What System Would Work Best for Dishonored?

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I just finished the Dishonored game, and the whole time, I was thinking about how much I liked the tone and setting. I want to run games set in Dunwall for my D&D group once out game is over.

What system do you think would work best? NWoD? BRP? D&D Fifth Edition? Something else?

[Tavar]

DnD would likely not be the best method.

One of the point based systems could probably handle it quite well, maybe HERO, Gurp, or the like.

[Das Platyvark]

I've never played Dishonored, but I've watched a friend play it a good deal, and judging from the combat alone, the speed at which things tend to die makes me lean towards nWoD even more than I usually do. You'd probably have to homebrew a magic system, or hunt around a lot/cut a good deal from one of the supernatural splats, but I think it matches the feel to a good degree.

[Aidan305]

I'd steer away from any of the more complicated systems like D&D, GURPS, etc.

Probably nWoD, FATE, or Savage Worlds would be best. Simple systems that you can push to where you need to get to.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Mutants and Masterminds? FATE/FUDGE?

[NichG]

It needs to be something that is very lethal, even to the protagonists, but simultaneously much less so to them than everyone else. I don't have that much experience with the system but you could probably do this decently with Exalted, where each of the Outsider's powers are charms and only those with the Outsider's gift are Exalts.

Alternately, the lethality of the system suggests that L5R might be a good chassis, where a sufficient set of advantages over an enemy (surprise, attack from behind, whatever) can add up to a massive initial damage boost. Especially if you port in Brute Squads from 7th Sea (basically 4ed-style minions with a few twists). Neither really does much for modeling the magic though.

I'd say D&D of all flavors is a pretty bad choice because its a combat-by-attrition sort of game, which heavily penalizes the stealth kill. One of the things in Dishonored was that pretty much no matter who it was or how awesome they were, if you drop behind someone and get them in a choke hold, you knock them out with no chance of failure - this is very different than would emerge from e.g. the scaling of sneak attack vs hitpoints for higher level characters in D&D.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

If it helps at all, I would probably have the players play Whaler Assassins. This means they would have training and a wealth of supernatural abilities. How well does Savage Worlds hands stealth kills?

[Need_A_Life]

Stealth kills in Savage Worlds are handled by The Drop (a +4 to attack and damage, which is a lot. IIRC, there's an Edge that increases the bonus to +6). They're brutal.

I'm actually mostly wondering how to best translate the mobility advantage from the game to the game table.

[Anxe]

I haven't played Dishonored, but after looking at it I think Shadowrun should work.

[Graybender]

Try Legend, with it's flexible track system and skill challenges, you can replicate the characters from Dishonored rather well.

Edit: You can find it here: http://www.ruleofcool.com/

[vort-red]

I'd agree. 7th Sea wound do a good job (though I am biased as I am currently enjoying being in a 7th Sea game) as would SWd6 from WEG - maybe even a conversion of nWoD from White Wolf.

I'd avoid level-based systems. They just don't have the feel of Dishonoured. I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that I was only slightly less susceptible to bullets at the end-game than I was at the beginning. Not having massive health and damage-soaking kept things 'real' and emphasised that character progression was more around abilities and learning how to use the game world to your advantage.

[Doorhandle]

Stealth kills in Savage Worlds are handled by The Drop (a +4 to attack and damage, which is a lot. IIRC, there's an Edge that increases the bonus to +6). They're brutal.

I'm actually mostly wondering how to best translate the mobility advantage from the game to the game table.

Some what simple: difficult terrain is common, and if the system is lethal stealth becomes quite important: so a silent teleport would be a good advantage.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I ended up using Fate Core, modified to be slightly more lethal.

Characters have three stress tracks: Pain, Exhaustion, and Madness.

[MukkTB]

From a perspective of D&D, the dishonored world is a bunch of low level-non spellcasters, with some Swordsages running around. The Swordsage captures the overall supernatural feel of the Outsider's chosen with its Shadow Hand school of maneuvers.

Granny Rags may actually be a spellcaster of some sort.

I'm not sure that D&D is the best system for running Dishonored, but it can do it.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

From a perspective of D&D, the dishonored world is a bunch of low level-non spellcasters, with some Swordsages running around. The Swordsage captures the overall supernatural feel of the Outsider's chosen with its Shadow Hand school of maneuvers.

Granny Rags may actually be a spellcaster of some sort.

I'm not sure that D&D is the best system for running Dishonored, but it can do it.

From a D&D Fourth Edition perspective, Dishonored is a bunch of heroic-tier minions and occasional non-minions running around, with some Matrial and Shadow power source PCs.