What have you been playing, and what do you think of it?

[jinayihi]

Please use this thread to discuss whatever you've been playing lately (old or new, any platform, AAA or indie). As usual, please don't just list the names of games as your entire post, make sure to elaborate with your thoughts on the games. Writing the names of the games in bold is nice, to make it easier for people skimming the thread to pick out the names.

Please also make sure to use spoiler tags if you're posting anything about a game's plot that might significantly hurt the experience of others that haven't played the game yet (no matter how old or new the game is).

Since this thread is likely to fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

[2D8HP]

My "first love" RPG was (like many) Dungeons and Dragons in 1978 or '79, which was great fun.
Currently I'm playing 5e Dungeons and Dragons after a 20+ year absence from the hobby (except for buying a garage full of never played games). Most of my time playing RPG's was spent playing other RPG's, so while the jury is still out on 5e compared to 1970's D&D, compared to some other RPG's I actually played:
5e D&D is 6x more fun than Villains and Vigilantes.
5e D&D is 1.5x more fun than Traveller.
5e D&D is 5x more fun than Champions.
5e D&D is 1.3x more fun than 2e Runequest (this one kinda of hurts because I am really fond of Runequest).
5e D&D is 3x more fun than Top Secret.
5e D&D is 3x more fun to play than Call of Cthullu.
5e D&D is 2x more fun than Shadowrun (Shadowrun was the most fun game I got to play in the 1990's).
5e D&D is 10x more fun than Vampire. And,
5e D&D is 100x more fun than Cyberpunk (yes in the 1990's real life was actually better for me than some of the RPG's I got to play).
However 5e is 3x more of a hassle to DM than 1e Call of Cthullu was to "Keeper". While D&D stories are much more fun, CoC was just so dead easy to run and I would actually recommend Call of Cthullu over any edition of D&D to learn to "Gamemaster", because it's just so easy (clear rules, wirh a simple setting).
They were many games that looked like they would be fun, but I never found a table willing to try them. Off the top of my head some were;
Castle Falkenstein,
Flashing Blades,
GURPS Swashbucklers,
Space 1889,
Stormbringer, and
(King Arthur) Pendragon. Only the last two do I remember enough of the rules to know that I liked the rules and not just the setting.

I'm curious what everyone else thinks.

[PallentisLunam]

I love all of these:
Deathwatch:
Holy crap the PCs are powerful and the monsters individually are tissue paper.
Pathfinder:
It's 3.5 simplified in some regards and with a fair bump in base power curve.
Shadowrun:
Wonderful depth and complexity but I think it would be really hard to pick up and play IRL because of that depth and complexity. Also love the fluff and it's really the only super tech game I've ever played
D&D 3.5:
My favorite and native system. I think what is how infinitely and easily customizable the system is.

[RazorChain]

Gurps:Mythic Europe A homebrew inspired by Ars Magica and real world myths and folktales. The plot is good

[Jay R]

It's rare that everybody is in the mood for TOON, but it's always great fun.

I think my favorite game is Flashing Blades. Swashbuckling musketeers! But some people want a game with magic.

Champions and Fantasy Hero are great, if everyone in your group is willing to make characters under it. I've built characters for a friend who enjoys the game, but doesn't want to learn character creation.

In the last ten years, I've played original D&D, AD&D 1e and 2e, and D&D 3.5e.

Pendragon is one of the most immersive games available. But you need people who are all willing to immerse themselves in Arthurian romance.

D&D's biggest advantage is that just about everyone is willing to play it.

[Delwugor]

I played a one shot of Monster of the Week a few weeks ago, very good and exciting game. I had problems with AW previously, in particular it was difficult to understand the line between mechanics and narration. In MotW this is clearly distinguished and it helped me understand the AW system much better. Two critiques though, it's too easy to press the "I Win" button and get the automatic 12 roll, still not enough customization in the Playbooks.

Last year I was introduced to Savage World mostly in Deadlands. Fantastic system for the mystic, steampunk and wild west setting. SW as a system is alright, but has a few problems which gets in the way. The Card Initiative takes way too much time and slows a battle down to a crawl, though it does hit the West gambling theme well. It's cinematic, but in the exploding dice, not character actions. Also exploding dice happen much more frequently when the character has no or little skill (rolling d4) than their main abilities (d8 or d10), so you are less likely to be cinematic where you want to be. The exploding dice (especially d4) does add fun, but alot of uncontrolled wildness to the system without any mechanism to keep it contained or limited, in other words it gets too unpredictable.

I also got to play a couple of games of D&D 5E. I had abandoned playing D&D (WotC style) years ago and was reluctant with Mathfinder. But I like 5E so much that for the first time in 5 years I am GMing a D&D game. I like the simplified system which relies more on the group and GM than a long series of arbitrary rules. The Advantage/Disadvantage mechanism works real well to give player actions the control of getting the upper hand without all the huge modifiers of 3.x and Mathfinder.

I still run and play Fate games, though not nearly as often as I would wish. Fate is a great system for me to balance narrative and mechanics of character actions.

[SirBellias]

Most enjoyed by group: PARANOIA. I really can't say why this is, but everyone seems to enjoy it far more than anything else I run. I don't know if that's telling of anything, or if it's just a fun game... Just find a mission online, or make it up as you go along.

Most often run recently: D&D 5e. I use this for my casual group. It's simple enough for them to sometimes remember the rules, and really easy to run if you make a bunch of random encounters and dungeons and go from there. Encounter building is a bit wonky, so it's a bit more difficult to improvise encounters.

Most recent serious game ran: Pathfinder. I always wanted to run pathfinder, but only got through one session. Easily one of the most complex games I've tried running, but still fun with numbers. It's easier to build encounters for than 5e, in my opinion, but there's more numbers to track. If complexity is fun, go for it.

What I want to continue: Monster of the Week. Hunt monsters. Fairly simple, powered by the apocalypse, fun to run with proactive characters. It's basically Supernatural, the RPG, except it doesn't have to be, and probably much more fun to play than watch.

I have experience with a couple others, but they don't qualify as "lately." Will be playing in a 5e game soon!

[kyoryu]

Two critiques though, it's too easy to press the "I Win" button and get the automatic 12 roll

For a campaign, it's discouraged because you don't get those points back. Every "i win" pushes you closer to your death.

[JAL_1138]

Currently playing and DMing 5e. I don't like it as well as AD&D 2e, but it's a bit easier to actually balance encounters for; 2e doesn't have many/any guidelines, so only my experience with it (and a plethora of modules to steal from) keep me from only sending out cakewalks or TPKs with nothing reasonable in between. Not that I can get any players for 2e these days anyway, so that's moot.

DMing it is a breeze, although while it's easier to improvise encounters for than 3.PF (which I find pretty much unplayable) it still really helps to have encounters made in advance (I like to steal them from Adventurers' League material and reskin them, or use an online generator, because I'm lazy as a DM). Building encounters from scratch is still pretty quick, though. Creating monsters that aren't in the manual isn't difficult either, although I rarely do it.

Best things about it are that combat is fast and flows well, that many of the little situational fiddly bits are gone, that the rules are simple enough we rarely look them up at the table, that monster and NPC statblocks aren't very fiddly to build or use, and that most of the classes work really well--not really any trap options, other than poor spell selection and some feats that aren't quite up to par with the others. On the whole, it works well and is fun to use regardless of which side of the screen I'm on.

[Knaight]

I suspect this is spam. There's the mention of a post selection system these boards don't even use, there's the use of the video game specific terms AAA and indie, there's that whole comment about the games plot that would only refer to modules here, etc.

With that said, if we are going to try and get something useful out of this: The most recently played games for me are REIGN, Fudge, Warbirds, and Microscope. REIGN is currently at the character generation stage, but I've played it before and am quite fond of the system. Warbirds is relatively untested, but I have a lot of optimism about it for a number of reasons, and what little I've done with it has been solid. Fudge and Microscope are mainstays, with Fudge filling in the role of the incredibly versatile traditionalist system and Microscope the cream of the crop on the far fringes of roleplaying.

[Delwugor]

For a campaign, it's discouraged because you don't get those points back. Every "i win" pushes you closer to your death.

Thanks for the correction. Of course everyone used at least one in the one shot.

[MrZJunior]

I suspect this is spam. There's the mention of a post selection system these boards don't even use, there's the use of the video game specific terms AAA and indie, there's that whole comment about the games plot that would only refer to modules here, etc.

Makes sense to me.

That being said I GMed a short campaign of Swords and Wizardy somewhat recently that I quite enjoyed. S&W is to OD&D what Pathfinder is to 3.5. I like roling for stats, it leads to very strange and often unbalanced characters, building a character is fun, but sometimes the randomness adds a certain something. Characters die incredibly easily and often, but they are so easy to make it hardly matters. The emphasis is on exploration and dungeon crawling, the way the rules are written it discourages fighting monsters since you get more XP for gathering loot. It's interesting to see how the game has changed in forty years.

[Vinyadan]

Makes sense to me, too. https://www.google.de/search?q=Pleas...m5A4rwUqO_ucgB

[2D8HP]

I suspect this is spam. There's the mention of a post selection system these boards don't even use, there's the use of the video game specific terms AAA and indie, there's that whole comment about the games plot that would only refer to modules here, etc.

With that said, if we are going to try and get something useful out of this: The most recently played games for me are REIGN, Fudge, Warbirds, and Microscope. REIGN is currently at the character generation stage, but I've played it before and am quite fond of the system. Warbirds is relatively untested, but I have a lot of optimism about it for a number of reasons, and what little I've done with it has been solid. Fudge and Microscope are mainstays, with Fudge filling in the role of the incredibly versatile traditionalist system and Microscope the cream of the crop on the far fringes of roleplaying.

I haven't seen the others yet, but I found Warbirds at my FLGS. It looks cool. Thanks!

[Earthwalker]

Runequest 4e
I am currently playing a game of Runequest. The GM has decided not to run the game in Gloranth (the base setting) as me and another player knows so much more about the world than him. This seems like a good idea as it means he can craft his own lore.
The GM has also made some changes to the system to tone down how lethal it is, he is also very generous with the hero points (get out of death free points) players get. As a system RQ is pretty lethal.
The game itself is akin to a hex crawl we are exploring a new region and I have to say the system works really well for this, having skills for exploration that improve with use. I do think the game has been improved using Runequest over Pathfinder (our other known game system)

Pathfinder
I am running a bi-weekly Pathfinder game. We started at lvl 3 (got up to lvl 5, 6 is next week) and made the world with the players. Together we came up with the ideas the players would be bounty hunters. The players also made a bounty hunter organization and religion.
The prep work required for Pathfinder always annoys me. There is just so much. I like this set up as normally we end a session with a bounty collected and I can draft a few brief contracts of what the players want to hunt next. Then once they choose prep more and stat up the bounties.
After 5 or so bounties the group has got used to the formula. Choose a bounty. Get information from the guilds divination group. Buy consumables to help in the fight. Go to the area the target is in. Fight the target. Collect money. Repeat.
Now they are used to the formula I can start messing with it to make things interesting.
System wise Pathfinder is the edition I default to when running DnD. My players love the crafting a build aspect of it all. They also like the combat challenge.

Fate
I am running a fate game. I have to say I love the system I love how easy it is to run. I love the stories that it allows the group to tell.
I am playing the game with two players new to role playing games and an old friend that I have known for years. The new players wanted to learn some role playing games and we started with Pathfinder. I ran a mini campaign and they liked it but only one of the players got into the whole mechanics of the thing.
We switched to a new campaign using Fate (my first time running it) and it just worked with everyone. It’s so much easier when the players can just say what their character does and does not have to worry about mechanics.
As a GM its brilliant how little I need to prep. I generally just prep the first scene each session and everything goes from there. There is nothing better than finishing the last scene of the night with the thought “I had no idea we would be here”