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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7082621" data-attributes="member: 42582">There's no need to speculate!In the past year I've run three "first session": <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?530990-Into-the-North-Cortex-Plus-Heroic-Fantasy-actual-play" target="_blank">Cortex Plus Fantasy Hack</a>, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?490456-Repost-first-session-of-Dark-Sun-campaign" target="_blank">4e Dark Sun</a>, and <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?510873-Played-AD-amp-D-yesterday-(using-Appendix-A-for-a-random-dungeon)" target="_blank">AD&D</a> using random dungeon generation.As I indicated in the post you replied to, I don't think that AD&D is a very good fit for my group. So that game is unlikely to progress much further, though - on the off chance that it does - I've been making some notes for how I would run Castle Amber.The basic issue I have with AD&D, as I self-quoted upthread, is that the exploration tends to be a bit tedious; but too much combat makes it to random and reduces the element of player choice; while increasing the "story" elements pushes the game in a direction where other systems are stronger.4e, Cortex/MHRP and BW - the three fantasy systems I'm GMing regularly - all have their own, different feel. I've posted about that in this thread.BW is the most grim, and most demanding on players. MHRP is generally quite light - both mechanics and story - though in our fantasy game I'm finding out whether it can be pushed in a bit more of a serious direction. In resolution, the mechanics play a role that I suspect [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] would find too dominating - fictional positioning doesn't really have a very big life of its own - but I find the game produces very colourful and vivid fiction as an output of resolution, because of the way every input into and output of resolution is directly correlated to the fiction.4e has a very distinctive feel: the rally-narrative of combat, the D&D classes, skill challenges in which players roll all the dice and their's no mechanism for PvP except in the way the fiction is adjudicated. Dark Sun is something new for me, and I'm still developing my sense of it (we've only played a few sessions of this game).Each system does different things. I'm probably most comfortable running 4e, simply for reasons of familiarity, but at the moment I'm probably enjoying the other two systems more, simply because they do things that 4e doesn't.The most avid BW-enthusiast among my players may start some GMing soon, too, which will give me a chance to play BW. I think I will find that a challenge, but not necessarily a bad one. It does require being ready to see one's PC suffer in a way that isn't really going to happen in 4e or MHRP/Cortex.</blockquote>

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