So you're done with D&D but still want to play D&Dish fantasy...

[BigZebra]

@Celebrim If Legendary Games ever finish their Corefinder heartbreaker, it might be just what you're looking for. A tightened rebuild of PF1.

Interesting. These @LegendaryGames ? Is it still an on-going project?

 

[Staffan]

I don't think anyone's mentioned Savage Worlds yet. It's byline is Fast. Furious. Fun. It's a generic system, with your abilities rated by die type - d4, d6, d8, d10, d12. To succeed in an action, you have to beat a target number of 4. There's certainly a lot more to it, but that's the core of the system.

It's got add-ons for all kinds of play, and even has an official Pathfinder set of supplements as well as a more generic "fantasy" supplement, and several interesting pre-made worlds (50 fanthoms, Frost & Fur, Hellfrost, Beasts & Barbarians) including sci-fi, superheroes and weird/horror (such as Deadlands and Realms of Cthulhu). Even has a few official pulp adaptions - John Carter of Mars and Flash Gordon.

It was built out of an expansion called Rail Wars for Deadlands, which is a Weird Wild West world.

I'm on a Savage Worlds kick myself at the moment, running an East Texas University campaign. I've been looking at the Savage Pathfinder stuff, and particularly the campaigns, and found them unsatisfying, likely due to the limitations of the license. The license lets PEG do conversions of Pathfinder adventure paths, and so far they've done Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne. The issue is that these are basically direct conversions – same plots, same maps/dungeons, same creatures in those dungeons, only using Savage Worlds stats instead of Pathfinder stats. But Savage Worlds is built differently than Pathfinder/D&D. PF is based around attrition, where you have multiple smaller encounters in relatively rapid succession in order to wear PCs down, costing them hit points, spell slots, and whatever other resources they have. But Savage Worlds doesn't want that sort of thing. It wants fewer but more impressive fights.

I do wish Pinnacle would do a "normal" fantasy setting with an associated plot point campaign, but I feel that that's unlikely as long as they have the Savage Pathfinder license. While it's not quite what I, at least, want, it's close enough that they probably don't want to do anything similar. On the plus side, that opens the door for Ace licensees to do their takes, like Vermilium which at first glance seems kind of cool (fantasy with post-apocalyptic and Western elements).

 

[Gorgon Zee]

This suggests to me that you kind of really lean into a more D20-adjacent desire in fantasy at least (though I acknowledge the BESM note); I'd call SW plenty gamist in a lot of its orientation.

(That said, I haven't seen it used in fantasy at all; all the games I've seen it used for were modern or SF).

I’d agree that SW leans to being gamist. For me, though, the mechanics it uses have an archaic sort of feel to them, and they quite often lead to surprising results that feel a bit odd. So, for me, I often feel irritated at the rules. I think that’s why I prefer PF2 to it generally. But I did have a ton of fun running a Flash Gordon SW campaign over the pandemic, it’s not a system I dislike so much as one I feel little need for as others fill the niche — for fantasy.

You are right that I do like the d20 based systems though. Dice pool systems are very swingy in results and so it often feels that you are failing or being lucky when you shouldn’t. I’m playing in TALES FROM THE LOOP campaign and the randomness is fine there, but it is very common for one person to roll 8 dice and another to roll 2 and the latter succeeds when the former doesn’t. D20 also has a nice level of granularity. I’ve played a lot of Rolemaster, and am playing a ton of BRP games, and have no objections to d100, but players cannot tell if you round everything to 5%. D100 is better for unusual levels of success - I really like the BRP system of roll under ½ or 1/5 the value to get higher levels of success; much nicer than the d20 “20 is a critical success regardless of how good you are at the skill”, but it is a bit more finicky. I like GUMSHOE quite a bit also, but d6 to resolve combat is not quite enough for me if the game is mostly about combat.

TLDR; yeah, I think you are right.

 

[Desdichado]

You are right that I do like the d20 based systems though. Dice pool systems are very swingy in results and so it often feels that you are failing or being lucky when you shouldn’t. I’m playing in TALES FROM THE LOOP campaign and the randomness is fine there, but it is very common for one person to roll 8 dice and another to roll 2 and the latter succeeds when the former doesn’t. D20 also has a nice level of granularity. I’ve played a lot of Rolemaster, and am playing a ton of BRP games, and have no objections to d100, but players cannot tell if you round everything to 5%. D100 is better for unusual levels of success - I really like the BRP system of roll under ½ or 1/5 the value to get higher levels of success; much nicer than the d20 “20 is a critical success regardless of how good you are at the skill”, but it is a bit more finicky. I like GUMSHOE quite a bit also, but d6 to resolve combat is not quite enough for me if the game is mostly about combat.

As much as there are problems that I've always had with the core mechanics of D&D (I don't mean details, like how the magic system works, etc., but the whole core concept of rolling a d20 to solve most things, the six ability scores, stuff like hp and ac, etc.) after many years of experimentation, I decided that I don't like anything else any better, and I still prefer roughly D&D-like mechanics to any alternative.

 

[Alkalithe]

If you're into X, then play Dragonbane.

If you're into Y, then play Shadowdark.

If you're into Z, then play Pathfinder.

And so on.

"X, Y, Z" can be any specific or gestalt of qualities you feel like assembling, and of course include as many games as you like. I'd even suggest being vague as to what "D&Dish" means...I mean, if you need me to define it, I'd suggest something simple like "adventure-based fantasy."

I'm mainly just curious how people would characterize the plentiful "D&D alternatives" that are out there now, many of which have stable fan bases - and specifically, how they might be characterized in reference to D&D.

And of course the reasons a person is "done with D&D" might vary - be it WotC corporatism, their recent artistic direction, tonal qualities, complexity fatigue, or just wanting a change, etc -- I don't think that part really matters, except as it relates to the alternatives and what they offer.

Have at it....

I realise I'm quite late to this but recently I had the notion of a category referred to as "5E spin-off." I would define this as a system that has the basic skeleton of 5E but the muscles around it are different.
Off the top of my head, some games I would put in this category are:

• Nimble
• Shadowdark
• Index Card RPG
• 5 Torches Deep

They have their nuances and differences, but all four can trace their DNA to 5E in particular.

 

[darjr]

And just to add, I’m def doing other games, but I’m not “done” with D&D.

I’m thinking of doing some things with it.