sell me on a different system

[Mind of tempest]

The setting is War Hammer but less wordy. A grim and perilous world where Chaos wars with Order, with the fate of Man in the balance.

The system is d100 based, with a very detailed character progression system that allows the player to build his PC's abilities to his or her own liking, while cutting out the massive hit point bloat and 'spell/talent for everything' attitude of 5e. Combat is quick and very deadly, which means PCs think carefully before starting a fight, and work together as a team to survive. The actual system is less complicated than 5e, and if you game on Roll20, it is fully supported.

interesting I will give it a look?

It’s not clear to me whether you’re after a system or a setting. You say system, but you seem to be describing a setting. The two things aren’t the same thing.

most systems tend to have a setting baked in other than say dnd and the gurps so to me I want to know a bit of both as hacking as a system to do something beyond what id was designed for is above what I know how to do.

If you want to do the social system, you get to ignore it? I'm not understanding.

I want a decent one but is ignorable if I just want a campaign of nothing but killing as I like to keep my options open.

If you're still looking for high fantasy swords and sorcery but have soured on 5e, try 13th Age. It's a d20 system so the mechanics will be familiar, but it's got a lot going for it that will directly affect those picks. Like for example instead of multiple attacks, weapons do one die per level, and marital characters get bigger weapon dice. Plus a different resource recoery trigger than "we sleep" that keeps martials and casters on-par. And the Dragon Empire default setting is made of Adventure Hooks and Awesome. Oh, and the Background system (replacement for skills) will be a lot of encompassing while also a lot more granular for social as well as other types of interactions and challenges.

If you want something with more codified social interaction, I'd recommend a Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) game that zeros in on a genre you're interested in. Though truth be told I'm not as hugely fond of Dungeon World, the best known high fantasy one. If you don't mind Low Fantasy, try Ironsworn. Which you can download for free, but if you like it go buy a copy. Ironsworn - Tabletop RPG

PbtA have games that laser focus on just what you want to play. For example: Want to play a superhero game, but focus on building a teen team and all the drama and finding yourself that comes from that? With heavy mechanical support for discovering yourself, influence over people, and the like? Masks: A New Generation. As in find your exact niche and there's probably a PbtA to play for it. And it's more distant descendants, Forged in the Dark games. Those are based off of Blades in the Dark, a paranormal fantasy urban heist game where you play as a gang of criminals and your gang has it's own character sheet in addition to the player's having ones.

If you want something a little lot more narrative, there's Fate Core or FAE (Fate Accelerated Edition). Your character, and just about everything else in the world, is defined primarily by a number of tags called Aspects, that are positive, negative, or mixed. Playing to your flaws is mechanically just as important as playing to your strengths. Fate, even more than PbtA, has thousands of official or unofficial expansions for whatever genre you are interested in.

As a side note, none of the issues you mentioned in D&D 5e are inherent in the system. You may want to give it another try with a different group.

There are plenty of good options for your party "face", if you even have one. You don't need healers, you don't need a party face, you really can make any party work. And the background system can bring a lot more flexibility about what you can do. Martial classes definitely have their own strengths - they are secondary to casters at mid and high levels when DMs run too few encounters per day which unbalanced things in favor of long rest-recovery classes. But since both barbarian and paladin are hybrid at-will/long rest recovery classes even there that's not always try. There is no default setting of 5e, you can play in any. There are several officially published, even more 3rd party publisher, and uncountable homebrew that people share.

it is more the problem I do not fit quite right with dnd I have never found a race I liked and my favourite class is monk so I am always an oddball and I oddly can never find a group I just gel with hence I am looking for what I can change which is people and system until I can find some that mostly fit me.

 

[aramis erak]

Have you heard "get to da choppa?"

@OP, what about Numenera's Ninth World? That's worth exploring.

I didn't recommend it solely because I haven't used it and don't like the core mechanic. That said, the core is capable of social damage, and while I haven't finished the read, it's quite capable of using the attribute pool damage mechanic for social conflict... It did, however pop to mind as a "kinda light system capable of social conflict..."

Isn't Zweihander just WFRP with the serial numbers filed off and new upholstery?

No. It started that way, but was distinctly different by late playtest. One can run the WFB/WFRP Old World with it, but it's got enough tweaks that it's definitely its own thing in the same way that Pathfinder is to D&D... Minor conversions needed to cross use.

 

[Aldarc]

No. It started that way, but was distinctly different by late playtest. One can run the WFB/WFRP Old World with it, but it's got enough tweaks that it's definitely its own thing in the same way that Pathfinder is to D&D... Minor conversions needed to cross use.

 

[overgeeked]

Isn't Zweihander just WFRP with the serial numbers filed off and new upholstery?

Pretty much, yeah. There are a few changes here and there, but yes, Zweihander is WFRP 2E is some house rules and the serial numbers filed off.

 

[steenan]

despite only playing dnd 5e three times it is clear to me that it does not quite mesh with me so pitch to me you're preferred system and what you can do with it such as setting and what you can play in said setting?

as I know one thing people love new players joining a system and people love to talk about what they love.

I don't have a single preferred system, so I'll pitch a few games I like, de3pending on what your issue with D&D is.

Are you fine with D&D focusing on combat, but find D&D fights boring? Try Lancer. It's a SF game about mecha pilots. Lancer combat is very tactical and full of interesting choices. It also perfectly mixes variety and balance, so that various build options are very different, but not better or worse. And it does this with significantly less modifier math than D&D 3e or 4e.

If you dislike how D&D PCs quickly get overwhelmingly powerful and no longer find human scale obstacles challenging? Check Mouse Guard. PCs in this game are the titular mice, but it doesn't mean the game is for kids. It's early medieval low fantasy with no supernatural elements. Focused on travel and survival; gritty but optimistic. It's a game about true heroes - not ones who succeed because they are powerful, but ones who take risks and do what has to be done despite being small and weak.

If that sounds fun, but you really dislike the idea of playing mice, Ironsworn is a good alternative. It's a bit more story oriented than Mouse Guard and has some magic, but many themes are common. Ironsworn may be played with or without GM and even solo. In traditional (with GM) mode it gives a lot of support for the person running the game.

If you feel that D&D combat isn't cinematic enough or if you would prefer a game where PCs lose sometimes without getting killed, Fate may be a good idea. It's explicitly an engine for a group creating stories together. It runs on movie logic; it simulates a genre, not a setting. Its rules directly describe and interface with the fiction, without the disconnect that often happens in D&D. If you'd like your sessions to feel like Pirates of the Caribbean, Fate is a perfect game for that.

If cinematic sounds good, but you'd like something that focuses more on what PCs feel, not just the action, try Masks. It's a game about teenage superheroes, with more focus on "teenage" than on "superhero". While it has a lot of action, the action mainly serves to frame how the PCs struggle with their emotions and self-image, how they are affected and shaped by others' opinions and expectations. It also has a rule specifically intended to let PCs have "crowning moments of awesome" when their feelings and powers finally come together.

If D&D settings feel generic and kitchen sink for you, with PCs having no real ties to the setting lore and no real responsibilities, you may be interested in Exalted. Among all RPGs I know it has the deepest and most inspiring setting. PCs are really powerful and godlike (to be more specific: the setting is Asian flavored and has a lot of gods of different power levels, so starting PCs are actually more powerful than majority of the deities). Typical Exalted sessions are a mixture of supernatural martial arts fighting and politics, with a side of exploring (and sometimes changing) the setting's cosmology.

If you like the idea of PCs having strange powers, but don't want fighting to be a significant part of your game, check Nobilis, Glitch and Chuubo's Miraculous Wish-Granting Engine. All three games share a lot in terms of both mechanics and setting concepts, but each has a different focus. Nobilis puts politics and philosophy in the center, with each PC being a divine ruler and guardian of a single aspect of reality. Chuubo's combines quirky PCs (building machines out of nightmares is one of the most normal concepts in the book) with pastoral, slice-of-life play where renovating a house or taking part in a cookie baking competition may be a focus of an arc. Glitch PCs are monstrous enemies of the world, now retired and trying to find peace with it, but painfully incompatible with it to the point where it gradually kills them. If you'd like to play somebody who can easily consume their enemies with hellfire, but can't keep a job or even bathe regularly - and who no longer wants to burn anybody - Glitch is a game for you.