I’ve long struggled trying to find the “perfect” system for my group, as evidenced in my Post-Mortems about various 5E campaigns, Savage Worlds Holler, the recent 8-month campaign in 4E, and a series of indie one-shots including Dread, Monster of the Week, and Alice is Missing. Finally, I decided that there isn't a "perfect" system - but that we should switch it up to appeal to everyone in the group, players and GM alike.
The 5E and 4E games were especially taxing on me. Finally, I was asked “what would you like to run?” I created a spreadsheet of all my available systems to try to maximize what I wanted, which would be a departure from the very tactical experience of 4E, which would allow me and the player who had felt a little neglected on the story/roleplaying/exploration fronts, which still wouldn’t be as deadly as many OSR systems, which still had some character customization, thrilling battles, still in print, etc.
After pondering this for over a month, I picked Dragonbane, which was a system I’d played a handful of times. I thought it would be good for myself and the one player who likes the story/roleplaying/exploration angle, and the other players who like more of a “beer and pretzels” style game. I created a campaign notebook to detail the characters, their motivations. Took notes about the NPCs and the quests. This was going to be my first campaign in years that would “matter.”
In our first session we had a dangerous fight, some wilderness survival, roleplaying in the town, meeting NPCs, shopping, picking up quests, etc. It was a very typical fantasy RPG session for a first session of a campaign. After the conclusion, I asked the players how they thought it went, and here are some of the responses…
Just to distill what they want…
The 5E and 4E games were especially taxing on me. Finally, I was asked “what would you like to run?” I created a spreadsheet of all my available systems to try to maximize what I wanted, which would be a departure from the very tactical experience of 4E, which would allow me and the player who had felt a little neglected on the story/roleplaying/exploration fronts, which still wouldn’t be as deadly as many OSR systems, which still had some character customization, thrilling battles, still in print, etc.
After pondering this for over a month, I picked Dragonbane, which was a system I’d played a handful of times. I thought it would be good for myself and the one player who likes the story/roleplaying/exploration angle, and the other players who like more of a “beer and pretzels” style game. I created a campaign notebook to detail the characters, their motivations. Took notes about the NPCs and the quests. This was going to be my first campaign in years that would “matter.”
In our first session we had a dangerous fight, some wilderness survival, roleplaying in the town, meeting NPCs, shopping, picking up quests, etc. It was a very typical fantasy RPG session for a first session of a campaign. After the conclusion, I asked the players how they thought it went, and here are some of the responses…
- didn’t like tracking inventory
- didn't like rolling a survival check to camp in the wilderness
- thought their turns were boring ("all I did one round was roll to defend")
- characters felt “puny”
- didn't like that boss monsters played by different rules
- didn't like random character creation
- didn't like inventory slots
- complaints that there was roleplaying
- complaints there was exploration
- didn't like card initiative
- didn’t like that it used the metric system (even when I converted it to “squares” for them)
- didn’t like not getting all their HP back every day
- didn’t like pushing their rolls and getting disadvantage conditions on future ability checks
- didn’t like that they couldn’t roll to tell when an NPC was hiding a secret (even when I basically just told them that was the case)
- didn’t like that they wouldn’t be getting levels (it’s a skill-based game, not class-based)
- “I get bored when there’s not fighting. But you can let other people roleplay and explore.”
- I was asked “what made you think we’d actually like this game?”
Just to distill what they want…
- No real roleplaying stakes or exploration
- Interesting tactical combat that isn’t actually threatening
- Full HP and power recharge between battles
- Can’t be a miniatures wargame because it needs to be fought in squares – not measuring tape (my wife’s specification)
- Handwave all tracking of resources, including rations, torches, arrows, etc.
