Expand my horizons

[stewstew5]

What, after D&D, are some of the biggest or best (in your opinion) TTRPGs? I'm looking to expand my horizons in what I play. I've already got an eye out for Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Call of Cthulu

[kyoryu]

Pathfinder and Starfinder are basically D&D variants.

I'd go for: Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, or other BRP-based games.

Apocalypse World or other PbtA games.

Can't go wrong with GURPS!

The FFG Star Wars games

Fate Core

Savage Worlds

Go really old school and grab some Fantasy Trip!

[Grek]

Mutants and Masterminds is a refreshing take on the d20 system. Designed for Superheroics, but also a decent match for Urban Fantasy in my experience. The biggest fault is that its balancing mechanic is "the GM is supposed to stop you if you try to play something OP".

Shadowrun has a distinctive setting and is an excellent source for getting into dicepool based systems. It's also an excellent example of the benefits of setting-world integration when designing a magic system and of the pitfalls of basing a hacking system on real life hacking.

Trying out PbtA systems is perhaps inevitable, so I'd like to suggest Monster Hearts or Broken Worlds as more refined versions of the system than the original *World line. Sort of the Eberron and Planescape to Apocalypse World's 1e. Broken Worlds is better if you're already a K6BD fan.

GURPS: Vikings is, like all other GURPS products, a delightful work of literature written by expert on the subject. It is your best possible reference for Viking related D&D adventuring, despite being literally incompatible with the d20 engine. The GURPS system itself is pretty cumbersome, though.

Eclipse Phase is one of the few Hard SciFi games out there. The base system is similar to Call of Cthulhu and 1e's character generation is laborious. I suggest waiting for 2e to come out instead. Because it's Creative Commons, I suggest grabbing the PDFs from the author's website (https://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs/) and then supporting his kickstarter/buying a copy on DriveThruRPG or something if you decide you're into his work and want to support the brand.

[Rynjin]

Savage Worlds is one of the best systems around, and just got a new edition. Unlike a lot of other suggestions here which I do like (Pathfinder, Starfinder, Mutants and Masterminds) it is not a d20 system, so will feel a lot fresher to someone looking for something new.

Godbound is also highly interesting if you have a creative group of players and can roll with the punches as a GM.

[VonKaiserstein]

http://sfrpg.com/wp-content/uploads/Street-Fighter-TSG-20th-Anniversary.pdf

This is neither big, nor popular. But it is completely free, recently updated, and unlike anything you have ever played before. It is Streetfighter the STG, a game of chucking massive numbers of d10 at your foes (it is, much as they'd like to forget it, a White Wolf game) and truly intricate and granular combat. If you have ever wanted to be a wizened Tai-Chi instructor ina Hawaiian shirt, fighting a huge Russian bear wrestler- who is also part bear, then this is the game for you. You can be Hitler's preserved brain in a jar piloting a cybernetic body, losing to a dude who learned to fight from Billy Blank's TaeBo videos.

It will expand your boundaries of what is possible, while still maintaining a very good sense of balance. Enjoy!

[Kaptin Keen]

Everyone really should go out, dig until they manage to find a copy of Earthdawn - and play that. It's ... it is for Shadowrun, what Warhammer Fantasy is for 40K. And like Shadowrun, the actual mechanics break down eventually, but it's legit the best gameworld I ever saw. Mind, the mechanics are clunkier than Shadowrun, but they actually kinda-sorta work. Whereas Shadowrun quite frankly isn't a game, even though you can play it as if it were with enough crutches, houserules and overbearance.

[Eldan]

Don't go for Starfinder and Pathfinder. That's the most boring thing you could do other than just switching from third edition D&D to fifth or the other way around. Find something different.

The Call of Cthulhu is a good start. Very different setting, very different mechanics, quite different assumptions of how a game works. I don't find it a very good system, in most editions, but it's good enough.

Get at least one game of FATE. Find a setting you enjoy, play the FATE for that setting, there's a lot. Dresden Files is quite good. This is so you see how a relatively minimalist game works compared to stat-heavy D&D. And a setting where players take part in the development of the story in entirely different ways than in D&D. This is a game where players want to fail their tests and voluntarily take penalties on their tests from time to time.

Then, get something with a weird and esoteric setting. Unknown Armies, where there's an underground conspiracy of mages. But not like in most urban fantasy. They are mostly insane, nothing makes sense at first, and also, the weirder a conspiracy theory is, the more likely it was true. Quite dark, too, often. Or Dogs in the Vineyard, where you are basically Mormon missionaries fighting Satan's minions in the wild west. Or maybe Eclipse Phase, where body-shifting Posthumans fight Lovecraftian monsters from space. Or maybe Nobilis is for you, where you play the incarnation of an abstract concept, like Time.

Then get something silly. Like Everyone is John, where everyone is one voice in the head of John, a man with multiple personalities. Paranoia, where you are a series of clones who die in increasingly stupid and violent ways at the whim of Friend Computer, who wants to protect you from the communist mutants. Spirit of the Century, which is pure adventure novel pulp. Or Kobolds Ate my Baby. Or Fiasco.

Don't go for the boring option, is what I mean.

[Great Dragon]

Mutants and Masterminds is a refreshing take on the d20 system. Designed for Superheroics, but also a decent match for Urban Fantasy in my experience. The biggest fault is that its balancing mechanic is "the GM is supposed to stop you if you try to play something OP".

Shadowrun has a distinctive setting and is an excellent source for getting into dicepool based systems. It's also an excellent example of the benefits of setting-world integration when designing a magic system and of the pitfalls of basing a hacking system on real life hacking.


Both of these I have done, and I tend to agree.

If I'm running M&M, I'll flat out state that people like Superman cannot be created, even if the game starts at Power Level 10. PCs really shouldn't have more than two Superpowers.

Shadowrun Hackers - Honestly, I'd rather have Combat Deckers and Technomancers.
Riggers are ok - there's a limit on how many Drones you can control.

@Kaptin Keen: Earthdawn: is great for Lore and Exploration - but the Magic System
- well, I just used the Shadowrun version. I don't like having to spend Character Creation resources to get magic, then have to constantly make multiple skill checks to cast each spell!!!

Another fairly balanced Tech + Magic game series is based on the unisystem.
C.J. Correla's Witchcraft being my favorite.
Earth Primal was an interesting Planet of the Apes variant.
Buffy tRPG was ok
All Flesh Must Be Eaten is good if your into Zombie Horror.

[ezekielraiden]

13th Age will feel very familiar, while laying the ground work for introducing you to more narrative-focused systems. If you are a fan of any WotC edition of D&D, you'll find stuff to like in 13A. It has a lot of, IMO, very inspired and creative design.

[GentlemanVoodoo]

Anything World of Darkness. There is a wide variety to suit any play styles and it isn't a D20 game which I personally do not like anymore. Legend of the 5 Rings has held a special place for me but Fantasy Flight's version has been my favorite so far. Lore and world setting would be Anima Beyond Fantasy. The system however was a mess but there is something to be said for the level of character customization it had.

[Mordar]

Everyone really should go out, dig until they manage to find a copy of Earthdawn - and play that. It's ... it is for Shadowrun, what Warhammer Fantasy is for 40K. And like Shadowrun, the actual mechanics break down eventually, but it's legit the best gameworld I ever saw. Mind, the mechanics are clunkier than Shadowrun, but they actually kinda-sorta work. Whereas Shadowrun quite frankly isn't a game, even though you can play it as if it were with enough crutches, houserules and overbearance.

Argh, spoilers! Like most games, I think, it becomes much easier as you gain familiarity...but to me it never felt clunky. Just different. I do come from the ages past when all games had different and seldom-if-ever streamlined rules, so that may color my judgement. (But for all I know, you come from then too and it may be unrelated).


@Kaptin Keen: Earthdawn: is great for Lore and Exploration - but the Magic System
- well, I just used the Shadowrun version. I don't like having to spend Character Creation resources to get magic, then have to constantly make multiple skill checks to cast each spell!!!

See, you're why the next age of horrors will hit before we even get to see little winged people and giant rock men! In all seriousness, I do think that a thematic and systemic mistake, but to each their own.

Clearly I concur that EarthDawn is a good choice. I also second (or fifth, or whatever) Call of C'thulhu and add to that a side of Stormbringer/Elric (same basic system). Then for some wonderful crunch, Rolemaster. Do be afraid of the charts. The granularity the system offers is wonderfully freeing.

- M

[Ken Murikumo]

I'll also throw in for Mutants & Masterminds. It's fun (and campy at times) and easy to learn and build heroes in.

Dark Heresy is also a great system. Maybe not ultra popular like D&D, but it's pretty well known. The game is very bloody, dark, and lethal so don't get too attached to you're characters.

Anima is one i really liked but is less popular. It's very anime inspired, so expect wuxia levels of stuff on the regular. just know, the English translation (or at least the book i read) has a few quarks.

[Willie the Duck]

What, after D&D, are some of the biggest or best (in your opinion) TTRPGs? I'm looking to expand my horizons in what I play. I've already got an eye out for Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Call of Cthulu

Can you give us a little more to go on? Is there a genre you would like to explore (sci fi, supernatural but in urban/modern place/times, near future/'cyberpunk,' the old west)? Is there something you really like about D&D (the character creation part of the game, levelling, spells), or dislike (any of the same)? Is your focus more on combat, task resolution, social situations, storytelling? For that matter, what part of the game do you want the rules to resolve (combat, general tasks, social situations). Do you like success or failure to be in real world terms (you moved 1,75 tons of rock from the bottom level of a mine pit to the top) or in story-value terms (you moved enough rock to please the local lord, but not enough to make them consider your debt repaid)?

There are really so many out there that it would help to know a little more of what you are looking for.

[Duff]

Feng Shui is a fun game.
Like a lot of the other suggestions; different mechanics, different setting, different stories.
But not hard to pick up.

With a lot of these games, it's important for the GM to be aware of the different mindset.

Feng shui, if the player wants there to be a chandelier for them to swing on, your default answer isn't to look at the room description to see if there's a chandelier, it's to think "Is there any"reason for there not to be a chandelier?

PBtA is a lot more "Zoomed out". The classic description of the difference is that you don't describe each twist and turn as they creep into the boss's room at the heart of the fort. The party say they sneak in. They roll for sneaking in and the next scene has them either in the boss's room, dealing with the alarm going off as they have failed or dealing with a marginal success, maybe dealing with a guard with a dog approaching up the corridor.

Think about genre. If all you've done is D&D, maybe try a different setting to help make it different. The change of setting will help to reduce the confusion between systems. "Is a longsword good against armour in this game?"
If you all really love your high fantasy, no biggie, but if you're not committed to it, try something different.

[kyoryu]

PBtA is a lot more "Zoomed out". The classic description of the difference is that you don't describe each twist and turn as they creep into the boss's room at the heart of the fort. The party say they sneak in. They roll for sneaking in and the next scene has them either in the boss's room, dealing with the alarm going off as they have failed or dealing with a marginal success, maybe dealing with a guard with a dog approaching up the corridor.

PbtA is both zoomed out and zoomed in - a whole section of sneaking can be resolved with a single roll, but I've also seen scenes where the action comes out to a second per roll at times and is hyper-focused on what's happening.

[Kaptin Keen]

Argh, spoilers! Like most games, I think, it becomes much easier as you gain familiarity...but to me it never felt clunky. Just different. I do come from the ages past when all games had different and seldom-if-ever streamlined rules, so that may color my judgement. (But for all I know, you come from then too and it may be unrelated).

Oh you have to admit the giant piles of dice is impractical - right?

It's a good system in a general sort of way, but it has clear issues. Talents at higher circles are often just better ways to do things you can already do - but then because you buy them at low rank, and have high rank in your lower circle talents, your new super powers are actually weaker than the talents you already have. And once we get into thread weaving at higher levels, it just becomes weird and unmanageable.

But the worldbuilding is literally second to none =)

[Glorthindel]

I will always reccommend Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st or 2nd edition - 3rd was weird, and I haven't had a chance to try the new release 4th ed). A bit more grim and gritty than DnD (less superheroes basking in the light of gods, more the dregs of society wading through sewage), with gory critical effects and wizards that can easily blow themselves up.

[Pugwampy]

Star Wars D20 Core rules

Mechwarrior

Shadow Run

[Chauncymancer]

Can you give us a little more to go on?
Taking the quote in OP's sig as a statement:
Burning Wheel, GURPS, and any one game by Fantasy Flight are the games most likely to expand OP's horizons in a way they will actually find fun.
Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Stars Without Number, or Unknown Armies are a stronger stretch: they're going to do more to expand your horizons, but they're going to do so by suggesting a different kind of fun, and one or more things in your sig are either not going to be possible, or not going to matter.

[Willie the Duck]

Taking the quote in OP's sig as a statement:
Taking the statement, --

I like to create builds and see them as optimized as powerful. I also have an annoying habit of having gratuitous character ideas and used to regularly ask to switch them out, or ask for small, against-the-rules, caveats to see a character come to completion without being hopelessly useless. While I have kicked a few of these habits, or at least slowed them, I try to keep all of my builds/ideas across as few, as official, and as popular rulebooks as possible as to avoid annoying everyone else.

I think I'd vote Hero System over GURPS. When it comes to tinkering for its own sake, I think it has just that slight more number of knobs and levers to play with. Hero System 6e is like GURPS Vehicles 3e, but for the whole game.

[Firest Kathon]

Biggest depends much on the region. In German-speaking countries Das Schwarze Auge (DSA, The Dark Eye) is pretty big since it was created in Germany. The latest edition is also available in English (http://www.ulisses-us.com/category/the-dark-eye/), from older editions only the core rules were translated.

As for best... I really like New Hong Kong Story (https://newhongkongstory.de/), but that one is only released in German so far.

[JoeJ]

If you want something different, you might consider Traveller. It's science fiction, and the player characters are basically ordinary people in the distant future. (IOW, Firefly not Star Wars.)

[JakOfAllTirades]

Savage Worlds is one of the best systems around, and just got a new edition. Unlike a lot of other suggestions here which I do like (Pathfinder, Starfinder, Mutants and Masterminds) it is not a d20 system, so will feel a lot fresher to someone looking for something new.

Godbound is also highly interesting if you have a creative group of players and can roll with the punches as a GM.

I'll second Savage Worlds for being very easy to learn/play/run. It has a lot of content available at very reasonable prices, and it's also relatively easy to convert existing material from other properties to SW.

[LibraryOgre]

What, after D&D, are some of the biggest or best (in your opinion) TTRPGs? I'm looking to expand my horizons in what I play. I've already got an eye out for Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Call of Cthulu

Biggest and Best are two REALLY different questions.

Biggest?

Look into Vampire: The Masquerade (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/647/Vampire-The-Masquerade--Revised-Edition?affiliate_id=315505) (free quickstart) (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/55733/Vampire-The-Masquerade-Revised-Quickstart?affiliate_id=315505), Rifts (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60679/RiftsR-RPG--1st-Edition-Rules?affiliate_id=315505) (the linked rules aren't the newest, but they were the main rules during the game's heyday), and, of course, GURPS (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/224830/GURPS-Basic-Set-Characters?affiliate_id=315505).

All three were heavy drivers of the RPG market in the 90s, and are very different creatures. VTM is a somewhat dodgy set up rules held together by the idea that you were cooperating to tell a story, less than building an uber-killer-death-machine (you still could; I killed a werewolf with a blood-trash Brujah and a silver steak knife, but that wasn't the point). Rifts was a kitchen sink setting, bringing in material from a ton of other games and genres into some gonzo post-post-apocalyptic giant robots and monsters and magic nutjob work. Hella fun, but very much a "the GM makes rulings because the rules are just this side of functional". GURPS is a solidly built toolbox game that, with a bunch of work, can let you play damn near anything, and with a big enough community that chances are someone has done the work for you.

After the 90s, you start getting into heavy dominance of the d20 engine and its related games. They weren't the entire industry, mind you, but they shaped a lot of the vocabulary in way I think some folks don't think about (consider the terms "stack" and "overlap" with regards to bonus; popularized by d20, they now get used in a lot of different games and contexts).

Others mentioned Shadowrun (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/286850/Shadowrun-Sixth-World-Core-Rulebook?affiliate_id=315505) (link to most recent edition, which I am not familiar with) and Earthdawn (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/64050/Earthdawn-Third-Edition-Players-Guide?affiliate_id=315505) (I'll be honest, I know nothing about that edition or its currency; it's the first I found), which are some stellar settings that suffer, IMO, from some of their design philosophies (the aforementioned "Have to spend character creation resources on metagame results in play" was common in the 90s; Deadlands was another offender). Seriously, I sit down and read Shadowrun and Earthdawn supplements from the 90s as fun reading. They're fantastic world-building, usually from a 1st person perspective of people in the world. Shadowrun tended to present everything as message board posts; Earthdawn as scholarly works written by chatty scribes with marginal notes from dragons. ****in' WILD.

I think Savage Worlds (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/261539/Savage-Worlds-Adventure-Edition?affiliate_id=315505) deserves a look; its very much a toolbox game in the vein of GURPS, but one I have taken to as relatively easy to improvise in (not a perception I got from GURPS, which may be wrong). It's also worth it to check out Ars Magica, 4th edition (http://www.warehouse23.com/products/ars-magica-4th-edition-core-rulebook); it's not the current edition (that's 5th), but it IS free, and has a primer on an excellent magical system.

And, well, ODE (https://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2013/08/ode-one-deck-engine.html). I understand the designer of that is very clever and handsome.

[AvatarVecna]

Shadowrun has a very long history with a lot of good support both mechanical and lorewise, and it's a system that doesn't need to be bent over backwards to make it make sense in a realistic setting; Shadowrun characters are capable, but even the best of them are still working on a small scale - both in how much they can dish out, and how much they can take. It's a system built around a kinda E6 or E8 assumption: past a certain point, you can get more skilled, but you can't get tougher, and that point is way before "I can ignore a squad of guys shooting at me".

Mutants & Masterminds is a kitchen sink kinda system that's almost pure mechanics where you can assign fluff as desired. This gives enormous flexibility and (naturally) lots of potential for low/high op builds. The advantage of M&M is that as long as you're not building at the higher-op end, you can make the power level super-low or super-high and the mechanics stay relatively similar (it's just bigger numbers in a bunch of ways, but those bigger numbers represent being exponentially more powerful at the thing in question).

You...probably can't find it today, but Car Wars is amazing. The maneuvering and ramming rules are probably some of the most intricate and realistic I've seen in any system, and you really get the feel that you're playing out what it'd actually be like to drive cars around in a gladiatorial arena shooting and ramming each other.

[Psyren]

+1 Shadowrun because it's very easy to try out on your own, thanks to the excellent Steam games or even the SNES game from way back in the day if you have an emulator. Using those you can get a feel for the setting and the system in a pretty low-pressure environment.

Ultimately though your best way to learn a new system is by being taught by a group of friends IRL. I would suggest swinging by your FLGS or hopping on a site like MeetUp and finding a group.

[Bohandas]

Toon is simple and funny

[Bohandas]

Toon is simple and funny

[JoeJ]

You...probably can't find it today, but Car Wars is amazing. The maneuvering and ramming rules are probably some of the most intricate and realistic I've seen in any system, and you really get the feel that you're playing out what it'd actually be like to drive cars around in a gladiatorial arena shooting and ramming each other.

You can't find it... unless you go to the Steve Jackson Games store (http://www.warehouse23.com/products/car-wars-deluxe-edition).

[Jay R]

Flashing Blades is absolutely the best rules-light game for swashbuckling. It is unambiguously simulating musketeer movies, not the real musketeers. The classes are actual social classes -- Noble, Gentleman, Soldier, Rogue. It has five dueling styles, which fight differently. Each character has an Advantage (Land, Lackey, Contact, etc.) and a Secret (Secret Loyalty, Secret Identity, Sworn Vengeance, Duelist, etc.).

Champions (and the Hero System in general) is perfect for building the exact character you like. Some people don't like it, because of the math involved in character creation. Also, some don't like it because, even more than D&D 3.5e, character creation is a complex sub-game that you get better at when you learn the system.

Pendragon is built entirely around the Knight of the Round Table. Don't try to use it for anything else; and don't use anything else for an Arthurian knights game. Besides the normal stats, you track your family, your passions, and your Virtues. In a full 75-year campaign, you will be running the great-grandson of your original character.

Chivalry and Sorcery is the most lush, vivid, immersive, complete, realistic, glorious, and compelling unplayable mess ever written.

[Spriteless]

I like Ryuu Tama. It isn't the biggest. It might be the best at training new GMs. It is about commoners going on a pilgrimage to see nature. Lots of 'Roll to see how far you travelled today. Oh, you didn't roll well, lets make up a story reason for it." Also, you track your pack animals' carrying capacity and supplies and the weather, so it's focused on something that modern D&D has streamlined out: the challenge of reaching the horizon.

[Cygnia]

I'll always go to bat for 1st Edition 7th Sea. Such a lovely melange of swashbuckling and history shout-outs. It makes me feel like an honest to Theus cinematic hero.

[Tetsubo 57]

If you're looking for something different I would suggest The Mutant Epoch. A comprehensive post-apocalyptic game and setting. For something a bit older the 1992 edition of Gamma World. FronteirSpace is also a fun read.