Looking for a "deep" rules-light, combat-is-fun system

[Snarfmite]

I'm looking for a system that has deeper, more fun combat than "I attack the monster," that still manages to be easy enough for casual players to pick up. Ideally there are lots of options in terms of customizing characters both inside and outside of combat. I'd like to see fantasy systems, but sci-fi or otherwise would be fine too.

My only tabletop RPG experience is with 3.5, and I'm looking to see what other systems I should look into. I like the combat system from what I know of Burning Wheel, but overall it's too rules-heavy for me. On the other end of the spectrum, In a Wicked Age is too rules-simple.

Any suggestions?

[Doc Roc]

I'm a huge fan of Savage Worlds, myself, for this. But it has... a couple problems. Just read up on it.

Obviously, I think Legend does a bang up job, but it's not really rules-light.

[dsmiles]

In before RISUS.

[Bang!]

The first thing that comes to mind is Savage Worlds. I don't know whether I'd call it rules light, but it's definitely lighter than D&D. Especially 3e. Its combat system is a pretty basic wargame with a couple pages worth of combat options - more than you can expect a player to remember, but few enough to print out a couple pages and not slow gameplay while learning/using them. Miniatures get a pretty noticeable focus; distances and speeds are measured in inches. If you aren't too keen on the miniatures wargame, the abstraction can be a bit much. It's a pulpy system with trappings befitting Western or Gangland games (namely the initiative cards and poker chips).

EDIT: This is a link to the Savage Worlds Test Drive pdf, to give a sample of the game.

Cortex is basically Savage Worlds without the cards, poker chips or focus on miniatures. It has a book of the generic system, and ia couple others where it's been repackaged for television-based rpgs.

EDIT: Here's a very thorough review of what it is and how it works.

FATE games (Spirit of the Century for pulp, Diaspora for hard scifi, Strands of Fate for whatever, Starblazer Adventures for soft scifi, Dresden Files for modern wizards) are again kind of iffy in terms of rules-lightness, but they're easy to learn, and if you drop the Stunts section (the section of little and largely inconsequential rules characters can pick up, like Feats in D&D), the game becomes very easily accessible to new players, and combat becomes surprisingly deep when Aspects become involved.

EDIT: Here are links to the Diaspora and Spirit of the Century srds. And this is a link to a pdf of the SotC srd, which is much more readable. This review of Spirit of the Century gives a pretty good idea of how FATE works.

If you're looking for a genuinely rules-light game with a tactical element to combat, you might be interested in 3:16 or Agon. 3:16 is a game about space marines, and Agon is about Classical heroes. Their mechanics are superficially pretty similar. Combat is fairly abstract (they're each linear, rather than 2D like most wargames or 3D like D&D), there are a handful of options to use at any point (and the best is often not attacking), but the games can be pretty interesting. Especially Agon, which has a theme of competition between players - so there are the simultaneous and often conflicting goals to get the help of your group while killing monsters, to be the one in the group to kill the monster and to get the other party members beaten up while doing so.

EDIT: Here's the 24-hour rpg prototype for 3:16 (it was later developed to include character advancement, unique planet and alien abilities and a nice bunch of equipment options listed here), This is a review that goes through most of the game features. This is a thorough review of Agon. I can't find anything demonstrating the game itself.

But generally in-depth tactical combat rules are the opposite of rules-light, so I'm drawing a blank as far as other games that fit the bill.

[Doc Roc]

Can I get some links in there, Bang? A lot of those sound charming, and while I've heard of about half, there's some that seem a bit unfamiliar.

[Bang!]

Sure! I'll see what I can dig up.

[Doc Roc]

Sure! I'll see what I can dig up.

Also, if you ever run a 3:16 PbP or maptool game, let me know!

[Bang!]

Okay, I seeded the best explanatory/sample links I could find through there. I hope that helps!

Also, if you ever run a 3:16 PbP or maptool game, let me know!

Definitely.

[Glimbur]

I know a guy who is writing a system on Sky Pirates and the rules are free and legal here. I think this is an obsolete version though... it is rules light but the combat might not be crunchy enough for you. It also has ship to ship combat, at least it should.

[Tyndmyr]

Crunchy combat and rules light tend not to go together particularly well...At least in most systems, all the rules in a rules heavy system have some purpose, and it's usually either build options and/or in combat options.

Honestly, my first suggestion, if you haven't done it already, is to crack open ToB, and play 3.5 using the classes in there.

[Clepto]

You might also look at the Dragon Age RPG from Green Ronin. The PHB is only 64 pages, as is the GM Guide. My group hasn't played it yet, since we're waiting to finish our CoC campaign. But I've read the rulebooks several times, and it feels pretty solid. It helps that I love the video games.

The biggest point against Dragon Age is that it's not completely finished yet. The rules are solid, but a lot of the extra crunch has yet to be released. Additional spells, class specializations, etc. Part of that is due to the fact that they originally planned to break it up into 4 sets (now condensed to 3), and the other part that licensed products are a huge pain. Set 2, which expands the character rules to include more options, and increases the level cap from 5 to 10, is due out sometime next month (according to Green Ronin).

[Rixx]

Honestly, my first suggestion, if you haven't done it already, is to crack open ToB, and play 3.5 using the classes in there.

That is not "Rules light" by any stretch, unfortunately.

[Tyndmyr]

That is not "Rules light" by any stretch, unfortunately.

It's not...but if you're coming from 3.5, it's a way to play a combat system with a great deal of tactical options while not having to learn many additional rules.

[Knaight]

The current version of Blood Sweat and Steel fits all of this. The combat is fun, the system is way lighter than D&D while still past IaWA or RISUS levels.

[stainboy]

A note about Cortex: it does some very cool things, but it's not a playable system as written. The combat rules don't work, both in that they're not written clearly and in that what they probably mean is terrible. The advancement system doesn't work without a lot of RP constraints on how you spend your XP (no matter which version you use, I can't decide if the one with diminishing returns or the one without is worse).

I don't mean to give the impression that Cortex on the whole is awful. The core mechanic and the flaws/plot points system are cool enough to justify trying to salvage the rest of it. Just know what you're getting yourself into.

[Bang!]

A note about Cortex: it does some very cool things, but it's not a playable system as written. The combat rules don't work, both in that they're not written clearly and in that what they probably mean is terrible.

I'm curious about this. I'm not trying to defend the system, but the only trouble I've had with combat was some confusion about initiative, and that was cleared up in the generic rulebook.

The one thing that stood out at me as borked was the high boosts to target values that environmental changes created, vs. the small boosts in dice size that players were able to effect. But that worked out in play to mean players had to cooperate to do things (assistance has massive benefits), or had their solo stints limited by plot point pools -- both promoted continuous character negotiations and schemes, which I can hardly complain about.

But the two times I used the system were pretty light-toned games without a whole lot of combat. It pretty much felt like Savage Worlds combat with a couple fewer options and damage rolls replaced by active parries.

What problems was I missing? If something's outrageously broken, I missed it. But it's totally possible that I mistakenly slipped in some SW rules to accidentally Cortex work.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I'm looking for a system that has deeper, more fun combat than "I attack the monster," that still manages to be easy enough for casual players to pick up. Ideally there are lots of options in terms of customizing characters both inside and outside of combat. I'd like to see fantasy systems, but sci-fi or otherwise would be fine too.

...have you tried D&D4?

Personally, I'd say it generally fits the bill for what you're looking for there, but since you're familiar with 3.5 you must have at least thought about it, right? If you haven't why not?

[stainboy]

I'm curious about this. I'm not trying to defend the system, but the only trouble I've had with combat was some confusion about initiative, and that was cleared up in the generic rulebook.

Problem: Your game has active dodge. Any time two people shoot the same target at once, the target dies.

Good Solution: Get rid of active dodge and add a passive defense number that an enemy can actually miss.

Serenity RPG Solution: Don't set any hard limit on actions per round, and let everyone perform multiple actions without any penalty to the primary.

New Problem: One of the PCs just shot the same guy five times in a single round.

Good Solution: Start over and use Good Solution #1 this time.

Serenity RPG Solution: Explain the action economy in really vague language to pass the buck to the GM to fix it.


It's possible I'm being unfair and later versions of Cortex handled this better, but from what I understand the Cortex main book still has active dodge and no hard limit on actions per round.

[Friv]

Serenity RPG Solution: Explain the action economy in really vague language to pass the buck to the GM to fix it.


It's possible I'm being unfair and later versions of Cortex handled this better, but from what I understand the Cortex main book still has active dodge and no hard limit on actions per round.

There's a soft limit, though. A stupid, poorly-explained soft limit. Here's how it works, assuming I read the rules correctly (which, serious warning, not guaranteed because you're absolutely right about the vague language).

When you take an action, it's normal. Each action after the first applies a penalty, which resets when it's your action.

Active defense does not pay attention to the above penalties. Instead, your active defense actions start at no penalty, and increase penalties by one step per defense. Defense penalties DO apply to your active action, and refresh either after your first action of the turn, or at the end of your action set.

The problem comes in that the rules are really vague about when exactly your penalties refresh. As written, it looks like your penalties from your attacks refresh at the beginning of your initiative count, and do not apply to your defenses, but your penalties from your defenses apply to your attacks and refresh either after your first attack action or after all of your actions. The most reasonable fix is probably to just say all of your penalties refresh at the end of your initiative count and leave it at that, plus apply a hard limit to your attack actions.

I ran a quite long Serenity game, and the combat problems only started about two-thirds of the way through, when a player wanted to shoot more than one person and we started actually reading that section of the combat rules.

Serenity also has a gritty vs. handwave problem, where everything is given exact costs and the group is encouraged to be scrabbling for cash and keeping careful track of their money, but there are no rules whatsoever for figuring out whether you can pick up cargo, so the whole thing is actually just GM fiat in disguise.

And then there's the experience issue, but that's more of a personal gripe than a system failing, probably.

*EDIT* Oh, there's a second issue, depending on what you like, which is that combat is drastically, variably lethal, due to the existence of active attacks and defenses and the way that die pools in the system work.

[stainboy]

Serenity also has a gritty vs. handwave problem, where everything is given exact costs and the group is encouraged to be scrabbling for cash and keeping careful track of their money, but there are no rules whatsoever for figuring out whether you can pick up cargo, so the whole thing is actually just GM fiat in disguise.

There's also the we-gave-up-on-statting-River problem. The front cover says Serenity RPG, we're going to judge your system by how well it handles the crew of the Serenity. Just nine people. If you can't handle all of them, go write new mechanics until you can.

*EDIT* Oh, there's a second issue, depending on what you like, which is that combat is drastically, variably lethal, due to the existence of active attacks and defenses and the way that die pools in the system work.

Man, I knew my Rocket Tag Sense was tingling but I wasn't sure so I kept my mouth shut.

[Friv]

There's also the we-gave-up-on-statting-River problem. The front cover says Serenity RPG, we're going to judge your system by how well it handles the crew of the Serenity. Just nine people. If you can't handle all of them, go write new mechanics until you can.

IIRC, they statted River as she is portrayed in the TV show, but not as she is portrayed in the movies, on the grounds that River as she is portrayed in the movies is a staggeringly more powerful character than anyone else on the crew, and the crew is meant to be a potential group of PCs. So if you want River to be equal in power to Mal, something's gotta give.

Man, I knew my Rocket Tag Sense was tingling but I wasn't sure so I kept my mouth shut.

To be entirely fair, you can use Plot Points to survive one bad roll and avoid getting killed. You just don't get as much XP as the guy who rolled well.

(P.S. I hate Serenity's XP system soooooooo much.)

[stainboy]

(P.S. I hate Serenity's XP system soooooooo much.)

That got fixed in the Cortex main book, didn't it? I think that was the first house rule we made when we played it.

[Bang!]

The problem comes in that the rules are really vague about when exactly your penalties refresh.

Yeah. I just skimmed the Serenity book, and it has even more problems and grey areas than the Cortex rulebook. The system book puts refresh at the end of a turn (which smooths out the defense penalties by putting them on the same counter), cuts the plot point->advancement point tradeoff and cleans up the initiative system (only one free action to someone who gets the drop, and players with the same roll aren't expected to run their turns simultaneously).

When I ran the game, being outnumbered and in the open was a sure way to lose a gunfight, but it was only a problem the first time. Combat turned into an exercise in hiding behind things and liberally applying suppressive fire (which either mangles or disables aggressors with less than a d8 in attack skills). Combat was tactically interesting in a stealthy way, but Clint Eastwood or James Bond-type characters just flat-out don't work.

If that's a problem, stainboy's "Good Solution" to swap to a Savage World style defense sounds like an easy patch.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

There's also the we-gave-up-on-statting-River problem. The front cover says Serenity RPG, we're going to judge your system by how well it handles the crew of the Serenity. Just nine people. If you can't handle all of them, go write new mechanics until you can.

They didn't give up, they just depowered her so that she wouldn't be a ridiculously unbalanced PC compared to the rest of the crew.

[Friv]

Yeah. I just skimmed the Serenity book, and it has even more problems and grey areas than the Cortex rulebook. The system book puts refresh at the end of a turn (which smooths out the defense penalties by putting them on the same counter), cuts the plot point->advancement point tradeoff and cleans up the initiative system (only one free action to someone who gets the drop, and players with the same roll aren't expected to run their turns simultaneously).

That would certainly help the system a lot.

I definitely felt that Serenity suffered from First Edition syndrome, so it's good to hear that they fixed the most blatant problems with it. It was a fun game, despite its many flaws.

[Tengu_temp]

In before RISUS.

Didn't he ask for a game with more combat options than "I attack the guy"?

I second FATE. Just don't drop stunts, they're half the fun.

[Mutazoia]

You could always try tracking down an old copy of Teenagers From Outer Space

[Fridrik Bj]

Here are a few suggestions.

Dresden Files RPG and or Spirit of the century.
Endlessly customisable. Not rules light, but definitely not GURPS heavy.

Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies.
Rules light, but require a bit of abstract thought.

Apocalypse world
Is rules light, but to the point where combat is over in a dice role or two. Supposedly there is a really god DnD hack for it out there somewhere.