Grimm, Witch Hunter, Serenity... insights on the systems?

[Wik]

Alright. So, I'm poking around for some new games to use as a basis for a series of mini campaigns. We're currently in a rotating GM situation, and I want my turns to consist of month-long mini campaigns using new and weird systems.

First up, starting next tuesday, is Shadowrun 4e. SR4E is a fun system, but definately rules-heavy (especially the wireless stuff! Yikes!). After that, though...

At my games store, I was poking around and took a look at a few games I haven't had the chance to play. I was hoping for a bit of feedback on each. I'm particularly interested to learn the following about each system:

a) How quick can I make a character? How quickly can my group make a character, with only one book and no knowledge of the rules?
b) How complicated are the rules? How "fast" do they play at the table?
c) Is the game roughly self-contained? Does it have an adventure included, or at least some adventure ideas?

Now. I'm not too worried about the "well, if you like sci-fi, you'll love it..." arguments. No matter what genre we play, we have fun. So, I'm more worried about those questions above.

So, the games I have on my list are:

1) Grimm. Play as children in a dark fairy tale world. Is it combat heavy, or does it expect PCs to not get into combat at all? How does the "Grade" skill system work?

2) Serenity. I've never seen the TV show, and neither has anyone in my group. Is it worth playing nonetheless, or should we even bother?

3) Witch Hunter. How dark is this game? Witch Hunting in Colonial America seems cool to me, but only if it's a grim setting. If my character can take 20d10 points of damage before getting a scratch... not so much.

4) d6 Fantasy. I've played the d6 system before, and my group is pretty fond of it. I'm more interested in the specifics of d6 fantasy itself... how does the spell system work in actual play? What about the combat system?

5) Midnight. I know it'd d20, but apparently, it's more low magic (a la Lord of the Rings). Is it different enough from standard d&d to be worth it to a group that is getting jaded from 3e? (and a group that, in a few months' time, be playing 4e?)

(Note: I asked a similar question a few months ago, and wound up buying Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I ran a bit of it, and we had a little bit of fun with it, but too much of my group hated the CharGen system...)

 

[MortalPlague]

I'm watching this topic. I, too, was curious about Grimm. And having seen Firefly and Serenity, I would be eager to give that particular RPG a try.

If you haven't tried it, I might suggest Mutants and Masterminds. It's a very solid d20 superhero system, and it allows for a great deal of customization on powers. There are no hit points either, instead you roll a toughness save and depending how much you fail by, you can be bruised, stunned, knocked out, or worse. The overall effect is very 'comic book', and it's a very different feel than D&D. We use it regularly as a break from standard fantasy RPGs.

 

[Crothian]

More on this later

Grimm is cool. System can be combat or not, it depends on what you want.

Serenity I would not bother with if you haven't seen Firefly. Go see Firefly!! Even if you never look at the RPG, the short series is good to watch.

Witch Hunter is more of a point system so damage isn't done like that. It can be dark and grimm.

Skipping d6 Fantasy

Midnight is good but it depends on what burnt you out on 3e to begin with.

 

[RoguePlayingGames]

2) Serenity. I've never seen the TV show, and neither has anyone in my group. Is it worth playing nonetheless, or should we even bother?

Whether you play the game or not -- get yourself in front of a TV with a DVD player and the box set of Firefly and the movie Serenity and get to watchin'.

I apologize for not being any help with the questions at hand.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Serenity - The game seems to have some pretty polarized people. Apparently later printings of the book cleared up some bits here and there (I've got a first printing myself). Overall it seemed fine. Nothing particularly exceptional, but I haven't seen anything deserving of the scorn it gets. Battlestar Galactica uses a tweaked and updated version of the game system.

The game system itself has been around for a while. It was originally the system used in Soverign Stone (non-d20 obviously), and got revised before being used for Serenity. It's got some elements that might make people think of Savage Worlds (different die types for ratings), but it's not as fast as Savage Worlds is from what I've seen. To be fair though, I don't have that much experience with either so I could be off my mark here.

Witchhunter:Invisible World - I'm actually going to be running that soonish myself. It depends on how long it takes for the group to finish off Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

The system apparently has a fair amount of similarity to the old World of Darkness system. I'm not really familiar with either the new or old WoD, so I couldn't say if this is a "good" or "bad" thing. I do know that the group I've got is d20 or WoD only, so they were willing to give it a shot when I let one of 'em look it over and he pronounced it "good enough" on a fairly quick skim.

Overall, it seems to be geared in the direction of "action horror" rather than CoC type horror. From the looks of it, the characters are still pretty human. I don't really know of anyone actively running a game, so it might be hard for you to get a whole lot of information on it.

It's done by the same guys that did Arcanis, so if that means anything to you (it didn't mean anything to me) that might help out.

The book seems plenty self-contained enough to me, although I haven't had a chance to devour it, and few games ever seem to survive full contact with players. *shrug*

There's a website where you can download a number of different scenarios, so checking those out might help you a bit.
Witchhunter home: http://www.paradigmconcepts.com/witch_hunter/

Here's the adventures:
http://darkprovidence.net/Adventures.html

And here's the campaign guide and some pre-gen chracters:
http://darkprovidence.net/Rules.html

A note: The campaign guide and adventures are put out there for the "Living Witchhunter" thingy they're doing. Kinda like the Living Arcanis thing they did, which is like the Living [Whatever] stuff the RPGA does.

While the game is called "Witchhunter" it doesn't exactly mean, "You're burning witches in Salem". You're monster hunters, as well as going after people that have made a deal with "The Advesary". It's basically early Colonial Americas, but with minor differences here and there. My wife for example noticed a few things regarding Native Americans (She and her sister are the last of their family line that can claim Cherokee blood) that weren't quite right, but she was quite pleased that she'd be able to play a female type character without having to worry about the usual "Shut up woman" sort of thing that seems to go on in many historical based/inspired games.

I looked at it and immediately started thinking "Three musketeers meets Van Helsing (without the suck)". Brotherhood of the Wolf or maybe 13th Warrior also came to mind.

The only kind of thing that leapt out at me as possibly being a problem, is the fact that religion plays such a strong role within the world. Characters can be Witchhunters from all kinds of different faiths, but there's not a whole lot of different religions offered up initially in the book. In theory they're going to come later. Right now they're working on a monsters book.

The "problem" regarding the religions thing is two-fold. The first is that if a player wants to do something other than what's in the book ("Screw the Church. I want my guy to be a Taoist Monk Witchhunter!!") the GM is going to have to figure it out themselves.

The second "problem" is simply how the players might be inclined to portray people that are very committed to their lot in life and are religious. I've seen an uncomfortable amount of players go for the "raving lunatic" approach to the "deeply religious person". You know the type: they grab the worst elements, the nastier stereotypes, and act like unthinking fanatics.

The first problem is relatively easy to deal with: Either restrict players to what's in the book, or be willing to put in a bit of work.

The second problem is trickier. It's really going to depend on how well you know your group, and/or how easy it is to get them to "buy in" and agree to the premise of the game.

If you've got a player that's got strong anti-christian or anti-religious tendencies, it might just be better all around to give the game a pass. It's not that the game is preaching at you, it's the fact that I personally get tired of some player's misbehavior while they claim "I'm just playing my character!!!". The strong element of religion can be like bloody meat in front of a cat to this kind of player.

If you don't mind waiting a couple of months, I'll probably be able to give you a better idea of how things have worked out based on Actual Play.

 

[Wik]

Scurvy: thanks. You pretty much decided for me that I shouldn't play Witchhunter. I know my group, and they do tend to go for the bad religion stereotypes. I think my entire group, save one player, would go for the maniacal cultist fanatic role. And things would go from "Ha ha, I killed that monster!" to "Hey, I *had* to kill all those children! I was only playing my character!" in about thirty seconds.