Hey /tg/. I'm a fresh newbie to PnP tabletop games who knows very little about tabletop systems as a whole. I know the more prominent fantasy systems are D&D and PF. I have a few questions.
1) What's the main differences between the various DnD editions? How is PF different?
2) Aside from fantasy systems, what are some of the more genre-specific systems? What are the more prominent universal systems?
I can't speak for any D&D before 3.5 since I haven't played them, but:
3.5: Quite crunchy when it comes to rules, poorly balanced, tons and tons of supplements.
PF: 3.5.5, essentially. They try to fix things and it doesn't work.
4: Plays a bit like a video game, but is a bit better balanced and keeps different classes interesting and demands teamwork. It's unpopular because it really diverges from previous editions, so it has few players.
5: Awful, dumbed down with incredibly boring mechanics. It's easy to get into, but there is no depth. This is to D&D what HoMM VI was to HoMM, or some better analogy.
If you want to play a fantasy game, you are better off with:
Fantasy Craft for a game with tons of character options and great mechanics. Super easy to homebrew things. This is the best system out there.
Dungeon World for a (MUCH) more story based experience with very simple mechanics.
Anima and Exalted for much higher power games. 13th Age and Savage Worlds I've heard are good. I haven't played these, so I can't say much. They seem to be well regarded here.
Song of Swords is a very good simulationist game, especially the combat, but is hard to learn.
Other, genre specific:
GURPS can do any setting.
There are Warhammer 40K games if you like that stuff.
Big Motherfucking Crab Truckers pretty specific.
Vampire the Masquerade is good if you like that shit.
Same with WoD.
TL:DR play Fantasy Craft.
>>45926530
I've only played 5e but from what I've gathered the main difference is the amount that rules govern play. 5e is lighter rules like earlier editions were and 4e has a rule for just about everything.
>Correct me if I'm wrong
>I'm sure you guys will
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editions_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_role-playing_games_by_name
>>45926746
How does 4e plays like a video game exactly?
>>45926840
Every class has powers that are daily, at-will, per combat, ect. To me it feels like playing an MMO. I don't have a ton of experience with playing the system, but I read the book.
1e: Built out of a mod for a medieval wargame with large amounts of its rules created ad-hoc during gameplay. It has very disconnected mechanics and can be quite lethal. Play requires a love of tables.
2e: See above but with more a wider breadth of content.
3/3.5e/Pathfinder: Much more centralized mechanics and a huge variety of content but, ultimately, plays very poorly with how the mechanics actually interact. Has a very strong character creation minigame due to the sheer amount of content and how classes, races, prestige classes, and so on interact. Pathfinder is built on 3.5e's open-license version and is mostly the same at its core.
4e: The most centralized edition, mechanically, and by far the most balanced. All classes run on an identical powers mechanic based on frequency of use (at-will, per-encounter, dailies). Very tactical and technical in combat. It has the most "heroic fantasy" in feel.
5e: Less centralized than 4e but much more mechanically consistent and balanced than 3e. It has a much smaller numbers progression than any other edition, and mathematical progression is disconnected from magic items almost completely. Its content breadth is more limited than other editions due to age and a much slower release schedule, but the content that is released for it has been very solid thus far. The limited math progression makes it fairly easy to homebrew for, and its light design makes it somewhat modular--you can add subsystems to play to fit a specific genre without the game collapsing in on itself.
>>45927073
Hey, OP?
This is the only honest reply you have gotten in this thread and the PF thread.
Thanks, anons. Seems like the editions pre-3.5 see very little playtime. 3.5e seems to have pretty in-depth chargen and pretty crunchy, rules, whereas 4e is the complete opposite and most things are homogenized, whereas 5e seems to strike a balance between the 4e and 3.5e?
>>45927732
Pretty much, but 5e is incredibly shit. Play Fantasy Craft instead.
>>45927749
>>45926746
Stop shilling your game that no one plays.
>>45927884
No.
Let this old neckbeard gamer take you back to the Before Times of D&D (and tabletop RPGs in general):
OD&D: primitive, clunky, nigh-unplayable
Basic D&D: as above, but at least streamlined and workable. Demi-humans were races and classes, and multiclassing was at first not possible;
1st Edition: a fuckton of ambitious but mishmashed rules that required a fuckton of book-keeping
2nd Edition: see above, but with support from popular TSR-approved paperbacks. Introduced or developed numerous campaign settings (Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Planescape, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms), which is probably 2E's biggest accomplishment
3E: anyone who tells you 3E was crappy has obviously never played anything before. IMO the first cohesive and 'stable' system- until it fell victim to Rifts syndrome (wherein a stable game is totally unbalanced by successively more OP supplements)
4E: tried several new ways of doing things that was reminiscent of CCGs. It's not that the didn't work; they were actually pretty well-executed. It's just that a lot of old school neckbeards like me didn't want to play a fucking CCG masquerading as an RPG
5E: it's like 3E and D&D Basic had a love child together. It is its own grandpa.
I can't speak about many other systems, as I have only played a few. But I can summarize a handful of the older stuff:
Alternity: great for sci-fi, shit for any other setting;
Rolemaster: Also called 'Chartmaster'. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. The only RPG I ever played where players HATED to level up because it required a Ph.D in mathematics to do so;
Champions (original): fun once you get used to it, combat kind of sucks because the initiative system draws things out a lot;
WoD: dear God NO kill it with fire. Not that the system was bad- it was okay- but because of the people that seem to gravitate to it: flirbs, munchkins, emos, and other types of socially and emotionally crippled people. Notable exception: Exalted. Exalted is fucking fun.
>>45928081
Rifts: see above. Core mechanic would have worked if Palladium had left it the Hell alone. Instead they ruined it with wave after wave of progressively more imbalancing expansions
Marvel Superheroes, aka FASERIP: quite possibly the most versatile and solid game mechanic I have ever played. Unfortunately, really only good for superheroes-type campaigns;
Savage Worlds: quite possibly the second-most versatile and solid game mechanic I have ever played. It's main downfall was that it could be very deadly if the GM wasn't careful.
Chaosium Call of Cthulhu: quirky, deadly (of course, it should be all things considered), otherwise a decent system. But pretty much only good for horror settings.
>>45927884
>>45927893
>>45928081
The most unbalanced book in 3.5e's library is the PHB.
>>45928081
>>45928203
Thanks, anon. Would you agree with >>45927732?
