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View Full Version : Recommend a system for low-power fantasy game?



Lapak
2008-09-29, 07:57 PM
I've been bouncing ideas around in my head for a less-heroic fantasy campaign lately, and I don't think D&D is going to quite fit the bill. Since it's been a while since I've had a chance to play many other games, I thought I'd toss what I'm looking for out there and see what people suggested.

Ideally, I'd like something that allows for extremely skilled characters who are still within the range of human possibility. A reasonable combat benchmark might be something like
- An excellent swordsman will reliably beat a mediocre swordsman
- An excellent swordsman will probably beat two mediocre swordsmen given time
- An excellent swordsman can probably survive the attacks of three mediocre swordsmen, but he's not going to be doing any attacking himself unless he gets lucky.

Ideally, the mechanics should be as universal as possible, so that social encounters and combat encounters and skill-based problems are all resolved in mechanically similar ways.

Since the distance between Hero and Flunky is less, I'd like a system that smooths out luck as a factor. It should still be there, but should be made less random either by rolling multiple dice (attack/defense dice pools, maybe?), giving heroes Fate or Action points to use in rare cases of dire need, or something similar. I've got no problem with magicians being powerful, but I don't want them to be 3E-level dominant: they should have to spend time casting or have some other factor that makes them less combat-ready, though their powers should still have an influence in combat.

I'm willing to do some tinkering - if Exalted would be fine at human power levels, or whatever, I'm perfectly happy to play with it. I doubt that there's something out there that's exactly what I want; I just don't want to reinvent the wheel from nothing.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-09-29, 08:48 PM
Mongoose's RuneQuest. (http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/runequest.php) There's a free SRD available on Mongoose Publishing's site. A DEX 20 swordsman with good skills will, indeed, beat two DEX 12 swordsmen with average skills, although he'd beat a single one much faster (like, in one round, since the DEX 12 opponent runs out of reactions and will take at least two hits).

There's even a Lankhmar sourcebook available; if that's not low-power fantasy, I dunno what is.

Coolly enough, Glorantha - the classic setting (which is not included in any way in the generic rulebooks, and is confined to the Glorantha sourcebooks) is incredibly high-power if you play it "right". The system will stretch there.

If you end up buying the book, be sure to check out the errata - they did a big boo-boo and had to fix the entire basic opposed test resolution mechanic in the first errata.

Magic is a cool option, but it is not dominant. Everyone has equal opportunity to learn and use magic, but it's not easy. The most mechanically powerful type of magic requires you to learn a huge bunch of skills.

There's hero points, which the PCs can use to buy success at an important test or survive a deadly attack.

Karsa Andshort
2008-09-29, 08:54 PM
I don't know the current West End Games D6 Fantasy system, but I had some familiarity with the older WEG D6 Star Wars some time ago. It might be worth checking out the preview PDFs (http://www.westendgames.com/d6_fantasy.asp) if you want to learn about it. (While cheap and probably easy to get online, the material may not be very long-lived because I think that WEG is currently going out of business for the umpteenth time.)

I found the older D6 system to be quite flexible and easy to use for gritty to moderately heroic play. In general, D6 is a classless system with checks being done on the basis of skills which are derived from attributes. An average starting character would have up to 3d6 in most skills, and you can cap the "best of the best" NPCs at whatever power level you want in your gameworld.

Character points are awarded instead of experience points, and they can be spent on improving skills or to add extra dice to a single roll, so they act somewhat like action points. As far as several less experienced characters fighting an expert, the system may still come down rather in favor of the guy with the higher stats, but it will depend on specifics of combat in this particular version of D6. It's a system I would love to try playing if there were anyone around me interested in it, but for now I'm stuck wondering. It's flexible enough that it might be worth a shot, though.

comicshorse
2008-09-29, 09:27 PM
One Word : Warhammer

Darrin
2008-09-29, 09:49 PM
One Word : Warhammer

Well, technically... four words and a hyphen: Warhammer Fantasy Role-Playing.

It's somewhat low fantasy, and very skill-based. Highly skilled characters will do consistently better than newbie or mediocre characters, but combat is deadly enough that even a lowly goblin can be dangerous or get a lucky hit. PCs have fortune and fate points to mitigate bad luck. Spellcasters are powerful up until Tzeench causes their brains to ooze out of their nostrils (kind of a press-your-luck spellcasting mechanic).

Jayabalard
2008-09-29, 09:50 PM
GURPS with all of the cinematic options might work, but it's may be too deadly for you even at that. It meets your universal resolution method requirement, and the less heroic requirements pretty well though.

you can download gurps lite (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/) for free to get some sort of an idea for it.

Lapak
2008-09-29, 09:57 PM
Excellent. I've downloaded the GURPS Lite rules and the RuneQuest SRD to take a look at them. "Too deadly" is not too bad; part of what I'm hoping to accomplish is making combat a serious undertaking. I'll try to flip through Warhammer FRP and/or WEG if I can track them down.

horseboy
2008-09-29, 10:15 PM
Going to have to give a shout out to Hârn. Completely skill based, deadly, low magic.

Knaight
2008-09-29, 10:20 PM
Fudge. The combat rules involve opposed actions, and to hit someone you have to beat their roll. To hit someone in a group you have to beat all of their rolls or really beat one persons roll. And the gang up penalties are nasty. Its skill based, and you also use words to describe it. So mediocre swordsman would be an actual game term. Excellent isn't, but superb and great both are. And the basic rules are free, as are huge amounts of supplemental stuff (Fudge Factor has some good stuff, as for magic Door to Shadow or the Grimoire work well.).
It can be deadly too, between wound penalties, and wound overflow(it has the nickname of the death spiral. Cutting the wound penalties wipes the death spiral out if you don't like it though.)

TheThan
2008-09-29, 10:40 PM
I heard Conan D20 is supposed to pretty good for sword and sorcery, Which sounds a lot like what you’re looking to do.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-09-30, 12:42 AM
I heard Conan D20 is supposed to pretty good for sword and sorcery, Which sounds a lot like what you’re looking to do.

Conan d20 is the best d20 product this side of Mutants & Masterminds. The 20-point massive damage cap (not an optional rule) and the lack of magic items (balanced somewhat by making PCs grow a bit more powerful; HD are AD&D 2E style, though - rolling stops at level 10, and after that you 1, 2, or 3 hp per level) combine to make the game deadlier the higher your level.

Pyroconstruct
2008-09-30, 12:46 AM
HERO works great for this and it's customizable. The learning curve is somewhat steep, although it pays off; I ran a low-fantasy game with it and was very pleased.

Grynning
2008-09-30, 01:13 AM
Conan d20 is the best d20 product this side of Mutants & Masterminds. The 20-point massive damage cap (not an optional rule) and the lack of magic items (balanced somewhat by making PCs grow a bit more powerful; HD are AD&D 2E style, though - rolling stops at level 10, and after that you 1, 2, or 3 hp per level) combine to make the game deadlier the higher your level.

I will add a 3rd vote for this one, Conan d20 is a very well-balanced game, even with the inclusion of magic and monsters. It's close enough to 3.5 D&D that it's no trouble to learn if you know the system, but it makes enough changes to distinguish itself. It's very much in line with what you're looking for.

If you want something that's totally mechanically different, that's a bit tougher. Universal systems like GURPS, HERO, or Savage Worlds may be your best bet here. Savage Worlds did a Solomon Kane game (Kane is another Robert E. Howard hero in case you don't know) that may be a good jumping off point.

hamlet
2008-09-30, 07:46 AM
Harn works well, as does Warhammer Fantasy though only at low levels.

AD&D, with good DM control on what makes it in and what doesn't can work, though past a certain level it tends to break out of the mold you're looking for.

I'd actually suggest Alternity. The system is designed as a universal system, though it does default to a futuristic setting. The FX and Psionics sections are very VERY good at emulating any type or level of magic that you want with a moderate amount of work at customizing your choices. Advancement, though pretty quick at low "levels" does tend to plateu past there, so the heroes, though more powerful than an average shlub, will never become so vastly superior in ability that your average town guardsman will be no threat.

The only problem with using Alternity, as I see it, is that you'll have to do a bit of work to pull off fantasy with it, and this only has to do with the fact that the core rulebooks default to a far future setting. It's not difficult, just a little time consuming and definately rewarding.

Also, as a bonus, characters in Alternity are very fragile when compared to D&D counterparts. A sword thrust to the vitals is a really nasty way to die. And as you take on wounds, your character slows down significantly.

ETA: Another small bit of advice would be, IMO, to stay away from D20 in general. While it can be hammered, jiggered, and mashed into what you want, it still tends towards the medieval superpowers realm. But if you want D20, then I recommend the excellent Guardians of Order game "A Game of Thrones." It really put the grit into a D20 based game, though some of the rules are very complicated if you include them all. Worth it though.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-09-30, 08:07 AM
d20 Conan really does work, although I'd say RuneQuest will work much better (even though characters in the new edition are less fragile than they used to be; I'd say that's good, though, because in the old editions a single blow to a limb would put a PC out of the fight, and most people ended up playing around this, with one-armed or one-legged fighters raging on the battlefield making their CON rolls to avoid death).

It's just math. At 20th level, you've got maybe 135 hit points (assuming Con 20), an attack bonus around +25, your higher Defense at 25-30, and a Fort save of +17. That's 10 or 20 points of Power Attack damage against an equal opponent. Your rolled damage (something like 2d8+8) will exceed the enemy's DR, even if your weapon's AP doesn't, and the rest will force a Fort save against death, at a DC of 10 + ½ damage (if I recall correctly). That's a high likelihood of one-shot kills in a fight between 20th-level characters. Tactics, special moves, and situational bonuses - i.e. using the battlefield and your brains - will be critical in gaining an advantage...

As an alternative, you can use less Power Attack and try to finesse (a Dex-based melee attack allowed with certain weapons, including swords wielded two-handed) past your opponent's armor.

One of my favorite aspects is the fact that you really should trip or grapple opponents in plate armor, which is pretty realistic fighting. If you get them on the ground or grappled by an ally, their AC will drop dramatically, and you can finesse your way past their armor for a kill.

Even if combatants keep making those saves, they can take maybe 6 hits like that.

Danzaver
2008-09-30, 11:05 AM
Mongoose's RuneQuest. (http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/runequest.php) There's a free SRD available on Mongoose Publishing's site. A DEX 20 swordsman with good skills will, indeed, beat two DEX 12 swordsmen with average skills, although he'd beat a single one much faster (like, in one round, since the DEX 12 opponent runs out of reactions and will take at least two hits).


I agree wholeheartedly. I would play RuneQuest and call of cthulhu exclusively over dnd and vampire if my players didn't mind dying more often. :P

Yakk
2008-09-30, 11:21 AM
As a math geek, I'll advise against RQ. It is a percentage-based resolution system with a singularity as skills approach 100%.

There are house-ruled patches and optional rules for that singularity, but ... they are just patches.

(Ie, create someone with a 95% ability to block, and ... they are nigh impossible to kill from a single opponent in combat, barring house rules that allow attackers to drop their own to-hit chance to drop the target's to-block chance)

What is worse ... wearing armor if you are a skilled combatant makes you suck at winning the combat.

Now, RQ has so many versions, and lots of house rules, that there are ways around each and every one of these problems. Some are more awkward than others.

Attilargh
2008-09-30, 11:27 AM
I've been thinking of trying to run a low fantasy game using the new World of Darkness rules for mortals. The downside with that is that the amount of books you might want can be a bit on the hefty side, and you'll only be using parts of them: Armoury has a big bunch of medieval weapons (among other, more contemporary ones), Second Sight has rules for all sorts of low magic and supernatural stuff, Antagonists is useful if you want your players to fight monsters that aren't people and finally, Reliquary might come handy if you want some important magical doo-dads around.

Torque
2008-09-30, 11:34 AM
Coolly enough, Glorantha - the classic setting (which is not included in any way in the generic rulebooks, and is confined to the Glorantha sourcebooks) is incredibly high-power if you play it "right". The system will stretch there.
I disagree; RQ never played well at high "levels" where skills reach or pass 100%. HeroQuest is Stafford's attempt to address the failings of the old system. If by "address" one accepts "start again from scratch".

Sadly, the system in HQ is designed mostly by Robin Laws and like all his stuff is just an abstract resource management game which is so totally un-romantic that every time the players have to resort to it the whole game dies in a welter of ennui.

Glorantha is one of the great contributions of FRPGs to fantasy generally and one of the saddest examples of a setting that's been tinkered to death.

Having said all that, if you never get to really high levels in the Mongoose system (and I mean really high - years and years of play) then the older system does work very well for the sort of play the OP wants.

Try to get original Chaosium background material if you can, the Second Age stuff that Mongoose has put out has been risible.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-09-30, 11:51 AM
I disagree; RQ never played well at high "levels" where skills reach or pass 100%. HeroQuest is Stafford's attempt to address the failings of the old system. If by "address" one accepts "start again from scratch".

Referring to the new system. It works quite well. The old editions had to be houseruled to hell (I should know; I had literally multiple binders of stuff), but the new one has, for instance, a task-resolution mechanic that works for skills of, say, 400% vs. 500%.

Personally, we played the old RQ in the low-heroic range (skills in the 200%s) very successfully and with fairly limited use of houserules to accommodate the power level (except to cover heroquesting, which you still need to houserule all to hell because MRQ's "the God Learners are right" crap is a sorry excuse for heroquesting). A lot of other people did, too.

Funnily enough, MRQ took a lot of cues from HQ, which definitely improved it. The designers also looked at a lot of the more popular fan and alternative stuff and went "This is great - let's use it."

Torque
2008-09-30, 11:56 AM
Personally, we played the old RQ in the low-heroic range (skills in the 200%s) very successfully and with fairly limited use of houserules to accommodate the power level (except to cover heroquesting, which you still need to houserule all to hell because MRQ's "the God Learners are right" crap is a sorry excuse for heroquesting). A lot of other people did, too.
Yeah, the whole approach to the Second Age was a turn off for me, not so much the rules.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-09-30, 12:10 PM
The heroquesting part is what really got to me, because the point of Glorantha has always been the metaphysics - the magic, the Otherworlds, the way religion and deities work, and so on.

So, paradoxically, the set of rules we were promised (I have Finnish RQ books from the late 80s with the heroquesting supplement listed under Upcoming Products in the back) but never got were the most important ones, and probably spurred the most fan effort to cover...

And the Second Age stuff kind of took a dump on this crucial mechanic, simplifying it to the point of sterility - which makes sense if you only ever play God Learners or Dragonfriends. That's really freaking limiting. (I actually forget what the God Learner secret is, it was so unimpressive or nonsensical. The MRQ God Learner supplement finally told us, although that's only binding for Mongoose's Second Age.)

I do like the God Learner tricks for inspiration for HQ mechanics...

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-30, 01:57 PM
Adventure Quest: Jaern (http://www.aquest.com/AQJAERNdownload.htm). Designed for sea campaigns, but excellently balanced, very realistic, and very good at making power level obvious, but still human. Magic is hard to learn and rare, the Mages can't kill everything even at high levels, and Warriors and Marines are never overshadowed by them. Great system, IMHO.

Satyr
2008-09-30, 03:49 PM
While I think that Gurrps would be the bet choice for what the original poster described, Witchcraft (http://www.edenstudios.net/witchcraft/WitchcraftCorebook.zip) is an excellent - and free - system, that can be easily used for a lower powered game.
I play in a Dark Sun campaign based on these rules and it is impressingly better suited for the campaign world than the original system.

There are other books for the same system - especially the All Flesh Must Be Eaten Line with the Dungeons & Zombies expansion and the simpler and more cineastic rules of the Army of Darkness rules - that also works very well for less excessive fantasy campaigns than D&D (not that you couldn't go for excessive, though -you are just not forced into it).

Beleriphon
2008-09-30, 04:20 PM
I'm going to recommend Mutants and Masterminds Second Edition.

While nominally set for a superhero game, using a lower starting level and achieve what you want. The damage system can emulate what you want pretty well, provided you treat everything as lethal damage.

Your typical PL6 hero would look something like the capabilities of James Bond rather than Superman.

It helps that specializing at that level is better than trying to do everything. Because the game is descriptor based so a super punch, sword strike and a giant broccoli arm smash are all resolved the same way.

Torque
2008-09-30, 04:22 PM
I actually forget what the God Learner secret is, it was so unimpressive or nonsensical.
Many people think it is "It's only a game", but I suspect one of those words is wrong :smallwink:

I did ask Stafford once, but he was unwilling to answer, even after I sacrificed my girlfriend to him in his form of Heler the rain god. That's gratitude for you!

Yakk
2008-09-30, 04:52 PM
Characters are a collection of 3 cliches.

A 6 die cliche, a 4 die cliche, and a 2 die cliche.

(You also have 1 die in "basic competence").

Offensive dice are d8s, and defensive dice are d10s. You assign dice to each target. Dice always explode (subtract 1, and add another roll).

An offensive win over someone eats 1 of their dice. A defensive win over someone simply prevents them from eating one of your dice.

You can burn a die to double the stakes against a target, or to eat an opponents doubling of the stakes.

You can use a 2nd cliche in a round, but each die from the 2nd cliche are 1 size smaller (d6 offensive, d8 defensive), and you cannot use 2 cliches in the same action/target.

When advancing your character, buying a X die cliche up to an X+1 die cliche costs X+1 XP. You are also limited in being no more than 2 dice ahead of your next lower cliche.

Exceptional tools can add 1 die to your pool size. Well narrated action can add 1 to 3 dice to your pool size (1 for basic narration, 2 for using the environment well, and 3 for a really cool example).

Using a cliche in a marginally appropriate situation halves the die pool, and can also lower the die size by 1.

Finally, characters gain Drama Points, which can be expended to save their bacon, or bend reality in a fun way. Generally a character gains a Drama Point by (A) advancing the plot or (B) player sacrifice for characterization. Each character begins the game with 1 Drama Point.

How is that for a quick and dirty system, in which a single expert swordsman would have serious problems from 3 to 4 2 die mooks?

Torque
2008-09-30, 04:57 PM
Write down on a sheet what your character is good at. If there is a situation where the DM thinks you might fail, roll 1d100 - low is good, high is bad - the DM will tell you what the consequences are.

This works really well with the right group.

RebelRogue
2008-09-30, 05:31 PM
RuneQuest is based on the Basic Roleplaying rules, right? 'Cause I'd really recommend a variant of that (I've played a Swedish/Danish variant of it called "Drager & Dæmoner" [Dragons and Demons] extensively, and it was great for this sort of thing).