Looking for a more narrative, less combat-centric alternative to D&D

[Nytmare]

I'm in love with Torchbearer at the moment. Out of the box it supports a lower magic world than most modern versions of D&D but it's definitely less of a combat head scratcher. Every complex problem is answered with a narrative driven kind of rock/paper/scissors card game that covers everything from arguments to combat to wagon chases. It is not however (at least in my limited experience) really built to handle world shaking events and prebuilt story arcs outside the scope of a dungeon. I'd say to use this one if you're feeling like recapturing more of that AD&D feel with modern storytelling elements.

Blades in the Dark would need more work, but I think it would plug in to Eberron nicely. Mechanically Blades is a Heist game that involves players throwing themselves unprepared into the thick of things instead of spending hours and hours planning and prepping for every conceivable outcome and inconvenience, and instead answering problems by triggering flashbacks that explain how they had planned for that exact set of circumstances. I'd be surprised if there weren't several fan made bits and pieces to help you do the heavy lifting. Blades default setting is very noir, but I'm not sure how much of that feel would stick around without those setting and base character classes.

Third pick would probably be Savage Worlds, which I have not in all honesty looked at in about 15 years. It's a more genre neutral generic setting that allows you to plug in different rulesets to capture the feel of the game you want. My impression of it was that it was very much a modern day version of GURPS, but without all the math.

 

[Tonguez]

I love Fate because it's a narrative system that handles all the conflicts the same way (in Fate Accelerated there is only one Stress Track for all types of conflict whether social, combat, mental). The system is based on players and GM creating 'facts' (aspects) during the narrative and then using those facts to tell the story.

It does require the players to know the genre expectations so that their aspects and approach match the setting, but if youve got players who are already experienced with Eberron and permit themselves to be proactive in play then it shouldnt be an impediment .

You can mod it to different genres (disclosure: I'm a huge Blades fan), but unless you recreate the tight interaction of the factions, you lose a huge amount of the game. Blades works as beautifully as it does because it leverages the tensions and relationships between factions against PC tensions and relationships to drive new fiction. Blades is finely tuned by having everything constantly be in tension. If you don't recreate that, by, saying trying to use the rest of the Blades ruleset to run an stock Eberron setting, it's going to fizzle like a damp match.

do you think the Dragonmarked Houses and other organisations and nations of Eberron could work with Blades faction system? - eg Players are Purified members of the Silver Flame

 

[Ovinomancer]

Savage Worlds does a good job of D&D and there an Eberron conversion book for it. I'm going to playing in a SW Eberron game starting this week and the feel is there but it gives you other options. Swords of the Serpentine would be awesome too, I love the game, but it would be more work on your end to convert stuff.

Totes forgot about Savage Worlds. Yeah, that might do the trick.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I love Fate because it's a narrative system that handles all the conflicts the same way (in Fate Accelerated there is only one Stress Track for all types of conflict whether social, combat, mental). The system is based on players and GM creating 'facts' (aspects) during the narrative and then using those facts to tell the story.

It does require the players to know the genre expectations so that their aspects and approach match the setting, but if youve got players who are already experienced with Eberron and permit themselves to be proactive in play then it shouldnt be an impediment .



do you think the Dragonmarked Houses and other organisations and nations of Eberron could work with Blades faction system? - eg Players are Purified members of the Silver Flame

Not without a serious re-write or a very narrowly focused game.

 

[Tonguez]

oh just went out to google and found this Eberron/Blades in the Dark livestream

also Blades against the Darkness hack

 

[Magean]

Thanks for all these answers, that's quite a lot of suggestions!

After collecting them and doing some research, I have compiled the following list of options that are "big names" and / or came up often regarding what I'm after:

• Fate
• Swords of the Serpentine
• Fellowship
• 13th Age
• Shadow of the Demonlord
• Savage Worlds
• Mythras

Ideally I would need to watch people play, or read through a primer for each of those, and then run a one-shot to see how it goes.

That said, since RPGs can have steep entry costs, both monetary and time-wise, I would really appreciate a "nutshell comparison" of these systems, to D&D 5e and to each other. After all this list contains things both very different (Fate) or somewhat close (13th Age) to the D&D paradigm.

 

[Fenris-77]

Kevin Kulp, of the creators of Swords of the Serpentine did a playthrough on the EN World podcast, there's a link on this site to it somewhere.

 

[shesheyan]

Blue Rose AGE seems a good fit from what you say in the OP.

«This section I noticed also features in other Green Ronin AGE books. It asks the questions "What do you do?" and "Who are you?" The focus of this game then is character dynamics. It is not "The party of adventurers set out to destroy the dragon." it is "Brynn, Heylg, Bethan and their friends sought out the threat to their beloved kingdom and stopped it before more lives were lost." There is nothing wrong with either situation, it is just one is better suited to Blue Rose. Becaase of this there is more focus on group dynamic. Maybe Bethan, normally a strong independent warrior who fights for just causes, is also deathly afraid of fire from an incident in her childhood. Now fighting this dragon is not just a straightforward matter of defeating a beast; it is now a metaphor for overcoming fear even when you are normally strong and brave. It could be that Brynn's best contribution to this battle is not her magic to attack the dragon or her healing, but her ability to empathize with Bethan and bring out the warrior she is from the scared girl she was. If this dynamic is not that interesting to you, that's fine, the Blue Rose/AGE game will still let you kill the dragon, but something essential is missed.»

Full review: Review of Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy - RPGnet RPG Game Index

 

[Blue]

Thanks for all these answers, that's quite a lot of suggestions!

After collecting them and doing some research, I have compiled the following list of options that are "big names" and / or came up often regarding what I'm after:

• Fate
• Swords of the Serpentine
• Fellowship
• 13th Age
• Shadow of the Demonlord
• Savage Worlds
• Mythras

Ideally I would need to watch people play, or read through a primer for each of those, and then run a one-shot to see how it goes.

That said, since RPGs can have steep entry costs, both monetary and time-wise, I would really appreciate a "nutshell comparison" of these systems, to D&D 5e and to each other. After all this list contains things both very different (Fate) or somewhat close (13th Age) to the D&D paradigm.

I'm a huge fan of 13th Age. I will publicly say I love 5e but that 13th Age fills that same niche even better for me. That said, it was written as a "love letter to D&D" by D&D lead designers of 3.0 and 4e, and while it has good rules supporting everything else, it does follow the D&D conceit of much of the character creation information is based around combat. For example, just about every spell listed is a combat spell, with the expectation that the very flexible ritual system can be used to change any of them into whatever non-combat use you want. Want a magical fireworks display? Sounds like a short ritual and use up your fireball spell.

I really adore the system, but it also has HPs and may not address your specific concerns. Or maybe it does. For instance the equivalent of a 5e long rest, a full heal-up, happens after four combats*. So there's absolutely no pressure to try and force in more combats during a day. (* - DMs can give it sooner if the encounters are tough, and the players can get it earlier at the cost of a campaign setback.) That might be just what you need so you don't feel like you need combats every sesssion, or overwhelming every session.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

13th Age solves the 5e combat problem by amping up the combat - with HP damage scaling up over the levels (and other mechanics) to make sure combat doesn't bog down. But it will feel like JRPGs in the way that damage and hit points inflate enormously over 10 levels.

The assumptions (class, race etc) are very compatible with your default D&D campaign so converting will be easy. I converted from a 4e campaign to 13th Age with ease. However, some of the narrative rules (Icon system) need some interpretation and work by GM and players to make them work well.

Swords of the Serpentine will probably defocus combat a lot - the resource point-spend mechanics (which I experienced in Night's Black Agents) will make recon, planning, and dirty tricks a lot more powerful, so that often a cunning party can avoid a lot of combat. But the magic system and world assumptions are uniquely Serpentine, and there will be a lot more work to adapt to your existing campaign.

Those are the two top recommendations I have.

Fellowship is also good but may not fit your particular campaign and play group. Read and see.

Savage Worlds is a great toolkit for fantasy adventure, but also needs a lot of work to adapt.