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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Primal" data-source="post: 5038766" data-attributes="member: 30678">Well, in that regard I personally prefer (to mention the ones that instantly popped into my mind) 'Dogs in the Vineyard', 'Polaris', 'The Shadow of Yesterday' and 'Dust Devils'.  I already mentioned 'Polaris' on the previous page of this thread, but I just can't praise its innovative and revolutionary mechanics enough. The game does not have a referee or GM -- rather, the player sitting opposite of you is your "opponent" (Mistake), and his/her job is to make your protagonist's life as hard as possible (and you will act as his/her Mistake). The whole conflict system works on a set of ritual phrases (e.g. "And this is how it happened" or "You ask far too much"), some of them only triggered via Aspects (abilities, items, relationships, etc.) and some of them more powerful than others. You only roll if the negotiation comes to a deadlock, but then the protagonist is usually at a serious disadvantage (often something like 15-30% chance to succeed). Whatever happens, the story advances, and although this is a game of high fantasy, a heroic end is a rare exception (most often you become corrupted by Mistake, i.e. demons, or the world ends). A truly brilliant system that produces heart-breakingly beatiful stories with the right kind of players. 'Dogs in the Vineyard' is a heavily thematic "Mormon Western" in which the PCs act as the God's judge, jury and executioners as they root out corruption among the Faithful. The conflict system utilizes a dice pool, but the catch is in the fact that the more violence you're willing to use, the more dice you'll get into your pool. This game digs deep into moral values, practically asking: "How much harm are you prepared to do for the greater good?". For example, are you willing to draw out your gun at the blind village elder (and pull the trigger), if that is the quickest and most efficient way to put end to the demonic influences rampant in the village? Or are you prepared to beat up (and possibly execute) half the village? Another catch is that you cannot perfectly control what happens in the story once the bullets start flying -- you only know that very likely the consequences will be severe. And everyone will acquire new traits from conflicts, so even if you "win" a gunfight, you might become haunted or traumatized by your actions. Emotionally and thematically a very powerful system. 'Dust Devils' is one of the oldest indie games, another Western, but not about trigger-happy protagonists riding into sunset at the end. Rather, this game was heavily influenced by movies such as 'Unforgiven', and all protagonists are plagued by personal Devils that are related to their pasts. For example, if your protagonist is a hopeless drunk who accidentally shot his son in a fit of rage, those events will come up often during play. All conflicts, regardless of their nature, are resolved with poker hands, and the winner gets the "bragging rights" (right to narrate the events). Naturally, if you give in your Devil, you get hefty bonuses (e.g. your drunkard takes hefty swigs of Whiskey before a gunfight). In the final scene the protagonists either give in to the Devil for good or try to find some kind of peace and absolvement before the "curtain call" (for example, the drunkard might smash his last bottle and walk into his end to save a young boy from killers). 'The Shadow of Yesterday' is a fine example of a high-fantasy system that perfectly models the conventions of the genre without any need of complexity. At its heart the system is a simplified variant of 'Fudge', but it also adds something of its own to the mix. Thís game works around 'Keys' which could be said to represent your character's traits, perks, alignment and demeanor. If your character has, for example, the keys of 'Coward' and 'Prone of Despair' (I pulled those out of my head), you might get much more experience from an encounter with monsters by trembling in fear under a bush as they walk by and throwing a fit of crying and wailing after they've gone past, than from slaying them. Also, most conflicts are resolved by a single roll, unless the player wants to resolve in round-by-round in an extended conflict. At the end, most characters Ascend to divinity and that is when the player gets to describe their final scene.  There are a lot of other systems ('Grey Ranks', for example), but I think these four serve as good examples of thematic systems that are model their respective genres wonderfully and yet use simple conflict resolution to create powerful drama. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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