Is there demand for a “tactical” RPG akin to 4e?

[Longspeak]

[Derp. Wrong Thread.]

 

[Staffan]

So I'm not a fan of 4e. I say this only so that you understand that I'm sincerely trying to help.

So, one of the issues that 4e had was that it was more wargame than RPG and I think that's probably more what you are looking for, the difference is you are looking for squad based tactics versus army tactics. My suggestion is to check out Chainmail from the 90s. It was the pre-cursor to the D&D minis collectables and was a solid game.

Also you may want to use a game like Squad Leader and pulp the crap out of it to make a fantasy re-hash. Probably not what you were imagining, but hopefully it will open doors that were otherwise shut. Best of luck.

For those aiming in this direction, I think Descent (at least 2nd edition – I haven't tried the recent version) or Star Wars Imperial Assault can scratch that "tactical boardgame with RPG elements" itch. In both, most players control one character each, with varying stats, abilities, and equipment. You move through gridded boards trying to accomplish various tasks, while the Overlord/Imperial Player is playing all the monsters and putting various obstacles in your way.

I did like his scenario that they are not optimized for, where they need to get off the map in a certain number of turns but they have a Drake who can't possibly make it, so the players have to improvise. It involved a lot of friendly grappling, as well as a Virgil reference.

This actually reminds me of an Imperial Assault scenario we played where we were escorting an "NPC" somewhere (IIRC, it was a prison break scenario), and realized with one round to spare that we weren't going to make it just using that NPC's own movement. So my character used an ability to give someone two extra movement points. This then put the NPC in range of the jedi wannabe, who could then use her Force Push to throw the NPC an additional three squares, and that meant they could use their own movement to get out. That felt awesome.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Though the "Solo" part was not looked for, I also wonder how Five Parsecs from Home by Modiphus lands on this question.

 

[Lord Zack]

I've thought of using a modified version of Fourth Edition as the rules for a fighting game-inspired campaign set in the Coreline setting. I think that the At-Will/Encounter/Daily system could work well to represent a fighting game with special moves and the like.