Let's Talk About Fantasy heartbreaks and other FRPGs

eyeheartawk said:

I love this so much.

In my head I always imagined him as the Wesley Willis of RPGs ( in only a good way).

Please know that this made my year.

If I could I would gift you all the Moonstone Bazooka Cannons.

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Nice. Now that I remember it, the author portrait photo from the 2nd edition rulebook is pretty much him exactly as I remember him, though I can't remember seeing him wearing armor.

Actually... that just jogged a memory. He was friends with a couple of comic book artists- specifically Mike Grell (of Green Arrow fame) and Dameon Willich, and got them both to do a little bit of art for Synnibarr, as I recall. He ALSO served as an artist's model at least once or twice. In fact, that armor and sword were the ones used for the cover modeling for issue 1 of the Avatar/Time of Troubles three issue comic book limited series from DC! I believe that piece was by Willich.

My first non-D&D fantasy RPG? Probably RuneQuest (the 2E boxed set).

These days, if I wanted to run fantasy, I'd probably reach for 13th Age, Beyond the Wall, TOR, or Fellowship. Maybe PF2E, although I'd need more experience with it to be certain.

Mannahnin said:

Nice. Now that I remember it, the author portrait photo from the 3rd edition rulebook is pretty much him exactly as I remember him, though I can't remember seeing him wearing armor.

Actually... that just jogged a memory. He was friends with a couple of comic book artists- specifically Mike Grell (of Green Arrow fame) and Dameon Willich, and got them both to do a little bit of art for Synnibarr, as I recall. He ALSO served as an artist's model at least once or twice. In fact, that armor and sword were the ones used for the cover modeling for issue 1 of the Avatar/Time of Troubles three issue comic book limited series from DC! I believe that piece was by Willich.

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Comic books in 'Forgotten Realms The Time of Troubles'

www.mycomicshop.com

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You know, I'm pretty convinced that his life is just one long dedicated piece of performance art. It's really that amazing.

Reynard said:

What was your first non-D&D fantasy RPG? What is your favorite? If it is a different answer, what is your favorite "fantasy heartbreaker" (usually defined as a game designed specifically to be a better game than D&D and usually failing)? Are you able to run that favorite game, or do you end up going back to D&D to get players (or whatever other reason)?

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My first non-D&D RPG of any kind was Traveller. Shortly thereafter, the same guy introduced me to The Fantasy Trip/In The Labyrinth.

My favorite? Fantasy HERO.

Don’t know if I can point at a favorite “heartbreaker”, though. While I’ve played several RPGs mentioned here as being one, I don’t know if I consider any of them “failures”. Of the ones others posted above, I’d pick PF1 as closest to that definition. (Not because it “failed”, but because I like it the most.)

The only real hearthbreaker rpg I play is my own homebrew d20 roll over fantasy game I've been developping for the last 3 years. It's getting better. Reading many different game systems was certainly a great help. I've used it only for solitary play sessions so far. Should do a 1 player 1 GM session this winter.

My first non-D&D fantasy RPG I actually played was Pathfinder 1e. There were plenty of non-fantasy RPGs before that (Call of Cthulhu, Marvel Superheroes, TMNT, GURPS, Star Wars WEG), and we only looked at the WFRP 1e book, but never got around to playing it back in the day.
Since that time, the non-D&D fantasy I've tried now include Forbidden Lands, Numenera, WFRP 3e, WFRP 4e, numerous OSR retroclones, Dungeon World, 13th Age, Savage Worlds Fantasy, and Pathfinder 2e.

aramis erak said:

Palladium Fantasy. Great setting, mediocre rules.

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I thought when compared to AD&D 2nd Edition (which I was playing at the time) they were perhaps better rules. They addressed some issues I had with with multi/dual classing, had a skills system, and had very evocative classes. Unfortunately the system was never updated.

Reynard said:

What was your first non-D&D fantasy RPG? What is your favorite? If it is a different answer, what is your favorite "fantasy heartbreaker" (usually defined as a game designed specifically to be a better game than D&D and usually failing)? Are you able to run that favorite game, or do you end up going back to D&D to get players (or whatever other reason)?

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Oh gosh, I think my first non-D&D fantasy game was Pendragon, way back in the 80s. (Though my first non-D&D was Champions, the version with all of the softcovers before the version with the Big Blue Book.) But we didn't get much beyond character creation. I think the D&D really dominated my fantasy RPGs until college, when I played a good amount of Warhammer Fantasy. I still remember my giantslayer dwarf, the whole party beat up and wanting to rest, while with 1 wound left he picked up and continued down the caves because "we're not done yet" and there was redemption to be had, or die trying.

My favorite "fantasy heartbreak" is 13th Age. It's a d20 that came out before 5e, though they share a lot of sensibilities and steamlining. It was made by Rob Heinsoo, the lead designer of D&D 4e, and Jonathan Tweet, one of the lead designers of D&D 3.0. They describe it as "a love letter to D&D", and wrote the game that they wanted to play in their weekly game.

I ran a four and a half year campaign of it. One issue is that 5e is close enough to it mechanically to get things mixed up, so that running and playing both simultaniously is hard. Also considering that one of my groups is hardcore 5e, I doubt I'd get them to go for another game system that is that close - I'd have more luck with a different genre for them.

RPGs are social games, and the majority of people I play with head to 5e for high fantasy type games, so I don't get much chance to play other systems in that genre.

Voadam said:

Palladium (1e at least) had Physical Endurance stat (constitution) as bonus hp (so much less one shots at low level), a parry and dodge mechanic (fights take a little longer to resolve), and percentile skills. Otherwise a lot like old D&D with some different classes, races, and magic systems.

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Palladium has a much higher hit rate than D&D, as well, so the parries and dodges return it to roughly comparable damage rates.

Also, if you like Palladium's ruleset but not SDC armor, I'd advise a look at Arcanum. Same concepts, better implementation, except armor is non-ablative damage reduction, and there's no bypass.

aramis erak said:

Palladium has a much higher hit rate than D&D, as well, so the parries and dodges return it to roughly comparable damage rates.

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But with an extra opposed roll from the target so it takes longer to resolve each attack than D&D's generally one roll and done for whether an attack hits.

aramis erak said:

Also, if you like Palladium's ruleset but not SDC armor, I'd advise a look at Arcanum. Same concepts, better implementation, except armor is non-ablative damage reduction, and there's no bypass.

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I had the statless World Atlas which was fantastic for a fantasy mythic earth counterpart setting.

The class books looked awesome but I never got my hands on them at the time.