Best toolbox RPG to start with?

[dragoner]

Ideas.
Your group is going to be payed a very large some of money to transport a not very important sleeping vampire across a high fantasy world.
-Using magic to disguise the vampire is not ideal as various interested parties can detect magic (but not detect vampires.)
-The campaign leans into wacky high jinks.
-The campaign is designed to create awkward situations and obstacles to overcome.

Your party is fugitives from the future and your goal is to prevent a mad inventor from dooming the planet. The goal is to make the angsty inventor more reasonable, compassionate, and accepted.
-The party has all kinds of knowledge predicting events, but has to pass their actions as luck and good guessing.
-The party can un kill people with time travel, but have to make it seem reasonable somehow.

I can't say which system for sure, though something narrative, imo. Neither really fit the "zero to hero" level grind of a lot of games. Maybe something more like Ironsworn, or a Powered by the Apocalypse, though I might be leery of adding moves. I might go with a Basic Role Playing variant, Openquest, etc..

 

[J.Quondam]

What is a campaign idea to build in Fate Core that is comprehensive but straightforward?

If you'd like to check out some Fate examples, Evil Hat produced a two-volume set called "Fate Worlds" (vol1, vol2) each containing a half-dozen or so short settings in a variety of genres on a particular theme (eg, Worlds on Fire includes settings about modern day firefighters, WWI-era mechas, sword & sorc fantasy, among others). They also have dozens of settings in their "Worlds of Adventure" series (most for Fate Core, a few for FAE iirc). Most range from ~50 to ~100 pages, iirc, though some are much bigger.

I found several of these to be good examples to how Fate settings/adventures are built.

 

[rhythmsoundmotion]

If you'd like to check out some Fate examples, Evil Hat produced a two-volume set called "Fate Worlds" (vol1, vol2) each containing a half-dozen or so short settings in a variety of genres on a particular theme (eg, Worlds on Fire includes settings about modern day firefighters, WWI-era mechas, sword & sorc fantasy, among others). They also have dozens of settings in their "Worlds of Adventure" series (most for Fate Core, a few for FAE iirc). Most range from ~50 to ~100 pages, iirc, though some are much bigger.

I found several of these to be good examples to how Fate settings/adventures are built.

There are so many Worlds of Adventure books!! I don't know where to start with them. Fate Worlds of Adventure Archives - Evil Hat Productions
Which ones do you like best?

 

[J.Quondam]

There are so many Worlds of Adventure books!! I don't know where to start with them. Fate Worlds of Adventure Archives - Evil Hat Productions
Which ones do you like best?

Yeah, there are ton of them! I haven't looked at nearly all of them, but a few I've enjoyed are Secrets of Cats (FAE, you play cats), Weird World News (Core, think "Scooby Doo"), and Uranium Chef (FAE, like gladiator games + Iron Chef, but in space), among others. Really just pick a genre and run, I suppose. That said....

... The first one I looked at was vol 1 (World on Fire) of the "Fate Worlds" (vol1, vol2) set (Core). It was helpful as it has several short settings across a broad range of genres. I found that variety to be pretty instructive, so maybe one of those two books would be a good place to start, as a sort of Fate "sampler".


(Edited above to indicate which are Core and FAE (Fate Accelerated). FAE is an official modified/lite game presented as a way to mod Fate Core, about 40 pages, and plays differently too (Skills in Core are "what you do", whereas in FAE they're "How you do it"). When I learned FAE is when Fate really clicked, especially its mod-ability.)

 

[Tonguez]

There are so many Worlds of Adventure books!! I don't know where to start with them. Fate Worlds of Adventure Archives - Evil Hat Productions
Which ones do you like best?

Masters of Umdaar = Sword and Lasers in the style of Masters of the Universe, Thundaar etc
Venture City = Superheroes
Sail Full of Stars = 18th Century Sailing Ships in Space
Eagle Eyes = Cop noir in ancient Rome
The Three Rocketeers = Dumas style Swashbuckling Space Opera (Three Msuketeers)
House of Bards = Politics of House of Cards in a fantasy city
Iron Street Combat = Street Fighter Tournament
Romance in the Air = Edwardian Drama in an Airship Grand Tour

Dresden Files Accelerated and Spirit of the Century are also awesome though not part of the Worlds of Adventure line

There is also Dungeons of FATE (a DnD hack) and Pathfinder Fate Accelerated (Pathfinder hack)

 

[aramis erak]

I have heard GURPS, Cortex Prime, and Fate (plus others) all called toolbox RPGs. And I have seen criticism about difficulty of use aimed at most of them. But which toolbox RPG does the best explanation for newcomers? What is the best toolbox RPG to use first?

And I know the usual advice is to choose the toolbox RPG that fits your campaign concept the best. But maybe that is the best SECOND toolbox RPG to try.

You're missing several currently available: Savage Worlds, EABA, Hero System, BRP, Genesys, Mekton Zeta...
Fate actually is multiple games: Fate Core, Fate Accelerated, and a bunch of adapted core Fate system games.

And some others: Masterbook, d6 System Toolkit, CORPS: Complete Omniversal Role-Play System (2nd ed), Silhouette Core...

They generally fall into three clades:
Stable core with settingbooks: GURPS, BRP, Genesys, Masterbook
Stable core with a lot of bolt on components in core, and sometimes more in supplements: EABA, Mekton Zeta, Hero System, Savage Worlds, CORPS (the skill list is a build your own!), Fate Core, Fate Accelerated.
Build a system from list of components: Fate Core, d6 System Toolkit, Fuzion.

Each clade is very different in how player experience can happen.

A few genre specific games have extensive toolkit elements, too... most notably The Burning Wheel, and ICE's Rolemaster and Spacemaster. Mekton Zeta is Mecha Anime focused, but can be used easily outside that genre, and even points that out. D6 Space, D6 Adventure, and D6 Fantasy are worked genre engine flavors, directly cadet from WEG Star Wars... with some of the D6 System Toolkit options included and otherwise being tweaked to the 3 genres.

My initial suggestion is one of the D6 genre games, Fate Core, or Savage Worlds, as they're fast to get to play, and the play-loop is simple in all three cases. I'll note that Fate Core has a very strong player-skill component, but it's only a problem if a power player is doing so and stealing all the face time.

 

[aramis erak]

I think GURPS is the most "toolbox" of them, if in that limited set of games, Savage Worlds have more players though. More than what are said about games, there needs to be asked exactly what is someone trying to do?

Cortex Prime isn't even playable without the setting construction step... save for the uses 10% of the book prebuilt example, which is a Thunderbirds are Go! knockoff.

 

[dragoner]

Fate core isn't even playable without the setting construction step... save for the uses 10% of the book prebuilt example, which is a Thunderbirds are Go! knockoff.

Fate really didn't gel at our table, I think that a lot of the games using Fate, have the rules tuned to them.

 

[aramis erak]

Fate really didn't gel at our table, I think that a lot of the games using Fate, have the rules tuned to them.

True, a lot do. But fate core is playable as is, albeit a bit blandly. It's much like Rolemaster: There is a core mechanic, and a core methodology to characters, and a shitload of options ... the feel is strongly dependent upon options chosen.

Cortex Prime simply isn't; It's essentially making a pick for various components, several of which have multiple choices which are mutually incompatible. There are three different approaches to Distinctions (no pun intended) which are the most distinctive element of Cortex Plus/Prime. Multiple options for attributes and/or skills, from none to both+specializations... options for how assets are used; can they be ranked, or are they always d6, or just d6 and d8 signature assets? Do assets carry special abilities?
Note that one can recreate the mechanics of Smallville, Firefly, Marvel Heroic RP, and Dragon Brigade from the Cortext Plus Hacker's Guide or Cortex prime... but the rulebook itself contains the mechanical content of all of those... but note that Smallville and Marvel only share the powers and assets rules; Smallville's about relationships, and Marvel's about the powers first, and the character's non-supers abilities second. Pick options from the menu to build your game, then be annoyed because you can't publish as it's not open licensed.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Another vote for Fate and its plethora of mini-campaigns.

My latest darling Agon (Paragon is the generic version) has a surprisingly large number of offshoots to show its toolbox-y nature. It’s not as toolbox-y as Fate though.

https://itch.io/c/2805601/paragon-system-games