One FRPG besides D&D

[Mean DM]

Harn-- [snip] Users a linear percentile-based system for determining success, which stinks.

Why do you think a linear percentile-based system stinks? I'm just curious .

Mean DM

 

[pogre]

WFRP

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

GURPS--Ah, there's nothing like GURPS' smaller-than-life take on fantasy to make you appreciate D&D's over-the-top spellpunk approach.

I dunno - my current GURPS Warhammer campaign might not be as over-the-top as high-level D&D, but the (now) 250 pt.-characters definietly are "larger than life"...

Whereas D&D is too ridiculous and excessive to simulate traditional heroic fantasy, GURPS is too mundane and underwhelming. Conan wouldn't survive many violent encounters running around in that loincloth. Armor = Life. Encase your body in tempered steel. Then encase that encasement in even more steel. Convince your GM to give you one more point of PD by eliminating that visor from your helm; tell him you'll hire a seeing-eye beggar to guide you into the dungeon.

Then get in a pinch as the horde of goblins tackles you and pins you to the ground.

Then a grinning goblin approaches with a drill...

Even magic is dull, broken down into an unspectacular college-based system, which means that as a wizard you have a small group of spells that you specialize in, and most of the colleges are just variations on the same theme (e.g. a "bolt" spell, a "detect" spell, and a "shield" spell).

Maybe the "standard" GURPS magic can be considered "dull" by some - but the expansion of it in GURPS Cabal and the "Ritual Magic" system from GURPS Spirits are anything but.

And it doesn't have the "irresistable force" problems that higher-level D&D spells have.

Don't expect the average wizard to have a Knock available to them.

OTOH, GURPS wizards tend to be more flexible because they don't have to prepare their spells in advance...

 

[Gez]

Only one ? It's a tie between Ars Magica and Rêve de Dragon.

 

[Theuderic]

Reve de Dragon?

 

[Felon]

Why do you think a linear percentile-based system stinks? I'm just curious .Mean DM

Speaking in terms of linear, percentile systems in general (and not specific games), they don't seem to compensate well for the fact that there is a "hard" ceiling on what you can roll (the ceiling being 100%).

Too often I've seen starting characters with melee combat scores of 48% and an archery score of 37%. And these players were tyring to make up badass warriors, mind you. IMHO, if you're missing more often than you're hitting, you don't need to be out adventuring. If you can't hit at least 51% of the time, you suck at fighting. Go back home and practice.

OTOH, characters should have room for improvement, so I don't want to see starting characters running around with 98% in a skill either.

I don't think it's a good game mechanic to allow percentages in skill to go over 100%, and simply count on penalties being applied in order to create an element of risk. I don't think "regardless of your percentage, rolls of 96-100 always fail" is a terribly good mechanic either.

Ability scores don't seem to mean much in percentile systems either. If a skill's base is (DEX + INT)%, the fact that I have an 18 DEX doesn't really amount to much, right?

Systems like d20 realize that difficulties should be scaled to a character's ability. As a first-level character, I shouldn't need to hit a terasque's armor class, or make a Reflex save against an adult red dragon's breath, and I won't be using my tumbling skill to move through a square occupied by an opponent (DC 25). In a linear percentile system, everyone's using the same scale, newbie or godling.

 

[Felon]

Then get in a pinch as the horde of goblins tackles you and pins you to the ground.

Then a grinning goblin approaches with a drill...

Yeah, but the goblins can do that anyway, even if you're not in a shell. It's just a little less messy this way.

OTOH, GURPS wizards tend to be more flexible because they don't have to prepare their spells in advance...

Well, that's a big, big problem in and of itself. It's unbalanced to have characters that can maintain effects such as flight and invisibility virtually indefinitely. It's also problematic to have unlimited, unrestricted uses of abilities such as healing and divination. That problem exists with GURPS and other systems like Sovereign Stone.

 

[Gez]

Reve de Dragon?

It's French.

Rêve de Dragon (which could be translated to Dragons' Dreams) is a game, and a world, akin no other. It's author, Denis Gerfaud, labelled it asa RPG of "oniric fantasy" (rather than heroic fantasy).

I'll describe it (relatively) shortly, yet try to make the game justice.

The world is a dream, collectively dreamed by creatures called "dragons". Noone ever saw a dragon or even know what they actually look like, but they are usually depicted like everyone depict dragons.

The land itself is shattered between the various dreaming dragons. For example, you may have a small country, just one city state, some farmlands around, a sea, and a big forest all around. What is beyond the forest ? Nothing. You'll eventually find mists that will move you to another dream.

Everyone is dreamed by a dragon. If you die, you'll appear in another dream. With another life, completely distinct, usually.

Characters are not always conscious. Most of their life is not actually lived, just remembered. The semi-consciousness periods are called "grey dream". Usually, you make boring things during these grey dream period, and you just retain hazy memories of these boring things.

Magic works strangely. PCs and NPCs alike are all fictitious characters, living only in the unconscious imagination of the dragon. But even fictious characters acquire a personality of their own. Novel writers knows that sometimes a character escape their control and make the story advance in an unplanned way; this is the same for dreamed characters. Magicians, called High Dreamers, are able to access a more abstract layer of the dragon's subconscious to alter the dream in which he live.

Magic is divided in four ways. Oniros, Hypnos, Narcos, and Thanatos. Oniros is pure dreaming and allow the most blunt alterations, like making stone transparent or changing fire into wood. Hypnos is more subtle, and allows all sort of what D&D would label illusions and enchantment. Especially illusion. Narcos is how you make thing dreams, in other words it allows you to create magic items. And finally, Thanatos is everything that hurt the dream and provoke nightmare. This range from horrific effects (like necromancy) to blatantly unnateral effects (like polymorph) that shatter the dream and awake the dragon.

Remember that everyone is a dream. When a dragon awaken, all the people and creature he dreams of die. And everyone a person is violently killed, the dragon is awaken by the nightmare.

Once the dragon fall asleep again, the killed one will get a new life, in an usually different context.

When the character themselves dream, they remember some of their past lives. This allows them to increase their skills, by remembering how they used it in a past life. Stressful events brings more vivid nights, so you gain more experience from adventure than from day-to-day life. However, you can also train to increase your skills.

From a RPG point of view, this game is a bounty. You need to reunite a party ? They all awaken from grey dream together. Someone get killed ? Not a problem, he can be back at the next adventure. You want to lead them to another place ? They can stumble onto a mist, a bluedream zone, or just have made the travel in gray dream. You want to remove an unbalancing item ? The character lost it. Probably during grey dream. To the contrary, you want to give something ? It was acquired during greydream. The party makes something ABSOLUTELY stupid and you get a TPK ? They awake together and can start again.

In other games, these things would seem heavy-handed and cheesy. In RdD, it's just the contrary. It don't break the suspension of disbelief, because it is how things works here.

On the system itself, it is IMHO nigh perfect. A bit complex (it is simulationnist), but always consistant and logical. Once you know it a bit, everything is intuitive (if not fast, especially for combats, a bit lengthy).


I'll add that the adventures written for the game are masterpieces and give it really a beautiful ambiance. The game is poetic and oniric, truly (even if it can be played like a mere hack'n'slash, like all RPGs); and so without being boring or unfun.

 

[jfiz]

my pick...

If I had to pick 1...

Big Eyes, Small Mouth, revised 2nd edition. I would use the BESM fantasy beastiery, the Demon City Shinjoku book for extras, and mabye BESM dungeon or Uresia when those are released. In fact, thats exactly what I'm running now. =)

Other choices I might consider include GURPS Fantasy, Orborous, HARPE (neat dice mechanics), Godlike (again, neat dice mechanics), or *maybe* exhalted, though I'm not familiar enough with it to say for sure.

I don't run DnD or D20 any more. I ran 1 3E game for a good while just after the new edition was released, and found too many problems where the rules worked in a manner that was absolutely contrary to what I wanted from them. Combat took literally forever - a single moderate combat routinely lasted a full 4hr+ gaming session. The magic system is way too straightjacketed (I require a good deal of creative freedom with magic), and I don't like class/level/roll for stats.

I like to run cinematic games where you can have multiple full-bore combats in a single gaming session and *still* have lots of time for rp. I like systems where the players know the rules well and don't have to always ask you or look up how every little thing works. I like to be able to event spells and magical effects on the fly or during adventure/world design that I can then later model accurately with flexible magic rules. I also like having a good understanding of how powerful a 35point character is, and being able to gauge/design threats appropriately on the same scale/basis.

My system/game choices probably make more sense considering all of this...

 

[Felon]

Re: my pick...

I don't run DnD or D20 any more. I ran 1 3E game for a good while just after the new edition was released, and found too many problems where the rules worked in a manner that was absolutely contrary to what I wanted from them. Combat took literally forever - a single moderate combat routinely lasted a full 4hr+ gaming session....I like systems where the players know the rules well and don't have to always ask you or look up how every little thing works.

Define a "good while". How long did the players have to actually learn the rules? D20 has a learning curve, but it's not rocket science.

I like to be able to event spells and magical effects on the fly or during adventure/world design that I can then later model accurately with flexible magic rules.

I don't get this. How are players ever supposed to know the rules when you're making up how things work on the fly?

I also like having a good understanding of how powerful a 35point character is, and being able to gauge/design threats appropriately on the same scale/basis.

Is it somehow different in D&D? I know at about what levels my players can tackle an owl bear or black pudding.