Pathfinder 1E Non-D&D /Pathfinder RPGs

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have a few questions about Hero. How is it to DM it how much work does the DM have to put into things to run a game? From my understanding the DM has to make all the decisions from what type of characters, magic, basically do everything from the bottom to the top? How true is that?

Well, as mentioned above, since everything is point build & nearly structureless, you can make whatever kind of character you want. Tis is the system's great strength- if you can imagine it, you can make it.

This also means that HERO could be a nightmare for a GM who doesn't have good system mastery...so many decisions to make about character design could turn into a mountain of work.

Fortunately, like any other RPG, there are resources & supplements that have a lot of that stuff already statted out. And, unless your campaign is using special rules- higher or lower base starting points before disadvantages, power restrictions, etc.- all of the material is completely interchangeable because it all uses the same structure and math. A machine gun from a book of gadgets literally could be used as a magic wand if you want. A modern era cop can be reskinned as a FRPG city watchman with only a little difficulty.

The current edition includes a sourcebook called Powers that is just a big, ole collection of pre-designed powers organized by type- fire, earth magnetic, etc.- all ready to go.

And once the data is on the character sheet, you almost never need the book during gameplay.

As for making all the decisions, it is essentially true because there really are not fully fleshed out campaign worlds. But that means you could basically run any other RPG's campaign world you want...with any mix of fantasy archetypes. I've run a FR type game using PCs designed to mimic D&D characters from 1Ed, 2Ed, and 3Ed side by side, alongside PCs with no anchoring in D&D at all.

And one of my current pet projects is designing a Fantasy HERO campaign based on M:tG.

 

[SuperZero]

Mutants & Masterminds by Green Ronin is always my favorite.
It's a superhero game currently on its 3rd edition. DC Adventures is the same game.
It uses the basic core mechanic of the d20 system, but uses point buy for character generation rather than class or levels.
It also has no hit points, using a condition-based damage system.



It's versatile. Superheroes have incredibly diverse abilities, so a game meant to model them has a lot of variety. You can build pretty much any character using the MnM rules. Some people say that means it's a strong general system that can be used for any genre, but I'm not sure I agree with that, at least out of the box. I would say it can be used outside of superheroes, but I'd still put some specifics on there. You want a genre with a decent amount of combat but low lethality or lingering injuries, fairly powerful characters, and considerable diversity between them. If you have all of those MnM can probably work pretty well. It is designed for a particular genre, though, and wasn't intended to be universal.

It's d20. A lot of potential players are already familiar with the basics here. Of course, some of them already don't like it. And some of the ones that do might be confused by the differences. Ability scores work a bit differently, and the scale's not the same. Defenses are different, especially the damage system which has no similarities at all to DnD's.

Character Creation. I like it. You can make anything with it, and once you understand it you can make simpler characters without looking at the book. At the same time, mastering character creation is probably a lot harder than with DnD. You have both Power Points and Power Level to worry about... it can seem complicated.
Instead of having a set of blocks, like levels or feats, to build with, you build your character up to a particular level. You want certain traits, like Attack and Damage bonuses, to average your Power Level. This doesn't mean that all characters look the same--you can have a PL 10 martial artist with +15 Attack and +5 Damage and a PL 10 powerhouse with +5 Attack and +15 Damage who look quite different. And that's two characters who fight by punching stuff, so they're more similar to each other than two different heroes have to be.

Balance can be kind of an issue. The game includes a wide variety of powers, which does include some troublesome ones like Precognition and Summon (which allows you to have more than one character--always potentially problematic). The designers actually call most of these out right in the book, though. There's a big side bar next to Summon, for example, pointing out some potential pitfalls and giving GMs advice.

It can be kind of abstract, and there's low granularity. The average bonus for a bystander is +0. The average bonus for a superhero is +10. There really isn't that much of a difference between those two numbers. I don't think that's necessarily a feature or a bug--I think that's a matter of taste.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I highly recommend Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. It really grabs the feel of Superheroes like no othe superhero RPG I've played has. The only real obstacle to play is learning how to build your dice pools. Once you get past that the system really opens up. It's a little overwhelming at first if you're used to defined character abilities, but even the crunchiest of my D&D4 players has gotten into it. The game also has the best player-driven control of Plot Points in any game that I've seen with them. Most PP games ask the GM to hand the out at various frequencies. But I've seen overburdened GMs forget to hand them out (including myself). The players in MHRP detrmine when their characters gain PPs by taking an aspect negatively (adding a d4 related to a Distinction instead of a d8) or activating the Limits on their Powers. The game has great flow, action, and roleplaying. For example, one Action Scene involved speaking at a Senate Committee Hearing. In another Action Scene the villain was "defeated" when the players convinced him that Iron Man wasn't there.

The one apparent downside is the lack of direct character creation rules. But, there are guidelines and random tables to help build your own character. At first stab, building a character would have been difficult. But now that I've played a bit with the extemely numerous Marvel characters available, I understand the game a bit better and could probably make a decent character.

 

[Balesir]

OK, a 'big' one - HârnMaster

First a bit of history to help understanding. Hârn was originally published as a systemless game world; the island of Hârn is about the size of Madagascar but placed somewhat similarly to the British Isles and Ireland off the north-west coast of a large continent, in this case the continent of Lýthia. The setting is a very gritty analogue to medieval Europe, with a "Norse" land to the north-east and vaguely "European" lands to the south-east with a 'sea surrounded by land' beyond. There are several similarities to medieval Europe, but also enough differences to make things interesting. The world is, I think, unique in promising (and, so far, delivering) no "metaplot" or massive world changes. All of the published material relates to a single game-date - 1st Nuzyael, 720TR - with nothing plotted beyond that whatsoever.

Around about 1983, players using Hârn, though they loved the world setting, complained that no existing set of roleplaying rules seemed to do it justice - and hence HârnMaster - a system designed specifically to 'fit' the setting was born.

HM is mostly a clear "second generation" roleplaying system, skill based and percentile after the lead of RuneQuest. It has the odd neat tweak (e.g. "criticals" happen whenever a percentile roll ends in a 5 or a 0, and is a "critical success" if the roll is in the success range or a "critical failure" if it is in the failure range, which is a nice, easy, table-free way to get "special" results), but basically it's fairly "vanilla".

The one thing that makes it really stand out, for me, is the wounding and recovery system. HârnMaster does not use hit points. When I say this, bear in mind that I count systems that have "condition tracks" (Shadowrun and the like) as using "hit points", in as much as they supplant "every creature has a different number of hit points and loses them the same way" with "every creature has the same number of hit points, but they resist losing them to different extents". In HM a wound is not something that "takes away" some resource that the character has - it is a thing that is added to the character, is difficult to get rid of and is dangerous and unwelcome to have hanging around.

Death may come in any of a myriad ways in HM - instant death from decapitation or the like, lingering death from infection, death due to bloodloss (perhaps the closest thing to "hit points" in the system, but not all that common), death due to shock, death due to poison or disease, death due to drowning... you get the picture. But it never comes from simply running out of "life" (hit points).

The base combat system uses hex grids, but I have played many times without and it doesn't really suffer for it. The maps included in Hârn products are amazing, though, so you may find you want to get those out to use for "position tracking" as often as possible!

Strengths: characters feel "real". The world has "texture" - sometimes I feel as if I could reach out and touch it. Outcomes tend to be "messy" and inconclusive - making for some wonderful stories. The world has a definite social and economic 'system' that is, given the grittiness of the system, difficult to subvert for player characters. The characters can really feel as if they "fit" into the world; they have relations with the society, rather than representing a sort of deracinated bunch of hooligans out for nothing but their own aggrandisement and gain. If you want a system where your character is a very human agent - frail and vulnerable - in a big, wide world, this system can do that.

Weaknesses: are more or less the flip-sides of the strengths. If you want to play "big damn heroes" you are likely to meet a sticky end on Hârn (although some very interesting "experimental" games have bucked against this!). It's unrelentingly gritty and detailed, and doesn't allow much player scope for "dream or wish fulfillment". Characters take a lot to develop well, but can die easily if you insist on "adventuring" with them - it's better to work within society than outside it, in this world.

Finally I'll say that Hârn is still growing into a fully realised world, despite the tragic death of its creator in 2008. A group of us still gather from around the world on an annual basis, and the scope of ways in which we have explored the setting is amazing. It's a great place to explore. If you're interested to know more, look here - not only is there a plethora of great free material available for download, there is also a super community of folks who are only too pleased to help out newbies, or those wishing to give Hârn a try.

P.S. Forgot to say - Hârn materials are available from DTRPG or from here and here (for reasons that are explained on the Lýthia site I linked above...).

 

[Greg K]

I pulled these out of my original post. All of these are free games and worth checking out. To access both Dread (renamed Scorn) and Spite, you might have to check show Mature Games.

Atomic Highway post apocalypse role playing from Radioactive Ape Designs
Danger Patrol Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers inspired role playing by John Harper the designer of Lady Blackbird
Lady Blackbird (one seven design)
Warrior Rogue Mage (stargazer games) rules light fantasy roleplaying.

Dread: First Book of Pandemonium (Neoplastic Press) a splatter punk rpg by Rafael Chandler( The game was recently, renamed Scorn to avoid confusion with the Jenga based game of the same name which came afterward from another company)
Spite: Second Book of Pandemonium (Neoplastic Press)

 

[Balesir]

A few more "minor" games:

PrimeTime Adventures

A very tightly focussed little game (the whole game comes in one little paperback book) about creating your own TV series - as a roleplaying campaign. A masterclass in how to have tightly specified rules - this is not a "freeform" game - for a game that is not in the least bit gamist (in any of the interpretations I have come accross of that word). Definitely no combat grids, tightly balanced and a real player-driven game; the players, including but not limited to the GM, frame scenes and set up conflicts, then choose goals in those conflicts and resolve them with the aid of randomisers. All conflicts - combat or otherwise - are resolved using the same system.

Stengths: a great fun game with the right group, and excellent for showing how narrativist, player-driven story games can have tight, unambiguous rules. Plus you get to give each other fan mail

Weaknesses: longtime, dyed-in-the-wool gamers can have trouble "getting" this game. It's not "simulationist" of any stripe and the systems are (a) not process based and (b) rely on the players, not just the GM. Try Fiasco first, maybe, then this.

DragonQuest

Not the old TSR boardgame, but the even older SPI roleplaying game. Long out of print, but well worth picking up second-hand if you can. There were three editions; the second was arguably the best, but they are really not all that far different.

Tactical play done right, in a very early incarnation. Used experience points and levels, but for individual skills, spells and weapons, not for character classes. Has a "hit point" system with "fatigue" and "endurance" to represent "luck and evasion" and "physical wounds", respectively. Magic users have "colleges" that give access to a specific, limited selection of spells.

Strengths: if you want a bit more "realism" than D&D, but not as much as Hârn nor as far from mainstream fantasy as RuneQuest, this might be the system for you. Easy to do vanilla fantasy with - I converted several classic D&D monsters to DQ, back in the day. Good for simulationism lovers who want a tight, clear ruleset.

Weaknesses: showing its age a little, in that it uses none of the 'modern' tweaks and developments in RPG systems. Taking magic use is a bit of a no-brainer, unless you just can't be bothered with the hassle, but at least the "uber-archmage" doesn't develop, since to get really good at a wide range of magic takes a LOT of experience points. May be difficult to get hold of for a reasonable price.

Bushido

The start of Bob Charrette and Paul Hume's FGU system that was later used for "Daredevils" and "Aftermath". A focussed game set in mythic feudal Japan/Nippon - before Legends of the Five rings was even a glimmer in anybody's eye! Uses an intriguing mix of levels (limited to six - decades before E6!) and skill training; you train in a skill to get a score of 1-20, then add your level if the skill is a "class skill" for your character. Advance in levels by gaining both "budo" (experience) and "on" (honour/face) - and lose levels if you lose too much of the latter!

Strengths: captures a samurai film vibe really well. The system is simple and gives cinematic outcomes while remaining very "sensical". Very nice systems to support the GM in making places like lairs, cities, castles, villages and so on. Has ninja and it makes perfect sense for them to be there!

Weaknesses: specific to mythic Nippon. May be difficult to get at a reasonable price in a print version, but DTRPG have it as a PDF for ten bucks right now.

 

[Pog]

Surprised no one has mentioned Call of Cthulhu yet? Or any of the World of Darkness lines or 13th Age. I also quite like Paranoia for one shots; d20 Judge Dredd is quite fun, as is Star Trek or Runequest or Star Wars or ...

 

[Balesir]

Surprised no one has mentioned Call of Cthulhu yet? Or any of the World of Darkness lines or 13th Age. I also quite like Paranoia for one shots; d20 Judge Dredd is quite fun, as is Star Trek or Runequest or Star Wars or ...

So write 'em up! I have exams coming up, so only very limited time to add entries, and dozens of games I think worthy of note...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Surprised no one has mentioned Call of Cthulhu yet? Or any of the World of Darkness lines or 13th Age. I also quite like Paranoia for one shots; d20 Judge Dredd is quite fun, as is Star Trek or Runequest or Star Wars or ...

I've played and enjoyed CoC and Paranoia and enjoyed them, but I don't have enough playtime with them to write up a good Strength & Weakness analysis. Ditto Traveller.

 

[steenan]

Two more fun non-D&D games:

Dogs in the Vineyard
You play a group of armed teenagers with a mission from God. You visit various towns where the Faithful live to straighten their ways and help them solve their problems. It may seem simple at the beginning - after all, you have training, you have guns and you have the book full of holy texts...
But the conflicts you encounter are never black and white. There is rarely a person free of fault, and rarely a person who has no good reason for their sins. You know the religious law, but it doesn't mean the law is always fair. And neither the God nor the GM will tell you what the right choice is.
Whose fault it is? Who should step back here? How far you'll go to get things your way? It's up to you and you only.

The basic resolution system is the same in each type of conflict: you roll a pool of dice (based on your stats, traits, equipment and relations), then spend them to "raise" (perform actions) and "see" (block opponent's actions), until somebody backs off or runs out of dice.

Strengths:
- Elegance and thematic focus. The game is very clear on how it is designed to be played - and what it aims to do, it does very well.
- The system really supports the playstyle. The escalation mechanics (you can continue a conflict instead of being defeated if you decide to use more violence: talking->grabbing->beating->shooting) forces one to think how important is what they want to do - how much they're going to risk and how bad they're ready to hurt others. Consequences of a conflict are rolled when it ends, so one never knows how badly they are really hurt - only how much they risk.
- Very clear GM guidelines for designing towns (adventures - or rather just problematic situations that PCs interact with). It's really hard to make a bad adventure while following them.
- Rules are simple; it's possible to create characters and start playing in 5-10 minutes if GM has a town ready.
- The setting description has little details. It contains everything that's necessary for the intended playstyle, and leaves most of the color in hands of the group.

Weaknesses:
- Narrow. The game beautifully supports one style of play, but only one. It may easily be refluffed for a different setting (I've seen, for example, Jedi in Star Wars), but id does not fit different playstyles.
- The system is explicitly non-simulationist (there is an example in the book of giving low dice to a trait indicating high competence or vice versa - "I'm really good at shooting, but it creates more trouble than it solves"). This may turn some players off.

Nobilis
You play godlike beings, each of them controlling an aspect of reality (like cars, anger or deadlines). You are ruled by an evil tyrant and brilliant strategist, who outlawed love and who's destined to save the world unless he betrays it. And you are at war with Excrucians, beautiful beings born of nothingness, who want not just to destroy our world, but to prove it's so nonsensical that it could never have existed.

The resolution mechanics use no randomizer, only resource allocation. When actions come in conflict, both sides spend points to improve their skills or miracles, and the highest result wins. You can play tactically by not trying to overpower your opponent, but instead letting their action succeed in a way that benefits you more.

The rules are not metagame; one can see the decisions taken in play as their character's. But the rules the Nobles (PCs and other beings of their status) play by are very different than those of our world. Conflicts sometimes look like philosophical debates, with characters' powers redefining beings and ideas, making metaphors real and real things metaphorical. It can be extremely fun - or extremely confusing, sometimes at the same time.

Strengths:
- The game handles extremely powerful characters without any balance problems. Pure numbers mean much less than how you use them - and every character can do things of epic scale.
- Reality is text, or game, or computer program, or something even stranger. A lot of fun comes from approaching problems from a perspective that's completely different from real life or more typical RPGs.
- It's easy to be defeated in a conflict, but very hard to permanently lose your character. For many PCs, being dead is only a minor inconvenience - and for some it's a state in which they begin play!
- The type of powers the characters usually have really reward creativity and flexible thinking. It's as far from "list of powers and a battle grid" as possible.
- The setting is fascinating - especially the Excrucians. And where it's not detailed, you know what style to follow when filling the blanks.
- You get special tools for character creation, that help people with already existing character concepts detail them and make them multi-dimensional, and people who don't have any concept yet to come out with an interesting one.
- The system has specific rules for long-term and wide-scale projects that, on one hand, ensure that players can achieve their goals and are not dependent on GM fiat, and on the other hand, make the way that leads there interesting. That's the best game I know for this kind of activities.

Weaknesses:
- The rulebook is very nice to read, but hard to use when you just need a specific piece of mechanics. You absolutely need to read the entire thing once or twice before game to have any chance of using it.
- You can and will be surprised a lot, on every session, no matter if you're a player or a GM. For me, it's fun, but some players don't like the feeling that they have nothing constant, solid and safe to rely on.
- Each character will change, a lot, in ways the player can't control. If someone doesn't like social mechanics that dictate some aspects behavior, Nobilis is not for them. While it is possible to shield a character from externally-forced changes, it is neither interesting (doesn't lead to an interesting story) nor tactically efficient (requires spending a lot of miracle points on things you otherwise wouldn't have to).
- The game is strange. Not "quite strange". It's strange on the "Alice in the Wonderland meets Matrix" level, or somewhat more. You either enjoy it, or run away screaming.