Branching out from 5e

[Zuras]

Not that I know of. I would say they're mostly setting agnostic, but with some alterations for different settings. For example, the six attributes are
Space are Agility, Knowledge, Mechanical, Perception, Strength, Technical
Adventure is Reflexes, Coordination, Physique, Knowledge, Perception, Presence
Fantasy is Agility, Coordination, Physique, Intellect, Acumen, Charisma

And skills change up. It's still setting-agnostic... I could use Fantasy for Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, or Mythic Europe... but it's organized towards genre.

Ok. It sounds very much like a customizable system like Fudge where the GM has to put in significant work to customize it to fit their setting, but should end up fairly straightforward after the setup is done (and far less work then setting things up from scratch).

It seems like the Open d6 audience is pretty limited, then. Even if the system is great, it doesn’t seem like a great option for anyone who hasn’t already played or GMed a decent amount of Star Wars or another already-tuned d6 implementation. I certainly wouldn’t trust myself to customize an unfamiliar engine for a specific setting.

For that reason, when looking at flexible “universal” systems, I feel much more comfortable with something like Fate, where I can concretely express the vibe of the fiction/setting with aspects and run into trouble only when the players aren’t familiar with the genre tropes and conventions.

Fate also has the advantage of lots of inexpensive settings with specific skill trees (Core) or approaches (Accelerated), usually with logic behind the choices. For example, Fight and Shoot might be separate in a combat heavy setting to distinguish different types of combatants, but in a heist focused campaign, only one character in the crew is focused on combat, so the distinction is unnecessary.

There may be similar additional resources for custom d6 and Fudge settings out there, but if so they’re harder to find. Fate settings get slapped with easily searchable labels like “Worlds of Fate” and Savage Worlds customizations are similarly clearly marked. My guess is that Fate has somewhat stolen Fudge’s thunder, and Open d6 just doesn’t have a publisher pushing content for it.

[Easy e]

Thanks for the info on OpenD6; I will try to look into it.

[Razade]

How do Powered by the Apocalypse and Savage Worlds compare to Fate in terms of handling meta-currencies and narrative mechanics? My last Fate campaign there were several players who were fine with Fate but objected to SW and PbtA systems.

The big thing is PbtA isn't a system, it's a design philosophy. There's no inherent mechanic that ties every game together, some games don't even really have mechanics in a crunchy sort of way. Plenty of them have similar themes in design, but that's what makes it a design philosophy and not a system in and of itself. Every game under the PbtA umbrella handles meta-currency differently so if your players objected to one game, it may be that there's another game under the umbrella that will serve their interests better and it's hard to pinpoint how the game handled it without knowing which game it is.

[Witty Username]

Cyberpunk
Traveller
World of Darkness
Call of Chultuhu
And Scion is pretty neat but I am not sure about its player base, since I don't hear about it as much.

All of them are pretty good systems to play: simpler than D&D generally, more open to variety for the most part(Cyberpunk will obviously be more restrictive than Traveller), and tend to do the genres and themes that D&D is less good at.

That being said, this is with D&D as part of my stuff, if your looking for a straight replacement for D&D you may need something more like Pathfinder or Warhammer, as they would be closer to it. Chultuhu: Dark Ages and Plup Chultuhu mods could probably get you a good way their though.

[Anonymouswizard]

Scion 2e and Trinity Continuum are pretty neat. They're both Storyteller/WoD descendants, but now running on a lighter slightly narrativist system. The big reason to use either over the 1e versions is the Tier and Scale rules, to avoid dice pools getting too big like in high powered CofD or Shadowrun sufficiently powerful characters get Tier (reduces the target number on dice) and/or scale (gives Enhancements, basically bonus successes, in a specific area). So a Nova (superhero) with Speed Scale 4 in a race with a car (Speed Scale 3) driven by a normal person needs a 7 on dice to get a success instead of an 8, and gets two bonus successes so long as at least one of her dice is a 7+. Having 3 more scale is officially an 'I win' button, but unlike Aberrant 1e or Scion 1e there's still a slight chance for the plucky normal to succeed as dice pools max out at 12 (6 Attribute+6 Skill, pretty much everything else gives Enhancements). Aberrant 1e had Mega-Attributes decide who got an 'I win' button whereas Scion 1e gave extra successes that built up to the point that having an extra dot was basically an automatic win (at Legend 5 you can have 7 automatic successes with a dice pool maximum of 10, by Legend 7 your automatic successes can be bigger than any dice pool you build).

Scion is about playing the children/creations/reincarnations/chosen ones of mythological entities in the modern world, and is designed to be relatively rules light and freeform. If one of your Paths (basically character background traits) implies you can get or do something that's supposed to go, although Knacks and Boons can make you better at stuff.

Trinity Continuum is aimed towards science fiction and is more crunchy, with the corebook being about playing people with probability based powers in the modern day. Paths are a bigger part of the game, they're now ranked and gives three dots to spread between four skills and two dots worth of Edges (Merits/Feats) per rank, meaning those choices you made in character creation may impact your growth more. It's big draw is having a ton of settings at various points in it's timeline that touches on different genres, Aeon is about six different genres with a core of military sci-fi focusing on psychics, Aberrant is superheroes, Adventure! is pulp adventure, and the upcoming Anima and Aether are cyberpunk and Steampunk.

[Zuras]

That being said, this is with D&D as part of my stuff, if your looking for a straight replacement for D&D you may need something more like Pathfinder or Warhammer, as they would be closer to it. Cthulhu: Dark Ages and Pulp Cthulhu mods could probably get you a good way there though.

This was more asking for a tour of the sorts of games available now, in five examples. I already have a list of potential D&D 5e replacements to try, including Numenera, 13th Age, Worlds Without Number, and Conan 2d20. Plus whatever comes out of the ORC license as a fork of 5e. I’m honestly pretty satisfied with 5e, but I haven’t really looked around previously beyond Pathfinder and older systems.

[DeMouse]

There are a bunch but my number 1 recommendation would definitely be Edge of the Empire/Genesys. Edge of the Empire is a Star Wars setting RPG and Genesys is a generic version of the same system. It is a great bridge from D&D into more narrative style of games without going whole hog like something like the Powered by the Apocalypse systems. Easy to grasp pickup rules and Edge of the Empire has one of my favourite class systems.
Only downside is that it has unique dice so you will need to use a digital dice roller unless you buy their special dice.

Apocalypse World is an open source narrative RPG that spawned a massive category of games using the same structure (powered by the Apocalypse). Ironically people who have played other TTRPGs might have more trouble with it than people who are completely new to the hobby. While it is very easy to pick up and learn for new players if you come at PBtA games with a D&D mindset you might have trouble getting the most out of it. I know my group really struggled with this.

Paranoia is a ton of fun to play as long as your players can get into the right mind space to do it properly. Maximum backstabbing and shenanigans are encouraged.

Shadowrun has my favourite RPG setting but the rules are a pain to learn so sadly I can't actually recommend it.

Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader are also great if your players are already interested in the Warhammer 40k setting. Dark Heresy in particular I love for how much support there is for randomly generating characters. This is the main system I GM.

[Anonymouswizard]

Actually, because Shadowrun's been brought up a couple of times, I'm going to say it has one really big advantage when branching out from D&D: a roughly similar gameplay structure.

A Shadowrun is, in broad strokes, similar to a D&D dungeon crawl when done in a pink mohawk style. Even mirrorshades shares some broad similarities, but in a pink mohawk style you have the location, a need to explore it to find the treasure, and a bunch of bodies to leave behind on your way. Combine that with the standard fantasy races and it can feel very different while remaining familiar, and with GM buy in characters can forgo the Matrix or Astral Plane (a B&E expert can be specced into dealing with necessary electronics, and smaller Megas won't have as much in the way of spirits or magic security). Then if players are fine you can start to slowly move away by increasing the focus on legwork and consequences.

Rules-wise each edition basically provides something different. I own 3e, 4e, Anarchy, and 6e, and used to own 5e, and honestly see the appeal behind everything except 5e. Both Anarchy and 6e/Sixth World are attempts to streamline the rules including collapsing the old skill list considerably and collapsing most advantages into giving metacurrency. I like them, some people hate them, it took several rounds of errata to make 6e playable, but it's worth finding a breakdown of the editions and picking one you like.

But who doesn't want to play an ork razorgirl?

[Firest Kathon]

1. Das schwarze Auge (The dark eye) - Rules are available for free on the wiki, but are horribly unorganized there. There's quickstart rules available for free as well (not sure about the linking policies here, but you'll find it). Interesting 3d20 mechanic.
2. New Hong Kong Story - Rules available only in German unfortunately, but if you can read it a fun system for less than serious games. Basically you play an actor starring in an action movie (classical Hong Kong action, Wuxia, or other genres).
3. I enjoyed running games with the "Now Playing" rulebook for Fudge. It's a pretty solid implementation to run movie or TV serials as an RPG.

[kyoryu]

For that reason, when looking at flexible “universal” systems, I feel much more comfortable with something like Fate, where I can concretely express the vibe of the fiction/setting with aspects and run into trouble only when the players aren’t familiar with the genre tropes and conventions.

Fate also has the advantage of lots of inexpensive settings with specific skill trees (Core) or approaches (Accelerated), usually with logic behind the choices. For example, Fight and Shoot might be separate in a combat heavy setting to distinguish different types of combatants, but in a heist focused campaign, only one character in the crew is focused on combat, so the distinction is unnecessary.

Fate is my go-to these days, which may be kinda weird coming from a time when GURPS was.

One of the things I really like about Fate is that the default mechanics do a serviceable-to-great job of handling just about any setting - specific hacks can make things better in some cases, but they're almost never absolutely necessary. In most cases, a quick pass at the skill list and you can be off to the races. The way Create Advantage and other mechanics works does a pretty good job of handling how lots of things are portrayed in movies/TV, which is kinda where Fate aims itself.

The big thing is PbtA isn't a system, it's a design philosophy. There's no inherent mechanic that ties every game together, some games don't even really have mechanics in a crunchy sort of way. Plenty of them have similar themes in design, but that's what makes it a design philosophy and not a system in and of itself. Every game under the PbtA umbrella handles meta-currency differently so if your players objected to one game, it may be that there's another game under the umbrella that will serve their interests better and it's hard to pinpoint how the game handled it without knowing which game it is.

That's a good summary. It also means that there's no real "generic PbtA game" you can look to - you have to go to ones for specific genres.

[Zuras]

I grabbed some pdfs online based on the recommendations, and I have to say the number of systems out there available for free download is just staggering.

13th Age, Cypher System, GURPS, and Call of Cthulhu all have free SRDs or QuickStarts available on DriveThruRPG or elsewhere online.

GUMSHOE and Open d6 have free “light” versions as well (Pocket GUMSHOE and Mini Six, respectively).

Dozens of other systems have complete rule books for the full scale system available for free. I picked up Fudge, Worlds Without Number, Godbound, Ironsworn and Fate all for free this way. Granted some of these are older versions or exclude some content compared to the paid version, but the free version of WWN clocks in at over 300 pages.

It took me all of a week to go from not having enough time to run all the D&D modules I own to not having enough time to even read all the RPGs I own. At least I have Hasbro to blame it on.

{update}
My group is still greatly enjoying 5e, so branching out by trying systems that work as one-shots for nights some players can’t make it make the most sense. My current one shot plans are:

OSR dungeon crawl with a minimalist rule set (Knave or Mork Borg)

Fate one shot using Secret Life of Cats

One night playing Goblin Quest to try something really silly.

I also now have vague plans for a short WFRP/Zweihander/Warlock campaign over the summer (we have some former players who will be back from college and then gone again).

I’m still interested in other more divergent systems like Blades in the Dark or something Powered by the Apocalypse, but I’m not confident I could work through any new-system GM issues in a single session.

[Anonymouswizard]

I grabbed some pdfs online based on the recommendations, and I have to say the number of systems out there available for free download is just staggering.

13th Age, Cypher System, GURPS, and Call of Cthulhu all have free SRDs or QuickStarts available on DriveThruRPG or elsewhere online.

GUMSHOE and Open d6 have free “light” versions as well (Pocket GUMSHOE and Mini Six, respectively).

Dozens of other systems have complete rule books for the full scale system available for free. I picked up Fudge, Worlds Without Number, Godbound, Ironsworn and Fate all for free this way. Granted some of these are older versions or exclude some content compared to the paid version, but the free version of WWN clocks in at over 300 pages.

It took me all of a week to go from not having enough time to run all the D&D modules I own to not having enough time to even read all the RPGs I own. At least I Hasbro to blame it on.

Just wait until you find games like Eclipse Phase, where literally everything is free to share no matter where you got it from (although 1e character creation is a pain without Transhuman). It's a pretty cool post apocalyptic kitchen sink cyberpunk setting, but that also means it's pretty much crammed with every cool piece is speculative technology the devs knew of.

But yeah, CC-NC-SA 3.0, so you can download it, share it, remix it, and create entirely new content, but you can't sell anything without negotiating with the devs. It's not as nice as CC-BY, but it's understandable when it's a lot more focused on setting than D&D or Fate is.

[DeMouse]

Just wait until you find games like Eclipse Phase.

Man I really wish my playgroup were interested in Eclipse Phase. The Setting is so interesting.

[LibraryOgre]

Man I really wish my playgroup were interested in Eclipse Phase. The Setting is so interesting.

A number of years ago, I sat down with two literal rocket scientists (I lived in Houston, they're more common there, but both worked for companies that worked for NASA), and we had a bear of a time making characters in Eclipse Phase. One of them even went on to write part of a book for Eclipse Phase! (Justin Kugler wrote part of Panopticon, about different types of habitats).

[Anonymouswizard]

A number of years ago, I sat down with two literal rocket scientists (I lived in Houston, they're more common there, but both worked for companies that worked for NASA), and we had a bear of a time making characters in Eclipse Phase. One of them even went on to write part of a book for Eclipse Phase! (Justin Kugler wrote part of Panopticon, about different types of habitats).

I've puzzled my way through the corebook version, it's not that much more difficult than GURPS. Transhuman also gives a couple of alternative options which are easier, but they're not amazing, and I believe character creation is one of the things 2e is meant to clean up.

Honestly it took me longer to work out 5e Shadowrun, bloody Limits. I also don't think 4e Shadowrun is really that much easier, EP is just sense and not well explained at all.

Hmmm... considering I own two of the Shadowrun family already (and four separate editions of Shadowrun) maybe I should also pick up Equinox and Earthdawn.

[KorvinStarmast]

Due to the recent unpleasantness, my D&D 5e group

I suggest that you check out Delta. Return to the roots that someone with a very organized way of thinking has cleaned up and upgraded.

[Zuras]

I suggest that you check out Delta. Return to the roots that someone with a very organized way of thinking has cleaned up and upgraded.

The amount and quality of OSR stuff I’ve found has left me very uncertain whether I’d rather run a minor mechanical clean-up of one of the pre-3e systems, a total re-work like The White Hack, or a OSR-ified modern system like Five Torches Deep.

On one hand, I don’t have time to do extensive conversions from 1e to something else, but on the other, I don’t want to go back to the time before universal core resolution mechanisms.