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Eonn
2016-06-05, 11:30 PM
Hello, all!

I have a few ideas for game settings I may like to explore more in the future, but I don't know what system would be best and am looking for suggestions. For reference, I usually play 3.5 and PF, though I also have experience on nwod.

1. Steampunk. Specifically, something with low/no magic and more of an emphasis on technomancy, which would include airships, guns and whatnot.
2. High fantasy where almost everyone has magic. I could probably do this to some extent with gestalt rule on 3.5/PF, but I want something a bit more in depth with the magic. Tweaking M:TA was something else that came to mind for me.

So, what do you suggest?

kyoryu
2016-06-05, 11:47 PM
There's quite a number of systems that could handle any of those genres well - Fate, GURPS, and Savage Worlds all come to mind.

The bigger question is: "what kind of game do you want to have?" Combat-heavy? Drama-heavy? How detailed and 'crunchy'? What kind of character power-curve? Zero-to-superhero like D&D, or competent-to-slightly-more-competent?

Eonn
2016-06-05, 11:58 PM
For combat vs drama, #1 could go either way while #2 would probably be more focused on RP. Neither would be exclusively combat or RP however.

I've always disliked the power curve in D&D. By level 20, characters are so superhumanly powerful, they don't even compare to level 1 chars. I like the nwod experience system better.

Knaight
2016-06-06, 03:27 AM
For combat vs drama, #1 could go either way while #2 would probably be more focused on RP. Neither would be exclusively combat or RP however.

I've always disliked the power curve in D&D. By level 20, characters are so superhumanly powerful, they don't even compare to level 1 chars. I like the nwod experience system better.

The power curve of D&D is very much a system specific quirk; almost nothing else has the same range just assumed. There are games on the high power end of that curve, but you tend to start out with a ludicrous amount of power (Exalted, Mythender), and then the low-mid end is populated by almost all systems. Avoiding this is easy.

As for the other two requirements, there are again a whole bunch of games. The generics support both easily (Fate, Fudge, GURPS, Hero, Savage Worlds, d6 Open), and there are specific implementations for at least one of these in all of those generic systems plus a bunch of specific systems to do the same thing. For steampunk, check out Westward - it's a free .pdf, and while it may or may not work for you it does at least provide one other option to look at when establishing what it is you want. For high fantasy, I assume you want something on the heavy side as you said you want the magic system more in depth, so Ars Magica is at least worth referencing.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-06, 06:03 AM
2. High fantasy where almost everyone has magic. I could probably do this to some extent with gestalt rule on 3.5/PF, but I want something a bit more in depth with the magic. Tweaking M:TA was something else that came to mind for me.

I'd recommend Fate here. The current edition has two 'versions', Core and Accelerated.

Accelerated is lighter, and more of a full game. The key feature here is the approaches, which say how you do something but not what you do. So you could do something Sneakily or something Forcefully. Fluff stunts (which allow you to break the rules in some way) as magic, allow starting characters to buy more stunts with Refresh, and you should be gold.

Core is more detailed, but also more of a toolkit. Magic can work in many ways, from the example extra to being specific stunts you buy, to just being a different way of doing skills. Skills say what you are good at doing, but not how you do it, so you could Shoot with a gun or Shoot with magic fireballs.

I love Fate, and have a Steampunk setting I plan to use it for at some point (stealing some rules from the Romance in the Air adventure/mini-setting). Here I don't have any magic at all, replacing it's narrative role with personal gadgets (which are modelled with stunts and tend to be more mundane), and yes includes airships, guns, and even whatnots, in the hands of both PCs and NPCs. It's a lot of extra work compared to a dedicated system though, and the setting is focused on a specific campaign.

kyoryu
2016-06-06, 08:32 AM
The potential downside of Fate in any scenario is that it lends itself to a particular type of gameplay - specifically, it wants to be played kind of like a TV show. If that works for you, Fate can work for either of the scenarios. If you want more of a traditional "world-sim" type of game, then the other suggestions of Knaight's will get you much closer.


Accelerated is lighter, and more of a full game. The key feature here is the approaches, which say how you do something but not what you do. So you could do something Sneakily or something Forcefully. Fluff stunts (which allow you to break the rules in some way) as magic, allow starting characters to buy more stunts with Refresh, and you should be gold.

Core is more detailed, but also more of a toolkit. Magic can work in many ways, from the example extra to being specific stunts you buy, to just being a different way of doing skills. Skills say what you are good at doing, but not how you do it, so you could Shoot with a gun or Shoot with magic fireballs.


FAE is just a build of Core. As such, Core includes more toolkit type options for you to make your own build off of it. But most of those toolkit options could be applied to Accelerated as well as any other build.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-06, 09:00 AM
The potential downside of Fate in any scenario is that it lends itself to a particular type of gameplay - specifically, it wants to be played kind of like a TV show. If that works for you, Fate can work for either of the scenarios. If you want more of a traditional "world-sim" type of game, then the other suggestions of Knaight's will get you much closer.

In short, each session is an 'episode', and then you have 'arcs' (and if you're ambitious 'seasons'). Of course, I run it more like a novel: there's common minor milestones, but significant milestones only happen after you finally do something important and a major milestone is when the whole story twists; but the basic idea that Fate is narrative still holds. The 'Worlds of Adventure' series are the only published adventures I'd ever consider running for a group due to the way that they leave a lot for me to specify and improvise with, to the point that I love Nest.


FAE is just a build of Core. As such, Core includes more toolkit type options for you to make your own build off of it. But most of those toolkit options could be applied to Accelerated as well as any other build.

FAE is subtly different to Core in the way Stunts work, but I was referring to them as books. That's actually kind of what I mean with 'FAE is more of a full game', in that it has everything set up and doesn't ask you to mess around with the toolkit before playing (as Fate Core does, although you can play without using any of it). I personally love Core because it encourages the customisation, do I use the standard skill list or change it to my setting (hint, it's always the latter for me, generally to twice the size of the skill pyramid I'm using), how many Stress Boxes do I give PCs (I'm tempted to do a no Stress game at some point where combat is more dangerous), what Extras do I want? I don't like FAE because the book doesn't include all of that, although I understand why (although I don't like Approaches either I can see myself using Professions if running a simpler game).

Geddy2112
2016-06-06, 09:04 AM
If you don't mind a diceless system, Through The Breach would probably be a good fit. It is early steampunk meets gothic horror meets wild west. There is magic, but a max level caster and a max level gunslinger are equally balanced. The system uses playing cards instead of dice.

kyoryu
2016-06-06, 02:15 PM
In short, each session is an 'episode', and then you have 'arcs' (and if you're ambitious 'seasons'). Of course, I run it more like a novel: there's common minor milestones, but significant milestones only happen after you finally do something important and a major milestone is when the whole story twists; but the basic idea that Fate is narrative still holds. The 'Worlds of Adventure' series are the only published adventures I'd ever consider running for a group due to the way that they leave a lot for me to specify and improvise with, to the point that I love Nest.

More subtly than that, in a tv show, book, or movie, there's this repeated pattern of establishing something followed by a payoff. So, we might see our hero duck behind cover, followed by the bad guys shooting without effect into the cover.

In Fate, this is basically modeled one-for-one. One action is the hero ducking into cover - mechanized as a Create Advantage, with the resulting aspect "In Cover", followed by the mook shooting ineffectively on his turn.

Similarly, stress and consequences are better understood by looking at how movie fights go, rather than looking at how 'real' fights work. Stress is all about pacing - how long it takes to defeat an opponent. It's not modeling anything 'real' at all.

The list goes on and on.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-06, 02:30 PM
More subtly than that, in a tv show, book, or movie, there's this repeated pattern of establishing something followed by a payoff. So, we might see our hero duck behind cover, followed by the bad guys shooting without effect into the cover.

In Fate, this is basically modeled one-for-one. One action is the hero ducking into cover - mechanized as a Create Advantage, with the resulting aspect "In Cover", followed by the mook shooting ineffectively on his turn.

Oh, definitely, but I think the way milestones can interact with plot is much more interesting. For example, in Buffy you might have a minor milestone at the end of each episode, a significant milestone after every episode with a main plot development, and a major milestone at the end of the season. I don't generally see the 'simulating narrative actions' because in one of the games I play in we do that without the Fate rules (it doesn't work as well, but then again the GM is refining his [GURPS] houserules, to the point he's finally raising the cost of IQ*), but now that you mention it I can see what you mean.

I still love the idea Fate gives of gear having it's own aspects, just so I can have a character with a spear that's 'ten feet long and pointy'.

* Because we all run IQ monkey characters. It doesn't matter what the game is, we head to the stat linked to all the mental skills then proceed to try and Fast Talk our way out of everything. It's fun, but all characters are built in the same way (pick your IQ skills, make sure you have an interaction skill and a lie skill, and put all your points into IQ).

Khedrac
2016-06-06, 04:05 PM
2. High fantasy where almost everyone has magic. I could probably do this to some extent with gestalt rule on 3.5/PF, but I want something a bit more in depth with the magic. Tweaking M:TA was something else that came to mind for me.Probably not what you are after, but do look at RuneQuest - every character has magic of one sort or another (I don't know how Mongoose and later versions may have changed this, when I looked on MRQ1 it looked as if no character could actually get magic). This was as much a function fo the world (Glorantha) as the as the system.


The power curve of D&D is very much a system specific quirk; almost nothing else has the same range just assumed. There are games on the high power end of that curve, but you tend to start out with a ludicrous amount of power (Exalted, Mythender), and then the low-mid end is populated by almost all systems. Avoiding this is easy.It's not the only one, and in fact RuneQuest 3 sorcery was far far worse.
A starting sorceror is nearly totally useless (e.g. spends 3 rounds casting a spell to give it 20% chance of going off, and then usually finds it does nothing useful). Starting shamanic and priestly characters are a lot more competent. A magus (powerul runelevel sorceror with the guts to declare it) is pretty much an unstoppable force able to do anthying they want (other sorcerors will be able to interfere, but priests and shamans are probably just speed bumps to them if that).

mikeejimbo
2016-06-06, 04:39 PM
* Because we all run IQ monkey characters. It doesn't matter what the game is, we head to the stat linked to all the mental skills then proceed to try and Fast Talk our way out of everything. It's fun, but all characters are built in the same way (pick your IQ skills, make sure you have an interaction skill and a lie skill, and put all your points into IQ).

I think these are RPK's houserules, but divorcing IQ's ties to Perception and Will can help, though just remembering that buying those down from IQ counts against your Disadvantage limit also stops a lot of flagrant abuse.

Still, with IQ at 20/level starting at 10 and each of Per and Will at 5/level starting at 10 with no tie between them is a decent houserule.

Also, while pumping IQ can make for very strong generalist characters, leaving IQ reasonable and focusing on Talents can make things more economical. For your example, I'd put a point into each of Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Acting, and Intimidation, and then take four levels of Smooth Operator.

OR go the somewhat cheesy but rules-legal path of abusing improving skills from the default of other skills. I had a character that had 30s in most Engineering, Mathematics, Armory, Mechanics, and Electronics skills mostly by putting something like 160 points into skills and using improving from default. Sure that could have gotten me 18 IQ, but that's a far cry from skills in the 30s.

Anyway I would run all of those in GURPS. Even the fantasy one with a bunch of magic. Don't know which magic system I'd use.. Probably RPM.

kyoryu
2016-06-06, 04:51 PM
I've also always dug the GURPS UMana variant.

Anonymouswizard
2016-06-06, 05:30 PM
I think these are RPK's houserules, but divorcing IQ's ties to Perception and Will can help, though just remembering that buying those down from IQ counts against your Disadvantage limit also stops a lot of flagrant abuse.

Still, with IQ at 20/level starting at 10 and each of Per and Will at 5/level starting at 10 with no tie between them is a decent houserule.

Also, while pumping IQ can make for very strong generalist characters, leaving IQ reasonable and focusing on Talents can make things more economical. For your example, I'd put a point into each of Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Acting, and Intimidation, and then take four levels of Smooth Operator.

I think the GM banned taking talents in-game, but my most used skills were Public Speaking, Leadership, Diplomacy, and Fast-Talk, in that order, so I ended up just buying as much Charisma as I could (I also spent CP in solidifying my good reputation).

His current plan is to raise IQ to 30/level and leave it coupled with Will and Per, because we would neglect to buy them up otherwise.

mikeejimbo
2016-06-07, 09:25 AM
I think the GM banned taking talents in-game, but my most used skills were Public Speaking, Leadership, Diplomacy, and Fast-Talk, in that order, so I ended up just buying as much Charisma as I could (I also spent CP in solidifying my good reputation).

His current plan is to raise IQ to 30/level and leave it coupled with Will and Per, because we would neglect to buy them up otherwise.

Charisma and Reputation are also definitely good for that build, and probably cheaper than the other methods come to think of it. If the GM uses reaction rolls a lot, Voice is handy.

That IQ price seems fair, rather similar to the aforementioned houserule.

On another note, closer back to the topic at hand, to change up the magic system OP will probably want Thaumatology. It includes the 4e version of UMana (now called Threshold Magic) and a bunch of other variations.

Eonn
2016-06-08, 04:07 PM
Alright, thanks everyone for your suggestions!