Ive been playing too much 4e

[The Reverend]

I know this because my mind keeps saying "hey. How about a RIFTS campaign? you want to play a psionic Walter Mondale from an alternative earth ruled by a steampunk Hanseatic League who rides a jet powered cyborg velociraptor? Come on you know you do?". Now its starting to convince me, maybe I should run a Rifts game.

[Knaight]

The easiest way to cure wanting to play RIFTS is to start playing RIFTS, so that ten minutes in you remember why you haven't played it for a while. Though once you get past the mechanics it isn't terrible.

[Beleriphon]

The easiest way to cure wanting to play RIFTS is to start playing RIFTS, so that ten minutes in you remember why you haven't played it for a while. Though once you get past the mechanics it isn't terrible.

Unfortunately for the mechanics of that game, they are terrible. Utterly, utterly terrible.

And I don't see how playing too much 4E D&D could make anybody want to play RIFTS.

[The Reverend]

I figured that would be pretty obvious but:

-Its like playing WoW the RPG

-Blandness compared to other systems

-That its a great tactical fantasy skirmish simulator just add talking in character for the RPG experience.

Its got a lot of great points but I've been playing it for like 6 months straight. I'd be open to other system suggestions if they were as.....insanely diverse as RIFTS, because RIFTS mechanics are pretty bad. Not as bad as Warhammer 40k, but pretty bad.

[DefKab]

You should play a mutant card-sharking hexster cowboy in the amazing system called Deadlands. Make sure you have playing cards and poker chips on hand, tho.

[paddyfool]

@The Reverend,

You want diversity, and style, and well-worked mechanics?

The answer to what you seek lies in Fantasy Craft (http://www.crafty-games.com/node/348).

[WitchSlayer]

What's wrong with Dark Heresy mechanics? :smallconfused:

[Knaight]

Its got a lot of great points but I've been playing it for like 6 months straight. I'd be open to other system suggestions if they were as.....insanely diverse as RIFTS, because RIFTS mechanics are pretty bad. Not as bad as Warhammer 40k, but pretty bad.

The truly generic systems are as versatile as RIFTS, particularly if you just keep the setting. Fudge outdoes it significantly - you could go so far as to have different sets of attributes for people from different worlds, and it would work, GURPS, HERO, and Savage Worlds can all manage.

As for mechanics, Rifts is worse than 40k. The Palladium writers did a lot well, but mechanical design was not among that. I can't think of a single aspect of the Rift mechanics (or, really, any other Palladium game's mechanics) that I actually like.

[The Reverend]

I said warhammer 40k, the miniature wargame. I knew I should have clarified. The fact that a space Marines armor score drops because he took cover behind a crashed space ship instead of standing in the open is stupid, also the scaled ranges of the weapons are ridiculous.

Dark heresy I have not played, but I assume like the only other games workshop RPG I played is a lot of fun.

HERO is one I've been thinking about looking at, never even seen the rule book just heard that its decent. GURPS I like well enough its ok but my current group does NOT like it. Not sure why exactly.

I actually like the concept of Mega damage, it makes a lot of sense in such a high powered world. Other than that eh not so much.

The real issue is not which is the best system but that I would have to spend a great deal of time stating rifts stuff into whatever other system I liked.

[WickerNipple]

The fact that a space Marines armor score drops because he took cover behind a crashed space ship instead of standing in the open is stupid

This would be stupid, if it was remotely true. Wherever did you come up with this idea?

[Dacia Brabant]

I know this because my mind keeps saying "hey. How about a RIFTS campaign? you want to play a psionic Walter Mondale from an alternative earth ruled by a steampunk Hanseatic League who rides a jet powered cyborg velociraptor? Come on you know you do?". Now its starting to convince me, maybe I should run a Rifts game.

I despise the Rifts game mechanics but I'm just posting to say that my next 4e character is totally going to be a psionic Walter Mondale. Now I just need someone to bring a bardic Gary Hart and we're all set. :smallbiggrin:

[The Reverend]

I said warhammer 40k, the miniature wargame. I knew I should have clarified. The fact that a space Marines armor score drops because he took cover behind a crashed space ship instead of standing in the open is stupid, also the scaled ranges of the weapons are ridiculous.

Dark heresy I have not played, but I assume like the only other games workshop RPG I played is a lot of fun.

HERO is one I've been thinking about looking at, never even seen the rule book just heard that its decent. GURPS I like well enough its ok but my current group does NOT like it. Not sure why exactly.

I actually like the concept of Mega damage, it makes a lot of sense in such a high powered world. Other than that eh not so much.

The real issue is not which is the best system but that I would have to spend a great deal of time stating rifts stuff into whatever other system I liked.

[Sception]

Rifts rules are way worse then 40k the miniature wargame's rules. Like, way worse.

4e can get old after a while. In most sessions, it tends to play out in a rather clinical, board-gamey manner, not terribly immersive. I love playing it, and I enjoy running it, but sometimes I want a change of pace.

I generally get that change of pace from nWoD when I can (although I have enjoyed rogue trader, BESM, 3e D&D, and Champions on occasion), either plain old normal nWoD in a lovecraftian regular humans investigating powers beyond their comprehension angle, or Changeling, since much of the point of that game is the dark horror of not being in complete control and not knowing everything that's going on. The other brands of nWoD tend to miss out on that by giving the players too much power and/or knowledge, imo.

But anyway, that's just my change of pace game. I wouldn't want D&D to be more WoDie or vice versa. Many of the things I enjoy about D&D for including are exactly the things I love WoD for not bothering with, and vice versa. I wouldn't enjoy a D&D game where my character felt confused and helpless most of the time at all, but if my Changeling character doesn't spend at least 70% of their time in such a state then I'd feel like the GM was doing it wrong.



That said, I only get my WoD fix when someone else is willing to run it. 4e is easy to run, easy to design adventures and encounters with plug & play monsters, clearly delineated environmental rules, clear and helpful guidelines on encounter, adventure, and campaign creation, character mechanics all revolving around solving problems in the same basic way, even guidelines for the players on how to put their party's together such that a DM can generally assume the players either have access to a certain basic ability set or have at least considered how they're going to deal with any notable gaps. It makes running 4e a breeze.

WoD, and other more open ended games, are much, much harder to run, since as the games master you have no idea until you see the character sheets what your players will be capable of, even in terms of foggy guesswork, and the books make little effort to convey what appropriate challenges or reward structures are. 4e is about the only game I'm capable of running, I simply don't have the time or attention needed to run any other game.

[The Reverend]

I was told that the armor score of the Marines armor was better than any cover and its an either or situation. They can either take the armor score or cover score not both. That's why SMs always stand out in the middlenof the field. Again what ivbeen toldbi might be getting the terms wrong.


Psionic Walter Mondale was pretty awesome. My favorite character was actually the simplest I've ever seen in Rifts. Japanese samurai with a sword. He hung with a Very high powered party. He ate a peach of immortality a thousand years ago DM gave him full levels, he was a combat monster. Dodging rail gun rounds, slicing 40ft tall robot legs off, made a psykers ears and eyes bleed once when she failed to MC me.

[Sception]

I was told that the armor score of the Marines armor was better than any cover and its an either or situation. They can either take the armor score or cover score not both. That's why SMs always stand out in the middlenof the field. Again what ivbeen toldbi might be getting the terms wrong.

There was a more detailed cover/armor/modifiers system in the past which made cover a modifier on to hit rolls, while the armor penetration value of the weapon used would apply a penalty to saving throws. This was cool and detailed, but the current system goes for something more streamlined to facilitate larger games. It's not worse, it's just different.

In the current system for shooting in 40k, to hit rolls are never modified, removing one calculation from the process, and armor penetration is an all or nothing thing based on the quality of the armor negated. For instance, if a weapon has an AP of 4, then it utterly negates 4+, 5+, and 6+ armor saves, but 3+ and 2+ armor saves still apply without modification. Again, the older system was more detailed, but the newer one is more streamlined, facilitating slightly faster gameplay.

Cover saves (and invulnerable saves) generally work the same as armor saves, and you can only take one or the other against any given shot, but armor penetration does not bypass cover saves. Teardrop templates a la flamers ignore cover saves, but then we're getting a bit off track.

So a unit of marines (with 3+ armor) taking cover behind the rubble of a ruined building (4+ cover save) gain no additional protection against the enemy eldar's small arms shuriken catapault fire (AP 5, so the marines use their regular armor save rather then the cover save), but when the enemy's squad of Dark Reapers unleashes a salvo of space elf missile pods (AP 3), they're going to be happy they have that cover to protect them, because otherwise they'd get no save at all.


Don't get me wrong, in a lot of ways I prefered the old system of to hit & armor save modifiers, but there's a certain streamlined elegance to the system that puts it way above anything Paladium did.

That said, lets not start on the wound allocation system in the current edition of 40k. That is a mess of paladiumesque proportions.



Psionic Walter Mondale was pretty awesome. My favorite character was actually the simplest I've ever seen in Rifts. Japanese samurai with a sword. He hung with a Very high powered party. He ate a peach of immortality a thousand years ago DM gave him full levels, he was a combat monster. Dodging rail gun rounds, slicing 40ft tall robot legs off, made a psykers ears and eyes bleed once when she failed to MC me.

I played a vibro-sword toting mercenary based on Alita (or Gally if you prefer), from Battle Angel (or Gunnm) in a rifts game, once. Different backstory, & I'm sure personality as well, but similar awesome combat style. It was fun.

I don't hate rifts at all, if someone's running it I'm totally down. I just prefer slightly more coherent mechanical systems, if its up to me.

[The Reverend]

Coherence is nice to have that's for sure. In actually looking to get into miniature wargaming and I'm trying to find another system that is popular in my area besides warhammer, mostly due to ita highish costs. If it turns out 40k is my only option I'll probably end up copying my cousins models with my smelter and painting those. I figure its only a matter of time before someone makes a 40k electronic assistant for touchpads. I've seen them for 4e dnd and they seem to work.

[Sception]

What are your local minis gaming venues? If you have enough friends who all want to start the hobby at once and at least one or two of you have quality gaming space, then you can do whatever.

Likewise, if you have a local indie gaming store with table space and a day of the week that they're not running magic the gathering or something then you can play whatever they can get in stock.

If the only decent gaming space in the area is a Games Workshop store, then you'll be stuck playing Games Workshop games.

Unless the first situation holds true, you'll also be stuck finding a game that's already popular.


Games that might be popular in your area:
- Warhammer Fantasy / Warhammer 40k. you're probably already familiar with these. High fantasy; streamlined, gamist rules. Arguably the best models in the industry, at least if you like their visual style, but also the most expensive. There are generic minis companies online that produce cheaper (if lower quality) models in the Warhammer scale, particularly for the fantasy game, that should be fine to play in an indie store (check out Mantic games). Of the two, 40k is generally cheaper (slightly smaller forces on average), but not by a lot.

- LotR Strategy Battle Game / Mordheim / Battlefleet Gothic / Blood Bowl / Necromunda. These are smaller scale games also produced by GW and as such similarly expensive for individual models, but still much cheaper to get into and play due to, again, smaller scale. The games range considerably in style from skirmish battles to space combat to ... er ... fantasy football. Good gateway drugs, also generally better games then the main two, imo. Notably there is a large scale LotR game that uses the same minis; avoid that.

- Hordes / Warmachine. These are the main competitors to Games Workshop at the moment, coming out of a company called privateer press. The models aren't really cheaper then GW models, but the games are smaller scale, so cheaper. Pretty equivalent to playing one of the GW side games I mentioned above, maybe a bit more expensive then those depending on how deep you get into it. The gameplay's faster paced and more aggressive then either of the GW games, and the tone of the game encourages a cut-throat powergaming attitude among the player base. Hordes is the magitech/steampunk version of this (your wizard uses their mighty powers to fuel magical warmecks to beat down the enemies with), while the Hordes version is the more traditional fantasy/monster version (your wizard controls a pack of monsters, and draws power from their aggression). Both games take place in the same setting, though, and they are completely compatible (you can toss your warjacks up against my warbeasts in a game), and can be viewed as the same game just with two different sets of factions.

- Flames of War: I don't know much about this one, but my understanding is that it's a WWII tabletop minis game generally focused on tank combat. I haven't played it, but the models are very nice and I've heard many speak quite highly of the ruleset. cost for an average force should, iirc, come in somewhere between a larger warmachine battle group and a smaller 40k army.


Those are the main ones at the moment that I know of, and apart from the mainline GW games, the costs to get up and running should be about the same. ~$100 to $150 for the minimal starter packs (between rulebooks & minis), with full size armies scaling up to a couple hundred bucks or so; apart from warhammer fantasy & 40k, which is generally going to run you twice that at least to get up to average game sizes (~2000 to 2400 points in 40k and ~2400 to 3000 in fantasy), although people will play smaller then usual games to let new players take to the table.

[The Reverend]

Lack of gaming space is big issue. We only have one gamish store hobbytown USA and they are 40k centric with occasional games. The nearest indie gameshop is an hour in either direction and I have never been to them. I have to talk to my current rpging buddies about getting into one system or another. I actually have a sizable hero clix army, though I haven't played in 5 years.

Im familiar with all the games you mentioned but haven't played most of them. I'd like to play full thrust, its fleet and ship design system is awesome. The ability to make and design your own units is a feature I would put as a top priority on any system I take up. 40K does this kind of simply because they have SO MANY ARMIES WITH SO MANY UNITS WITH SOOOO MANY OPTIONs, the fluff is excellent, and I know I would end up playing Tau or IG or maybe space Marines fluffed to not be affiliated with the IoM, but probably the Tau. I'd play them as Soviet Kommunists without a doubt batteling theFaschists.

[ArqArturo]

Savage Worlds. Throw in enough splatbooks and you get RIFTS :D.

[Sception]

Rev: if there's already a 40k community in your area and you like the game's fluff and you already have an idea of what army you would play & what style you would give them, then I think maybe 40k is the game that would be best for you to start, even if it has some balance and mechanic issues (which it does, but not so badly that it stops the game from being fun). 40k can be cheaper then fantasy as well, since all-plastic armies tend to be more functional (particularly for the forces you mentioned), and the game works better at lower points values then fantasy (I really wouldn't want to go below 1000 for fantasy, and it doesn't really feel like you're playing the game till 2k, while 40k can be viable all the way down to 500 points depending on the army in question and if the players show a bit of restraint on some of the heavier option, and a 1500 point game is still a relatively standard game size).

[Rosstin]

Rifts actually managed to break up one of my game groups! Our DM and her husband were trying to get us into Palladium. My roommate and I just couldn't understand the appeal of the system and kept suggesting other RPGs we could play... eventually she put her foot down and we decided to find another group. (It was a shame, she was a truly excellent Shadowrun DM.)

It just seems totally 100% bonkers, everything is unbalanced and arbitrary. Like, you only have a 55% chance of operating your handheld radio at level 1? Mega damage almost seems like a good idea until you realize how arbitrary a system it is.

Mega damage would make sense in a game with mechs, kaiju, and pilots, for instance. Giant monsters and giant robots do mega damage, people do regular damage.

But in Rifts, the mouth of a giant anthro bear does mega damage. Which ZOMBIES resist. Craziness.

[The Reverend]

One of the authors of several of the later world books, he wrote South America, so outbalanced it that they had to errata all weaponry he created something like this: cut damage by a third, rate of fire by a quarter, range by a 1/3 and increase cost by half.

Yea I am looking at 40k seriously, none of my friends actively play it though.

[oldgamergeek]

Community centers are often great places to play. Is there really to much 4e or any rpg for that matter?

[The Reverend]

RPGs are great, buuut my dm may be the root of the problem. The last 6 levels have been a hack fest with little opportunity for role playing. As we have been stuck in one of the lowest levels of the abyss, reserved just for a$$holes who cause the apocalypse, which we did. Now at level 11 we will emerge into a changed world X number of years after the incident. Im really hoping for an entire game or two without an initiative roll. Maybe that's my problem more than too much 4e, not enough role playing.