Looking for a new system

[Naez]

I'm looking for a system with clear and concise rules.

The issue I have with most RPGs is the rules are so open ended that as a player I always get frustrated playing 'mother may I' with my DM for rulings. Or conversely having to hand hold my PCs through adventurers because the NEED me to tell them how the rules work at my table because they're so vague.

The only system I've actually played with that had this pretty well done was 4e DnD. But it had other flaws. And the player base for the edition is rather small.

[Grod_The_Giant]

There are plenty of crunch-heavy systems out there. D&D 3.5 and 4e. Most White Wolf games. GURPS. Savage Worlds. Star Wars Saga Edition.

What were the particular issues with 4e that you objected to?

[Grizl' Bjorn]

As a writer, I'd say that precise and concise are both desirable goals, but are often enemies to each other.

Honestly I've seen many roleplaying systems and the best balance of precise with concise, open-endedness with clarity I've ever seen is 5E- and 5E is far from perfect.

In my experience what's really needed is a great DM, who weighs up a whole bunch of factors like 'would x intepretation of the rules be OP', 'would y interpretation slow the game down too much', 'if I don't allow z, will my players feel like I'm not letting them do anything'. And then, having considered all of these factors, comes to a decision in a way which is halfway between a tabletop democracy and autocracy. Not to mention that it helps if they have a precise and logical way of parsing and interpreting text and think logically through the probable outcomes of their rulings.

I know that's not the solution you're looking for, but since I've never seen a better system for combining precision with compactness than 5E, I really don't see an alternative to using the best system avaliable and combining it with a great DM. The world is ridicilously complex, and there are so many different possibilities- it's just not possible to capture that all without trading in either some fidelity to life and consistency in rules, or giving up on the desire to have something relatively simple and compact.

[Naez]

There are plenty of crunch-heavy systems out there. D&D 3.5 and 4e. Most White Wolf games. GURPS. Savage Worlds. Star Wars Saga Edition.

What were the particular issues with 4e that you objected to?

My issues with 4e:
-The way skill challenges were handled was just plain awful and never rewarded enough EXP.
-They did need to simplify the skills list but I think they may have done so a little too much.
-Monsters had WAY too much HP, dragging combats on for hours. They started to fix this near the end of the edition but it was too little too late to save the player base from shrinking.
-The way saving throws were handled Save Ends effects were essentially 'until the end of their next turn'

[Koo Rehtorb]

Can you give any more details on the sort of system you want? Clear and concise is not a lot to go on.

[Naez]

Can you give any more details on the sort of system you want? Clear and concise is not a lot to go on.

Something with a heavy emphasis on tactical combat. I always play with a grid and miniatures. Preferably high fantasy or steampunk.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Something with a heavy emphasis on tactical combat. I always play with a grid and miniatures. Preferably high fantasy or steampunk.

My issues with 4e:
-The way skill challenges were handled was just plain awful and never rewarded enough EXP.
-They did need to simplify the skills list but I think they may have done so a little too much.
-Monsters had WAY too much HP, dragging combats on for hours. They started to fix this near the end of the edition but it was too little too late to save the player base from shrinking.
-The way saving throws were handled Save Ends effects were essentially 'until the end of their next turn'

To be honest, it sounds like "4e with a few houserules" is all you need. It shouldn't be too hard to make the skill list more granular (hell, you could probably import Pathfinder's skill system directly with no problems), cut monster health down to size (I remember that halving everyone's health made early-4e fights a lot more exciting), and so on. "Small player base" is a problem, but our recommending increasingly obscure games isn't really going to help with that.

But maybe check out Saga Edition or 7th Sea? They're supposed to be somewhere between 3.5 and 4e D&D, style wise.

[malachi]

Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy (not the d20 edition) is a steampunk RPG built upon the chassis of a tabletop wargame. It has tactical, gridless combat that uses inches and real distances instead of grids.

[RazorChain]

Something with a heavy emphasis on tactical combat. I always play with a grid and miniatures. Preferably high fantasy or steampunk.

I always play GURPS with a battlemat as it lends itself to it when you have weapons with reach, flanking etc. Gurps is clear but maybe not concise. The system supports both steampunk and high fantasy, even has published Dungeon Fantasy in the vein of DnD.

[Havelocke]

Have you looked into Relic Knights? It is a fast paced tactical combat game, but no map and no dice. It has a card based/resource mechanic. It is not all about "destroying the enemy" either, there are different objectives and secondary objectives (along with faction driving ones) that score victory points. It isn't so much "RPG". The style is more JRPG video game but on a table top.

[2D8HP]

From oldest to newest:

RuneQuest (1978 version, I don't know the later ones)

Rolemaster

GURPS

7th Sea (great setting by the way).

From that list the RuneQuest rules seem the most intuitive to me, but that may be because of when I read them

BRP which is based on RuneQuest are my go-to "generic" rules.

[CharonsHelper]

7th Sea[/I][/B] (great setting by the way).


I'll agree that it's a cool setting - but I don't think that it fills anyone's view of tactical combat.

[kyoryu]

Savage Worlds.

Good tactical combat, relatively concise rules, quick to play.

[1337 b4k4]

You want GURPS. I disagree with the statements that GURPS is not concise. For the most part the rules are very concise they're just extensive, covering almost every possible angle. But they're also very modular, so you can get as detailed or as vague as you want depending on your needs.

[kyoryu]

I'm a big fan of GURPS. Huge fan.

But if he wants faster combat, SW is the way to go. Very similar structure to GURPS, but much, much faster in play.

[1337 b4k4]

I'm a big fan of GURPS. Huge fan.

But if he wants faster combat, SW is the way to go. Very similar structure to GURPS, but much, much faster in play.

Well faster was relative to 4e combat. GURPS combat is faster than that. And can be of a variable speed spending on whether you want to get into the nitty gritty or not. GURPS is functional all the way from a basic hit miss combat system down to a tactical battle mat system. It just depends on what you want to do.

[Socratov]

Anima Prime RPG might be for you: it is firmly rooted in simplicity and its entire goal is to tempt the players in describing what they do and what exactly makes it cool. Comparingly the dice rolling is mostly for show...

What's more, it's free to get.

[Anonymouswizard]

Savage Worlds.

Good tactical combat, relatively concise rules, quick to play.

I second this. While GURPS is good, and has clear and concise rules, it's bogged down by being exhaustive and having a list for almost anything.

Savage Worlds has quick character creation (I can make a toon in about half an hour), quick and tactical combat, and decent differentiation between characters. It's my go-to system when I want a high combat game, and is designed for use with figures (not always a grid), ranges and speed are in inches, and so on and so forth. It's also setting agnostic, preferring pulpy stuff but at the end of the day doing everything from high fantasy to grim steampunk to flashy science fiction.

[Lazymancer]

As a writer, I'd say that precise and concise are ... often enemies to each other.
In RPG systems stuff is not supposed to be left to imagination. The whole purpose of rules is to clarify decision space. Therefore, incomplete description is not concise. It's sloppy.

Moreover, "having great GM" is an obvious cop-out. You don't need anything, if you have "great GM". Except "great GM" is not unlike Santa - everybody heard of him, nobody seen him.


... since I've never seen a better system for combining precision with compactness than 5E, ...
I have to ask: what systems have you seen?

[Arbane]

In RPG systems stuff is not supposed to be left to imagination. The whole purpose of rules is to clarify decision space. Therefore, incomplete description is not concise. It's sloppy.

It's also absolutely necessary. It's not possible for an RPG rules set to codify every possible thing that can happen. Trying can only lead to madness and rulebooks thick enough to stop bullets.

[kyoryu]

In RPG systems stuff is not supposed to be left to imagination. The whole purpose of rules is to clarify decision space.

This is *a* view of RPGs. It is not universal, and not the only view.

[Aotrs Commander]

Rolemaster


I love Rolemaster dearly, but there is still a great deal of arbitary DM-requiring in the actual functioning. Yes, the skill system is extensive to the point lesser mortals may consider it madness, but the difficulty of any noncombat task is still pretty much entirely DM discretion, with only a few guidelines for a fraction of the (admittedly slightly more likely to be used) skills. Adjuicating what difficulty your Midwifery/Tax Evasion/Stone Lore check is going to be is basically still running on DM fiat.

Not even if you own the sources books for whole editions (and larger chunks of others....!)

Also, given Rolemaster's legendary swing-yness, it doesn't lend itself to involving tactical combat. Hilariously critical filled combat, yes; tactically involving, not so much. (And you can forget about having a dramatic boss fight, because without fail one PC will ciritcal it and kill it in the first round. I have literally given up trying.)




Really, this would seem to be for the OP what 3.5 and/or Pathfinder were pretty much designed for.

[CharonsHelper]

Savage Worlds.

Good tactical combat, relatively concise rules, quick to play.

It's fine - but the exploding dice make combat way too swingy for my taste. Annoying if you're into the tactical elements of RPGs.

[Socratov]

And that's why this thread won't get an answer beyond suggestions:

RPG rules will always have to balance a) deterministic events, b) decision adjudication and c) simplicity. It's like a triangle, of those three pick either two:

For instance you could have a system that is very precise and firm in decision adjudication and end up with what is basically dnd 3.5: a system that is great at simulations of a very specific set of circumstances

or you might get 5e: a system that does A and C pretty well.

[Lazymancer]

It's also absolutely necessary. It's not possible for an RPG rules set to codify every possible thing that can happen. Trying can only lead to madness and rulebooks thick enough to stop bullets.
What do you prefer: "only a Sith deals in absolutes" or "reductio ad absurdum"?


Quality and amount are different things. Rules should be short, but also unambiguous.

[2D8HP]

Well since the others of my suggestions have been shot down..

... I guess that still leaves the BRP game RuneQuest!

Anyway, there's been some suggestions of Savage World's.

Since I've never had the to play SW, I haven't bothered to study the "crunch", but I've read with interest some of its setting books. Very impressive, if not the breadth that GURPS has, it's more than my beloved BRP.

Speaking of BRP, besides old Basic/Classic D&D, (or some "retro-clone" or another), my preference to GM would be to combine the BRP based games of Pendragon and Stormbringer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?523070-Sorcery-amp-Chivalry-(Stormbringer-and-Pendragon)).

Stormbringer for the magic system, Pendragon for most everything else, and maybe a dash of Magic World, or the 2008 version of BRP (free pdf) (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwi2yMuqooTUAhVpz1QKHZrTAPAQFggfMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chaosium.com%2Fcontent%2FFree PDFs%2FBRP%2FCHA2021%2520-%2520Basic%2520RolePlaying%2520Quick-Start.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGmy2_JQrnYDUhYIyRJT3ghBDKF-Q)

[Anonymouswizard]

Well since the others of my suggestions have been shot down..

... I guess that still leaves the BRP game RuneQuest!

I mean, I like BRP and RuneQuest, but it's also fairly low on the power level (you're most likely going to be playing 'dudes' over 'heroes'). Nothing wrong with that, just something people should know before picking it up.


Anyway, there's been some suggestions of Savage World's.

Since I've never had the to play SW, I haven't bothered to study the "crunch", but I've read with interest some of its setting books. Very impressive, if not the breadth that GURPS has, it's more than my beloved BRP.

Savage Worlds core crunch is fairly easy, roll the relevant Attribute or Skill die and try to beat the TN (normally 4, opponent's parry for melee attacks), every extra four is another degree of success (or raise). Wild Cards (essentially main characters and villains) also roll a d6 and take the highest, but a double one is a critical failure. Damage is damage dice versus toughness with no wild dice, a success is shaken (or one wound if already shaken), if raises are rolled damage is one wound per raise.

There's a lot of stuff built around that, but it all boils down to 'add modifiers to roll'. Well, apart from Arcane Backgounds, but those are just standard 'mana pools' except for Weird Science.

Just picked up Eldritch Skies for it, there's some major problems with the edit from the Unisystem version but it's an awesome setting and gives all the required rules for Lovecraftian science fiction. There's definitely fantasy and steampunk stuff for the system, I have fond memories of Evernight, and I believe there's Lankhmar rules as well, not to mention Space 1889.

[Mutazoia]

You could always go off the deep end and play Palladium rules, where even your pre-requisites have pre-requisites. But I wouldn't wish Palladium on my worst enemy....

If you're looking for something more tactical, there's always go old-school Battletech/MechWarrior...not sure you can get much more tactical than that, and still call it an Role Playing Game.