It offers the best compromise between 'realism' and playability that I know of. Combat is lethal, encouraging finding alternative solutions and generally being careful. The classless, skill-based system works very well for long-term campaigns (in-game time) and as a natural, effective downtime system.
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Help Me Find a System
- Thread starter redboxrazor
- Start date
Krensky
First Post
A little late, but I'm a big fan of Fantasy Craft by Crafty Games. It's designed by the same folks who did Spycraft.
It's a d20 based (but you should forget 3.X and Pathfinder). Classes are different and well balanced from aa spotlight sharing perspective, but no one is worthless in any given arena. Species options out of the book include golems, drakes, giants, and ogres that are balanced with humans, elves, etc but still feel like golems, drakes, etc. The system for building species and specialties is fairly straight forward.
Arcane magic, divine magic, and magic items (consumable and permanent) are completely all different systems and both are completely and independently optional. NPCs and DCs scale with the PCs by default so while the PCs get more tricks every level, their numerical advantage grows much more slowly. With the right Campaign Qualities it can be very gritty. The system's very robust and hard to break once you understand it's philosophy. You can build a PC which will be unbeatable in one of the minigames, but you'll suck in the others. Heavy specialization is as much a way of telling the GM how you want to fail as how you want to succeed. Combat involves class based BAB, Initiative, Saves, and Defense with Armor as DR but skills (including social skills) play an important role in combat as well.
There are three classes specialized for out of combat activities (the Courtier, Keeper, and Emisary - social monster, Expert on steroids, and spy/agent/detective respectively) but their not worthless in combat. Similarly, even a Soldier, Martial Artist, or Lancer (combat master, different sort of combat master, and knight) have the ability to hold their own in social or other encounters. A Soldier will never out social a Courtier or vice versa. Similarly, a Mage will never out anything any other class (other then casting spells, obviously) but they can equal them or do pretty good at all of their jobs.
To give you a sense of the flexibility, the game has four settings given write ups in the books. Sunchaser is a high fantasy setting with some fairy tale influence, high concept is Lord of the Rings on the Mississippi. The Realm is a bare bones setting that is darker and grittier then Sunchaser, with the forces of the Church in conflict with the Circle of Mages. Neither are the heroes, and there's a Frankenstein, mad scientist/mage feel. Cloak and Dagger is set in a Romanesque Empire that's seen it's best days. Epoch is straight up swords and sorcery, with twist of drawing from North America. Think Apache versus invading (demon worshiping) Aztecs.
It's a d20 based (but you should forget 3.X and Pathfinder). Classes are different and well balanced from aa spotlight sharing perspective, but no one is worthless in any given arena. Species options out of the book include golems, drakes, giants, and ogres that are balanced with humans, elves, etc but still feel like golems, drakes, etc. The system for building species and specialties is fairly straight forward.
Arcane magic, divine magic, and magic items (consumable and permanent) are completely all different systems and both are completely and independently optional. NPCs and DCs scale with the PCs by default so while the PCs get more tricks every level, their numerical advantage grows much more slowly. With the right Campaign Qualities it can be very gritty. The system's very robust and hard to break once you understand it's philosophy. You can build a PC which will be unbeatable in one of the minigames, but you'll suck in the others. Heavy specialization is as much a way of telling the GM how you want to fail as how you want to succeed. Combat involves class based BAB, Initiative, Saves, and Defense with Armor as DR but skills (including social skills) play an important role in combat as well.
There are three classes specialized for out of combat activities (the Courtier, Keeper, and Emisary - social monster, Expert on steroids, and spy/agent/detective respectively) but their not worthless in combat. Similarly, even a Soldier, Martial Artist, or Lancer (combat master, different sort of combat master, and knight) have the ability to hold their own in social or other encounters. A Soldier will never out social a Courtier or vice versa. Similarly, a Mage will never out anything any other class (other then casting spells, obviously) but they can equal them or do pretty good at all of their jobs.
To give you a sense of the flexibility, the game has four settings given write ups in the books. Sunchaser is a high fantasy setting with some fairy tale influence, high concept is Lord of the Rings on the Mississippi. The Realm is a bare bones setting that is darker and grittier then Sunchaser, with the forces of the Church in conflict with the Circle of Mages. Neither are the heroes, and there's a Frankenstein, mad scientist/mage feel. Cloak and Dagger is set in a Romanesque Empire that's seen it's best days. Epoch is straight up swords and sorcery, with twist of drawing from North America. Think Apache versus invading (demon worshiping) Aztecs.
dm4hire
Explorer
You might take a look at Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea which is a retroclone focused on sword & sorcery along the lines of Conan and such.
13th Age is good, very easy to pick up, and currently limited in products so don't have to worry about getting a bunch of books.
13th Age is good, very easy to pick up, and currently limited in products so don't have to worry about getting a bunch of books.
ExiStanc3
First Post
I would recommand checking The shadow of yesterday and The burning wheel.
They both very different experience of play from, let's say PathFinder. They are both fast paced and offer challenging mechanics to resolve conflicts others than physical (social, for instance). Both are low magic (or at least can be such as) and can be played in fantasy settings. You won't feel super heroes with those systems.
They both very different experience of play from, let's say PathFinder. They are both fast paced and offer challenging mechanics to resolve conflicts others than physical (social, for instance). Both are low magic (or at least can be such as) and can be played in fantasy settings. You won't feel super heroes with those systems.
It kind of sounds like something Conan-esque would be desirable. Something without a lot of magic. I'm in a D&D 3.5 pirate campaign that play that way by simply pre-veto'ing anything magical. The party is loaded up with lots of mundane oddities we never considered before like Splintering Bolts and Sand Cannons. My character is based around disarming attacks. Feels pretty batman-y. Since its the high seas, we end up with a lot of physical events (climb, jump, balance). To that end, I guess a piracy-themed setting may work.
Quickleaf
Legend
I found Shadows of Yesterday fast-paced, intuitive and interesting. Definitely lower power.
Burning Wheel OTOH is so full of jargon you really need to learn it from someone who already knows the rules or watch Luke in an hour long live play video (and take notes!). It is NOT an intuitive system, but it is an extremely powerful one that encourages a very low power style of game. Combat is very dangerous.
I'll echo [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] that True20 is a great game that feels very similar to a pared down d20 game. With one exception: spellcasting is totally different. It is fatigue-based, not Vancian, and instead of flame arrow, fire trap, burning hands, fireball, and so forth, you'd just have Fire Shaping. So adepts (mages) have fewer powers with tighter theme (spells) and broad application.
As far as character customization goes, very few systems can hold a candle to Pathfinder/3.5E. It's absolutey the game's strength, but it is also overwhelming for players not versed in the system (much like trying to choose options in the 4E Character Builder is for new players). More and more I'm thinking that feats do more harm than good by making character generation an impenetrable and time-consuming mini-game.
ExiStanc3
First Post
You are right for BW, it may be not that intuitive. That said, usually, I play BW only with the basic rules (which, if I remember it well stands for something like 45 pages out of 300 pages). When introducing advanced rules, it becomes very complicated ...
TickledBlue
Villager
I haven't played it for years, and I've not played the current 6th Edition (although I got the gorgeous hardcover reprint via the indiegogo campaign and I'm itching to try it out). I used to play a lot of the old 2nd edition version (Prior to the Avalon Hill boxed set) and found it intuitive and deadly.
Like all the BRP games it's easy to understand how to play just looking at the character sheet. Percentile roll under the skill value. You don't have levels, but instead improve in skills/areas that you use in play and it had HP and armour allocated to body locations - so a hit to a location would first hit armour (unless impale or critical was rolled) then hit the location - if you exceeded the location's hit points you'd have a disabled and possibly severed limb (or head). Of all the roleplaying systems on the market I feel that none are as easy to pick up and play and make as much immediate sense to players as any of the BRP family (Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Stormbringer/Elric etc).
You can currently get Legend on rpgnow/drivethru rpg for $1 as a PDF and it's the a pretty good point to start as it's the current incarnation of Mongoose Runequest.
