Risus as a serious game system

[Votan]

My gaming group has recently been taking a break from D&D and trying something new: Risus. Does anybody have experience with this as a serious gaming system? Was it a good experience?

I am beginning to think that optimization is too easy and that the mechanics break just a bit too easily for a good game. In particular, I notice that the way that dice stack makes a character caught on his own helpless while the same person in a party will easily defeat the oposition. Because even escape is an applicaiton of cliche, it really makes combat rather striaghtforward. Either it is sickeningly one sided or it all depends on who wins the first die roll.

What have others found?

 

[WayneLigon]

The only one I've seen is this thread over at Circvs Maximvs. I thought about Risus but it almost looks too simple for my tastes. I'm thinking about FATE right now and giving it a try.

With almost any rules lite system, you just have to let go any ideas of inbuilt 'balance', even more so than with D&D. If the players are not all 'on board' so to speak and try to play the system rather than play their characters, it'll always end in tears regardless of what system you use.

 

[Votan]

The only one I've seen is this thread over at Circvs Maximvs. I thought about Risus but it almost looks too simple for my tastes. I'm thinking about FATE right now and giving it a try.

With almost any rules lite system, you just have to let go any ideas of inbuilt 'balance', even more so than with D&D. If the players are not all 'on board' so to speak and try to play the system rather than play their characters, it'll always end in tears regardless of what system you use.

Yeah, I am kind of seeing the latter right now. Part of the problem is when the DM and player have a different vision of a scene and how it would play out you can get a massive change between the expectations of both parties.

I admit that I am finding the complexity and min-maxing of D&D has gotten to hard for me to really enjoy it like I once did. But going back to an earlier edition seems to be a strange way to solve this problem. Risus hasn't really been a success so far especially as I think one player has found out how to break the system rather thoroughly . . .

Thanks for the link to FATE. Looks more interesting.

 

[RFisher]

Although I've read that people do use Risus for serious games, it doesn't quite work for me. I think it comes down to the fact that one of the key elements of Risus is the inappropriate cliché rule, which works fine in a humorous game but less so in a serious game.

At some point I may do an unholy hybrid of Risus & LA in the hopes of ending up with something I like better than either.

 

[D.M. Punks]

You sound like I did, some months ago. I wanted something lite and yet comes with enough crunch. I tried Savage Worlds, and never looked back. The Test Drive and one or two ready-to-run adventures can easily be DL'ed online.

 

[Nomad4life]

As someone on these forums is fond of saying, the distinction between rules light/heavy isn’t nearly as important as the distinction between rules good/bad.

I’m going to stop just short of trying to claim that Risus is a “bad” system- It isn’t. Risus is fine for running games you don’t take that seriously, but I foresee problems trying to do anything else with it. I mean, the game is centered around the successful use of character cliches; Great for a laugh, but about as “serious” as running a clown-prop-only WWII game.

So instead, I’ll just say that if you’re looking for a break from D&D, there are other rules-light systems I would look into first. I would place True20 at the top of that list.

 

[Votan]

As someone on these forums is fond of saying, the distinction between rules light/heavy isn’t nearly as important as the distinction between rules good/bad.

I’m going to stop just short of trying to claim that Risus is a “bad” system- It isn’t. Risus is fine for running games you don’t take that seriously, but I foresee problems trying to do anything else with it. I mean, the game is centered around the successful use of character cliches; Great for a laugh, but about as “serious” as running a clown-prop-only WWII game.

So instead, I’ll just say that if you’re looking for a break from D&D, there are other rules-light systems I would look into first. I would place True20 at the top of that list.

I like that quote alot. One of the problems with D&D is complexity makes it hard to DM as there are rules for everything and you need a good sense of judgement to handle the unexpected. For example, social skills dififculty DCs are easily flubbed in my opinion -- you can make it too easy to bluff the Baron into handing over his treasury on one hand.

On the other, I remember as 4th level character getting a 25 on a Gather Information check to see if one of the theaters in town had any mysterious rumors attached to it and got "there arte 4 theaters in town and here are the names of two of them". A highter check would have yielded all 4 names.

SOmething more intuitive makes a lot of sense.

But I think the issue that is driving us the most nuts is that Risus combat is very one sided. When a character being tortured/killed is the result of losing then it makes things less fun because you are completely at the mercy of the fisrt die roll (assuming evenly matched combats; unevenly matched and you simply know you are going to win).