General RPG Rules DiscussionDiscuss the rules of any game except D&D or Pathfinder, such as Arcana Evolved, Mutants & Masterminds, Star Wars Saga, d20 Modern, and the like.
Do you want all of the stuff that comes with HERO, though? There are many modern RPGs that hit exactly the right notes for the shows you're talking about, without the extensive character sheets and broad generic rules. Unknown Armies, Over the Edge, the GUMSHOE system (from Trail of Cthulhu, Esoterrorists, or Mutant City Blues), Spycraft 2, or Conspiracy X. They're all brilliant games.
For Fringe, I'd probably even consider Call of Cthulhu using Delta Green for the modern espionage-related material. And there's always Margaret Weis Productions' Cortex System, which handles modern day action-adventure very well indeed.
I'd go with FATE myself. I don't know about SotC, but the rules in Diaspora would be perfect for this kind of thing. Especially with their social combat mini-game.
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It only surprised me up until around 1977, ... I had thought we were going to have a considerable audience of gamers and science fiction and fantasy fans. I thought easily with those we'd have 50,000 or more [buyers], but when people began to write me [with questions] about what fantasy books to read, and I saw the wide range of both younger and older people who were attracted to the game, I understood that it was reaching a deeper chord, something deep within us. E. Gary Gygax (July 27, 1938 March 4, 2008)
Do you want all of the stuff that comes with HERO, though? There are many modern RPGs that hit exactly the right notes for the shows you're talking about, without the extensive character sheets and broad generic rules. Unknown Armies, Over the Edge, the GUMSHOE system (from Trail of Cthulhu, Esoterrorists, or Mutant City Blues), Spycraft 2, or Conspiracy X. They're all brilliant games.
For Fringe, I'd probably even consider Call of Cthulhu using Delta Green for the modern espionage-related material. And there's always Margaret Weis Productions' Cortex System, which handles modern day action-adventure very well indeed.
Cheers,
Cam
Man, Over the Edge! Why didn't I think of that one? I've loved that game since it came out.
So it's either by-the-crunch or by-the-quick. I'll have to see how my players think.
I find that no matter what the genre, what really matters is what system you and your group are most comfortable with.
We've started games in the native game system for the source material several times (Scion, Serenity most recently) and ended up translating our characters to HERO.
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