Hello and A Question

[CrimsonKing]

Hello all, this is my first post here, so be gentle.

I've been following 4e news for over a month now, and I've gone from excitement to optimism to skepticism to pessimism. Somewhere in there, I developed a campaign world that I fell in love with. While I haven't entirely given up on 4e, I am not counting on it anymore. I'm also sick to death of 3.5, and have always disliked running games in it, so my little world seems like a potential orphan.

What I'm looking for is a new system, something simple and streamlined (3.5 is too complicated, Feng Shui isn't complicated enough), without the 3.5 emphasis on magic items. The setting is basically Civil War-era Britain (during Cromwell's reign), w/dragons. It's fantasy, medium-magic, with a mix of political intrigue and straight ahead action/adventure.

I've been looking at True20, but I'm a little skeptical of the support there (how much of a besitairy is there? how many books do I need to effectively run it?), and the 3 classes will be a big turn off to my players, who are used to more options.

Any other advice is welcome.

P.S. Apologies if this was posted in the wrong forum.

 

[usdmw]

If you think you MIGHT like true20, I suggest you give that a chance. It has a very good bestiary, with all of the must-have fantasy creatures present.

While there are only 3 'classes', each is very highly customizable with feats. Also multi-classing provides more flexibility. As each class gains a special ability at character creation, an adept multi-classing into an expert is not the same as an expert multi-classing into an adept.

Having said that, if you're going to run a fantasy version of historic Britain, I'd suggest GURPS.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Welcome to EN World! (Like the name & icon, too- Fripp rules!)

While its not quite my cup of tea, True 20 is an excellent suggestion- its fairly flexible. Green Ronin puts out a good product and tend to support them as well.

Another one of theirs is Mutants & Masterminds. Like HERO, it was initially designed as a superhero RPG, but also like HERO (and most 1st rate supers RPGs), its soooooo flexible you can use it to simulate any genre you like. Unlike HERO, its fairly streamlined, and if you have any familiarity with D20 games, you'll find its learning curve fairly easy to handle. The main advantage to you is that despite having NO classes, its capable of supporting almost any PC concept your players can conceive.

Another D20 based game to check out would be Iron Heroes. I can't say that its really any less complicated than 3.5, but it IS designed to be low magic. IH heroes are more self-contained than their typical 3.5 counterpart.

 

[CrimsonKing]

GURPS is nice, but it's a little too complex for my playgroup. We're mostly experienced (10+ years) roleplayers, but one of my players is very new to roleplaying, and GURPS is just going to be a little too different and complicated for her. I'm trying to stick to systems that are either similar to 3.5, or very simple/streamlined.

How is magic handled in true20? For instance, I want a very distinct difference between Divine/Arcane casters. With one spell casting class, won't they both look and feel the same?

 

[dragonlordofpoondari]

I'd suggest any of the following ...

*True 20
*Savage Worlds
*Castles and Crusades
or a houseruled variant of any of the following (maybe fixing stuff like THACO and initiative to resemble D20):
*OD&D, Basic D&D, 1E or 2E D&D, Basic Fantasy Roleplaying, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, etc.

 

[Starman]

How is magic handled in true20? For instance, I want a very distinct difference between Divine/Arcane casters. With one spell casting class, won't they both look and feel the same?

The nice thing about a slightly more generic system such as True20 is that it gives you, the DM, more freedom to flavor the world to your taste. You can say that divine casters must belong to certain religious orders, can only cast certain spells, and give them specific rituals (prayers or whatever) that must happen for their magic to work. The same is true of arcane magic.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Another one to consider is Green Ronin's (AGAIN!) Thieves' World RPG. It does have a certain amount of thematic baggage, based as it is on a popular series of shared world stories & novels, but you could ditch all of that and simply use the system.

 

[smootrk]

I would say check out Savage Worlds, not only for the easy fast rules, but for a couple more reasons:
1- price for core rules is $10 print or pdf, you/your group can afford copies for each participant.
2- setting supplements are available - not exactly sure, but sounds like Deadlands and/or Rippers might have elements you can use to get that civil war/Britain setting off to a good start.
3- talk about easy prep and fast play! It really is wonderful to play with such little effort.

At least check out the free trial rules!

 

[Michael_R_Proteau]

Cool, another Crim fan!

True 20 doesn't offer any distinction between divine and arcane magic for the adept, but it would be easy to limit acess to certain magical feats by adding prerequisites.

If you want a more traditional fantasy feel for classes for True 20, look for a PDF called Fantasy Paths that was released around the same time as the initisl True 20 PDF. It gives a model for creating traditional D&D classes through choice of feats and such as characters progress.

There is a separate bestiary volume and this initial bestiary has a good variety. Plus Erica B (posting as D&D Chick), one of the editors on it provides occasional conversions of beasts from the Necromancer Games Tome of Horrors series over on the Tome of Horrors forums at the Necromancer Games forums.

To run True 20, I had the PDF of the initial rules, the Bestiary, and the Fantasy Paths PDF. I had previously played Blue ROse (the romantic fantasy precusror to True20) and had that for reference as well. I also had the True Sorcery PDF, but chose not to use it. I like the idea behind it (which was based on the magic system of Green Ronin's Black Company game), but thought the execution was too complicated to keep the game streamlined (which was the appeal of the system to me) and did not use it. YOu could run with just the corebook, but having the Bestiary is nice too.

Having tried True 20, it is a great system, but it does feel a little different than traditional D&D in play. It may appeal to your group, it may not, but it is a great system.

Castles & Crusades will feel more like older systems of D&D and is fairly easy to add what you want or convert material to, but if your players like choosing feats and skills and such, you will have to add those in (which is easy to do). The SIEGE mechanic can emulate most of them, but players used to having a specific list of choices may miss that with C&C. It is streamlined, but it may be too streamlined for your group. It too is a great system though, and fun to play.

The Conan system is similar to D&D as it is OGL/d20 based, and offers a more gritty sword & sorcery feel. It definitely deemphasizes magic items, but does not really streamline things. It is lower magic, but does not have much of a distinction between divine/arcane magic that you mentioned (which may be a sticking point with a lot of alternatives as that particular distinction has strong D&D specific connotations). That may be something you have to graft onto another existing system to get the feel/distinction you want.

If you are looking for a more action oriented ruleset with political intrigue as a big component, the Game of Thrones rules might interest you (but they are very low magic and again no arcane/divine distinction). It is out of print and had a hefty price tag. Green Ronin is doing a new game based on Martin's books as well that will be released later this year, but I cannot speak to the pluses or minuses of the new game.

I am not sure how the new Runequest rules would fit what you want, but you could look at those too. Grim Tales might also have some appeal, but I am not as familiar with them.

I am guessing it is going to come down to 3 questions I see-What are the must have elements you want in the alternative rules set? What are the must have elements your players want in the rules set? and How out of the box do you want it to be for your setting and desired feel (i.e. how much are you willing to tinker and houserule to make it work for your setting)?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Something a bit more "modern"- to fit the Civil War/Cromwell era- might be something like:

Etherscope
Iron Kingdoms
Dragonmech