Rules Light Modern RPG

[Li Shenron]

Anyone know of a rules light modern RPG? I KS'd the Everyday Heroes but since then our group is looking to get away from a d20/5E system. Any suggestions?

Risus is the lightest RPG I know about (and played).

 

[aramis erak]

Anyone know of a rules light modern RPG? I KS'd the Everyday Heroes but since then our group is looking to get away from a d20/5E system. Any suggestions?

• Savage Worlds
• D6 Adventure
• Awfully Cheerful Engine (ACE)

Note that Savage Worlds is a step-die system, so it's pretty coarse. Character growth is steady and not overwhelming.
The settings I've read adapt Savage Worlds to the setting, not the setting to Savage Worlds. Am enjoying it right now. Fairly cinematic to pulp in tone.

d6 adventure is the same core mechanics as WEG Star Wars. Note that WEG's Star Wars is probably the third most pirated game ever made. (D&D being first, and Pathfinder being second)... I've strolled a lot of pirate sites looking for Traveller being pirated, and reporting them to Marc Miller's takedown agent. everything's rated in numbers of d6 thrown, totalled, and compared to a TN.

Both Savage Worlds and D6 Adventure I'd say are medium-light, traditional style. 2/5 complexity.

Ace is a smaller dice pool system, and right on the border of ultralight. 1/5 complexity.

Then, of course, you can always go to the truly ultra-light level, both of which I'd put at about 0.3/5...

• Risus
• GURPS Ultralight

 

[R_J_K75]

Risus is the lightest RPG I know about (and played).

• Savage Worlds
• D6 Adventure
• Awfully Cheerful Engine (ACE)

Thank you both I appreciate the input, but we've already bought into the ModernAGE Basic Rulebook and I started running the Feral Hogs adventure. Both are quite good. Lets just hope the module doesnt break its moorings and float into powerlines like Algie did

 

[kronovan]

I'm just going to chime in and say I think ModernAGE was a good choice. The optional Modes in that edition of the Adventure Gaming Engine, fixes problems with HP bloat and low defenses that existed in Dragon Age and Fantasy Age. I'd caution against going with anything more generous than the Pulpy mode for health advancement, unless you want combat encounters to be very lengthy at higher levels. As well, using the more generous Cinematic for that mode, your players PC's are unlikely to ever feel really threatened at higher levels. Considering you can almost fit all the minor and major actions and their details on one page, it's IMO definitely light on crunch. Stunts add a bit of crunch, but a GM can always work with their players to create an individual, shorter list that just contains their favorites.
[Edit] Had forgotten this earlier, but Ability Focuses are the feature of ModernAGE that IMO most betrays its intention of being light on crunch. In the first edition of Dragon Age you only dealt with them at PC creation, then every other level and they had a set bonus of +2. Then GR intro'd double-focusing where you take them again, upping the bonus to +3. In a nutshell, they've really become more like skills and 70+ skills is IMO too many for a set of rules to be considered light. If you're concerned players might be overwhelmed by the volume of focuses, my advice is to consolidate/eliminate some, as theirs definitely redundnacy among some.

I personaly don't consider Savage Worlds to be a rules light TTRPG - at least not from the GM perspective. Don't get me wrong - I really like the rules (SWEX -thru- SWADE) and have been running with them for over a decade, but I consider them as more moderate in crunch that light. For a GM there's a fair amount of crunch to managing the benny economy properly and recogninizing how the over 130 Edges impact play; especially any Extras that might have them. How to involve a PC's hindrances in terms of knowing when and how they can be effectively called into play, also takes time to master.

Even for players, the rules around combat can be quite crunchy; like learning how gang ups, innocent bystanders, grappling, Rate of Fire rolls, 3-round bursts, shotgun rolls among other combat playe mechanics, all work. As well, how the 30+ combat edges and their improved versions impact combat adds quite a bit of crunch about Seasoned rank and higher. Not to mention that for a TTRPG it's fairly crunchy around situation rules and hazards.
It certainly has some quality tools that help lighten the load; like Dramatic Tasks, Mass Battles, Social Conflicts and Quick Encounters. The simplicity of the core roll+wild dice with a universal target number for the majority of results, goes a long way to making play fluid and simple. I've never had problems with getting players comfortable with how the core dice mechanic works, including kids. So considering all that maybe medium-light in crunch, but IMO by no means light.

 

[R_J_K75]

I'd caution against going with anything more generous than the Pulpy mode

This is the mode we decided to use.

Stunts add a bit of crunch, but a GM can always work with their players to create an individual, shorter list that just contains a player's favorites.

Yeah I think the stunt system is going to be the biggest learning curve for us, and we've already discussed creating either a truncated list or custom list for each PC. Im hesitant to modifying or house ruling the system until we've played more.

I personaly don't consider Savage Worlds to be a rules light TTRPG

When I first posed this question and this was one of the suggestions I looked into it briefly and got the same impression from the little bit I did look into it. Seemed like alot of upfront work for the GM.

Even for players, the rules around combat can be quite crunchy; like learning how gang ups, innocent bystanders, grappling, Rate of Fire rolls, 3-round bursts, shotgun rolls among other combat playe mechanics, all work. As well, how the 30+ combat edges and their improved versions impact combat adds quite a bit of crunch about Seasoned rank and higher. Not to mention that for a TTRPG it's fairly crunchy around situation rules and hazards.

I haven't gotten that far into the rules yet. I plan on reading a bit more between now and our game Monday We just kind of jumped in and started playing. The game seems rather forgiving in that you can use as much or as little of the rules as you want.

It certainly has some quality tools that help lighten the load; like Dramatic Tasks, Mass Battles, Social Conflicts and Quick Encounters. The simplicity of the core roll+wild dice with a universal target number for the majority of results, goes a long way to making play fluid and simple.

I will definitely look out for this when reading more of the core book and the Gamemasters Guide. Anything that make the game easier and less time consuming to prep I'm all for.

So considering all that maybe medium-light in crunch, but IMO by no means light.

Medium-Light is fine with me, and I'm sure after a few more games a way better handle on the rules, but in the long run I can see us omitting some game options and playing it lighter that the core book intendeds. But who knows maybe its easy enough to learn that we'll play more or less RAW.

 

[kronovan]

...Medium-Light is fine with me, and I'm sure after a few more games a way better handle on the rules, but in the long run I can see us omitting some game options and playing it lighter that the core book intendeds. But who knows maybe its easy enough to learn that we'll play more or less RAW.

Beginning with the SWADE edition, IMO you can run RAW and still achieve Pinnacle Entertainment's slogan of "Fast, Furious and Fun" for game play. The majority of players I've run campaigns for have gotten to the point with the rules, where game play becomes smooth. There were a couple of snags in earlir editions, such as the previous Shaken condition which would infrequently stymie a benny-less player who rolled low for consecutive rounds. As well as players more frequently being one-shot in combat due to the absence of a damage cap - majority of all SWEX and SWD GMs I know houseruled one in. I do recommend running a series of adventures before making changes to the rules, as although the rules lend themselves well to houseruling, there's still a lot to learn which once achieved will help avoid making poor choices around ommisions and alterations.

My advice for customizing SWADE, is to focus more on the options in the Adventure Tool kit chapter. Those are an effective set of sliders and knobs that will let you tweak gameplay without effecting the core.

 

[Thomas Shey]

For what its worth, the Stunt rules in AGE are probably the best part of the system. I also appreciate the 3D6 resolution as it produces a bit more consistency of result. I have mixed feelings about the rest of it, but then, it often gets "light" in places I really don't appreciate it.

 

[kronovan]

For what its worth, the Stunt rules in AGE are probably the best part of the system. I also appreciate the 3D6 resolution as it produces a bit more consistency of result...

Yup, I'd ditto those as the best features of the rules.

 

[R_J_K75]

I'm running the Feral Hogs adventure by Green Ronin and the second part of the adventure takes place in an abandoned nuclear powerplant but doesn't provide a map. This pretty poor module design in mu opinion. I just looked online for about 2 hours and I can't find a floor plan map of a fantasy modern nuclear powerplant. Does anyone have one or know where I can one, preferably a .jpg or .pdf but any format will do? Thanks

 

[kronovan]

What about this map. It's more of an exterior view, but a simple, top-down view in JPG format. Brought to you courtesy of the Emirates Nuclear Nuclear Energy Corp. You could put a grid on it with any one of a number of mapping or drawing apps and treat it as an internal view. Of course if you're planning on revealing/drawinng it on an erasable, gridded sheet (like those Chessex or Paizo sheets) as the party progresses, you could just use it as your GM reference.