Never played this one. What was good about it? What did it use, percentile system]?
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Favorite game system independent of setting / genre
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Never played this one. What was good about it? What did it use, percentile system]?
Fede
First Post
I prefer D&D 4th edition and NWod (What is it called? Storyteller system or Storytelling system? One of them is the old one and the other is the new one, i always get them confused).
I haven't had a chance to try Warhammer 2nd. edition, but based on what i read it could be another good one (and i'm sure that someone now will jump in and confirm this...)
I haven't had a chance to try Warhammer 2nd. edition, but based on what i read it could be another good one (and i'm sure that someone now will jump in and confirm this...)
Betote
First Post
If we take setting apart, I should say Fudge is my favorite one, because it's very easy for me to create statistics on the fly for almost anything with it.
If I use D&D3.x more is mostly because it has all the trappings of D&D fantasy already stated, and very little work is still more than no work at all
If I use D&D3.x more is mostly because it has all the trappings of D&D fantasy already stated, and very little work is still more than no work at all
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
GURPS. You can play almost any kind of campaign and power level, and you can scale the complexity of the rules to a fair degree. And while the combat system is as tweakable as anything else, the basic assumption that tactics that work in real life combat situations will be rewarded by the GURPS combat system as well.
Add in the vast range of support for science fiction and fantasy provided by the setting, and you can try out how to develop "plausible" strategies for settings with supernatural powers, ultra-tech weaponry and armor, and so forth. Want to test how a team of fantasy wizards would fare in a fight against WWII soldiers? With GURPS, this is not only possible, but easily done...
Add in the vast range of support for science fiction and fantasy provided by the setting, and you can try out how to develop "plausible" strategies for settings with supernatural powers, ultra-tech weaponry and armor, and so forth. Want to test how a team of fantasy wizards would fare in a fight against WWII soldiers? With GURPS, this is not only possible, but easily done...
Wombat
First Post
Hmmm, big question here.
One system that I have used successfully for many different settings, one that is easy for even non-roleplayers to pick up on, is Over the Edge. Similar to FUDGE and Spirit of the Century it is a "build your own idea" -- you decide on a Central Trait, two Side Traits, and a Flaw. Very broad, very intuitive, but it does require a certain amount of GM-player input and interaction to get it to run smoothly. Still, it is a game that I can get up and running within an hour, that the players grasp, and that a wide variety of people enjoy.
On a more detailed level, I really like the HarnMaster system; in fact, it is probably the only straight-percentile system that I still like. If you roll under your percentage, you succeed; if you roll over it, you fail. If the roll ends in a 0 or a 5, you have a special success/failure. Character creation has options for purely by chance, utterly by choice, or a mix-and-match method -- I prefer this latter. Again, I have been able to move this to system to multiple settings.
The revised World of Darkness system works pretty neatly. It is a dice pool system where the dice pools don't get out of hand. If you roll 8 or better, you have a success; if you roll less, you have a failure. You count the number of successes to determine who is ahead or whether you have completed a task. This is also a great system for introducing new gamers -- it is simple, obvious, and intuitive. Of course there can be a fair amount of interpretation with the interactions between certain powers, but that is a comparatively simple matter as long as the players and GM get along well.
Ars Magica is good, but basically it works best as a fantasy/magic system. I haven't really been able to port it over to something else, but it might work. It is rather more difficult to explain to non-gamers, or even gamers who are only comfortable with a single system (a very large percentage of gamers in general).
In the end, I prefer games that are cooperative over competitive.
One system that I have used successfully for many different settings, one that is easy for even non-roleplayers to pick up on, is Over the Edge. Similar to FUDGE and Spirit of the Century it is a "build your own idea" -- you decide on a Central Trait, two Side Traits, and a Flaw. Very broad, very intuitive, but it does require a certain amount of GM-player input and interaction to get it to run smoothly. Still, it is a game that I can get up and running within an hour, that the players grasp, and that a wide variety of people enjoy.
On a more detailed level, I really like the HarnMaster system; in fact, it is probably the only straight-percentile system that I still like. If you roll under your percentage, you succeed; if you roll over it, you fail. If the roll ends in a 0 or a 5, you have a special success/failure. Character creation has options for purely by chance, utterly by choice, or a mix-and-match method -- I prefer this latter. Again, I have been able to move this to system to multiple settings.
The revised World of Darkness system works pretty neatly. It is a dice pool system where the dice pools don't get out of hand. If you roll 8 or better, you have a success; if you roll less, you have a failure. You count the number of successes to determine who is ahead or whether you have completed a task. This is also a great system for introducing new gamers -- it is simple, obvious, and intuitive. Of course there can be a fair amount of interpretation with the interactions between certain powers, but that is a comparatively simple matter as long as the players and GM get along well.
Ars Magica is good, but basically it works best as a fantasy/magic system. I haven't really been able to port it over to something else, but it might work. It is rather more difficult to explain to non-gamers, or even gamers who are only comfortable with a single system (a very large percentage of gamers in general).
In the end, I prefer games that are cooperative over competitive.
My top choices for systems would be;
M&M2E - a much 'faster' system than the next two, making it a superior choice. It is much less fine-grained, however, and you can end up with some wonky results due to the fickle nature of d20 rolls.
D&D 3.5 - somewhere between M&M and GURPS. More detail.
GURPS 3e - the ultimate simulationist wet-dream. Skills and advantages and disadvantages for *everything.* I've played so many different types of GURPS I can't even remember them all, from horror to fantasy to sci-fi to setting-specific stuff like horseclans and humanx.
My last choice would probably be the storyteller d10 system. I've never been a lucky dice-roller, and flinging 10 d10 out only to score no successes at all because of the freaking difficulty eight just pisses me off. Exalted, called by some a power-gamer's fantasy, was a horrible turn off for me, because I played a four hour session where my combat-optimized character failed to damage any of the basic mooks from the back of the core book, because I couldn't get above a seven on the huge handfulls of dice I was rolling. WAY too swingy. I've never played a system (other than Paranoia or Call of Cthulhu, where the futility is the *point*) where my characters felt so powerless as in revised era World of Darkness games (in earlier editions, difficulties averaged around six, which made for a 50/50 success rate, and I did much better, by the time Trinity came up, it was creeping up to difficulty seven, and I found that the Psions in the game I ran failed to activate their powers enough that the game became 'dudes with guns who may or may not be psychic' and now it's up to difficulty eight, which is pretty much 'don't bother, you need five dice to have a statistical chance of a single success, and to do anything cool, you'll need three to five successes anyway...').
M&M2E - a much 'faster' system than the next two, making it a superior choice. It is much less fine-grained, however, and you can end up with some wonky results due to the fickle nature of d20 rolls.
D&D 3.5 - somewhere between M&M and GURPS. More detail.
GURPS 3e - the ultimate simulationist wet-dream. Skills and advantages and disadvantages for *everything.* I've played so many different types of GURPS I can't even remember them all, from horror to fantasy to sci-fi to setting-specific stuff like horseclans and humanx.
My last choice would probably be the storyteller d10 system. I've never been a lucky dice-roller, and flinging 10 d10 out only to score no successes at all because of the freaking difficulty eight just pisses me off. Exalted, called by some a power-gamer's fantasy, was a horrible turn off for me, because I played a four hour session where my combat-optimized character failed to damage any of the basic mooks from the back of the core book, because I couldn't get above a seven on the huge handfulls of dice I was rolling. WAY too swingy. I've never played a system (other than Paranoia or Call of Cthulhu, where the futility is the *point*) where my characters felt so powerless as in revised era World of Darkness games (in earlier editions, difficulties averaged around six, which made for a 50/50 success rate, and I did much better, by the time Trinity came up, it was creeping up to difficulty seven, and I found that the Psions in the game I ran failed to activate their powers enough that the game became 'dudes with guns who may or may not be psychic' and now it's up to difficulty eight, which is pretty much 'don't bother, you need five dice to have a statistical chance of a single success, and to do anything cool, you'll need three to five successes anyway...').
Alaxk Knight of Galt
First Post
Seventh Sea
I love the roll keep system. My only wish would be that the magic system was not so deeply tied into the world.
HERO System
Absolutely an amazing system for character generation. The flexibility it allows is brilliant.
I love the roll keep system. My only wish would be that the magic system was not so deeply tied into the world.
HERO System
Absolutely an amazing system for character generation. The flexibility it allows is brilliant.
kitsune9
Adventurer
My fondest memories aside from D&D was running a Top Secret campaign. I had a lot of fun with that system.
I also had a blast playing Marvel Super Heroes with a whole bunch of friends in which we decided to have like a battle royale against some evil group or against Juggernaut.
At some con, the folks with Hero Games put on a game called the Challenge of the Super Friends or Justice League (or did, it's been a while since I attended a con) and we play some of the Super Friends or Justice League characters and duke it out with bad guys.
I also had a blast playing Marvel Super Heroes with a whole bunch of friends in which we decided to have like a battle royale against some evil group or against Juggernaut.
At some con, the folks with Hero Games put on a game called the Challenge of the Super Friends or Justice League (or did, it's been a while since I attended a con) and we play some of the Super Friends or Justice League characters and duke it out with bad guys.
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