Hey everyone. So my group has been interested in trying some new rpgs. They're newer players, and I've told them that there's things other than D&D and Pathfinder, and that's perked their interest.
So what is everyone's favorite rpg system? Some you might recommend, or ones to avoid?
Depends on what you like and what sort of game you'd be interested in. Barring a few examples (FATAL, RaHoWar, Dungeon World, etc), most rpgs have some merit to at least some people, and what's an unfun chore to you could be someone else's favorite.
I like gurps and Runequest 6 for low fantasy stuff, and Fate and Wulin for crazier, high flying stuff. I've also heard savage worlds is nice.
>>47828968
>So what is everyone's favorite rpg system?
D&D 5e.
I've tried 3.PF, GURPS, FATE, Apocalypse World, and smaller indie games like Engine Heart and Magical Burst, but 5e is the one I keep coming back to and enjoy playing/running the most.
>>47829175
Really? How come? I've played it and its alright, but it struck me as more just competent than really great
>>47828968
98% of my rpg experience is with d20 systems the other 2% is split betwen werewolf: the apocalypse, call of cthulu 5e, L5R, and All Flesh Must Be Eaten
So...
Favorite played system: Fantasycraft
Favorite non-played system: GURPS
Favorite rpg moment ever: Playing All Flesh Must Be Eaten with my friends, we were playing ourselves.
>>47829240
I think it has to do with how smooth it is in-play. Everything is basically always d20 + proficiency + attribute, DCs are easy to think up on the fly, and advantage/disadvantage are easy to work with.
On top of that, the Monster Manual has a ton of stat blocks to use for the NPC/monster side of things, and the DMG has enough variant rules that I can change the feel of a game as a DM pretty easily. It's also relatively simple to homebrew stuff for it to fit a campaign or player desire.
The amount of people playing it online now helps as well, I never have to worry about not being in a game or being unable to find decent-ish players to run for.
It's not the perfect system by a mile but it's what I've come to enjoy the most.
>>47828968
Savage Worlds. Does everything I want it to do, easy to homebrew for, generic mechanics I can use for just about everything, and the small size of the book just makes the whole thing really easy to go through and bring wherever I need to go.
5e, GURPS, and Degenesis. Has a little of everything: solid level-based play (5e), point-buy with insane complexity (GURPS) and a more simple but adequately crunchy success-based dice pool system (Degenesis).
If I had to pick one for eternity, probably GURPS, but only because it's good for everything (if you have an advanced math degree) and still quite versatile if you don't (like me).
GURPS is easy as fuck to play in a low fantasy setting, and even with magic the base stuff it's really easy to teach.
>>47828968
For fantasy OSR really has a lot of cool stuff. Beyond The Wall being my favourite for its simplicity, taking collective worldbuilding and plot/story origins from more narrative stuff and putting it in an elegant and simple system. Meshes well with most other material around, easy to port modules from other osr stuff into.
For scifi it gets more varied. 3:16 Carnage for military action and dramatic bad times bug hunts. Diaspora for space opera, but I'm thinking of doing some strange things to stars without number to make it more interesting, maybe mashing the creation system from the former into the later.
Post Apocalypse is apocalypse world, all day, every day. Forces melodrama and interparty driven storylines, evocative character building and moodyness.
Dogs In The Vineyard for westerns. The dice mechanics of escalation and gambling work very well.
The Quiet Year for map making and easing people into the idea of rpgs if they haven't played one.
My favorite is Burning Wheel.
However I recommend you look into Fiasco. Its built for picking up and playing, however the rules are more for free-er form storytelling, and its a little less of a "game" in that its rules aren't meant to pick out a clear winner.
Its meant to tell stories.
>>47828968
Unknown Armies. Because you can summon historical figures to be your Stand, use your keen fashion sense to turn into a swan, curse somebody to have cars swerve towards them in the streets, or soon come to realize that the blood inside of you wants to be free.
Fate Core or GUMSHOE.
>>47829142
>(FATAL, RaHoWar, Dungeon World, etc)
>implying DW belongs on the same list as those two things
Jesus christ, you guys are hard on Dungeon World.
>>47829375
Same feeling. I have come to appreciate 5e most of all because as far as imperfections go I really like 5th editions the most out of all systems I ran and played so far.
No such thing as the perfect tomato sauce, know what I mean.
>>47831709
Eh, I kid. I really do dislike it, though. Its a clunky hybrid of OSR and modern narrative design, and does neither justice. Its also simplistic where it should be detailed, crunchy where it should be simple, and often needlessly restrictive
>>47829142
I love RuneQuest 6, though in July it transitions to being Mythras when the design mechanism loses the RuneQuest license.
Speaking of which, the free Mythras rules are literally 34 pages long and a good introduction to a much larger and crunchier system.
Gamist/Tactical/d20: 5e
Narrativist/One-Shot/Media Tie-In: Dogs in the Vineyard
Simulationist: Actually going camping
Warhammer Fantasy 2e, for playing normal people in a horrible dark fantasy world. The percentile system lets you always know your chances and degrees of success/failure give you a good grasp how well you did. Also they make a "success but" and "fail but" possible.
Atomic Highway, for a rules light post apocalypse game. It uses a d6 pool system similiar to shadowrun, 456 are successes and you need x of them to achieve y.
Savage Worlds for everything else minus horror.
Cthulhu ruleset for horror.
FFG Star Wars for well Star Wars. The fancy dice give you a system in wich you dont just succeed or not, you can fail but or succeed but.
Can anyone recommend a simple scifi system that can handle a star wars/ firefly sort of feel? Just looking for something to play with my group while the other half are away for our next session.
>>47832651
#justiceforRQ6
>>47835317
Lady Blackbird?
>>47835317
>star wars
The Fantasy Flight games are pretty good.
> firefly
I'd use Traveller for that. There's also a couple of official RPGs for it, one awful, one more-or-less playable.
If you want to do both Star Wars and Firefly, maybe FF's Edge of the Empire? It's about smugglers, bounty hunters, and other shady types in the Star Wars universe.
https://rpggeek.com/browse/rpgmechanic
https://rpggeek.com/browse/rpggenre
pick the stuff you like from both links and then search on google as some example:
intitle:rpggeek "dice (percentile)" "Fantasy (Low Fantasy)"
the Symbol - before something remove links with the word
So...
intitle:rpggeek "dice (percentile)" "Generic / Universal" -"Class Based (Pilot," -"Level Based (Earn XP"
Remove rpg with classes and level
I like Fantasy Craft the best out of the ones I've played. It's like 3.pf but with everything I didn't like fixed.
My least favourite is D&D 5e, because it is boring.
TORCHBEARER
>>47835317
Stars Without Number. Very easy to pick up and tell a fun story with. I run it with all my new players.
Mechanics?
ORE, Fate, CoC
One shots?
Dread, Don't Rest Your Head, Everyone is John, Lasers & Feelings
Settings?
Degenesis, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Unknown Armies, Reign
>>47833297
>cthulhu ruleset for horror
>savage worlds not for horror
What the fuck are you talking about son, BRP sucks dog cock by comparison
I've been reading into this and felt I should contribute and such. So here's what I've played, I'm pretty new to RPG as I've only played
Dungeons and Dragons e3, e5, e2
Anima: Beyond Fantasy
and Dead of Winter
Now I've never had a great DM but Dead of Winter removes the need for a great DM which is aweseome. Anima is hyper fantasy with a lot of lore so I reccomend that you more veterans try it instead of a first timer. Though the classes and races are super unique and I like them. My favorite edition out of DnD was 2nd edition.
Thanks for all the suggestions so far guys!
>>47835317
Open D6 space.
>>47828968
Can anyone recommend a decent superhero based rpg? It doesn't seem to be a particularly common setting and I can't find anything relevant at brick and mortar stores.
>>47841151
Champions for really crunchy, Mutants and Masterminds for medium crunch.
>>47828968
HERO for its pure versatility, especially for superhero games (Champions) but also for others.
In my opinion, far more versatile than GURPS straight out of the box, but I'm not going to argue the case! ;-)
Traveller for most other settings, but I'm also partial to a bit of CoC.
>>47841151
I've heard good things about Marvel Heroic.
Had a few sessions of Worlds in Peril, was fun, but it's a *World game.
Strike! could possibly handle it pretty well imo, depending on your scale and general theme.
I've only played DnD 4e, Cyberpunk some edition, Runequest some edition, Fallout RPG and some Dark Heresy. I've GM'd bunch of sessions for 4e.
Every single time we had so much limitations or the players were so unimaginative that I barely got any grasp on any systems and never got to see the reasons why they would be fun. To this day I am jealous of all the imaginative PnP adventures people share around here since I never got to experience anything.
If I had to pick, I guess I would go with 4th edition DnD, since I know it the best, but its not like I have many references for anything else either.
>>47840012
Top kek.
Savage Worlds is shit as horror.
>>47828968
OpenD6, but I prefer its easier-to-play and easier-to-adopt cousin, MiniSix.
It's good and basic, but it's also super-easy to write up setting-specific skill-sets, spells, and I've even been able to write up a few modules: like an Iaijutsu and Western-style quick-draw gunfight module.
It's really easy to play entirely by itself, but it's also REALLY adaptable, and my page of what alternate rules it offers and I use and what few houserules I use (my group always has at least one or two houserules per system, so it doesn't speak too much against the system that I have one or two, in my opinion) is really small.
RuneQuest 6 follows closely behind it.
>>47835317
Star Wars has a WEG-made OpenD6 hack made specifically for it.
>>47830497
You sir have great taste, Beyond the Wall is fantastic
Has anyone actually played that Rune Quest? It looks hyper fun, a more thorough and story based DnD. I'm considering DMing for it.
Anyone here ever made a Halo pathfinder/RPG campaign?
>>47845894
would the balance be kept if I stayed with the basic rules of Open D6 Space, but used the simplified combat rules from mini six? (not OP, but a dif anon who plans to run a game with this system.)
>>47848540
From what I understand, they're intended to be compatible both ways. There's a Mass Effect OpenD6 hack that uses defense stats that are closer to MiniSix's static stats than they are to Od6's.
>>47848578
can you explain the dodge, parry stuff in Open d6. it confuses me. Do characters only have a defense of 10, until there turn comes around and they declare their defense option and make their attack?
>>47832490
It's such a nothing-special system to me. One of it's biggest selling points that the fanboys never shut up about, how it handles success and failure, isn't even close to unique
>>47848701
Your Block defense is your Brawling skill dice x3, plus any pips after. Your Dodge defense is your Ddoge skill dice x3, plus pips. Your Parry defense is your Weapon skill dice x3, plus pips (it is not specified whether or not your Parry defense is the weapon skill of your best one, or your skill of the weapon you're currently wielding. I prefer the latter). Your Soak is your Might attribute dice x3, plus pips, plus armor value, and plus any magical, super-tech, or other Armor Value bonus.
Using Full Dodge just adds 10 to their Dodge score, plus whatever else they'd get from cover or whatever.
>>47836716
>>47838576
>>47840995
>>47845990
Thanks for that guys, D6 space seems pretty good. Did anyone have any other lists of the example meta powers? The ones there leave a bit to be desired.
>>47848897
Get the WEG Star Wars d6. It's Od6 Space, but with Star Wars in mind. It has a huge list of the powers, because instead of using the more vague meta powers, it uses the Force, which is basically the same thing but better-written (and unfortunately missing the "make your own spell," stuff).
>>47848883
I meant when is blocking and parrying declared? Is it when they are about to get hit by an attack or when their own turn comes up.
>>47848948
Parrying is what the guy hitting you has to beat if you're holding a weapon. Blocking is what the guy hitting you has to beat if you're not holding a weapon. It replaces the generic target number in other OpenD6 games, so you don't need to declare if you're parrying or blocking. Or you can declare that instead of hitting your Parry or Block, they need to hit your Static Dodge (or you can give up your actions for the round to do Full Dodge, but you don't NEED to do Full Dodge to have enemies hit your Dodge).
My group and I also say that if you're using a weapon that could conceivably just hard-block the one being swung at you instead of needing to parry it (or if you're using a shield, as one of our few houserules is that shields add to your Parry/Block instead of your Soak like the core game says), you can elect to use Block instead of Parry or Dodge if you so choose. You just need to say that that's the TN you want the guy swinging at you to beat.
It's just what they need to beat to hit you.
>>47849033
thanks. how effective have you found the 'funds' trait to be for equipment and items. I like the idea but haven't had a chance to put it into use.
>>47849264
I haven't found it all that bad, but honestly it's because my games have taken part in settings where I have a slightly-more-specific cost system (in which case their "funds," are just a really good guideline), or it was in a setting where cost didn't actually matter that much.
It's not that bad. It requires a little work from you and also a little bit of trust for your players not to go "Wait, I can afford $$ stuff, right? So can I just get literally all $$ items in the game at once?"
>>47845894
This was REALLY good for that time I did a stone-aged fantasy game. All I needed to do was come up with a more detailed list of gear and specify what materials were used in what fashion, but that was just as much world-building as it was twiddling with the mechanics.
