Still Searching for "That" System

[TheSword]

OSR games are too deadly. That extends to TSR-era games, Mork Borg, Free League's Year Zero Engine, Warhammer, Fantasy Trip.

As an aside 4e WFRP isn‘t too deadly. It’s actually very difficult to kill players, because of fate, resilience, and armour soaking crits. there may be other reasons not to play it but deadliness isn’t one of them.

 

[Retreater]

The guy sounds like a douche. He can’t pull that stuff with ex DM’s. It’s too transparent. You’re better off out of a game that treats a new player like that. Unless you were, like, really rude.

He was. My wife and the rest of her friends eventually dropped him. He was wanting to "curate an image" and livestream games. Apparently, I didn't fit what he wanted in his brand.
Sure, I was playing a comic relief style of character (a human druid raised by goblins), but I could've easily toned it down had he asked.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Oh, I know: Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures

It's an OSR retroclone, but with a more pastoral feel and its pretty forgiving. The characters are generally created by using playbooks that generates both the characters and the Village/NPCs that surround them.

You arent a simple fighter, you are The New Guardsman Recruit. You arent a rogue/fighter, you are the Governor's Rebel Daughter. you are not a mage, your are the Witch's Prentice etc....and you can play a friendly bear or a talking fox!

Magic is Cantrips (require a casting roll), Spells (no spell level, 1 spell/level/day), and rituals (costly, 1 hour cast per ritual level).

Characters have Fate point to re-roll failed action and I think Dying isnt instant at 0 hp (IIRC).

 

[Retreater]

Would B/X starting with 3rd level characters, but using encounters for 1st and 2nd level ones work?

Are you making encounters in advance that use what the book says is balanced instead of adjusting on the fly?

The problem I have with OSR games is that there aren't really any guidelines that say "this is a 1st level or 2nd level encounter."
Plus, I think part of it is the shock of seeing a character like "you start with 1-2 spells, +0 to hit, and 8 Hit Points." These players would balk at being so underpowered, compared to 5e (which is their only metric).

 

[Thomas Shey]

As I posted in another thread (https://www.enworld.org/threads/what-game-systems-do-you-have.699515/), I have close to 60 different game systems. I'm still looking for a system that will fit the unique needs of my group.
Can you help find my Goldilocks system?

• Survivable – you’re not going to die to a single hit from a kobold at 1st level [this cuts out most OSR systems]

Do you want "low likelyhood" or "not possible at all"? I can name a number of games for the former, but the latter is a smaller list.

• Interesting Options – you can do more than swing a sword or cast one spell (if you want to interact with the game that way) [this also cuts out most OSR systems]

As in "Trip, disarm and other special manuevers" or "the above plus combat tradeoffs?"

• Easy to learn – you don’t need to perfect your tactics, count on your fingers to hit elevated numbers in the mid-20s (with always altering numbers) [Pathfinder, 4e, etc., are cut here]

This one is hard to answer because where I come from I don't consider anything in the D&D sphere as easy to learn, wheras I consider some other games a lot of people claim are difficult relatively easy. (I also don't think most simple games tend to fit your second requirement up above).

• Good GM tools – encounter building that works, possibly good adventures/settings [cutting out 5e]

Tell you the truth; decent encounter building tools are, on the whole, rare as hen's teeth. I can think of one non-D&D sphere game that has one, but it probably fails your "Easy to learn" criterion.

 

[payn]

Dang, don't I wish! I've recommended that, but there are no takers.
Also, I have a suspicion that I'm a bad player. My wife got me a seat at a game with her other DM. He unceremoniously killed my character, by keeping adding legendary actions to the villain until I was dead. Then he didn't invite me to return.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Fantasy AGE or Modern AGE

Super easy to learn, very forgiving for new players, cinematic actions with a stunt system and its pretty easy to DM for.

This was one I was considering; I'm only hesitant because my Dragon Age game failed out horribly about 8th level, but FA2e is now, what, something like four versions down from that? So they may have addressed most of the problems.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Savage Worlds hit all those points in my experience.

Depends how hard he's counting the no-death at early levels. In a fantasy setting its rare, but open ended damage is open ended damage, and it can be a lot easier to happen in a modern period game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I guess - in my mind - Savage Worlds is still too crunchy for what I'm thinking. My experience is that even the most basic Savage Worlds is exceeds 5e in complexity, and 5e represents the threshold of what I think these players can handle.

Huh. I'd consider even a relatively complex (i.e. spellcasting) low level SW character simpler than any D&D spellcaster, well, ever. There's a lot of combat options, but, well, you seemed to want those.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

This was one I was considering; I'm only hesitant because my Dragon Age game failed out horribly about 8th level, but FA2e is now, what, something like four versions down from that? So they may have addressed most of the problems.

The main problems of AGE are still there: the HP bloat coupled with the auto-hit and ridiculous damage reduction from armor, sadly.

The different AGE license tend to add new rules (such as a class-less system for Modern, and a new HP rules for The Expanse or a new casting system for Blue Rose).

Dragon Age was pretty much a beta system to test the rules; encounters were pretty hard to balance and make interesting at higher level.