3 Favorite Things About Your Favorite System

pogre · Jun 19, 2019

D&D 5e

1. Familiar and Popular System - D&D is highly accessible and I think 5e from the beginning has felt very familiar and comfortable for me. D&D generally does not require me to sell the game or make great efforts to get player buy-in. There is a seemingly endless supply of players.

2. ToTM and Miniatures and Terrain Both Work - I love miniatures and terrain and the system allows use of this, but does not require the props I use. Setting the table for an encounter and wowing my players with my latest terrain and painted miniatures gives me joy. However, I can easily run an adventure in a small hotel room at a Con.

3. Dungeons - It's right there in the title! While we do lots of different kinds of adventures, the good old dungeon calls me back time and time again!

Minor Additional Plus - I really enjoy the Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic.

Sorry for the heresy of promoting the most popular game, but it really is my favorite system right now.

dragoner · Jun 19, 2019

pogre said:
D&D 5e

Sorry for the heresy of promoting the most popular game, but it really is my favorite system right now.

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

What is interesting is that five different people could mention different aspects of the same game they like, and five others can mention similar aspects of five different games they like.

aramis erak · Jun 22, 2019

DrunkonDuty said:
I like L5R. I really do. I love the way the rules support the style of the game.

BUT I have the 3rd edition rules. They are not coherent. That is they are poorly laid out in the book and the rules themselves have many bugs/holes/inconsistencies. I had to do a lot of sifting and re-writing of rules to make the game actually playable.

Has 5th edition fixed this and made it more playable as written?

Depends whom you ask... one (insert multiple derrogations) claims it's all broken in almost every thread on FFG's forums.... but then, in several, he's basically admitted he never gave it a shot, and has never tried it unmodified.

The system is, IMO, more coherent than 3rd. The core mechanic is used more consistently, and is slightly different... custom dice (two kinds - black d6's and white d12's); white have slightly better odds, and less stress. Roll ring Black +Skill White +unskilled helpers black + skilled helpers white, keep ring + helpers.
No more attributes; just the rings. Unified advantage mechanic (reroll 2d before keeping), unified disadvantage mechanic (reroll 2d showing successes after rerolling for advantages, gain void point if this results in failure). Void points add a kept black die.

It feels different. Rank 4 is powerful enough that my players want to restart with new concepts; new system provides only rank 1 and rank 6 school bonuses, but school determines what counts full or half for school rank, based upon spend. I've found one BIG flaw - Fire backfires are actually USEFUL, not hindrances. And when used with area effect spells, WAY THE OVERPOWERED (spell goes off on every eligible target in range, friend or foe. With Fury of Osano Wo, where the target and all near it take damage....

I like the new dueling mechanics. Many don't.
I like the new critical mechanics. Some don't. (modifiers to crit severity are NOT by the critical table, but buried in the conditions. Grr.)

There are a number of cases where a cross reference would be useful, but isn't there.

And Momoku has been nerfed. Doesn't prevent spending void. (But it's an excuse to force a reroll if they do!)

DrunkonDuty · Jun 25, 2019

Wow.

That's a lot of changes.

I think I'll stick with 3rd ed. If that ever comes up as a thing. Which it probably won't.

pemerton · Jun 30, 2019

dragoner said:
Just to throw some positive vibes back into the forum. Tell us the 3 favorite things about your favorite system, just what you like. I'll start:

<snip>

#-1 for the anti-bonus, the biggest negative is the 2d6 system, very limited granularity, +1 is a huge bonus, it just doesn't look that way. Plus, what am I supposed to do with all these lovely polyhedral dice I own?

I really enjoy the 2d6 in Classic Traveller. In play it seems to produce a similar feel to a dice pool system, rather than the randomness of d20 or d100 systems.

Anyway, while I've got a lot of systems I like (4e D&D, Classic Traveller, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, Prince Valiant), in this thread I'll go for Burning Wheel:

(1) Lifepath PC gen - just as in Traveller, this creates PCs with rich backstory and integration into the setting. BW takes this further than Traveller via systems like Circles, Relationships and the like.

(2) The PC improvement system - in some ways it resembles traditional Runequest (improve by doing) but with important distinctions (including, in most cases, not needing to succeed to get a step towards improvement), which have as one result that players don't always want to bring to bear all the dice that they might be able to call upon. This is a useful pressure-valve against system breakage and GM-player antagonism.

(3) Intent and task resolution, including clear guidelines for both success (the PC gets what the player wanted) and failure (the GM gets to narrate something adverse, paying particular attention to the intent behind the check) - it allows the grittiness and setting-centred-ness of "objective" difficulties (like Traveller and unlike, say, 4e D&D and MHRP) while also allowing the "fail forward" and razor-sharp focus of a "narrative" system (unlike, say, Rolemaster or HARP or, at least sometimes, Traveller).

dragoner · Jul 1, 2019

pemerton said:
I really enjoy the 2d6 in Classic Traveller.

It does have a simple elegance to it, and it is very much "you know the odds" sort of dice rolling.

Another 3 things, this time about M-Space:

#1 Character generation is in depth and gives you the character you want to play. It takes longer than Classic Traveller, but a lot that you need to know is right there on the sheet. The skills list is very good, with a wide range of coverage. The downside to the involved nature of character generation is that you want to be careful that no-one dies, because it is a pain to do over.

#2 It's BRP/d100, so stuff can be used from across the board, I use a lot of Call of Cthulhu, Rune Quest, Mythras, Big Gold Book stuff, even Thieves' World.

#3 is a tie between extended conflicts, conflict pools, or alien creation.

Negatives: It's complexity, even slightly more complex than CoC. Combat is built around melee because of it's RQ origins. Spacecraft design, Classic Traveller Book 2 are still my ideal, though I like the use of extended conflicts for vehicles lining up shots.

steenan · Jul 1, 2019

While I like many systems, I put Fate at the top of my list

1. Aspects and fate point economy. A beautiful way of making various facts of the fiction tangible and meaningful. Compels help in introducing complications that the players are interested in.

2. Concessions and stress-out. Making failure and loss interesting instead of game-ending, thus incentivizing players to embrace troubles instead of avoiding them.

3. Flexibility and customizability. While Fate isn't a good system for every genre and every group, there is a lot one can do with it. Fate Core can be used as-is for many different games, but can also be easily modified for a specific setting and/or style.

pemerton · Jul 2, 2019

dragoner said:
Another 3 things

Well, if this is allowed . . .

Prince Valiant:

(1) PC build is quick and easy, yet despite the mechanical simplicity PCs seem without much effort to take on quite a degree of colour and distinctiveness

(2) Action resolution is straightforward and generally easy to adjudicate (simple dice/coin pools tallying successes);

(3) When jousting, shaking a pool of 10 or 14 dice/coins nicely emulates the thundering of hooves as the two knights charge at one another!