have not played up to very high levels. I also only have 1st and 2nd edition - 3rd has just come out which is supposed to improve the balance somewhat. I think 4E nicked some ideas from Earthdawn, so some of the features will seem familiar to you if you are used to 4E.

Both come with integral setting which is somewhat different from D&D. Earthdawn is the closer of the 2 to the high fantasy of D&D, with the heroes being obviously a cut above the average. WH is a darker world, and the heroes are nothing particularly special. It encourages role-playing more than combat, which can be quite deadly.