Which roleplaying game you like the most and why?

[asaadrehman]

Let's create a thread where we describe our favourite game along with the cool think you like the most

[elros]

I have to say it is D&D, which I first played in the 80s. It is the best supported game, and the character classes and gameplay are iconic.
That said, my favorite mechanical system is Basic Roleplaying System, which is in Call of Cthulhu. I love the percentile and advantage-disadvantage system to the rolls. Easy to understand and implement.

[Anonymouswizard]

In concept it's Nobilis/Glitch, due to the amazing setting and the fact that PCs are operating on a level where they can do pretty much anything but probably shouldn't. However I can't really comment on them mechanically, as they're diceless and I've never played a diceless system. So yeah, in theory my favourite but in practice maybe not

Second place goes to Fudge and it's descendant Fate, due to being a really stripped back generic ruleset that plays in the pulpy region I tend to default to. Plus Fate has a large number of free 50 page settings plus a larger tendency to mix genres (with officially released settings including 'Alien Invasion but Standard Medieval Setting' and 'what if Terminator was Cthulhu'). You're not going to be delving into dungeons, but you might be fencing on top of the Statue of Liberty.

[SimonMoon6]

My favorite game is Mayfair's DC Heroes Role-Playing Game (2nd/3rd edition).

Here are some reasons why:

(1) It can represent everything. Characters of any power level. Characters with any bizarre powers. It can handle all of that. Pre-Crisis Superman? No problem. Rogue/Amazo/Super-Adaptoid? No problem? Metal Men/Metamorpho? No problem. Beast Boy/Jayna? No problem.

And when I say "no problem", I don't mean, "Well, you could *technically* represent the characters in the game system, but they wouldn't be quite right and you'd be straining the game system to actually represent them in a way that either doesn't make much sense or requires way more work (and dice-rolling) than you should ever have to do."

No. Every character can be represented correctly, accurately, and EASILY.

This is because the game was designed to simulate DC's most popular heroes at the time the game was created, so characters with weird powers (like Jericho of the Teen Titans) are super-easy to represent in the game system because the game system was designed to represent such characters.

There aren't many other game system (possibly there aren't *any* other game systems) that can do this. Not GURPS. Not Champions. Not M&M. Not nobody, not nohow. (Maybe, TSR's Marvel Superheroes RPG with FASERIP, but it has its own issues.) Most of these other game systems weren't created to simulate comic book superheroes and so they really can't do it well.

And it's not just character creation either. It's the entire game system, designed to make combat and skill use just as simple and easy as it can be.

(2) Since any character can be represented easily, as a GM, this makes it so incredibly convenient to have sandbox style games.

Can you imagine an adventure where the PCs go off into unexpected territory and the PCs encounter enemies that the GM hasn't already made character sheets for? In a lot of games, it's now time to say, "Okay, let's stop and pick this up next week after I've made some character sheets." But in DCHRPG, you can just spontaneously make character sheets for anyone you want in about 5 seconds, as long as you know what the enemies should roughly be capable of doing. This could NEVER happen in, for example, D&D 3.5. Not in a million years could you make a well-crafted D&D character sheet in 5 seconds.

(3) And again, since the game can handle anything, it can be used for any genre which makes it ideal for the multi-genre games that I enjoy running. Anything a GM wants to do with a game can be done with DCHRPG. This makes it (in my mind at least) the perfect game for a GM. I haven't actually played in the system as a player very much but from a GM's perspective it's the ideal game.

[Anonymouswizard]

My favorite game is Mayfair's DC Heroes Role-Playing Game (2nd/3rd edition).

Here are some reasons why:

(1) It can represent everything.

Okay, throwing out some wide ranging ideas here, can it represent:

An intelligent blueberry muffin? Not a psionic or magical one, just an intelligent one.

Sir Hopsalot, the Relativistic Rabbit? (In other words a rabbit with enough super speed to reach at least a significant fraction of c.)

An Excrusian Strategist? (Nice grab bag of things here, you need the ability to self-ressurect, the ability to be really good within your rough role, a personalised ability to destroy stuff, your own personal Not-home formed out of the void that existed before Creation, the ability to travel to said void, power over a specific category of the nonexistent, and the ability to sense, travel to, and enhance the bits of Creation you personally Treasure.)

I've honestly found every system except Fudge to have an issue with some kind of character concept, so I'm very skeptical. Although that doesn't make it bad, focus can really help a game run better.

[Lord Raziere]

I think my current favorite is Mutants and Masterminds QDe.

takes MnM3e, and improves it so that versatility and power are two separate things and explain how attacks work in a way that I use to represent anything using it.

like I don't need to worry about balancing my points between this and that as much, I don't have to sacrifice a section of the character sheet for points, you just get your power level, and your major combat stats are equal to that, so you can focus on the customization part that you really need the points for.

Sir Hopsalot, the Relativistic Rabbit

okay lets see for QDe....

that would be Speed. a Measure in QDe that costs 1pp to rank up. as its modified MnM, and Mnm3e says the speed of light is Speed 28, then Sir Hopsalot would only need 28 points to be that fast, with 72 power points and 100 versatility points remaining in default character creation.

An intelligent blueberry muffin?

QDe assumes all character are intelligent by default. the inability to move because its a muffin means that it probably has a minus to Speed and more points to spend than Sir Hopsalot, on whatever skills you think an intelligent muffin has.

An Excrusian Strategist? (Nice grab bag of things here, you need the ability to self-ressurect, the ability to be really good within your rough role, a personalised ability to destroy stuff, your own personal Not-home formed out of the void that existed before Creation, the ability to travel to said void, power over a specific category of the nonexistent, and the ability to sense, travel to, and enhance the bits of Creation you personally Treasure.)

Lethal Immunity (20vp) (closest thing to immortality/self resurrection QDe has, you still need to define a weakness that makes sure they can't self-resurrect if its used though.)
Bestow (varies, pp, for the rough role thing)
Attack (anything destructive falls into attack, unless its a disintegration in which case it might be transformation, maybe)
Installation features and teleport (for both void and bit of Creation stuff, teleport is 15vp)
Transform/Create/Exert/Perceive (for power for a specific category of nonexistent, that could be an entire array of things honestly)

for this one, pp honestly varies and you'd have to go into more specifics, but I'm pretty sure you'd have.....65vp left over at least? but installation stuff requires vp being turned into feature points or FP, which would eat up a couple of them but not much since its a 1vp-to-10fp conversion rate, as features are pretty minor.

[Anonymouswizard]

And I realise that I forgot to put the Strategist limitations in, which is more what this is about. These characters all have limited ability to interact with the world.

A Strategist can, but if it's outside their role they're bad at it. At the worst it gets to 'severe dyspraxia combined with chronic fatigue' levels. Some can manage showering or putting on pants in a day, but not both (fine for those who are mongeese or bakeries, a bit of an issue for the human ones).

Sir Hopsalot has limited intelligence, a small size, and no hands. Your average game assumes you can open doors without resorting to superpowers.

The intelligent blueberry muffin can't do anything except exist and think. Even games that don't assume you can open doors assume you can interact in some way (plus it's the classic example of how flexible GURPS is).

[Jay R]

If you like swashbuckling adventures and musketeer movies, then Flashing Blades, by FGU.

Note: it is simulating the novels and movies, not historical 17th-century Paris.

It has classes that are based on actual classes. Where you were born and who raised you. You are a Noble, Gentleman, Soldier, or Rogue. In the Caribbean supplement High Seas, this is expanded to include Sailor, Marine, or Pirate.

There are five dueling styles. If you learned Italian style, your thrusts and lunges are better. Spanish style has improved slashes, etc. [The game was written in the 1980s, and there is no authenticity to the style descriptions.]

Each character has an Advantage (title, wealth, lackey, favor, contact, etc.) and a Secret (secret loyalty, sworn vengeance, secret identity, duelist, inveterate gambler, etc.). These make the characters unique, and are the key to fitting a swashbuckling persona.

The main characteristics are Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Wit, Charm, and Luck.

The skills are a big part of the game. Each class has three skills that cost 1 point each, a set of what you might call "class skills" which cost 2 points each, and the rest are 3 points. Once you buy a skill, your ability is based on the associated characteristic, plus experience. Acrobatics is based on Dexterity; Carousing on Endurance, Seduction on Charm, etc. Each skill or fighting weapon goes up individually, based on how much you use it. So if you want to improve your cutpurse skill, you have to actually cut purses. Improvements with your rapier won't make you better with a pistol.

Social status is real, crucial, and part of what you're striving to earn.

The game's biggest weakness is, being made in the early 1980s, the assumption was that all players would be guys, and there are no female character types. I invented Actress for a player in my game, and it would be easy to play Noble or Rogue as a woman.

It plays quickly, feels right, and lets players act like a dueling hero.

[Honorable mentions to Pendragon, original D&D, AD&D, D&D 3.5e, TOON, Champions (the entire Hero System, actually), and GURPS. Yes, these are mostly old games. I started playing rpgs in 1975, with the original three-pamphlet white-box edition of D&D.]

[Mastikator]

My favorite is a system and campaign setting I made called Infinite Darkness. It's a scifi horror game, I try to take a little bit from firefly and a little bit from alien and a little bit from babylon 5.

Mechanically it's a skill based RPG with a hierarchy of abilities -> skills -> perks. Abilities are the basic 6, strength, endurance, agility, perception, intelligence, willpower. Then you have skills which is many, then each skill has a set of perks that either grant new options or enhance niche uses of skills (like being really good at blades). The way you advance is very simple, leveling up a skill costs as much as you're leveling up to per step (so 0 to 5 is 15 for example), perks cost 10,20,30,40 depending on their level.
Conflicts are resolved via opposed checks, roll 2d10 + ability + skill + perk bonus (if any) + modifier from context (if any). Vs environment has static DCs with modifiers for circumstances that makes things easier or harder.

There is an optional magic system that is themed around horror, so far it's a single skill called "spells" and has 36 spells and mutations. Spells can only be gained at random (you roll d100 three times and get to choose between 3). The spells tend to require creativity to be useful, some are directly useful but only in narrow ways, some com.

The aliens are truly alien, they have enough in common with humanity to work together, but different enough that a society can't accommodate all, it's a little bit uncomfortable, but it offers (enforces?) actual different perspectives. Being a human in a Shambra society will make you feel like you don't belong because you need to wear a gas mask at all times so the toxic chlorine gas doesn't slowly kill you. The Nekovian society is all underwater and are basically stone age. The Merlions are so much more advanced than anyone else that it's basically magic, and they don't share.

The combat system is something I've spent a lot of time on, guns should feel dangerous and deadly, but combat shouldn't be too one-sided.
There are many weapons to choose from, guns, lasers, plasma casters, missile launchers, railguns. Each come with modifications and different options for ammunition. Each have drawbacks and strengths. Melee combat has a place too but bringing a knife to a gunfight is often not a smart choice. Armors are highly modifiable, they come in 3 layers and have additional optional integrated systems.
You can make yourself extremely deadly, hard to kill, but it just skews the odds, a noob with a gun can still kill you under the right circumstances. This is also true for NPCs. If the players are clever they can defeat any opponent.


The reason I made it is because I couldn't find anything that checked all the boxes

[Mordar]

For me, it is a narrow margin. Barely edging out Call of C'thulhu...is RoleMaster.

RM gets a bad rap for barriers to entry and charts, but those issues are easily overcome within 30 minutes of learn-to-play with an experienced teacher. It does have some assumptions, like participants willing and able to perform basic arithmetic, but the flexibility of the system is wonderful. A few of my favorite things:

• Skill system
• Character differentiation
• Weapon/armor interaction
• Magic and Spell system

The skill system is very broad and inclusive. All character types have access to a wide array of skills, and there is significant differentiation available. You can really make your character shine in the ways you envision, not just in some narrative fashion or where your dedicated specialist is regularly eclipsed by someone min/maxer defaulting to a stat and using edges/advantages to explain away why his street rat who lived by the University is better able to find and identify the curative properties of plants than your hill-village herbalist who grew up apprenticing to the local wiseman.

Combat skills are skills just like everything else, so your charismatic troubador duelist can be better at swordplay than my hulking barbarian warrior...but put battleaxes in our hands and watch out! (Note: skills are categorical, not weapon specific...this is an example of 1H edged vs 2H skill).

Classes play a role in what skills you can develop more rapidly than others...but your Berserker can learn courtly etiquette if that's what you want.

Finally, you get a significant amount of skill points at the creation and each level...so you can dabble in many things and still excel in your core, or you can grow in ways you didn't anticipate wanting to when you made that character 6 months ago. All of this leads to...

Character Differentiation is a byproduct of the skill system (and magic system) and a big part of what really helped me fall in love with the game. I grew up reading about Aragorn, Fafhrd and the Mouser, Conan, Achilles, Paris, Lancelot and all the others. The idea that each of these were effectively modeled by the "Fighter" class was understandable, but disappointing. The differentiation in AD&D was mostly fluff. In RM, though, these characters can be narratively and systemically modeled and play very differently even at the same levels. Same thing applies to the magic using characters - wizards, sorcerers, necromancers, summoners, psionicists, divine clerics, the whole shebang - and most every other category we could come up with. Thieves, rogues, spies, conmen, troubadors, bards (that aren't reduced to the juvenile like some currently popular views), ninja, and a thousand other options.

Best of all, you don't need gigantic system mastery to achieve this end...you just need the ideas of what you feel makes the character feel like the character. Then you get to see it represented narratively and mechanically at the table, not just in a hand-wavy fashion but in a manner that speaks to your agency and your decisions.

The Weapon/Armor interaction is what scares some people away, and what gives rise to "ChartMaster" primarily from those that don't know any better. Without spending too long in the weeds, combat is handled thusly:

1. Attack roll (d100, plus attacking modifiers);
2. Defense modifications (based on target skill/actions/situational modifiers);
3. Basic math;
4. Look up result on table that considers your weapon and target armor type;
5. Apply reult. If you did really well, you may inflict a critical injury - roll and check the chart (no math) for often fun effect.

One roll. Basic math. Check the result - it tells you the damage done. If you did well, one more roll for bonus damage and potential effects. Note this is *at most* the same number of rolls required by (A)D&D. What makes it special?

It considers some degree of reality. Foil against plate armor? Generally not super effective...unless you get right in the cracks. Against chain mail? Better the fine bladed thrusting weapon than the broadsword. Both are fine...but the pointy one is better. The criticals even consider the combinations. That pointy weapon is going to cause more bleeding damage, while the mace is going to do more knock-downs or stuns.

And no, it isn't hard or complicated. Unless you're playing Garret Jax, you only need a couple - maybe three - reference pages. I needed more than that for my Paladin in the "modern" 4E game I last played.

Lest you think RM is short on the magic side, the Magic and Spell system provides the same flexibility for the arcane (or divine...or mentalism) inclined. Thousans of spells available (maybe hundreds when you discount variants). How can anyone manage that many options? They are parceled into spell lists. Magic characters learn spell lists that are thematically linked, and you learn a batch of spells across several spell levels all at once. Playing an "elemental" wizard? You decide that Fire Law and Water Law are good places to start. You also decide you want to defend yourself against your colleagues, so Elemental Shields is a good add. Finally you determine your character is a tinker, always trying to make her magic better...you you add in Spell Enhancement as a list. You've got four lists going, giving you access to at least the first 10 levels of spells from each list.

But you can only cast level one spells, right? Nope. You can try to cast any spell you know. But you can only cast what you prepare? Nope, spell points system. Flexibility but not so good you outshine every other character at the table. There is skill required to cast, and trying to cast spells above your character level is proportionally harder than those "right sized" for you.

The number of spells can really seem daunting, but it is put into more manageable chunks. Spells are grouped into three "types" of magic - Essence, Channeling and Mentalism...basically wizard, cleric, psionicist. Then there is the parceling into spell lists - general lists for each type, limited lists for each type, and then specialized lists for each type. Then, on top of that, many of the spells are greater versions of a base spell (think Cure Light, Cure Moderate, Cure Serious, Cure Critical) that increase the effect or efficacy.

Summation
I love(d) RoleMaster because it gave our group the flexibility to really play the characters we wanted, inspired by whatever array of sources and our creativity, and actually see them take form and matter in both narrative and system. I came of gaming age in a time when you learned a lot of systems because every game had its own, and there were limited worries about modest complexity, engagement in the system or "efficient objective game design" according to whatever internet crackpot happens to be in at the moment, so we didn't know we were supposed to be scared of this system. And so we weren't, and nearly all of my fondest RPG memories are linked to this game and this group.

This is the game I would play if I had time and opportunity at the expense of all other games.

- M

[Grod_The_Giant]

It varies a lot. Right now I'd probably say my number one pick is my d20 Exalted hack, but M&M 3e is pretty much always in the top three.

I think my current favorite is Mutants and Masterminds QDe.

takes MnM3e, and improves it so that versatility and power are two separate things and explain how attacks work in a way that I use to represent anything using it.

I am... Intrigued. Is that a fan rewrite, or...?

[Lord Raziere]

It varies a lot. Right now I'd probably say my number one pick is my d20 Exalted hack, but M&M 3e is pretty much always in the top three.


I am... Intrigued. Is that a fan rewrite, or...?

Yeah fan rewrite:
check it out

its a little weird if your used to MnM3e at first but once you understand it, it works.

And I realise that I forgot to put the Strategist limitations in, which is more what this is about. These characters all have limited ability to interact with the world.

A Strategist can, but if it's outside their role they're bad at it. At the worst it gets to 'severe dyspraxia combined with chronic fatigue' levels. Some can manage showering or putting on pants in a day, but not both (fine for those who are mongeese or bakeries, a bit of an issue for the human ones).

Sir Hopsalot has limited intelligence, a small size, and no hands. Your average game assumes you can open doors without resorting to superpowers.

The intelligent blueberry muffin can't do anything except exist and think. Even games that don't assume you can open doors assume you can interact in some way (plus it's the classic example of how flexible GURPS is).

oh well.

in that case, MnM QDe handles it by......kind of not handling it I guess? there is nothing saying a blueberry muffin can't exist and think, but if they're not a superhero level then they're probably kind of a background thing. no need to mechanically represent what it isn't, so its probably just an NPC. but what do you use the smart muffin for? if it can't interact with any thing, its just a thinking object and doesn't really need mechanical representation.

Sir Hopsalot is probably also an NPC then, but it still can represent the speed. the question is what do you use sir Hopsalot for? do the PC's need to catch Sir Hopsalot for some reason? is he the pet of a scientist who using sir Hopsalot for an completely ethical experiment and he just escaped one day so he needs to be found and returned to his owner? now I'm imagining Sir Hopsalot is the pet of a scientist trying to make mass-produced FTL for humanity is a superhero setting and Sir Hopsalot was the result of one his experiments going wrong.

I think for the Excrucian thats just a complication of "Highly Limited to their Role". so whenever it appropriate for that to come up, it comes up in exchange for a hero point, much like a fate's aspect but only for negative things.

[Telok]

Favorite? Right game for the right thing.

Paranoia for comedy. Traveller for SF. Champions for supers. Pendragon for knights in shining armor. DtD40k7e for gonzo mashup action hero junk. Risus for rules light. AD&D for nostalgia. The current flavor of D&D if I don't want to be the GM again.

[Scots Dragon]

Probably Mutants & Masterminds, with 2nd Edition slightly edging out 3rd Edition. I like both, but I feel the former handles street-level stuff a little better, given the sneak attack feat and a few other similar features.

A few others have mentioned its benefits, and the benefits of the pretty similar DC Heroes RPG.

I don't use it for everything, and will use other games where they might be more appropriate, but if I have an default go-to it's Mutants & Masterminds.

[olskool]

I have two I play a lot.

The Design Mechanism's MYTHRAS:

A BRP-based fantasy system that is a Skill-based percentile game with 6 different magic types including a well-thought-out DIVINE MAGIC system (Theism) where ANYONE (yes even fighter types) can join a Cult and receive magic. A very good Shamanic/Animism magic for summoning spirits and entities to do your bidding. Folk Magic for minor spells, Sorcery for more powerful magic that can be scaled by the caster, and magic of Mysticism (the monk-like ability to alter your body, climb, jump, and even walk on water). Finally, we add back the older editions of Runequest's Rune Magic as well (special powers from artifacts and attuning Runes- magical symbols that even the gods draw power from).
The system is Skill-based with two Characteristics combined making your base chance for skills. Character generation is lifepath-based. Armor absorbs damage and CON provides your Hit Points. The system uses Special Maneuvers to make combat exciting and every monster has character stats, motivations, and the ability to improve its skills and characteristics. The system gives you a lot of choices and doesn't limit you to a single class. You CAN have a spell-slinging, sword-swinging, Divinely inspired Priest without any issues in the system.



Game Designer's Workshop's Twilight2000/Dark Conspiracy (with V2.2 rules system):

The games I run the most are either Merc style games or X Files meets Constantine meets the Last Witch Hunter type horror-action games. The system is GDW's older (now available from Far Future Enterprises) D20 ROLL UNDER system where you combine one or more Characteristic scores (STR, INT, CHA, etc...) ranging from 1 to 10 [and averaged together] with a Skill (also rated from 1 to 10). The two stats form a Target Number for an AVERAGE Task. We incorporate TRAVELLER'S Task Difficulty Levels into our V2.2 hybrid rules. We use 5e's ADVANTAGE & DISADVANTAGE system (called Boons & Banes after Mongoose Traveller's same system) but because you roll UNDER (like a percentile system) the versions are REVERSED (ADVANTAGE takes the LOWER die rolled while DISADVANTAGE takes the higher). We add special maneuvers for combat when you score an Outstanding Success roll. The system is also life path based (straight from TRAVELLER) and classless. You can build basically any type of character you want to play. Combat is fast and brutal and we adopted the later TW2K13's Coolness Under Fire as a fear mechanic to evoke the more horror-oriented aspects of the game.

Both games are medium crunch but very intuitive since they use a universal mechanic for resolution. There are no dump stats because Characteristic scores DIRECTLY influence skills in BOTH systems. Both systems also control both "power creep" and "lethality" very well.

[RedMage125]

Most of my gaming experience comes in the form of various editions of D&D. That's what I started on, that's what's been the easiest to find groups for over the years. Of the other systems that I have an interest in, like L5R, Werewolf: The Apocalypse (playing with dice, not LARPing), and Song of Ice & Fire RPG, I've had trouble finding enough like-interested people to make a group. Shadowrun I tried playing once, spent 5 hours making a character, and then the GM, of all people, bailed on the rest of us and the game never got started.

So, my "whys":

As a Player: D&D 5e. It's a close win over 3.5e, because I enjoy 3.5e, but for me, the simple elegance of it wins me over. The fact that I don't have to wait until 6th or 7th level to have my character be the cool thing I imagined. It's fun, and less irritating to explain to new players, which there are a lot of. The ease of finding a group also factors in to this edging out over 3.5e on my list.

As a Game Master: D&D 4e, hands-down. The system was so easy to run. I never had any trouble making the game "feel like D&D" to my players, I even changed the minds of a few "h4ters" who I got to agree to give it a shot. Running this game feels drastically different than running any other edition I have run, I will say that. I really feel like I'm operating with the "lines of code" of a system, but encounter building, the flexibility of the system, how easy it is to just work on the fly with less preparation...everything about this edition makes it a DM's dream come true. Except maybe how long combat takes. But I used to play in 6-7 hour blocks.

Favorite non-D&D system: I've kind of got no choice but to say Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Just because most of the other games I played (like Star Wars d20 and Saga Edition) were basically D&D, and I did get to play this one for several weeks back in the early 2000s. I've never even gotten one session of Shadowrun, L5R. I like the idea that attributes and skills are not inherently tied together, and have co-opted that idea for D&D. So using Intimidate to imply a threat uses Manipulation, but bodily lifting someone to Intimidate them uses Strength, but both use the intimidation skill. I found it very flexible.

[Dimers]

I like the idea that attributes and skills are not inherently tied together, and have co-opted that idea for D&D. So using Intimidate to imply a threat uses Manipulation, but bodily lifting someone to Intimidate them uses Strength, but both use the intimidation skill.

I backport that into D&D when I (rarely) run games. Trying to impress someone using obscure knowledge? Gimme a Charisma/Arcana check. Need to stay still a long time to stay unnoticed? Constitution/Stealth. And so on. It's easy to do.

My favorite game is D&D 4e. I love high-fantasy high-cooperation tactical combat. That's all.

[asaadrehman]

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is one of my favorite roleplaying games. I start the thread with a reason to get to know the list of people's favorite games and I can also try those ones. Role-playing games are one of my favorites and the reason is that here we can explore a whole new world. Meet with new people through invite options and do many other things that would kill our boredom in no time. If a person hasn't played any role-playing game yet, I suggest you try it once. It would make a fan.

[LecternOfJasper]

Hmmmm, my favorite to play would probably be 5e, because it is somewhat simple, people I play with tend to understand what the game is about and lean into it, and there's a lot of good content being made for it.

My favorite to look at and read about is definitely 3.5e, as there's a lot of good content in those books, and a lot of interesting things you can do with it.

My favorite to draw inspiration from is Godbound, the Demigod game, as the ideas and abilities in it are really quite good, and it is fun to build characters for, but the core system is really odd, critical information is often buried, and the combat isn't terribly enjoyable rom either side of the screen.

Numenera was in the same niche as Godbound, where it has a lot of cool ideas that I want to explore, but with a different baseline for achieving results. I've read through a lot of d6 and dice pool games as well, and those always seemed to be horribly convoluted to the point where I can't convince anyone to play them (except Mouseguard, that was fun).

So, naturally, I'm making my own lighter generic system incorporating the pieces from Shadowrun and Numenera that I like so I don't have to deal with the nightmarish amount of stuff in Shadowrun.

[Eldan]

'what if Terminator was Cthulhu').

I don't know that one I think and I'm intrigued. Which one is that?

[Eldan]

Okay, throwing out some wide ranging ideas here, can it represent:

An intelligent blueberry muffin? Not a psionic or magical one, just an intelligent one.

Sir Hopsalot, the Relativistic Rabbit? (In other words a rabbit with enough super speed to reach at least a significant fraction of c.)

An Excrusian Strategist? (Nice grab bag of things here, you need the ability to self-ressurect, the ability to be really good within your rough role, a personalised ability to destroy stuff, your own personal Not-home formed out of the void that existed before Creation, the ability to travel to said void, power over a specific category of the nonexistent, and the ability to sense, travel to, and enhance the bits of Creation you personally Treasure.)

I've honestly found every system except Fudge to have an issue with some kind of character concept, so I'm very skeptical. Although that doesn't make it bad, focus can really help a game run better.

Don't forget "an entirely normal guy with no powers or many special skills" and then still have them able to contribute to a party of superpowered beings.


Edit: I guess I should also answer. So, as I've played more games, I've increasingly come to the conclusion that I like settings, and I like systems, but for very few games, I like both. Eberron and Planescape are fine worlds, if you like that kind of thing, and D&D 3.5 is okay and I know it well enough to mostly run it with minimal preparation, but it's not really my kind of thing anymore. FATE is a great system, probably my favorite, but I don't know a setting specifically written for it that I really like, so I mostly homebrew for it. Degenesis may be my favorite world, but it comes with a dice pool system that isn't horrible, but occasionally quite clunky.

The one exception I can think of is Unknown Armies. Which is a game where everything is astoundingly well integrated. Character creation and stats are amazingly laid out and perfectly based on the setting. In a setting about extremely traumatized people slowly losing their connection to reality and learning magic in the process, every single roll you do is based on that idea. Your basic stats are different kinds of traumas that make you better and worse at some things, your magic is restored most easily by being really obsessive and ritualistic about things that don't make sense to anyone else and every story arc is very likely to change deep things about your character and add new traumas and neuroses on them in exchange form magical power. And it has great writing and worldbuilding on top of that.

[Anonymouswizard]

I don't know that one I think and I'm intrigued. Which one is that?

Fate of Cthulhu. Bare in mind that it has some issues.

[SimonMoon6]

Okay, throwing out some wide ranging ideas here, can it [DCHRPG] represent:

An intelligent blueberry muffin? Not a psionic or magical one, just an intelligent one.

Yeah, easy.

DEX: 0, STR: 0, BODY: 1
INT: 2, WILL: 2, MIND: 2
and (assuming it has free will as opposed to being a programmed robot):
INFL: 1 AURA: 1 SPIRIT: 1

And then throw in some disadvantages (no limbs, no mouth, no sensory apparatus, tasty, etc).

Sir Hopsalot, the Relativistic Rabbit? (In other words a rabbit with enough super speed to reach at least a significant fraction of c.)

No problem. A speed of c is about 29 in DC Heroes if I recall correctly, so you just need Superspeed: 29 to get to c and slightly less if you only want to be close to the speed of light.

An Excrusian Strategist? (Nice grab bag of things here, you need the ability to self-ressurect,

That's the (badly misnamed) power Invulnerability in DC Heroes. (It should've been called Immortality, but oh well...)

the ability to be really good within your rough role,

Not sure what that encompasses, but if it's just being better than normal at something you're normally only okay at, then the power "Power Reserve" can boost up any minor ability to any ridiculous level.

a personalised ability to destroy stuff,

I'm not sure what you mean by "personalized" but destroying stuff is easy.

your own personal Not-home formed out of the void that existed before Creation,

The Headquarters advantage.

the ability to travel to said void,

Dimension Travel (limited to just that one dimension and limited to just travel and not summoning).

power over a specific category of the nonexistent,

So... a power that doesn't do anything?

and the ability to sense, travel to, and enhance the bits of Creation you personally Treasure.)

There are lots of sense powers. "Remote Sensing" limited to only those areas is possible. Travel is always easy (Teleport or Dimension Travel). And enhancing other things? Enhancement is a power that does exactly that (though the default version is supposed to be used on other characters, it would be easy to add a Bonus that it works on things as well as characters).

Don't forget "an entirely normal guy with no powers or many special skills" and then still have them able to contribute to a party of superpowered beings.

A badly made character will be a badly made character in any setting or system. But if you want to create a character that has nothing but, say, Wealth (which seems to fit your criteria), that could be a useful character, just not in combat. Or someone who's really good at Charisma checks... yeah, they could really be useful in a DCHRPG game. I mean, the system is made so that Batman... weak, pathetic, useless Batman... is able to contribute alongside the Justice League, even though he's outclassed by even Aquaman, much less Superman. So, yeah, useless ordinary humans can contribute well in a DCHRPG game. Even Black Canary without her sonic scream can do okay, as long as she's not sitting next to the best of the Justice League.

[elros]

I have heard of Mutants and Masterminds but never read or played it. I played a fair amount of Champions in the 80s (as both a player and a GM), and loved character creations but found combat lasted way too long. I also thought that the game mechanics lent itself to abuse, and that some character types were did not fit well into the system.

How did M&M play? What are the advantages to their system, especially if people are not familiar with the d20 system to begin with?

[Pauly]

For setting Space 1889. The original edition was very clunky mechanically and the new version is much better. I never had a campaign using the setting where people failed to have a lot of fun.

For mesh of setting and rules, Flashing Blades. Once you get that it’s the game of the movie of the book that’s sort of kind of based on history it runs very smoothly and intuitively.

For versatility GURPS. GURPS falls apart the further you get from real world physics, but any genre that is based on having real world physics it gets the job done. The best system I’ve used for shifting genres mid campaign.

The game I’ve read the rules for but haven’t played that seems most interesting - Rolemaster.

[Lord Raziere]

I have heard of Mutants and Masterminds but never read or played it. I played a fair amount of Champions in the 80s (as both a player and a GM), and loved character creations but found combat lasted way too long. I also thought that the game mechanics lent itself to abuse, and that some character types were did not fit well into the system.

How did M&M play? What are the advantages to their system, especially if people are not familiar with the d20 system to begin with?

Never played Champions so I can't really compare.

MnM's advantages are mainly that its very good for superheroics and covers a lot of ground in the Marvel/DC/Anime kinds of action-style. like it has a default PL of 10 which is world-saving heroes, you can go down for PL8 to be street heroes or up to PL 12 or higher to be like, galaxy saviors. for certain powers that require flexibility have arrays and variable powers for them but its recommended up front in the book that you be careful with variable in particular.

the 3e version mostly had problems in that you have to budget your points between deciding whether to have good defenses and stats and whether to have the powers you want for your concept, which isn't fun. QDe's improvement is that I just focus on making the character, not worrying whether its optimally effective by doing some things to make sure I don't need to split the points up because there are separate pools for separate things and some default stats that scale with PL without any points involved, because if your playing 3e, you scaled your stats with PL anyways to make they remained effective so it was basically a tax.

[Pex]

It used to be Pathfinder 1E, but from repeated use and a chance of comparison 5E has won me over. This is due to:

1) Being less complex in creating a character.
2) Being less complex in creating humanoid NPCs with levels in something when I DM.
3) Fewer fiddly bits to keep track. Plus numbers do exist in 5E but less frequent. Advantage/Disadvantage plays easier than hunting for every plus or minus 1. Even 5E adding a die is easier than hunting for plus numbers.
4) Complete freedom of PCs to move however far they can and do any action they want to do, including interrupting movement.
5) Class conveniences such as cantrips for spellcasters and warriors have no penalty to combat for having more than one attack or even moving.
6) Improved Vancian spellcasting such that you only need to prepare a spell once but can cast it as many times as you want and can instead of needing to prepare a spell more than once to cast it more than once.

Pathfinder 1E does have things I like better than 5E. The major things being the skill system and point buy ability score generation. A minor thing is feats being separate from ability score increase. I can still enjoy a Pathfinder game.

[Telwar]

Mechanically, it's a three way split between 4e, PF2, and the FFG/Edge Star Wars rpg.

4e took the mess of 3.5 and made a very balanced and logical game for dungeon crawling. Having the actor make the roll feels elegant compared to random saves or attacks. It also decisively resolved the martial/caster problem that was satisfying for mostly martial players and not really satisfying for mostly caster players. Math issues (ironically, on an edition that claimed to get the math right!) and the requirement for a character builder legitimately hurt it. But I would happily play again.

PF2 takes a lot of the lessons from 4e and uses them in a manner that alleviates the "zomg I don't have spell slots (crying)" complaints. Words mean things, like in 4e, and the developers respect the players and GM's time by actually writing rules. I would love to play this.

The FFG/Edge Star Wars game was a hell of a lot of fun. It has a lot of character customization potential, and is generally well written. I also got to build very customizable guns and other weapons, which filled a nice itch. The weird dice are a bit of a turnoff, but do make it easier to do the "fail with benefits" and "success with consequences" that is really hard to do with plain number systems.


Now, for setting? Shadowrun. It's not just because I'm in the setting as a (dead) NPC, but it's a living breathing setting that's been going for thirty years at this point, which is hard to beat. And who doesn't love to have an elf shooting at a drone with an AK-47?

[Grod_The_Giant]

if your playing 3e, you scaled your stats with PL anyways to make they remained effective so it was basically a tax.

After seeing how nicely the auto-scaling stuff has worked in Ex20, the next time I run M&M I'm thinking of giving out defences and attack bonuses for frees and just cutting the starting points back a bit. Having 100pp to spend feels less like a tax than having 150pp but knowing that 50pp are required to go to defenses in one way or another.

[Easy e]

This is a hard question. I prefer more "free-form" style of games so my mind goes more towards things like 2d20, Powered by the Apocalypse, and Fudge/Fate style games. Things that are more narrative driven than rules driven. I would play Lasers and Feelings over GURPS any day of the week.

However, no matter the mechanics I have had great and less great games with them all. Mechanics do not make the game great, your fellow players and GM do. If the others are not into it..... the game sucks. This is especially true for the GM, but applies to all players.