Is there one RPG to rule them all? What version?

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'll be honest, I've only ever done Champions char gen.

Well, that'll color your view, but even there its not complicated if you don't make it so. In most incarnations of the game I could put together a flying energy projector or a brick in ten minutes.

Which doesn't mean it can't turn into a fairly complicated process if you have a fairly specific result you're aiming at with powers, because it absolutely can. That's absolutely the price of powers that are able to be heavily fine tuned, and if that doesn't matter to you, it can seem overly fiddly.

The worst I can say about it when powers are not involved is its a game of its time which means the skills are split finer than probably a lot of people care about, but outside that, you buy attributes (and that's a fair bit more straightforward with the current edition), buy skills, maybe buy a couple talents or perks, and you're done.

(Of course some people will compare it to generating things like a first level D&D character, but it should be noted even a heroic scale Hero character is more comparable to, say, a 4th level D&D character (and may be more like an 8th level one depending on set up) so there's a certain lack of comparing apples to apples going on).

IME, 99% of the headaches of HERO are in CharGen or improvement. When you sit down to actually play, you might never even touch the book because virtually everything you need except the Speed chard is on your character sheet.

And the headaches occur because of a combination of the math- not really complicated, just lots of it- and the open nature of the game. There’s almost no One Way to do any kind of character, there’s dozens. There’s simple and straightforward ways and arcanely complicated and intricate ways of building any character you can think of.

 

[Thomas Shey]

IME, 99% of the headaches of HERO are in CharGen or improvement. When you sit down to actually play, you might never even touch the book because virtually everything you need except the Speed chard is on your character sheet.

Yeah. Some people find the combat system too complicated, but honestly, its hard to have a simple combat system and one that has a lot of meaningful decisions that aren't entirely arbitrary GM calls at the same time. The system either does some of the lifting, or it doesn't.

And the headaches occur because of a combination of the math- not really complicated, just lots of it- and the open nature of the game. There’s almost no One Way to do any kind of character, there’s dozens. There’s simple and straightforward ways and arcanely complicated and intricate ways of building any character you can think of.

Yup. Though some concepts are intrinsically arcane enough they aren't going to really be simple with any approach, unless you simply ignore a lot of the idea present. But those are the exceptions (Rogue, I'm looking at you).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't mind the spells as I find DnD and Runequest to have simply too many, spell spam if you will; so many spells that do the same thing. But while Swade has modifiers to improve spells it is totally lacking one mechanic which makes Mythras and all editions of Runequest Sorcery shine - Manipulation or Shaping mechanics for spells which increase distance, AoE, duration and such.

The problem isn't the number of spells per se, but there's not really a lot of tools to rekey how they work in a given setting; you either deal with them as-is or rework them in an entirely arbitrary fashion, and there's neither GURPS additional spell options nor Hero's build-a-spell to work with. The net effect is a lot of SW settings force a system into them that doesn't really belong.

Something I believe both DnD and Swade could benefit from. Using this would give you a power / magic point mechanic and thus do away with spells per day.

But that might be just me..dunno?

Uhm, SWADE does use a power point mechanic.

 

[AndromedaRPG]

My preferred system is Genesys (EDGE Studio, previously Fantasy Flight Games). It is basically the same as the Star Wars FFG system. I find it extremely flexible to handle most anything.

 

[Rogerd1]

The problem isn't the number of spells per se, but there's not really a lot of tools to rekey how they work in a given setting; you either deal with them as-is or rework them in an entirely arbitrary fashion, and there's neither GURPS additional spell options nor Hero's build-a-spell to work with. The net effect is a lot of SW settings force a system into them that doesn't really belong.

Uhm, SWADE does use a power point mechanic.

1. Do you have any example spells and settings for context?

2. When I was talking about the number of virtually identical spells in Runequest, e.g. Conjure Blade, some are fire, or wind, or made of ether. It does not need 3x spells doing the same thing.

3. There are spell modifiers, but I was specifically referring to Mythras Shaping and old RQ Manipulation which let's you alter everything about the spell.

I have included a RQ srd document.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjhz9-Xx831AhXDi1wKHXvACKgQFnoECAQQAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fb5quest.pbworks.com%2Ff%2FMRQ-SRD.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1RF0bLVeAOcuKTwKcHPeCR

The PP was more aimed at DnD obviously.

 

[Jer]

Lasers and Feelings.

 

[Thomas Shey]

1. Do you have any example spells and settings for context?

In SW or elsewhere? I'm not clear on what you're asking.

2. When I was talking about the number of virtually identical spells in Runequest, e.g. Conjure Blade, some are fire, or wind, or made of ether. It does not need 3x spells doing the same thing.

Well, the incarnations of RQ I'm familiar with either had separate spells that did notably different things or didn't do them at all, so I can only comment to a limited degree; this is back in the RQ3 days and earlier mostly.

3. There are spell modifiers, but I was specifically referring to Mythras Shaping and old RQ Manipulation which let's you alter everything about the spell.

I saw that, but I was talking about something different: Mythras had Theism, Animism, Sorcery and Mysticism, so if you're doing different campaigns you can only use a limited subset (or use all but have them all but have them with different people or serving different things. And they're all mechanically, and to some extent topically distinct.

SW has--one system. You can split off spells into different categories, but the casting and other properties are going to be mechanically the same. With the latest edition, even most of the botch state differences vanished.

I have included a RQ srd document.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjhz9-Xx831AhXDi1wKHXvACKgQFnoECAQQAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fb5quest.pbworks.com%2Ff%2FMRQ-SRD.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1RF0bLVeAOcuKTwKcHPeCR

The PP was more aimed at DnD obviously.

Ah, wasn't sure.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I can't believe nobody has put forward HoL (Human Occupied Landfill).

The only reason they stopped printing it was to let the rest of the RPG ecosystem recover. Bless their souls.

 

[GMMichael]

With a specific system?

Um, Society for Creative Anachronisms rules?

Judging by the expectations that most players impose on GMs, the One Game is D&D 3e.

For expansiveness of rules, GURPS.

For awesomeness, it doesn't exist yet, but I have some modules in mind that should be in there...

 

[Ath-kethin]

Dungeon Crawl Classics is the finest distillation of classic ideas and modern mechanics you might ever see. It also (persuant to the previous) has the best XP system of any game.