Looking for RPG system for campaign.

[griffonwing]

This reminds me a bit of Feng Shui, the chaos and constant movement remind me of the last Feng Shui campaign I played in.

An unrelated, but cool mechanic, damage is static, not rolled. You can increase this by hitting well, the extra success carries over for more damage. Also, Feng Shui is the action movie RPG (Hong Kong influence) with lots of high flying action and very little grit.

Ive heard of the game, but ive never had the opportunity to play it. Static damage, damaged based on the attack roll...interesting concept. Hrmm.. You mentioned the number of 'successes". So this is similar to White Wolfs "roll x number of d10s, and each one over 7 is a success" system?

 

[Razjah]

No, it works differently. I don't own the book, so this is may be a little off. The mechanic is rolling 2d6 to modify the skills. One d6 is positive, the other is negative. The skills start high like 8-14 range in general. The defense is another the opponents main combat skill.

For simplicity I'll use two martial artists. The Old Master and Martial Artist. The Old master has a martial arts value of 16 and rolls a +2 to hit the Martial Artist, the Old Master's attack is an 18. The Martial Artist has a martial arts value of 15 (this can be boosted by using defensive actions*, but we'll say he was saving his actions for offense and gambling on his defense a little bit). For the Old Master a punch does 10 damage, because he beat the defense by 3 it does an extra three damage. There is a bit more on the defensive side, but that is the basics.

*The game breaks down into "shots" most actions take 3 shots, and defensive ones often take 1. So if the Marital Artist was supposed to act on shot 11 but took a defensive action (when attacked on shot 14) he would need to wait until shot 10, if he was attacked on shot 11 and took another defensive action he needs to wait to shot 9. Passive defense is just the combat skill, modifying it with defensive actions helps keep from getting hit.

 

[griffonwing]

Ahh, I see. The term "successes" threw me off, and WW was the only system I have played that uses the term. Thank you.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I bought the Savage Worlds rules yesterday and read through about half of it. That's one messy book! The presentation is awful and there are plenty of rules that are ambiguously worded. I browsed the Radiance rpg the other day and the wording and presentation was a lot better.

Anyway, it does look like a pretty easy system to learn, but I do wonder how using the magic system without power points would turn out. Anybody that have tried it?

 

[amerigoV]

I bought the Savage Worlds rules yesterday and read through about half of it. That's one messy book! The presentation is awful and there are plenty of rules that are ambiguously worded. I browsed the Radiance rpg the other day and the wording and presentation was a lot better.

Surprising - I found their stuff to be very well laid out. But personal tastes.

Anyway, it does look like a pretty easy system to learn, but I do wonder how using the magic system without power points would turn out. Anybody that have tried it?

There are options for that in the book. I have tinkered with going away from it (and some settings, such as Solomon Kane, do not use PPs).

It tends to be a question of having a trackable resource (PPs) or spellcasting is harder but no resource to track.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I read the options for not using power points and it looked like it would make the spell casters stronger with some minor chance of failure. I was wondering if somebody had actually tried it and what your experience was with it.

 

[amerigoV]

I read the options for not using power points and it looked like it would make the spell casters stronger with some minor chance of failure.

Just as a comment a -2 in SW is a SIGNIFICANT penality. Depending on the approach, there can be a notable hit to the chance of some spells going off.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I am guessing I have misunderstood the no power point spell casting rules. Will look it up again and ask again if I still don't get it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I really need some information about a RPG system that would suit my next campaign.

I am having this idea for a campaign, but since I want it to be more of a sandbox, I don't think D&D, which I am familiar with (from 1e to 5e) is suited for it because I want relatively flat progression and relatively low magic.

I played Rolemaster about 10 years ago, which in many ways has the right feel to it, but at the same time it's way too clunky. I have also played Warhammer, but it's too gritty for my taste.

Features I am looking for:
- slow progression
- low to medium magic
- a good set of fantasy monsters
- not gritty
- not clunky

Any suggestions with a little blurb about why would be appreciated.

One obvious recommendation if you don't mind combat taking a while and being pretty tactical is D&D 4e (go in with the Essentials line, not the PHB - and whatever you do, don't download Keep on the Shadowfell). It's got the best set of fantasy monsters and the best monster manuals going - and low-ish magic with cinematic non-magical characters. Progression is as slow or fast as you make it, and the PCs start off as tough (default is fairly fast but you can slow that easily enough). Magic's medium rather than worldshattering. And the prose may clunk in the earlier books - the game doesn't, and is IMO the easiest game ever to learn to Dm. Seriously, we're playing a Middle Earth game with all non-ritual casters banned. It works superbly.

Following that there's Savage Worlds. Which has been covered in depth.

Legends of Anglerre - which is the fantasy version of the awesome Spirit of the Century - a very narrative game that seriously encourages roleplaying and people to play to weaknesses as well as strengths.

Dogs in the Vineyard - everyone should play the game about Fantasy Mormon Paladins at least once, with its encouraging competition and raising and investing. How much are you willing to risk? Seriously even if you don't play it much you should at least own a copy of one of the two most influential RPGs of the last decade that are not directly part of D&D (its only serious rival IMO being Spirit of the Century, above).

And the obvious one I haven't gone into is Dungeon World. Anyone care to elaborate?

 

[FHG_Tim]

I played Rolemaster about 10 years ago, which in many ways has the right feel to it, but at the same time it's way too clunky. I have also played Warhammer, but it's too gritty for my taste.

Features I am looking for:
- slow progression
- low to medium magic
- a good set of fantasy monsters
- not gritty
- not clunky

Any suggestions with a little blurb about why would be appreciated.

Well, have you looked at Novus? http://www.firehawkgames.com/?page_id=771

Obviously, since I wrote the system, I am going to be a little biased towards it, but since you also mentioned Rolemaster (and I used to be an editor for that for about 8 years), I thought that it might be something you could take a look at to see if it might be right for you.

One thing that I did to make things easier for folks to check Novus out is to put the entire core book online in HTML format (the above link takes you to the Table of Contents, from which you can dig down to look at various aspects of the system).

Novus is a 2d10 roll-over system. It is highly flexible and easily adaptable to many different styles of play.

It includes exploding dice, so that you can get some of the open-ended feel that you got from Rolemaster. It also includes a Boon/Snag system that allows the players to determine the final results for extraordinarily good and bad rolls (i.e. for every 10 over the TN, you earn 1 Boon Point, then the player spends those on critical success results of their choice). In combat, this can mean extra damage, or getting initiative the following round, or giving an inspirational bonus to allies, etc.) Another effect of the Boon/Snag system is that it allows the GM to control the level of lethality without resorting to hiding dice rolls or fudging the results (something that could often happen in Rolemaster).

The system, while having both levels and classes, is primarily skill based, and magic is also a skill. Spell users have a skill for casting spells, and must purchase those spells using the same Character Points that are also spent on skills. The spells themselves have casting options that the character can choose at the time of casting (these option usually make the spell more powerful, and thus increase both the casting TN and the spell point cost).

The system has 8 stats, and Saving Throws are stat based, so there are eight potential Saving Throws. A spell from one School might have a Save vs Willpower, while a similar spell from another School requires a Save vs Wisdom.

In combat, the character makes a roll, adds in his Attack Bonus and compares the result against the targets DEF score. If it is equal to or greater than the target's DEF, then the attack does damage. Combatant may Fight Defensively, shifting point from their attack bonus to their DEF.

Each weapon has a Base Damage (weapon's Damage Rating + stat bonus of the skill used to make the attack) that is dealt upon a successful strike. If you roll over the DEF TN, then you do additional damage (1 point per point over DEF). And of course, there is always the possibility of earning Boon Points and using them to increase the amount of damage dealt. On the side of the defender, the amount of damage dealt is reduced by armor that is worn (Armor Rating subtracts from damage dealt).

There are also Combat Moves that allow for special attacks that change or increase the amount of dealt.

Like I said, it is a flexible system, and with the contents being online, that makes it easy to check out. All it costs you is a little bit of time....