Still Searching for "That" System

[overgeeked]

Try Risus as a one shot. It’s a small game, won’t take much to learn, and if nothing else will be a palate cleanser. It will also give you a feel for running lighter games.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah. It's a heck of a predicament.
When I say I don't trust myself with "rules-light," I'm talking about narrative games with GMs getting to do things like "awaken a challenge from the list of the character's background conflicts, pertinent to her relationship with the bandit lord." I mean, I just want to roll attacks with monsters, place devious traps, have the heroes engage in a rooftop chase to pursue the burglar who lifted the crown jewels.
Something like a 5e that doesn't stink.

You might want to look at Fabula Ultima. Fabula Ultima does most of the same stuff re: high fantasy action-adventure fiction as 5E but is drastically lighter. The monster builder and encounter designer are dead simple and actually work.

Here’s a free QuickStart.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[Li Shenron]

As I posted in another thread (https://www.enworld.org/threads/what-game-systems-do-you-have.699515/), I have close to 60 different game systems. I'm still looking for a system that will fit the unique needs of my group.
Can you help find my Goldilocks system?

• Survivable – you’re not going to die to a single hit from a kobold at 1st level [this cuts out most OSR systems]
• Interesting Options – you can do more than swing a sword or cast one spell (if you want to interact with the game that way) [this also cuts out most OSR systems]
• Easy to learn – you don’t need to perfect your tactics, count on your fingers to hit elevated numbers in the mid-20s (with always altering numbers) [Pathfinder, 4e, etc., are cut here]
• Good GM tools – encounter building that works, possibly good adventures/settings [cutting out 5e]

Sorry to be nasty, but those 4 requirements are nothing 'unique', and if you have SIXTY systems and still can't find one that suits you, then I think the problem is in your approach to gaming, and sixty more suggestions won't help you.

Perhaps your way out of this could be to stop pretending a perfect system exists, or that you even need it. Plenty of games already fit those basic requirements, and for those who don't there is always the DM in charge to make it fit. To build on the Goldilocke analogy, if you are your group's DM and think you can have a perfect soup ready for you, then you chose the wrong job, not the wrong game system.

 

[aramis erak]

I don't trust myself with rules-lite games. I can stare at the FATE rules and just be completely bewildered. I don't know how to understand them.

Because FATE is not, at heart, Rules Light. It's intended to be played hardball - it's a transactional game. Create assets, leverage assets, put teeth into the mechanics. It's use by the rules-light crowd is off-label.

I'll note as well, I've only been a player in FATE games, never run it. I'm a rules-leveraging munchkin with a few storygame leanings... My characters are manipulative, even pushy, and most of my actions were essentially boosting others by creating aspects on them for their free tagging. Basically, I was a self-propelled pile of bonuses.

 

[aramis erak]

Retreater: you're ruling out many rules-medium games as too complex. My suggestion for Savage Worlds would be, Put the major combat options on a player handout. Rather than expecting them to grasp it from play, put it on paper for them to reference as needed. SW is a simple core mechanic - which misleads many into assuming it's a rules light game...

The core mechanic is dead simple in Savage Worlds, Mongoose's Traveller, MegaTraveller, 2300 AD, BRP, or FASERIP... but all of those are a simple core so the mechanics feel unified, and there are no shortage of modular elements for each. And the games are not simple. (Ref my note about many OSR fans ignoring most of the RAW? Well, that is especially true within both the Mongoose, Classic, and MegaTraveller fanbases. In Classic Traveller, you're supposed to pick which modules to use...)

My normal suggestion for story driven, easy on the players, but highly tactical is FATE Core... (while I've not played Fate Core itself, I've played other FATE games) and it's not a bloody rules light game, even in that expression of it. (Fate Accellerated? THat's somewhat lighter, but again, if one reduces it to just the core rolling mechanic, one may as well use FUDGE, as FATE is Fudge + Aspects + Fate points, and in some flavors, specific stunts for specific skills.

My backup is normally Cortex Plus or Cortex Prime - but note that Prime is a gamme construction kit, and Plus are all differentiated cores - that is, the core rules are the same as far as resolving rolls, but the rest varies by specific attached setting.

That does make it hard, since most systems with a serious critical hit system make it at least possible to one-shot a low level character; as I noted with Savage Worlds, its difficult but not impossible.

I've noticed that when a high strength character hits a high toughness character, there tends to be swish, swish, tap, tap, swish, BANG!

Lots of Toughness 8 critters in Deadlands. The Strength 8 PCs tend to get little until one or both dice pop, and then hit with usually 4-6 over.

Last session, one player got not a single roll over target toughness 9 in 10 rounds... using a 2d8+1 weapon (rifle), they finally rolled a 16 on the 2d8, then popped that for 12, giving 28 on the dice, for a 29 total. 20 over, for 5 wounds, and the critter had one already... I spent my last 3 chips (2 reds) to soak a mere 2 of them... so the big bad went down from two counted shots, over a span of about 30 attacks.

That 1 extra toughness made a HUGE disparity in wounding rates. Largely because it shifted most firearms to merely stunning them. It happened to cross the breakpoint for Acing.

The problem is that every game I know of that gives you any real ability to do the first at least requires you to understand when and how they happen. You indicated SW is too difficult, and to me, it seems like a relatively light-weight example here.

I don't quite agree about SW being rules light. My mechanical notes are 13 pages of typed shorthand. Not counting weapons tables, powers, edges nor hindrances. There are a LOT of special cases covered in the not short rulebook, and the rulebook almost purely rules.

I've only been running SW for a month, and while it's not table heavy (there are 3 tables that see a huge amount of use in Deadlands... the damage table, the melee modifiers, and the ranged modifiers... and the annoying thing is that, at least in Deluxe ed, half the modifiers are not in the description of ranged attack, but in the combat special rules.

The number 1 most common special case so far, and this seems really appropriate for a western, is firing into a fistfight. 1 on the Trait Die hits a Bystander, IE, someone else other than the intended target. We also have the ambushes.

I'll say that the rules approach is straightforward, but the mechanics as written aren't light any more than MegaTraveller or Mongoose Traveller. They're no Hârnmaster, GURPS, or Phoenix Command, either...

 

[dbm]

I want them to be able to learn how to play without taking home a 300+ page rulebook and studying it for weeks like homework.

The recent 20th Anniversary Kickstarter would have been good for your group, I think. While it funded a special edition of the core book to celebrate 20 years it also funded new, thinner player books. It also funded brand new ‘player boxes’ which are designed to hold a player’s archetype (if they have one), advances, cards with the rules for specific edges, a combat reference sheet, powers cards etc. All stuff intended to make play at the table much easier. The player’s book only has player-facing rules in it, so while (for example) it has rules for chases those rules are only the player’s options. Nothing on the GM side like how to design and set up chases.

Something like that might make adoption easier.

 

[Tonguez]

Because FATE is not, at heart, Rules Light. It's intended to be played hardball - it's a transactional game. Create assets, leverage assets, put teeth into the mechanics. It's use by the rules-light crowd is off-label.

I'll note as well, I've only been a player in FATE games, never run it. I'm a rules-leveraging munchkin with a few storygame leanings... My characters are manipulative, even pushy, and most of my actions were essentially boosting others by creating aspects on them for their free tagging. Basically, I was a self-propelled pile of bonuses.

While I agree FATE is very transactional it is rules light because there are really only 3 rules - create aspects, spend points to leverage aspects, roll to overcome aspects.

The combat minigame is also an opposed overcome roll with stress as a pacing mechanism.

the challenge is getting players to engage in the “aspect exchange” where ‘narrative intent’ gets focussed into definable props

 

[innerdude]

So you say Savage Worlds is too crunchy ... Would the FFG narrative dice system be too much? Because my group LOVED FFG Star Wars, even going so far as to convert the D&D 3.5 holdover player.

The core system + character build options are straight-down-the-line rules medium, while still fun to GM and play due to narrative dice. And it is definitively not deadly. Like, your players would have to be terrible at tactics AND very unlucky for random character death to be on the table.

 

[aramis erak]

While I agree FATE is very transactional it is rules light because there are really only 3 rules - create aspects, spend points to leverage aspects, roll to overcome aspects.

The combat minigame is also an opposed overcome roll with stress as a pacing mechanism.

the challenge is getting players to engage in the “aspect exchange” where ‘narrative intent’ gets focussed into definable props

You left out earn points by having your aspects used against you, or to force you into/out of action (that's the 3 flavors of compel), the many subtleties of older editions of FATE having specific special abilities (see Spirit of the Century for the most accessible version of this) tied to specific skills. the lists of special abilities bought separately.

Or even the option in a few versions to compel yourself.

Also the nuances of refresh.

There is a whole hell of a lot more than "three rules"... those are the heart of the game, yes, but it's like saying D&D has 6 rules: Roll to hit, mark damage, roll a saving throw, roll a skill check, roll death checks, adjust reactions.

 

[Retreater]

So you say Savage Worlds is too crunchy ... Would the FFG narrative dice system be too much? Because my group LOVED FFG Star Wars, even going so far as to convert the D&D 3.5 holdover player.

The core system + character build options are straight-down-the-line rules medium, while still fun to GM and play due to narrative dice. And it is definitively not deadly. Like, your players would have to be terrible at tactics AND very unlucky for random character death to be on the table.

Here's a post of mine from another thread that describes how Fantasy Flight Star Wars worked for me...

"I ran one campaign in Fantasy Flight Star Wars' (I think it was Age of Rebellion). I never got the hang of the rules and had to have one of the players interpret the die rolls for me.

Him, looking at the symbols on the dice: "I got two challenges, a threat, and an opportunity..."
Me: "So I guess you fired your last shot before your power pack drained. It missed the Stormtrooper, but it hit a pipe near the enemy's head, spraying out steam. This could fill the whole room, but it's close enough for the Wookie to grab to bend the pipe and blind your opponent."
Him: "No, that would be one challenge, two threats, and a celebration..."
Me: "Alright, you hit the Stormtrooper. As he falls, his blaster fires erratically, causing the Blast Doors to begin closing at the end of the hall. From the other end, you see a squad of 5 more troopers turn the corner, weapons raised. One activates his com: 'Lieutenant, we've found them!'"
Him: "No, that would be a success, a threat, a challenge, and a disaster with three raises."
Me: "Ok, you tell me what is the correct way to read that die roll."

I hated running that system. It codified all the narration, shackled my creativity and descriptions, seemed completely arbitrary in its rules with extremely similar and confusing language to separate different results."