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View Full Version : I need a new game system, please help.



Ellisar
2008-05-01, 08:15 AM
I am currently looking for a game system that will accomodate a series of campaigns that I have prepared for a few of my friends, but I dont really know the current market and was wondering if you guys and gals could helt me out here. I currently own enough books to run d&d 1e, 2e, 3e and GURPS 3e, but none of the systems are good for what I plan on doing.

The system in question should offer the following;

1) I need a system that are not tied to a fantasy world, as the campaigns I need to run are present day/near future sci fi. D&D fails here.

2) I need a relatively simple system, or at least one that are easy to learn. Many of my future players have no prior expiriences with RPGing and I dont want to scare them awaay. GURPS 3e fails here.

3) The campaign will be played as a tactical wargame at least some of the time, so I expect the chosen system to being capale of handling encounters about as large as Necromunda 4-way battles.

4) I want a certain level of realism in these games, including rules for being wounded in specific body parts, rules that accurately represent a variety of modern firearms, and rules that dosent enable characters to be so tough that a single well aimed shot from a handgun is no longer at least potentially deadly.

5) I would appreciate if there were rules for zombies in the chosen game.

Everything else is secondary. Do you know of a system that will accomodate my needs?

Saph
2008-05-01, 08:21 AM
What about All Flesh Must Be Eaten? That's a zombie-survival-horror game, and should be plenty lethal enough from what I've heard. I haven't tried it, but some guys at one of my gaming groups are fans of the system.

- Saph

RS14
2008-05-01, 08:27 AM
How about Fudge (http://www.fudgerpg.com/fudge.html)? As a bonus, it's free.



1) I need a system that are not tied to a fantasy world, as the campaigns I need to run are present day/near future sci fi. D&D fails here.

2) I need a relatively simple system, or at least one that are easy to learn. Many of my future players have no prior expiriences with RPGing and I dont want to scare them awaay. GURPS 3e fails here.

3) The campaign will be played as a tactical wargame at least some of the time, so I expect the chosen system to being capale of handling encounters about as large as Necromunda 4-way battles.

4) I want a certain level of realism in these games, including rules for being wounded in specific body parts, rules that accurately represent a variety of modern firearms, and rules that dosent enable characters to be so tough that a single well aimed shot from a handgun is no longer at least potentially deadly.

5) I would apprechiate if there were rules for zombies in the chosen game.

1 and 2 are definitely satisfied. I don't know about 3, but 4 is essentially a matter of preference. It has no zombies, but they would not be hard to create.

SofS
2008-05-01, 09:04 AM
G.O.R.E. (http://www.goblinoidgames.com/gore.htm) is free, generic, and reasonably simple while retaining a degree of realism. There are rules for hit locations. Science-fiction/horror seems to be important to the design. It doesn't have rules for specific makes and models of firearms in the book, though, and you'll have to consider whether the combat system meets your needs (it can be pretty crunchy, but you have to supply a lot of the details yourself). I haven't had the opportunity to play it myself, so take this advice with a grain of salt.

Oh yes. Settings and additional rules are available cheaply online, if you don't mind paying for pdfs. They may have the details you're looking for.

P.S.: Forgot to mention that characters aren't of particularly high survivability (even a very tough human will be seriously messed up or killed by a shot from a handgun) and that there is a sample zombie in the magic section.

valadil
2008-05-01, 09:16 AM
#2 and #4 sound mutually exclusive. You want something simple but with multiple hit locations? Good luck.

Actually I suggest you revisit GURPs. I've played long term GURPs campaigns under two DMs. I hated one experience and liked the other. The one that I hated used every obscure rule printed. The good one cut the fat and only played with relevant and interesting rules. I suggest you do the same.

The other thing to note about GURPs is that after your character is created it gets much less complicated. Building the character to begin with is the ugly part. After that it's mostly straightforward. Unfortunately this means that introducing players to GURPs can put a bad taste in their mouths before they even get to play.

Citizen Jenkins
2008-05-01, 10:17 AM
I'd recommend Savage Worlds. It's simple, works for just bout everything, and serves as a nice gateway to more complicated systems.

Although that GORE system looks pretty interesting.

its_all_ogre
2008-05-01, 10:40 AM
deadlands sounds suitable, wild west based but there are rules out there for modern times.

ahammer
2008-05-01, 10:57 AM
there is always heavy gear. maybe a bit to sifi but I do like out the combat system is compix but still ez

it was built around a tactical game into a rpg

bit fuzy about the detail becuse my group does not realy like sifi
and dp9s fantasy game sucks when I look into it.


cant get to it from here so I dont know the full link but from what I remember you can get a copy of light rules to try it out.
http://www.dp9.com/

Zorg
2008-05-01, 11:22 AM
Cyberpunk 2020 might be worth a look:

It's a near future setting

The basic rule is D10 + skill + stat vs GM target number for difficulty, combat is either the same in a 'cinematic sense', or still fairly simple at the most basic. There is a later revised combat system in another book that is alot better. It is a class based system, and is pretty easy to tinker with to get the desired results.

There are rules for wounding and damage effects, but not terribly specific (though my memory's a bit hazy on that part). I know it has rules for hitting specific locations as standard. The basic ruleset has a large number of modern weapons to choose from, and some slightly more exotic.

Depending on the zombie style you want they could be pretty easily built I would imagine, and there's probably a ruleset out there somewhere for them.

Heavy Gear (at least the first edition), is an abysmal system - even as a wargame IMO. Far too little detail where needed (for a game about mecha the construction system is suprisingly simplistic), and the combat is dumb (all auto weapons fire 5 round bursts regardless of type... rubbish like that). The later versions may be better, and my memory is honestly kinda hazy, but unless you can have a good look before you buy I'd reccomend against it.

kc0bbq
2008-05-01, 11:51 AM
Godlike works pretty well, but you'd have to make your own enemies if they're not nazis. I've played in games where it's been altered into the HALO world, and I know it does star wars pretty well. Localized damage, realistic weapons. Getting shot is bad, except if you're indestructable. You can model just about any kind of ability from the basic rules.

The die roll system is pretty elegant, moreso than you would ever guess from reading a description of it. No initiative rolls - it's built in to a success. It has rules for squad based damage and rolls, I haven't needed them so far, but they're there.

The system also has some awesome fluff. The nazis discovered the superpower abilities before the allies, and this fed into their Ubermensch philosophies. To such a degree that they refused to accept the existance of allied superpowered soldiers, even when it was obvious, until too late. There's some unconscious control of what powers you manifest. There's a lot of super strength among Americans, because their idea of a superhero is someone like the golden age Superman, while flight is much more common among Germans. And, because the nazis had longer to work on improving their supers, they had some extremely powerful guys. One German was indestructable, and absorbed kinetic energy and amplified it sending an explosion out in the direction of the source. He was unstoppable until he got trapped in a fuel depot. Fuel depot went up, he absorbed the energy and created a gigantic explosion. He was technically unhurt, but died from lack of oxygen.

For a non-powered game, you just don't use any of the superpower schticks. The HALO game was great for that. While the master chief was involved and was statted out as reasonably as possible, the rest of the characters were just marines. We had to rely on tactics and creative use of our skills and surroundings. There's always this pressure of having to win a fight, move, accomplish something pushing against not wanting anyone to *ever* point a gun at you. You're kind of limited if you lose the use of an arm or leg. Really limited if you take a shot to the head. Hard to reassemble a brain.

ahammer
2008-05-01, 12:09 PM
btw this is about the worce topic you can post on a gaming website.
this im sure will lead to 20 page post about the marets of each gaming system



Heavy Gear (at least the first edition), is an abysmal system - even as a wargame IMO. Far too little detail where needed (for a game about mecha the construction system is suprisingly simplistic), and the combat is dumb (all auto weapons fire 5 round bursts regardless of type... rubbish like that). The later versions may be better, and my memory is honestly kinda hazy, but unless you can have a good look before you buy I'd reccomend against it.

I only played the 2nd.

and the construction system is simple yet let you build whatever you want within reason with the logic of ( if you pay a enith money and get enith time engineers will find a way to make it work. yes this can lead to things that seem unlogcol but would cost to much to make anyway. )

Thane of Fife
2008-05-01, 12:25 PM
How about Inquisitor (http://www.specialist-games.com/inquisitor/rulebook.asp)?

While I've not played it, I've only heard good things, and as I understand it, it's pretty much intended to be a Tactical Wargame / RPG.

Of course, it's pretty setting-specific, but that should be fixable.

And it's just as free as Necromunda.

Rhuadin
2008-05-01, 01:09 PM
Actually, I second GURPS. It's only as complicated as you want it to be, so since you're in charge, make it simple. The core mechanic is incredibly simple: Roll 3d6 and make sure it's less than a number.

Cainen
2008-05-01, 01:57 PM
All Flesh Must Be Eaten(which uses the Unisystem rules) is the most solid recommendation - it nails almost every one of them. Modern-day, and the system works best there. Its base is quite simple, and you're never really doing anything that's unmanagable for new players. The system is VERY brutal, so death is a threat no matter how high your LP gets. Rules for called shots, different types of firing, explosives, etcetera, so tactics apply. And, of course - it's all about zombies.

The only thing it loses out on is the lack of large-scale combat rules, but the system's simple and modular enough to the point where you can add it in yourself.

Yakk
2008-05-01, 02:02 PM
Here is an ORE (same system as Godlike, mentioned before) game of modern-day horror:
http://www.nemesis-system.com/delta-green/index.php


1) I need a system that are not tied to a fantasy world, as the campaigns I need to run are present day/near future sci fi. D&D fails here.

ORE has been used for StarWars, Fantasy, Super Hero, and Horror settings, to my knowledge.


2) I need a relatively simple system, or at least one that are easy to learn. Many of my future players have no prior expiriences with RPGing and I dont want to scare them awaay. GURPS 3e fails here.

Skill+Stat dice pools (never greater than 10 dice).

Roll that many 10 sided dice. Look for matches.

The matches determine what kind of success you get. Higher (bigger number) and wider (more dice in the match) are better, in different ways.

Different systems extend this mechanic -- ie, trump or master dice, which you set after you make your roll.


3) The campaign will be played as a tactical wargame at least some of the time, so I expect the chosen system to being capale of handling encounters about as large as Necromunda 4-way battles.

There are a number of systems build around ORE for "mook conflict". REIGN is a fantasy game that has rules for how player action can impact an abstracted struggle between larger forces.


4) I want a certain level of realism in these games, including rules for being wounded in specific body parts, rules that accurately represent a variety of modern firearms, and rules that dosent enable characters to be so tough that a single well aimed shot from a handgun is no longer at least potentially deadly.

Hit locations exist. Delta green might have rules to distinguish firearms, but for the most part the game tends to gloss over that as really not that important.

Under standard ORE damage rules, a single shot from a handgun is deadly.


5) I would appreciate if there were rules for zombies in the chosen game.

Sadly, I don't think there is a one-roll Zombie engine yet. There are probably rules in the various Horror ORE systems.

Artanis
2008-05-01, 03:09 PM
Heavy Gear would definitely fit 2, 3, and 4. The tech itself isn't much more advanced than modern-day (an Abrams MBT would actually fair pretty well on a Heavy Gear battlefield), there's some rules involving body-part-specific damage, and it's designed to be played as an RPG, a Wargame, or a hybrid of the two.

Unfortunately, it has no Zombies.

As to the mechanics themselves, I have to slightly disagree with the others. It's true that in many ways, it's a LOT more simple than DnD: everything is effects-based, so there's no figuring out what equipment adds what bonus to what stat to find out what it takes to hit you with what attack. Instead, anything that makes you harder to kill just adds to your defense stat. Period. There's no hit points, instead if you get hit, it's either a light hit, a heavy hit, or an instakill, with various effects for the first two and the obvious effect for the last one. And so on and so forth.

HOWEVER, nothing is linear in the game. NOTHING. At ALL. Stats are done by point buy, but instead of just getting more expensive as they go up, the costs get exponentially higher. Dice rolls resemble Risk more than any other actual RPG system. Designing your own vehicles usually requires a scientific calculator with all the exponents and exponential roots involved, and that often winds up with it incredibly difficult to predict what additions will do to a vehicle's cost (perks and flaws are especially bad about this, as a one-point perk can increase the relevant cost by anything from 1 to upwards of 20 or more).

So I'd suggest looking over Heavy Gear long and hard before you decide that it's suitable for new players. It might be, it might not be, but it'll depend on your players, and only you know them that well.