Who plays multiple Sword and Sorcery RPGs?

[pdzoch]

I've played D&D since the earliest editions. I've seen numerous other fantasy/Sword and sorcery RPGs come and go. I do not consider myself an elitist or D&D snob, but I've never gotten into the other systems. Sure, I have dabbled in the Gamma World and Paranoia games -- they were a nice diversion, but they were not sword and sorcery settings.

Pathfinder was not the first serious contender to D&D, but I've generally heard that a person left one system for another. Which makes sense to me. I am sure that the other systems have their strengths and weaknesses, but the amount playing time I have and the energy I put into running and playing a good game of D&D makes it nigh impossible to engage in another sword and sorcery rpg.

As I read this forum, I routinely run into members who advocate one system (or edition) of a game over another. And there are a few who appear to be playing both.

I would really like to hear more from those members who play two or more different sword and sorcery rpgs at the same time.
Why do you play more than one system?
Which do you play, and why?
Were there any that you tried and simply did not like? Why not? Was it rules, settings, game group?
How often do you switch back and forth?
Do you get the rules or mechanics confused between the games?

I am REALLY interested in hearing from the game masters who run two different sword and sorcery games. That has got to be a major challenge.
Why do you run two different systems? And are they REALLY two separate and distinctly different systems/games?
How do you keep from confusing the mechanics, or is there crossover?
Do you share monsters, settings, magic items, between the two?
How do you divide your time between the two systems?

I'm not looking for a comprehensive answers to the questions and I really do not want to start a thread nitpicking one game system over another. I'd just like to hear some personal experience from those who actively play in multiple sword and sorcery rpgs.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Let's see...I've run and/or played in campaigns in- or own copies of- the following FRPGs:

D&D (Basic, AD&D, 2Ed, 3Ed, 3.5Ed, 4th)
D20 Modern Urban Arcana
True20
Pathfinder
Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved
FantasyCraft
In the Labyrinth/The Fantasy Trip
Palladium RPG
GURPS
Stormbringer
Fantasy HERO
Earthdawn
Shadowrun
World of Darkness (Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, etc.)
Scion
RIFTS
MERP
Lot5R
Talisantha

...and I'm probably forgetting a few.

Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. Each is better at telling certain kinds of story than others. Even the "toolbox" systems like HERO & GURPS- which can model a broad array of fantasy (including other RPG systems)- don't play the same.

Which means that when you play them, you THINK differently and thus, often PLAY differently.

I DO share resources across systems.

What FRPG I play depends on whom I'm playing with.

 

[pdzoch]

[MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION], I see you listed a whole slew of them. Have you played in long running campaigns in multiple systems at the same time? What drew you to trying out the other games over your favorite (don't worry, I won't ask which is your favorite)?

 

[GMMichael]

I would really like to hear more from those members who play two or more different sword and sorcery rpgs at the same time.
Why do you play more than one system?
Which do you play, and why?
Were there any that you tried and simply did not like? Why not? Was it rules, settings, game group?
How often do you switch back and forth?
Do you get the rules or mechanics confused between the games?

DA gets an XP for this point: "...you think differently..." The obvious answer is that many games have a baked-in setting that results in certain expectations, but under the surface lies the more important answer that the rules of the game result in certain patterns, the metagame, that change your expectations without you even knowing it. The resulting feeling is what will cause some players and GMs to prefer one game over another.

If last night's one-shot counts, I'm playing Savage Worlds, D&D (5th), and Modos RPG (by me) at the same time.

The WHY is simple: different GMs prefer to run different games. I like a GM to run the game he's most comfortable with, to provide the best immersion. Few things are worse than looking down at a table during an RPG and feeling like you're playing a board game.

Savage Worlds provides a certain heroic feel with the Wild Die, exploding dice, and Bennies. However, the amount of excitement sometimes increases in direct proportion to the waning of immersion as players focus on what's happening on-table instead of in-game.

I play D&D due to familiarity and easy access. Good on them for providing a free rule set this time around. It's not my preferred game because many things in-game seem to be turned into rolls, and many rolls feel like they have a complicating factor that prevent you from just going with the flow.

Modos RPG, written purely as an exercise for freeing my poor brain of house rules, is my GM preference because it frees me up from fiddly bits: how many spaces a character moved, does a character get penalties due to accumulating status conditions, etc. But as a generic system, it suffers from the same problem GURPS or Fantasy AGE might: players need to be shown the entire setting since they don't come prepared with one in mind.

I don't get the rules confused, but my inner GM, when I'm a player anyway, frequently wants the GM to rule-zero things because it would make for better or faster gameplay. Having the knowledge of other systems actually lubricates the working of existing rule sets for this reason: when things get clunky, a better idea comes to mind. But the confusion part, I'm sure, happens on an individual basis.

I hope that helps!

 

[Nagol]

I'm similar to Dannyalcatraz.

Restricting it to fantasy, I have run Holmes Basic, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5, 5e, Runequest 3e, Fantasy Hero, Palladium, MERP, The Fantasy Trip, Ars Magica (2e, 3e, 4e), Tunnels and Trolls, Chivalry and Sorcery, and Pendragon. Only about 1/3 to 1/2 of the campaigns I run are fantasy though.

I remember playing in 1e, Fantasy Hero, Chivalry and Sorcery, The Fantasy Trip, GURPS, and Ars Magica (2e, 3e), Harnmaster, Rolemaster, Bushido, and Runequest.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

[MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION], I see you listed a whole slew of them. Have you played in long running campaigns in multiple systems at the same time? What drew you to trying out the other games over your favorite (don't worry, I won't ask which is your favorite)?

DMMike exploded my post with a lot of insights I share, so he gets XP right back!

My favorite is Fantasy HERO, simply because HERO is my all time favorite RPG system of all time. Why? It can model any PC or setting I've come up with. I've run Fantasy HERO "D&D-style" campaigns in which players could run characters based on whatever version of a class or race they wanted. I'm writing up a campaign that recreates M:tG mechanics.

Why do I play others? Well, HERO may be able to model anything, but that doesn't mean it models everything equally well. Sometimes, a system designed with a certain set of baseline assumptions can model a certain play style or setting better because it is more streamlined & focused.

Some games are extremely streamlined- In The Labyrinth/The Fantasy Trip (and its modern descendant, Dark City) is extremely basic, and PC design takes less than 5 minutes, even for a new player. Perfect for casual beer & pretzels gaming, new groups, and the like.

And as DMMike pointed out, you're probably going to wind up playing in whatever system the GM chooses to run. D&D is the 800lb gorilla in the hobby. Most of the groups I've been a part of have that game as a "lingua Franca". Most of the players in the hobby have played it and at least don't mind playing some version of it. By a plurality, my current group prefers it above all others, so most campaigns use it.

Yes, I have played in multiple concurrent campaigns across systems.

 

[pemerton]

I would really like to hear more from those members who play two or more different sword and sorcery rpgs at the same time.

<snip>

I am REALLY interested in hearing from the game masters who run two different sword and sorcery games. That has got to be a major challenge.
Why do you run two different systems? And are they REALLY two separate and distinctly different systems/games?
How do you keep from confusing the mechanics, or is there crossover?
Do you share monsters, settings, magic items, between the two?

I am currently GMing two 4e games and one Burning Wheel game. In the past I have GMed Rolemaster (for about 20 years), Runequest, AD&D and B/X D&D.

Avoiding confusing mechanics is not very hard. Like any other two games, I associate one set of rules with one game and another with the other.

I do cross over, though, in the sense that I think the GMing advice for BW is very useful for 4e.

Different systems give different experiences. 4e D&D is gonzo and heroic; Burning Wheel is very gritty and much more swords-and-sorcery in the strict sense. (Though with Tolkienesque elves and dwarves.)

 

[Blue]

I've played plenty in the past, usually it's because it's different groups.

For example, I'm currently running a 13th Age campaign that's gone for about 2.5 years and is still going strong. I've been in several D&D 5e adventure path (Currently Storm King's Thunder, previously Out of the Abyss and also a homebrew setting run by friends). Both of them are fairly close in what the system delivers to me. I prefer 13th Age but 5e is far easier to find a game. If someone wanted to run another I'd probably be tempted mechanically if it was a very different system like Dungeon World or FATE - though a good DM could tempt me regardless of system.

EDIT: This is confining it to just fantasy games. Once you start introducing other genre's sure I'll play another system at the same time. Hero System for supers, etc.

 

[Eltab]

I played in D&D campaigns at the same time I was writing homebrew Gamma World adventures and GM'ing them at my local convention.
(This helped me along to the conclusion "GW is a setting, not a rules system"; 3D&D was basically previewed a year early, in the form of GWvol2.)

The experiences were so different that I had no trouble keeping the two separate.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

DA gets an XP for this point: "...you think differently..." The obvious answer is that many games have a baked-in setting that results in certain expectations, but under the surface lies the more important answer that the rules of the game result in certain patterns, the metagame, that change your expectations without you even knowing it. The resulting feeling is what will cause some players and GMs to prefer one game over another.

To illustrate a bit:

In most iterations of D&D and its 3rd party clones, a magic-using warrior is a difficult archetype to model. But in many other games, that simply isn't the case.

D&D is medium to high-magic. Running a low-magic game in D&D requires a bit of work on the part of the DM. In GURPS, a campaign run with the basic rules only runs best as a low to medium-magic game. The play is completely different. Grittier.

In D&D, magic is most commonly encountered in the form of spells & powers. The summoning of supernatural entities and making them do your will or even/especially binding them into physical objects to create items of power is relatively rare. In Stormbringer, spells and ther than summoning/binding rituals are essentially nonexistent. Wizards do not throw fireballs, they summon & bind Elementals & Demons into swords, armors, gems, etc.