Finding the right flavor of D&D for my group

[Quickleaf]

My gaming group is getting back together, yah! Now...what game do we play?

We're just going to do some boardgames and hang out this weekend, but chances are we'll want to schedule some roleplaying. If I end up GM I am wondering about what rules light, easy prep version of D&D (or any of the splinter variants) I could use that would be immediately recognizable as a D&D type experience and wouldn't require the players to familiarize themselves with a new rules system.

Anyhow, some facts about our group:

* There are two of us GMs in the group, me and my buddy who was running a 4e Keep on the Borderlands game that's been on hiatus since April. I have an idea to continue a game which three of the players were part of before (it would be high level)...the original game was 4e.

* The group is large...like 8 people total, with fluctuation and new additions.

* About half of us have played together a bunch, mostly 4e with a bit of 3e before then. The other half are friends of friends who I believe are mostly 4e gamers.

* We meet intermittently/sporadically, at best twice a month, at worse once every 2 months, and there are long breaks, plus extended player absence (Navy, conferences, moving, vacations). IOW, players rarely remember much from previous sessions.

* Several of us are graduate / doctoral students.

* We have one non-native English speaker, for whom finding a Chinese translation of the 4e books greatly helped.

* One of the couples is expecting a baby in several months


So that's everything relevant I could think of to describe our group. Right now I'm looking at 4e, homebrewing 5e to do higher level play, FantasyCraft (I've read some interesting reviews), and True20. But I'm unsure which way to go. The basic premise is the PCs are probably high level (depends on the system, I'm thinking 10 or 11), and several years ago they overthrew a tyrant and put a young king in power, now they're reuniting when bad stuff goes down. Doing that in 4e with new players/characters is really tough - there's a lot to keep track of. Plus 4e fights tend to take a long time even with significant encounter/monster tweaking on the DM's side.

Just thinking out loud here. Maybe someone can recommend the perfect system for us?

 

[S'mon]

High level, large group, fluctuating players, quick... no, I don't think there is a perfect version of D&D for you!

I think I'd be tempted to run this with 1e AD&D (or the OSRIC clone) - PHB only, no UA - which has support in the DMG for creating high level PCs, and is well balanced at high level, assuming you give everyone the same XP, say 750,001 so Fighters are 11th level.

3e and derivatives are not well balanced at high level, and most are too complicated. Castles & Crusades is simple enough, but has balance issues around saving throws that give it a bit of 3e-style caster supremacy.

4e is complicated, but maybe "Essentials Only" would work? But the online charbuilder is appalling, you pretty much need to force players to make their PCs manually.

 

[GreyICE]

If everyone is heavily familiar with 4E or 3E they might be suitable, but I'd actually suggest a more rules-light system than either of those. Any rules-intensive system tends to bog down when players don't understand the rules, and rotating playerbases are exactly the sort of scenario where gameplay could bog down.

Maybe Savage Worlds? It's a fairly streamlined system. Not immediately recognizable as D&D, but it's still very related once you play it a little, and quite streamlined.

True20 is another strong competitor, although it's not necessarily what you're looking for. But it's much easier.

It's honestly hard to find something that's easy for players to pick up but still strongly resembles D&D (which has always been a moderately rules-heavy system).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Some ideas, in no particular order:

1) The Fantasy Trip/In the Labyrinth was one of the simplest RPGs ever designed. It is, unfortunately, out of print. However, I hav been told that this company uses essentially the same system. http://www.darkcitygames.com/display.php?series=law&id=19

2) Other 3Ed clones worth considering are Midnight 2Ed and Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved.

3) The classic D20 supers game Mutants & Masterminds 2Ed has a fantasy supplement called Warlocks & Warriors. Along with the Books of Magic supplement, you could run a very good simulation of D&D in, essentially, a classless system. No multiclassing to keep track of.*

4) HERO isn't rules light by any stretch of the imagination, but once your PC is on paper, you almost don't need to use the books again until you're "leveling" the PCs. I mention it because, with the Fantasy HERO supplement, you'd be able run a game featuring PCs modeled after any version of D&D PC. As in, you could have a 1Ed style Elven Ftr/MU/Th alongside a 3Ed Thri-Kreen Barbarian/Bard and a 4Ed style Dwarven Starpact Warlock|Psion. With 100% compatibility.







* M&M with W&W and BoM may be able to deliver nearly the same play experience as HERO & Fantasy HERO but for the inclusion of 4Ed style mechanics.

 

[Quickleaf]

Thanks for your feedback...I would XP you guys, but apparently I need to spread the love first.

High level, large group, fluctuating players, quick... no, I don't think there is a perfect version of D&D for you!

I know, right? Wouldn't want to make it too easy for you guys

I think I'd be tempted to run this with 1e AD&D (or the OSRIC clone) - PHB only, no UA - which has support in the DMG for creating high level PCs, and is well balanced at high level, assuming you give everyone the same XP, say 750,001 so Fighters are 11th level.

Actually I'd though of BD&D (I have the Rules Cyclopedia) but I think that would be too radical for the group. 1e might work...of course the 4e-preferred players would miss their powers. And there's all the 1e eccentricities that could turn players off: being unable to play a bard out of the gate (unless youre a human dual-classed into fighter, Druid, and thief), fighters getting screwed without UA weapon specialization (especially if they didn't have 18+percentile strength). Etc.

4e is complicated, but maybe "Essentials Only" would work? But the online charbuilder is appalling, you pretty much need to force players to make their PCs manually.

I'm considering that, and may present it the group as a way to keep combat time down and minimize complexity. Still, the 4e system has some involved combat rules that can be a real PitA, especially with a large group.

If everyone is heavily familiar with 4E or 3E they might be suitable, but I'd actually suggest a more rules-light system than either of those. Any rules-intensive system tends to bog down when players don't understand the rules, and rotating playerbases are exactly the sort of scenario where gameplay could bog down.

Tell me about it!

Maybe Savage Worlds? It's a fairly streamlined system. Not immediately recognizable as D&D, but it's still very related once you play it a little, and quite streamlined.

While I like the Savage Worlds system, I've pretty much ruled it out because it is a new system to learn and it's not an obvious D&D family member.

True20 is another strong competitor, although it's not necessarily what you're looking for. But it's much easier.

Yeah, the three class system might be too much of a departure from traditional D&D for this group. Again, a system I like (and have written for!), but probably not right for my group.

It's honestly hard to find something that's easy for players to pick up but still strongly resembles D&D (which has always been a moderately rules-heavy system).

I like the 5e playtest, an actually think its pretty easy to pick up and definitely resembles D&D. If only there were more classes & levels released I would definitely consider using it.

Some ideas, in no particular order:

1) The Fantasy Trip/In the Labyrinth was one of the simplest RPGs ever designed. It is, unfortunately, out of print. However, I hav been told that this company uses essentially the same system. http://www.darkcitygames.com/display.php?series=law&id=19

I remember hearing about it years ago, but I never had a chance to play.

2) Other 3Ed clones worth considering are Midnight 2Ed and Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved.

While I love those settings, I wouldn't go anywhere near 3e or it's clones with this group. In my mind, that's adding more rules complexity to our 4e baseline. Instead I'm trying to move towards simpler if it's possible.

3) The classic D20 supers game Mutants & Masterminds 2Ed has a fantasy supplement called Warlocks & Warriors. Along with the Books of Magic supplement, you could run a very good simulation of D&D in, essentially, a classless system. No multiclassing to keep track of.*

Dammit! You guys recommend all these awesome games that I'd like to try, but wouldn't work with this group because they toward (a) what's familiar, and (b) what's easy.

4) HERO isn't rules light by any stretch of the imagination, but once your PC is on paper, you almost don't need to use the books again until you're "leveling" the PCs. I mention it because, with the Fantasy HERO supplement, you'd be able run a game featuring PCs modeled after any version of D&D PC. As in, you could have a 1Ed style Elven Ftr/MU/Th alongside a 3Ed Thri-Kreen Barbarian/Bard and a 4Ed style Dwarven Starpact Warlock|Psion. With 100% compatibility.

I'm actually one of those gamers who *never* tried HERO system (don't hate me). But I like what you say about being able to have different "era" PCs alongside each other, especially with a large group of varying ages (20-40) and varying play styles.... The only problem is the whole point-buy concept is too far afield from traditional class-based D&D and might overwhelm some of the more casual gamers in the group.

Thanks for the suggestions! Sorry to reject most of em, this is a challenging group to run a game for...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Think nothing of it- I've been playing in the same group since 1998- and with some of them, since 1985. In that time, we've played a year's worth of RIFTS, 3 months of M&M, and everything else has been D&D (2Ed-4Ed). Not even clones.

To play other games, I had to join other groups.

 

[Yora]

I would say stay away from D&D 3rd Edition and any of its variants. That game is the last that would work well for your group.

 

[S'mon]

Actually I'd though of BD&D (I have the Rules Cyclopedia) but I think that would be too radical for the group. 1e might work...of course the 4e-preferred players would miss their powers. And there's all the 1e eccentricities that could turn players off: being unable to play a bard out of the gate (unless youre a human dual-classed into fighter, Druid, and thief), fighters getting screwed without UA weapon specialization (especially if they didn't have 18+percentile strength). Etc.

As UA weapon spec is overpowered at low level (though not quite so bad at the level 10+ range you're planning), my AD&D house rule is that Fighters & Fighter subclasses do +1 dmg/level up to 5th level. 2-handed weapons do +1.5/level, rounded down (so +7 at 5th), and off-hand weapons and darts do +0.5/level, rounded down (so +2 at 5th). This works great IME, I've been using it for 27 online sessions now, with the PCs currently around 3rd-4th level.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here's an idea: use 4Ed like I use HERO.

Besides using HERO for its original purposes, I've used HERO to simulate mechanics from other games, like how I mentioned doing with "Pan-D&D" games. I have also used it to run campaigns set in the settings of other RPGs without trying to simulate their mechanics, such as when I ran a Supers game set in the world of Space:1889.

4Ed, while not as flexible as HERO, has fostered a "just reskin it" attitude towards its mechanics that, in many ways, lies at the heart of toolbox games like HERO, GURPS, and M&M.

You say you like Midnight and AE- use 4Ed to run a campaign in those settings.

Or go further: you could use 4Ed to run a game set in the Deadlands setting with only a little pruning of the class list. Ditto a steampunk game such as you'd find in Iron Kingdoms or Girl Genius, which are just a step away from Eberron.

Similar targeted pruning could have you running a modern fantasy game such as delineated in Urban Arcana, Imagica, or Neverwhere. Or even Dark*Matter, Stargate, etc.

 

[Jupp]

If I were you I really would think about switching to a rules light system because you only meet once a month or less. So I think it is important that you choose a system that is fast paced and where fights do not take too long. Rules light also helps getting into the game again quickly after a monthly or two-month break. It also supports a higher number of players because turns do not take that long and everyone can have fun at the table.

This is basically one of the main reasons our group switched to a rules light system (Castles&Crusades) because we as well only play once a month or less. And C&C proved simple and fast enough to support our play style.

I think there are other systems out there that are in the same league as C&C, like OSRIC, Swords and Wizardry, Munchkin ( ) et al. I would not go 1e or 2e because it might be hard to get the rule books easily. Unless you can live with PDF printouts.

As for what we play; we usually play the dungeon crawlin' style because it is easy to step into the adventure again after longer breaks. Well, we always preferred dungeon crawling to open world RPGs but I think it would be more complicated to play open word scenarios because there thend to be such alot of NPCs, twists and plots that you tend to forget the important stuff if you only play infrequently. Dungeons are simple (sometimes).