If you could try a RPG that ISN'T D&D...

[Sketchpad]

Oops ... double Post

 

[Xaov]

Thats an interesting concept. I wouldn't mind givng that a shot, sometimes all the rolling can be tedious and more storytelling would be a nice change of pace.


OTOH: Isn't the way the dice falls attribute to plot twists.

 

[Kax Tuglebend]

d20
- Traveller
- Star Wars (maybe using the d20 Traveller damage rules)
- Babylon 5 (but most likely using most of the d20 Traveller rules)
- Conan (either in the Conan setting, or in Dark Sun)
- Legend of the 5 Rings
- Iron Kingdoms
- Eberron
- Arcana Unearthed (either Diamond Throne, or possibly Planescape)
- Midnight

non-d20
- Stormbringer
- Spaceship Zero
- Exalted (maybe in Planescape)
- HARP
- Pendragon (possibly in the Birthright setting)
- Call of Cthulhu (in 1890's or Ravenloft)
- Vampire: the Dark Ages

 

[Turjan]

What does your list look like?

Sitting on my shelves collecting dust, because nobody else wants to try them out:

Arcana Unearthed: Admittedly, this is pretty much D&D, and I'm not very much into the setting and some of the races. The classes and the mechanics, though, are something I definitely want to try one day .
HeroQuest: This is the one that sees me thrilled the most. The mechanics look simple but adequate, and the stress is on storytelling. Non-fighting abilities seem to get a much higher importance than in D&D. I'd really like to play this one some day.
Talislanta: That's also a rules-lite system, and the book is just beautiful. Though the system is as easy as it can get, the large amount of information each player has to indulge before (s)he can actually start will probably keep this beauty on the shelf.
The Dying Earth RPG: This game addresses a very special audience, and I set the probability of finding a group for this one next to zero. Admittedly, my English isn't good enough to do this game justice, either. Anyway, I love the setting and the books, so it would be great to give it a go.
HARP: On those days when I pull out the twentieth supplement from my shelf in order to look up some obscure D&D rule, I enviously eye this occupant of my gaming space. I'm not sure, though, whether it's worth the effort to try it, because it looks similar enough to D&D, except the actual numbers.

Sitting on my shelves collecting dust, because I cannot bring myself to try them out :

Exalted: This one did not really click with me. It looks a bit too much over the top for my taste. I'd give it a try, but I heard it would be a mix of a powergamer's wet dream and a GM's nightmare. Obviously, I want to avoid part 2 at any cost .
Hero System Sidekick: Yes, this is the easy introduction to HERO. It is actually a very good introduction to the system, though it's not enough info in there to acutally play a game in the genre I would like to play. The bottom line is that I don't want to learn another complicated system without seeing a definite advantage. That's nothing more said about HERO than that it came to late for me.

There are some more games I'd like to give a try, like Earthdawn or Ars Magica, but I don't know enough about them to really give a comment.

 

[Gez]

Jeez, I forgot to put Synnibar on my list. How could I forget to put Synnibar on my list?

Oh yeah. I don't want to play it.

By the way, did you play Spawn of Fachan at long last?

 

[woodelf]

I've heard that the Earth Alliance supplement is supposed to be pretty bad, though. How's the quality of the rest of the supplement?

Well, i only have the core book and the technomages supplement. So far, the setting info is awesome. The mechanics are so-so. Which is part of why i don't have more--like most D20 System books, there's a lot of crunch, so when the crunch underwhelms me, i'm disinclined to pay full price. Anyway, only flipped through the Earth Alliance book, so i don't have an opinion on it. But the Technomages book can sort of illustrate my point: i love the flavor, but they've taken beings that're supposed to be so scary-powerful that they can undermine empires and single-handedly destroy battlecruisers, and attempted to make them balanced. I would've just said to hell with balance. So, according to the flavor text, a 5th-8th level technomage is one of those ship-destroyers, and a 13th-level technomage is a world-shaker. I haven't looked close enough to be certain, but at a cursory read-through, they don't look like the mechanics make them anywhere near as powerful as the flavor text. It reminds me of the hit point situation in the core rulebook: it feels like they moderated the differences from D&D3E, favoring compatibility with baseline D20 System over fidelity to the source. That may not be the case--they might simply have a difference of opinion over interpreting; but that's what it feels like. OTOH, for those who want to do crossovers, they've covered the bases: there's a sidebar addressing how technomagic and real magic interact.

 

[Eridanis]

A book I bought years ago and have never had chance to play is the BARON MUNCHAUSEN game. Basically, it's an excuse for good friends to get together and tell tall tales. It's written by the Cheapass Games guru - don't remember his name off the top of my head. One of these days...

 

[Shining Dragon]

Exalted - the closest thing to a fantasy game that White Wolf have.
World of Darkness - nice set of rules to use if you're interested in creating your own modern-day (gothic) horror game. I imagine a Call of Cthulhu-esque game or dark government conspiracy with alien master (X-Files) would be pretty cool.
Vampire: The Requiem - Vampire: The Masquerade upgrade using the new World of Darkness Storytelling Rules. Looks nice.
HARP - bit of a toolkit approach using a simplified Rolemaster / MERP system. Always liked MERP and HARP sounds like a fairly good upgrade taking out the bad parts.

 

[woodelf]

A book I bought years ago and have never had chance to play is the BARON MUNCHAUSEN game. Basically, it's an excuse for good friends to get together and tell tall tales. It's written by the Cheapass Games guru - don't remember his name off the top of my head. One of these days...

Ahem, it is written by the good Baron himself. It is merely transcribed and edited by James Wallis, who is of Hogshead, not Cheapass, fame.

 

[woodelf]

There is (at least in the previews) a major change to the basic resolution that moves it from dice-chucking to "role-playing game with minimal rules." Instead of a combat action taking three to four seperate rolls, they now only take one. It's possible to be "so good that you can't be touched" just by having enough defenses to take all the attacker's dice away -- which means a lot less rolling and a lot more, well, storytelling.

I'd love to hear what you think would be a "less gamist" system than this one, woodelf.

That change doesn't make it any less gamist, it makes it less complex. The basis for determining the result of an action is still a combination of your character's abilities (simulationist) and whether or not you succeed (gamist). To make it less gamist, or, more specifically, more narrativist, you'd have to use other criteria to resolve actions. Frex, how appropriate the result is to the story. If, frex, it would be very difficult to hurt the Big Bad when you encountered her the first time, and very easy to hurt her when it was the climax of the story (assuming the circumstances within the gameworld were identical in both situations), that would be a narrativist mechanism. To pick some specific examples of more narrativist mechanics: Feng Shui, where you get a bonus for doing something cool, instead of a penalty because it's difficult. Dust Devils and Donjon are great examples of narrativist systems: both of them revolve around not success at an action (a very gamist construct) but narrative control of the action--a successful roll doesn't mean you succeed, it means you get to decide what happens, whether that be success or failure, or something else. Story Engine is a good example of a gamist/narrativist system, where you resolve actions based on how many resources you can bring to bear, but essentially bid other resources (various capabilities) to have control over the situation. Another narrativist/gamist mechanic would be flashbacks in Marvel Universe, where the player can once per session invoke a cut scene, which lets them narrate a bit of backstory, and thus get a bonus on their current action. Even having a rule like OtE or Sorcerer has that requires you to be creative in your attacks is a move in the narrativist direction. (In Over the Edge, each time after the first, in a given combat, that you use the same description for an attack, you take a cumulative penalty on the attack roll. A new description for each attack roll is the norm. And coming up with a really cool and original description for your attack gives you a bonus.)