Still Searching for "That" System

[Retreater]

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.

I think it should be very rare. For example, if you drop in one hit, then there should be a buffer of negative HP, death saves, or something else.

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

Some special maneuvers are okay. But I'm also thinking about flanking, attacks of opportunity, retreating.

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).

I want them to be able to learn how to play without taking home a 300+ page rulebook and studying it for weeks like homework.

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.

Yeah. It's sort of you just throw stuff and kill characters until you can figure out what the characters can handle - until those characters are replaced (or get more abilities, better equipment, etc.) I feel like that should be a pretty major part of any game design, but it's often not even given a second's thought - which is a shame. It's the main reason my groups fall off systems.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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

That was a big part of our issue; damage reductive armor and level elevating hit points can both work, but they don't play well together.

In addition, in DAGE we had things like the magical healer became more and more pointless because the amount she could heal in a round was not only pretty trivial relative to characters hits, it was even trivial relative to a lot of monsters damage.

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.

There was also the issue that the playtest for levels 1-5 was much more thorough than level 6-10, and then 11-20 less thorough yet.

 

[Tonguez]

Fate Accelerated is all about creating Aspects - narrative permissions that let you do anything within the agreed narrative And give +2 to your dice roll

the hardest part is remembering to invoke aspe ts on everything

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think it should be very rare. For example, if you drop in one hit, then there should be a buffer of negative HP, death saves, or something else.

That does make it hard, since most systems with a serious critical hit system make it at least possible to one-shot a low level character; as I noted with Savage Worlds, its difficult but not impossible.

Some special maneuvers are okay. But I'm also thinking about flanking, attacks of opportunity, retreating.

I want them to be able to learn how to play without taking home a 300+ page rulebook and studying it for weeks like homework.

The problem is that every game I know of that gives you any real ability to do the first at least requires you to understand when and how they happen. You indicated SW is too difficult, and to me, it seems like a relatively light-weight example here.

Yeah. It's sort of you just throw stuff and kill characters until you can figure out what the characters can handle - until those characters are replaced (or get more abilities, better equipment, etc.) I feel like that should be a pretty major part of any game design, but it's often not even given a second's thought - which is a shame. It's the main reason my groups fall off systems.

Yeah, I'd have pointed you at Sabre Fantasy 3e, but if SW is too complex, it will certainly be too (its a system derived from D&D hybridized with Mythras).

 

[Umbran]

I did have someone run me in City of Mists and FATE. The free-form was bad for my wife (who is one of the players in my current group) - she hated being "put on the spot," forced to think creatively, and engaging in the "mother, may I" questions.

Oh, that's unfortunate. I'll be honest, in that, IMHO, Fate's best when the answer to "Mother, may I?" is almost always, "Yes! And..."

Like, if what the player wants to do is even vaguely reasonable, the GM should allow then to try. If, as a GM, you are saying, "No, that won't work," with frequency, that's a problem.

Thinking creatively can be hard, especially if you are used to looking at a character sheet to tell you your possible actions. But, there's a couple of ways for players to build characters that basically give them the classic actions they can take.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

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.

Ime it depends very much on how light your/your GM’s touch is. And it’s kind of built into the game expectations that even if you live, sooner or later there will be amputation, corruption and mutations.
And the system is not only crunchy but also wonky in many ways, like if C7 added artificial eighties style system wierd as some kind of celebration.

With that said, I love the setting and lore, and I really enjoy GMing the game - on FoundryVTT that drastically lowers the practical crunch and automate most thing.

 

[TheSword]

Ime it depends very much on how light your/your GM’s touch is. And it’s kind of built into the game expectations that even if you live, sooner or later there will be amputation, corruption and mutations.
And the system is not only crunchy but also wonky in many ways, like if C7 added artificial eighties style system wierd as some kind of celebration.

With that said, I love the setting and lore, and I really enjoy GMing the game - on FoundryVTT that drastically lowers the practical crunch and automate most thing.

As Gaunt says. “Men of Tannith… do you want to live forever!” It’s a rhetorical question lol.

As with most systems if the DM wants to kill you they can kill you. I just know the published adventures are pretty balanced and unless bad luck happens and you lost a lot of Resilience or Fate early on, armoured characters are pretty safe. With Fate points to keep you in the game.

Foundry is a game changer for me. Roll20 was fine up until second career but as soon as more talents and equipment start coming in it was unwieldy. I got loads of custom made playing cards printed for the various rules for the F2F game we started last month. I’m hoping that will help… that and the fact that we having been playing Enemy Within for a year and a half online.

I just love how crunch the system. Still learning things even this far in. Like the fact that a mail coif will only protect you 50% of the time because it’s only a partial covering and Plate armour has weak points that can be ignored by an impale weapon that scores a crit. Love it so much. Lol so much drama!

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

At the risk of thread derailment, I think this is the opposite of OSR, but also a common (mis)perception.

One of the major appeals of OSR, to me anyway, is that you aren't limited by what you can do on your character sheet. Sure, in combat the only button to push on your character sheet is "attack". But:
a) It is almost always a good idea in OSR to use your noggin to find ways to avoid combat
b) If you have to fight, it's almost always a good idea in OSR to use your noggin find ways to make combat grossly unfair to the monsters

Now, if what you really mean is that you like having "special abilities" unique to your class to invoke during combat, then I think you are correct.

I feel a snag here is playing with people with limited experience often increases the amount of time they stare at their character sheet looking for the answer. Hell, I've been playing since '82 and I still catch myself doing that, moreso with systems I'm less familiar with

 

[Retreater]

As with most systems if the DM wants to kill you they can kill you. I just know the published adventures are pretty balanced and unless bad luck happens and you lost a lot of Resilience or Fate early on, armoured characters are pretty safe. With Fate points to keep you in the game.

My biggest problem with WFRP is how lop-sided it is. It just seems that there's a clear way to "win" the game. If you make an elf with a background that starts with great armour, you're going to be 2-4 times as survivable as others. The amount of XP you get in exchange for random rolls during character creation don't come near to offsetting the hindrances you take by ending up a lowly ratcatcher with a bag of dung to spend on being able to afford a rib-bone to use in combat. (I'm only exaggerating a little.)
The lop-sidedness of this harbors resentment in the players. There is such a wide gap in effectiveness, that a poor character should just stay behind to care for chickens.

 

[TheSword]

My biggest problem with WFRP is how lop-sided it is. It just seems that there's a clear way to "win" the game. If you make an elf with a background that starts with great armour, you're going to be 2-4 times as survivable as others. The amount of XP you get in exchange for random rolls during character creation don't come near to offsetting the hindrances you take by ending up a lowly ratcatcher with a bag of dung to spend on being able to afford a rib-bone to use in combat. (I'm only exaggerating a little.)
The lop-sidedness of this harbors resentment in the players. There is such a wide gap in effectiveness, that a poor character should just stay behind to care for chickens.

I would have agreed in earlier editions but divorcing skill limits from careers means that rat catcher with enough practice can make one damn fine swordsman. Sure they will have to find a trainer between adventures to gain some of the talents but it’s definitely possible. Armour isn’t linked to career so he can have a decent armour soak and rat catchers can progress WS, BS, WP, Tougness, Initiative and finally Strength. They also get some decent combat talents like strike mighty blow and very resilient. Basically gone are the days where you’re excluded from combat if you’re not a warrior.

When it comes to Elves, believe me, you can offer me +10 on every stat and I still wouldn’t take them over the sweet sweet meta currency points. Elves get 2, Humans get 6. The rerolls from fortune and being able to remove conditions with resolve every session are game changers. Elves die nasty deaths in a ditch somewhere on the Middenheim road.