Favourite Systems and Stories

[Earthwalker]

[snip]
D&D = fun!
Not D&D = no fun (for me).
If someone can explain why the other RPG's that I've played with actual other people have just not been as fun to play (for me) as D&D, while games that look like they'd be fun no one will try!?
[snip]
If anyone has a story (hah!) about actually playing a RPG with other people, that proved to be as fun as D&D, let's hear it (you GM'ing it for your friends who humored you a bit before switching back to D&D doesn't count).

I have moved this to another thread as it seemed to be changing the topic of said thread. I have decided to answer this here and maybe raise some more questions / invite comments.

For me GMing FATE is fun. It’s all just so easy and the stories that are created are fantastic. For prep I have to work out one opening scene per session everything else just rolls on from there.

For Campaigns the players come up with the details (creating the two problems for the campaign)
For chapters / scenarios the players come up with them (from their aspects)

My Story

Background – It’s a space opera the crew are a former space pirate, a mad scientist and a replicant on the run. The crew had recently rescued an agent working undercover in one of their enemies corporate strongholds.

The agents mind was shattered because of some weird alien technology (TM)

Dusty the ships Mad Scientist announces “Its ok I can total fix this”. His plan to plug the agent into VR then he can “fix” him. A brief conversation and plan later it gets even better. Dusty is going to wire the agent up to VR and use it as a filter. The crew can go into the agents mind and rewire things from inside the VR….

Queue three sessions still using FATE but instead of space opera we are playing out a fantasy adventure to slay a dragon (a physical representation of the agents mental troubles) Add in lots of metaphors for issues in the space opera world (that would be in the agents minds). None of this planned by me, just going where the game lead me.
I aren’t going to list all that happened will share some little snippets.

Replicants existed in the fantasy world but as clockwork droids, the look on the face of the player playing a Replicant when they discovered a keyhole in their back and no key was hilarious.

A scene with the team Replicant (now a clockwork) talking to two clockwork droids trying to lie their way past a check point smuggling the two other human members of crew in the back of a covered wagon. No idea how we got here either but hearing one droid say to the two guard droids.

“These are not the humans you are looking for”

Stopped the session for 5 mins until we all recovered from laughing.

What are the systems you champion ?
Why ?
What stories have you to tell ?

[Quertus]

A scene with the team Replicant (now a clockwork) talking to two clockwork droids trying to lie their way past a check point smuggling the two other human members of crew in the back of a covered wagon. No idea how we got here either but hearing one droid say to the two guard droids.

“These are not the humans you are looking for”

Stopped the session for 5 mins until we all recovered from laughing.

That was awesome. Thanks for sharing!

I've just gotta say, if I were a detractor of FATE, I'd plug this story back into the original conversation, and say, "see? Even in a terrible system, you can still come away with cool stories."


If someone can explain why the other RPG's that I've played with actual other people have just not been as fun to play (for me) as D&D, while games that look like they'd be fun no one will try!?


If anyone has a story (hah!) about actually playing a RPG with other people, that proved to be as fun as D&D, let's hear it (you GM'ing it for your friends who humored you a bit before switching back to D&D doesn't count).


What are the systems you champion ?
Why ?
What stories have you to tell ?

Let's see if I can turn my original post on its head. Let's start with the why.

I "champion" systems where character retention is a thing. I like playing spellcasters. I enjoy exploring the setting. I don't like characters to feel useless. I like statistical character growth. Because I play with other people, some as young as 7, making the system easy to understand is a bonus.

As such, I find little as fun as D&D. Taking 2e, throwing it on 3e's superior d20 system, and adding in as many options as exist in 3e, would be just about perfect.

[RazorChain]

I started with DnD and then A&DnD 2nd ed. when it came out. In the end me and my friends just moved on when we started exploring other systems and never came back unless briefly to test the new editions.

I've played and run campaigns in Cyburpunk 2020, Shadowrun, Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Exalted, Vampire the Masquerade, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Legend of the five rings, Ars Magica and tested a lot of other systems


Today my system of choice is GURPS, as it suits my needs. I'm not going to champion GURPS in anyway other than it's mechanics suit my needs in most things that I run. There are people out there that have the opinion that generic systems don't do anything well and I must digress. GURPS comes closest of any systems I've tested to simulate realistic combat in low fantasy setting.

[SimonMoon6]

Back in my college days, my gaming group played D&D a bit (1st edition because that's all that existed back then, but Unearthed Arcana (1st edition) had just come out). But some of us were already unhappy with D&D and all of its many flaws. So we played every other game under the sun: GURPS, Paranoia, Palladium's system, Call of Cthulhu, TSR's Marvel Super Heroes RPG, Mayfair's DC Super Heroes RPG, etc.

And we had fun with every single game system.

But if you like the things that D&D has to offer (dramatic improvements in your character from day to day, both in class abilities/hit points as well as magic items; every problem can be solved by having enough money except the problem of not having enough money; etc.), there are few other games that do exactly that same thing. I find most of D&D's advantages to be a double-edged sword: good in some ways, terrible in others. You can't have an actual plot arc because any problem can be solved by the right spell which can be purchased for a small amount of money, assuming you can't already cast the spell. You can't have much of a sandbox because if the PCs can choose between Plot A and Plot B (both being level appropriate adventures), then after dealing with Plot A, they are way too powerful to bother with Plot B, even if really they should. (Someone needs to rescue the princess from the kobolds? "Kobolds? F*** that, let me know when she gets kidnapped by a dragon!")

My most popular campaigns that I have run have involved Mayfair's DC Heroes RPG because it's versatile enough to handle every imaginable character and situation, quickly and easily. Coincidentally enough, they were both games where the players were playing themselves. One involved traveling between various universes (such as "normal" Earth, a Call of Cthulhu world, the DC universe, the Star Trek universe, the Doctor Who universe, etc). Another involved visiting a patchwork world that had been assembled from pieces of other worlds, such as a fairy tale world, a futuristic world of robots, a Greco-Roman world, a Universal monsters-style horror world, a "martial arts" world, a generic fantasy world, an operatic world (you have to sing at length to establish your abilities), and so forth.

[VincentTakeda]

Despite dipping our toes in hundreds of different systems, the bulk of my experience was startng out with BECMI, moving on to 2e, and finally Palladium's Heroes Unlimited with Ninjas and Superspies. That combination is still my system of choice to this day. It avoids the MDC problem that Rifts is notorious for, and also unlike Rifts, there is very little in the way of 'Canon Published Setting' so you can make just about any kind of game with any kind of tropes on any kind of world...

I like that the abilities of the characters follow their own mechanics so that no character can confidently be immune to anything and everything. High mortality means characters have to think their way around more than stampede their way around..

I like that the system starts the characters off powerful... I've gamed long enough that spending a month or two in the 'killin rats' phase of gaming has worn thin on me. I want to just get to it. I want my characters competent out of the gate.

[Quertus]

I find most of D&D's advantages to be a double-edged sword: good in some ways, terrible in others. You can't have an actual plot arc because any problem can be solved by the right spell which can be purchased for a small amount of money, assuming you can't already cast the spell. You can't have much of a sandbox because if the PCs can choose between Plot A and Plot B (both being level appropriate adventures), then after dealing with Plot A, they are way too powerful to bother with Plot B, even if really they should. (Someone needs to rescue the princess from the kobolds? "Kobolds? F*** that, let me know when she gets kidnapped by a dragon!")

That sounds like a problem of 3.x (and later?). I never experienced that in 2e or earlier. When a koala is worth, what, 15 XP, and you need 2,500 XP to reach 2nd level, well, it takes a lot of adventures to reach 2nd level.

But we may have a different idea about what a sandbox is, if Plot A and Plot B are both things the PCs really should deal with - especially if the princess stays kidnapped until the PCs rescue her.


My most popular campaigns that I have run have involved Mayfair's DC Heroes RPG because it's versatile enough to handle every imaginable character and situation, quickly and easily. Coincidentally enough, they were both games where the players were playing themselves. One involved traveling between various universes (such as "normal" Earth, a Call of Cthulhu world, the DC universe, the Star Trek universe, the Doctor Who universe, etc). Another involved visiting a patchwork world that had been assembled from pieces of other worlds, such as a fairy tale world, a futuristic world of robots, a Greco-Roman world, a Universal monsters-style horror world, a "martial arts" world, a generic fantasy world, an operatic world (you have to sing at length to establish your abilities), and so forth.

That sounds awesome!

Oddly enough, I doubt think I've even heard of Mayfair's DC Heroes RPG before today. I'll have to look it up.


I like that the system starts the characters off powerful... I've gamed long enough that spending a month or two in the 'killin rats' phase of gaming has worn thin on me. I want to just get to it. I want my characters competent out of the gate.

+1 this

[SimonMoon6]

Oddly enough, I doubt think I've even heard of Mayfair's DC Heroes RPG before today. I'll have to look it up.



If you look for it, try to get the 2nd or 3rd editions (not 1st edition). Or, try to find the Blood of Heroes Special Edition (the same game, without the DC characters), but make sure it's the Special Edition. The original edition of Blood of Heroes is not as good.

It's geared for superhero settings, but since anything or anyone can be a superhero, it works for any setting. And it doesn't shy away from Superman-level characters (it doesn't focus on that power level, but it handles it easily and well, unlike, say, GURPS or Champions). And versatile powers (such as turning into animals or copying other people's powers) is easy in the game (unilke say Champions which makes it a nightmare of arithmetic). I haven't found any other game system that handles so many things so well.

[DeathToGazeebos]

Contrary to this statement above:

I'm not going to champion GURPS in anyway other than it's mechanics suit my needs in most things that I run.
I'm going to confess. I'm a frik'n GURPS fanboy now. This system has literally replaced my entire bookshelf of games I used to play/GM. I have even become re-invigorated creatively speaking when it comes to adventure writing thanks to the system's generic and predictable difficulty modifiers and Attribute based target numbers. In the past I struggled building adventures but now find it easier to do thanks to the added confidence I feel in knowing I have a predictably designed generic system that will handle anything the PCs want to do which is more forgiving when it comes to GM improvisation. I love GMing GURPS.

A story:
The PCs are tasked with kidnapping a janitor working at a mega-corp who has some shady connections with a criminal organization. He is suspected of corporate espionage and needs to be brought in for interrogation. The PCs infiltrate the company and find the man and a co-worker on the roof of a super-skyscraper on a desert backwater planet. Attempted fast talk rolls go sideways fast resulting in the co-worker getting wrestled into submission while the mark makes a run for it ....... "where's he think he's gonna go?" the PCs say to each other as they watch him run and leap off the edge of the 200+ floor building. Reluctantly the Ex-military PC follows over the edge while the face of the group calmly got back in the elevator. A grappling/stabbing combat scene ensued in free fall while the mark maneuvered with agility thanks to his SpecOps 0-G training and knowledge of the buildings giant hyper fan exhaust vent directly below. The PC managed to "win" by getting a hold on the mark and overpowering him as he tried to slow his own decent. His lucky 0-G skill rolling managed to save both of their lives as they slammed into the cage/grate below. With both unconscious and near death the face PC exits the elevator, finds them and managed to mop up the adventure.

Thanks to the system it was simple to run combat in such a weird situation. Horizontal movement was calculated based off Free fall/Zero Gravity skills instead of the usual DX/HT attributes. The PC was unskilled so was very sluggish movement wise. The grapple and charging/ramming moves during the fight were straight forward as per system usual plus the falling speed mods. All made for a fun and memorable opening adventure. I could not have handled this in any other system I've played as simply. Especially something like D20 with the "attacks of opportunity" nonsense etc. (however it would no doubt be easier for a D20 guru to wing it).

I play for the action mostly. The chance to leave our safe bubble wrapped society behind for awhile and leap from chandeliers and into dragons mouths with weapons drawn.
so I enjoy a game system that allows for creative and resourceful actions ESPECIALLY in combat. If the combat system doesn't realistically/reasonably accommodate an attempt to choke hold a guard into unconsciousness while using him as a human shield with out forcing me to take some bolted on afterthought "feat" type thing, than the system is going to severely hamper my enjoyment (*cough* D&D *cough*). It's why I love me the GURPS and GURPS is why I love me some RPGing again after not playing for nearly a decade.

[2D8HP]

Decades ago when I still had an agile mind, the games I most wanted to play and DM/GM were Dungeons & Dragons (Swords and Sorcery), Traveller (Space Opera), and Pendragon (Arthurian). I never got to play or GM Pendragon, but I did DM/GM a fair bit of D&D, and Traveller (strangely while I still remember much of old D&D, I actually remember a lot more Pendragon rules than Traveller rules, odd that). I really cared and worked hard on prep for D&D, and Traveller, and I filled notebooks with info to use in game. Sometime in the early to mid 1980's my players really wanted to try other games with different settings, chiefly Call of Cthullu (horror), "Champions" (comic book superheroes), and Top Secret (espionage), since I just didn't care as much about those games (I don't think I ever read all the rules of Top Secret), and I really "phoned it in".
One day after I'd GM'd a little Call of Cthullu, but no Champions or Top Secret yet, my player craved yet another RPG.
I studied the Champions rules and just got bogged down learning them, and I barely had time to glance at Top Secret.

So what did I do?

I ran a "Top Secret" campaign using about 10% of the Top Secret rules, 70% of the Call of Cthullu rules (my thinking was that the 1920's was close enough to the 1980's, and CoC proved very easy to adapt), and 20% were rules I made up on the spot to hold it together. I described scenes I remembered from movies, and I made up most everything on the spot with little to no prep work on my part (I did have years of experience DM'ing already though).
It worked great! My players loved it :smile: (they loved it too much, I really just wanted to be a D&D player again, the closest I ever got to that in the next couple of decades was a little Rolemaster, some Runequest, and Shadowrun,. I barely got to play any D&D again until last year).:frown:
Late as an experiment I ran a D&D adventure, using almost exactly the same plot as I just used for CoC, and if my players noticed they didn't let on and they seemed to have fun.
I don't know if I can improvise now like I could then, but from that I decided that setting is much more important than rules. In fact now when I buy a RPG, I'll read character creation, and setting information, and I will pretty much ignore everything else especially combat.

[thedanster7000]

I find that most systems have merit, but my favourite hands-down is GURPS.

There's infinite character choice, and no other system I've seen models injury and tactical, realistic combat while still being playable. I enjoy D&D, but going for a Deceptive, Spinning Targeted All-Out Swing at your mortal enemy's Neck so that he collapses and bleeds out is so much better than attacking him in his hitbox until he's dead.

[MrZJunior]

The games I've most enjoyed GMing have been games like Swords & Wizardry or WOD that are very simple and allow for a lot of improvisation. As a GM I would much rather make stuff up than have to remember or look up the rules for a specific situation.

[Quertus]

Contrary to this statement above:

I'm going to confess. I'm a frik'n GURPS fanboy now. This system has literally replaced my entire bookshelf of games I used to play/GM. I have even become re-invigorated creatively speaking when it comes to adventure writing thanks to the system's generic and predictable difficulty modifiers and Attribute based target numbers. In the past I struggled building adventures but now find it easier to do thanks to the added confidence I feel in knowing I have a predictably designed generic system that will handle anything the PCs want to do which is more forgiving when it comes to GM improvisation. I love GMing GURPS.

A story:
The PCs are tasked with kidnapping a janitor working at a mega-corp who has some shady connections with a criminal organization. He is suspected of corporate espionage and needs to be brought in for interrogation. The PCs infiltrate the company and find the man and a co-worker on the roof of a super-skyscraper on a desert backwater planet. Attempted fast talk rolls go sideways fast resulting in the co-worker getting wrestled into submission while the mark makes a run for it ....... "where's he think he's gonna go?" the PCs say to each other as they watch him run and leap off the edge of the 200+ floor building. Reluctantly the Ex-military PC follows over the edge while the face of the group calmly got back in the elevator. A grappling/stabbing combat scene ensued in free fall while the mark maneuvered with agility thanks to his SpecOps 0-G training and knowledge of the buildings giant hyper fan exhaust vent directly below. The PC managed to "win" by getting a hold on the mark and overpowering him as he tried to slow his own decent. His lucky 0-G skill rolling managed to save both of their lives as they slammed into the cage/grate below. With both unconscious and near death the face PC exits the elevator, finds them and managed to mop up the adventure.

Thanks to the system it was simple to run combat in such a weird situation. Horizontal movement was calculated based off Free fall/Zero Gravity skills instead of the usual DX/HT attributes. The PC was unskilled so was very sluggish movement wise. The grapple and charging/ramming moves during the fight were straight forward as per system usual plus the falling speed mods. All made for a fun and memorable opening adventure. I could not have handled this in any other system I've played as simply. Especially something like D20 with the "attacks of opportunity" nonsense etc. (however it would no doubt be easier for a D20 guru to wing it).

I play for the action mostly. The chance to leave our safe bubble wrapped society behind for awhile and leap from chandeliers and into dragons mouths with weapons drawn.
so I enjoy a game system that allows for creative and resourceful actions ESPECIALLY in combat. If the combat system doesn't realistically/reasonably accommodate an attempt to choke hold a guard into unconsciousness while using him as a human shield with out forcing me to take some bolted on afterthought "feat" type thing, than the system is going to severely hamper my enjoyment (*cough* D&D *cough*). It's why I love me the GURPS and GURPS is why I love me some RPGing again after not playing for nearly a decade.

So... You like when there are rules for and penalties associated with unfamiliar with certain combat situations (0G / freefall in GURPS), but dislike when there are rules for and penalties associated with unfamiliar with certain combat situations (grappling in D&D)? :smallconfused:

Also, earlier editions of D&D didn't give unfamiliarity penalties to combat maneuvers - that's new as of 3e.

[RazorChain]

So... You like when there are rules for and penalties associated with unfamiliar with certain combat situations (0G / freefall in GURPS), but dislike when there are rules for and penalties associated with unfamiliar with certain combat situations (grappling in D&D)? :smallconfused:

Also, earlier editions of D&D didn't give unfamiliarity penalties to combat maneuvers - that's new as of 3e.


Combat in GURPS and D&D are vastly different. It is based on realistic expectations and this helps players as they understand that hitting somebody in the head with an axe is going to ruin his day unless he's wearing an helmet or shooting somebody with a crossbow in the lungs is going to be detrimental to their health. Also you can just ask players what they want to do in combat and the rules cover it without feats that get unlocked at certain points in the game.