Which edition would best fit my playing style?

[tenkar]

Originally Posted by Dausuul

It is by default intended to be a flashy, high-magic game, this is true. However, and rather ironically, it is of all the editions the best suited for low-magic gameplay. (The fact that they hired the designer of Iron Heroes to play a major role in developing 4E might have something to do with that.) The Player's Handbook contains a full complement of martial classes, so you can strip out any or all of the caster classes without trouble, and it is likewise quite easy to do away with magic items. Just hand out a +1 bonus per 5 levels to attacks, damage rolls, and all defenses.

Furthermore, there is virtually none of the mind-bending, plot-wrecking magic that made high-level wizards a DM's nightmare in previous editions - and I'm including BECMI, 1E, and 2E in that. (Can't speak for OD&D since I never played it.) Turning invisible for more than a few seconds is a major job of work in 4E, whereas in previous editions you could do it by 3rd level. Free-range teleportation used to be available by level 9; now you don't get it until level 28. And while resurrection magic still shows up fairly early, it's much easier to remove it from 4E without having PC mortality go through the roof.

As regards racial abilities, the only one that seems overtly magical to me is the eladrin fey step. If you don't like that, ban eladrin, or give them some other racial power instead.

As far as interesting out-of-combat options... I'd say 4E provides fewer of those for the casters, but a whole lot more for everyone else. Have a look at rogue utility powers sometime.

Consider me curious... I'll need to adjust my focus next time I pull my 4e rules out. I tend to forget Mearls designed Iron Heroes.

[CleverNickName]

Originally Posted by Jasperak

I know it is not in your poll; I would recommend BECMI or Labyrinth Lords.

Originally Posted by Clavis

It sounds to me like you want 1991 Rules Cyclopedia D&D, using the optional skill system, weapon mastery rules, and demi-human advancement rules, and perhaps playing with miniatures.

I came here to say this. Ever since the advent of 4th Edition, I've been jonesing for a simpler game to play, myself.

[Gundark]

Originally Posted by Shades of Green

DISCLAIMER: Whiich edition of D&D do you think would best fit my preferences?

Well if your looking at an edition of D&D...then I'd suggest 4th edition....however if we're looking at non D&D games...then you might be happier with Savage Worlds

[MrFilthyIke]

I voted "Other" as I voted for the Rules Cyclopedia.

[pawsplay]

The Rules Cyclopedia would not be a bad choice, but there are some things about it that can be annoying. Right off the bad, the skills system is geared toward wilderness and dungeoneering or fairly challenging tasks; it is pretty weak as far as social skills or crafting, especially as it can be hard to raise skill levels high enough to perform routine tasks without a significant chance of failure. Likewise, thieves start out with pretty poor thieving skills.

The magic weapon spell does not exist in the Rules Cyclopedia. Alignment languages do. It can be a surprising game for a newcomer.

[Rolflyn]

Originally Posted by Shades of Green

3) Mazes and Minotaurs, though this would work best with a Greek, Roman (or a fantasy version of bronze/iron age Canaan) rather than with traditional fantasy. The downside of this means that I'll have to print it by myself (which isn't THAT expensive but IS time-consuming).

How in the world is this the first time I've heard of Mazes and Minotaurs! That game rocks. I just lost a Sunday reading both editions. Thanks.

On topic, I would go with the edition you are most comfortable with. I can wing 3.*e (core) quite easily and can run it rules light. With the right players of course. If your players are rules types that won't let you wing it, you will need to go with something with less rules like C&C or one of the old-school clones.

[JDJblatherings]

I'd give BFRPG a look over. I've used it to play B2, Temple of Elemental Evil and Rappan Athuak all in the same game with very minor math nudging here and there.

[JeffB]

Originally Posted by Rolflyn

How in the world is this the first time I've heard of Mazes and Minotaurs!

Tangent-

Does anyone believe the BS about the author of M&M publishing this in 1972 (stated on cover page of PDF) , that it was the first RPG and "took the gaming world by storm"?

EDIT- There are alot of claims being made by this person/company that sound like they are trying to re-write gamig history in their own favor- in addition the 1987 M&M companion cover art is a total lift of the Runequest 3rd edition (Avalon Hill) cover.

[JDJblatherings]

Originally Posted by JeffB

Tangent-

Does anyone believe the BS about the author of M&M publishing this in 1972 (stated on cover page of PDF) , that it was the first RPG and "took the gaming world by storm"?

EDIT- There are alot of claims being made by this person/company that sound like they are trying to re-write gamig history in their own favor-

It's a joke. The author is pretty clear on this and isn't pretending to have actual written the first RPG.

[Shades of Green]

Originally Posted by JeffB

Tangent-

Does anyone believe the BS about the author of M&M publishing this in 1972 (stated on cover page of PDF) , that it was the first RPG and "took the gaming world by storm"?

EDIT- There are alot of claims being made by this person/company that sound like they are trying to re-write gamig history in their own favor- in addition the 1987 M&M companion cover art is a total lift of the Runequest 3rd edition (Avalon Hill) cover.

It is an intentional "what-if" thought-experiment - look here for a full explanation. It does not intend in any way to rewrite the real history of gaming, but rather to explore how things could have been if D&D would have started as an Ancient World game rather than a Tolkienesque/medieval one.

It is also full of tongue-in-cheek humor concerning our hobby - up to and including fake fan-wars and a spoof of "Dark Dungeons"...

But regardless of this, it seems like a very good game all by itself.

[JeffB]

Originally Posted by JDJblatherings

It's a joke. The author is pretty clear on this and isn't pretending to have actual written the first RPG.

Originally Posted by Shades of Green

It is an intentional "what-if" thought-experiment - look here for a full explanation. It does not intend in any way to rewrite the real history of gaming, but rather to explore how things could have been if D&D would have started as an Ancient World game rather than a Tolkienesque/medieval one.

It is also full of tongue-in-cheek humor concerning our hobby - up to and including fake fan-wars and a spoof of "Dark Dungeons"...

But regardless of this, it seems like a very good game all by itself.

Thanks for the clarification I did not realize that it was intended to be a "what if" scenario. And yes, it does look like a neat game.

[Calico_Jack73]

Personally I'd go with Palladium FRPG. There is very little if anything in the books that you'd need to reference during a game. It doesn't pretend to be balanced... play the class and race that you want, just don't bitch that the Wolfen Knight is more powerful than your Goblin Vagabond. The alignment system is much preferable to the D&D system and the experience system grants awards to using skills and having ideas whether or not you are actually successful with them. By Palladium's RAW there aren't many modifications that need to be taken into account during combat which speed things up and allow for GM rulings.

[Obryn]

I'm going to buck the trend here. Personally, I'd definitely encourage you to look at OSRIC, C&C, and 4e.

With that said, I'd like to encourage you to look at Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, 2e.

Originally Posted by Shades of Green

1) I like to play fast, rules-light, with as little book referencing during gameplay as possible, and with some level of improvisation. I like simple game mechanics that I could easily learn by heart and thus avoid excessive page-thumbing during the game.

Yes, absolutely. You will seldom need to reference the book, except maybe during prep time to figure out what the heck a certain Trait is.

2) I like to best utilize my prep time, which is becoming more and more limited as I grow up.

Prep is pretty simple, I'd say, but there are literally dozens of free adventures available online.

3) I usually DM for a relatively small group of 1-3 players.

It'll work fine for this.

4) I usually play Core-centric games with minimal use of additional books.

You can get a very satisfying WFRP game with the core book and Old World Bestiary. Everything else is expansion. I've bought a lot of them, and if I were to recommend other books, they'd be Tome of Salvation, Tome of Corruption, and ... the magic book, whatever it's called. Still, none of these are anywhere near essential.

5) My settings usually have a low-to-moderate magic level.

Heck yeah. Magic is dangerous. Magic items exist, but are very, very rare. And, many are tainted by Chaos!

6) I like to use magic, character powers, and monster powers both in and out of combat. Me and my players also like cool "non-combat" spells/powers that could be used in creative ways both outside and in combat.

Oh, absolutely. By definition, most skills and traits have non-combat applications. Spells, too, if you happen to have a caster around.

7) I don't mind some boardgame elements in my games, as well as moderately complex combat (up to and including some use counters/minis), but I don't think I'll go to an extreme in this part of the game (that is, I don't think I'll like using extremely detailed tactical gameplay).

It's as board-gamey as you want to make it. You can run combats with minis & grids, or you can run combats just in mind-space with few difficulties.

8) I'm not very concerned with game balance, as long as I could create (or even eyeball) more or less fair encounters. I (and my players) also prefer to let the characters grow organically rather than be planned ahead. There is also an element of "casual gaming" (read: bothersome RL constrains) that means that we'll be unlikely to reach truly high levels of rule mastery.

You're fine here. It's easy to figure out how tough something is by looking at its Weapon Skill, damage, toughness armor, and wounds.

9) I like varied, weird and interesting classes, races and monsters. I don't mind really weird ones. I also like to have some freedom in race/class combinations.

Weird and interesting classes? How's Rat Catchers, Vagabonds, Troll Slayers, Hedge Wizards, Grave Robbers, etc. strike you? Seriously, there's 30+ Basic Careers, and a similar number of Advanced Careers.

On the other hand, there's only 4 races, unless you go insane and run a Skaven or Chaos campaign. The combinations are pretty freeform, though.

10) I like a certain degree of world-building, but in D&D it doesn't have to be a very accurate simulation of reality.

Well, WFRP2 has the Empire, which is pretty darn comprehensive. IMHO, it's quite tied to the setting's default assumptions, which may turn you off. I've never been interested in trying to re-skin the setting, so I can't say how tough it'd seem...

11) I'm slowly moving from using die rolls for various dungeon activities (i.e. searching for traps/secrets, dealing with puzzles etc) towards a more narrative style of DMing.

There's skills for investigation, and it's less free-form than 1e/2e. Still, you should do just fine with narrative exploration.

12) I like both dungeons, wilderness exploration, and social/political role-playing.

Yes, yes, yes. WFRP2 is actually very well-suited to low-combat games, with its robust skill & talent system.

-O

[Shades of Green]

4E is off my list for the time being due to cost considerations. With GURPS I have my problems (and its seems a bit rules-heavy to me), but thanks for suggesting it anyway.

I'm leaning towards 2E or BFRPG, but I'm still open to other possibilities.

So far, the possible options seem to me (not in order of preference):

1) D&D 2E (for which I already have the core-books) with a few house-rules and with the Book of Humanoids.

2) BFRPG, which is similar to 1E/2E but with some 3E-inspired streamlining; ordering it from LULU in hardcopy isn't that expensive and it shows promise.

3) Mazes and Minotaurs, though this would work best with a Greek, Roman (or a fantasy version of bronze/iron age Canaan) rather than with traditional fantasy. The downside of this means that I'll have to print it by myself (which isn't THAT expensive but IS time-consuming).

4) Savage Worlds. I'm not very familiar with that system but I'll read the free "test drive" PDF soon enough. It is also pretty cheap.

5) Castles & Crusades, with which I'm not familiar; many people seemed to think that this fits me best so this is an option. This is also a bit expensive but if I could get the Boxed Set from Troll Lord Games, this will only cost me half of what 4E would.

6) OSRIC, which is another clone of AD&D 1E; I don't know if I could get it printed by LULU, otherwise it'll mean printing it myself.

7) Labyrinth Lord, another OD&D/1E clone available from LULU, a little bit more expensive than BFRPG but also an option.

8) FUDGE, which is a very cute RPG toolkit. Its main downside is the need to build your actual system out of its "building blocks".

9) Warhammer Fantasy RPG with which I'm not familiar at all, but was recommended to me. It is quite expensive (39.95$ for the corebook not including shipping).

Any more input would be very welcome!

EDIT: A little clarification - when I said I want a low-to-moderate magic level I meant that I want less dominant magic than in 3.xE, and no "Christmas tree effect"/"Everything's Magical and got powers". I still want a heroic fantasy game with considerable magic, just not a world over-saturated with magic (as is implied by 3E). If I wanted a truly low-magic gritty game I'd use a fantasy adaptation of the Mongoose Traveller SRD/OGL rules, which in fact I did put some work into.

[Thanee]

Originally Posted by Shades of Green

4) Savage Worlds. I'm not very familiar with that system but I'll read the free "test drive" PDF soon enough. It is also pretty cheap.

There have been a number of threads about Savage Worlds in the past... all of them had mostly positive comments.

Savage Worlds

Looking for a new system!!!

Bye
Thanee