NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Theory of Games" data-source="post: 9714730" data-attributes="member: 7042201">Always. Otherwise you end up in a situation where you're playing a D&D Barbarian and thinking Conan the Barbarian, but the gameplay feels more like Order of the Stick <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /> If I'm aiming for 'Sword & Sorcery', I'd use The Riddle of Steel or GURPS Conan in order to have a lethal game system that matches the deadliness of the Hyborian Age. If sudden decapitations during swordfights is a thing in the setting, the system has to be able to produce that in play (usu. with Hit Locations + Damage modifiers). It's one of the (many) reasons I walked away from D&D. I like the Rules Cyclopedia and Pathfinder (1e) because they embody exactly what D&D is, but I also realized it can't do most Fantasy sub-genres as well as other systems. Same with Star Wars: WEGS D6, Edge of Empire and most of the systems attempting to emulate the movie series fall short IMO, especially with how combat works. In the films, most people don't survive direct hits from blasters or lightsabers, but most of the SW rpgs are much more forgiving - a bug IMO. As an aside; when we look at the fiction that inspires the rpgs we play, we find the book/film's physical violence is much more deadly than in the games, which is why I think combat is such a bugaboo in this hobby. It's not that ttrpg combat isn't "realistic", but rather, it poorly emulates the representative fiction. There's a reason the protagonists in many fictional stories often run away from danger: because their foes can kill them with one attack. I'd argue that the deadlier the combat system, the greater the chance the players will choose a non-combat solution to conflicts and only fight when they absolutely have to.On social interaction: IMO most ttrpgs handle persuasion, intimidation and deception as required to emulate the fiction/setting. IME many players don't use social interaction because they don't understand how it can often be more effective than physical combat. If I wanted taut social intrigue akin to Game of Thrones or Sin City, again, most ttrpgs can handle it.</blockquote>

Verification