The older i get the less I need.

[Staffan]

And I always said Alternity was pre-3E, the progenitor and Star Wars Saga was 5E Lite

Hmm. I don't see much of 5e in Star Wars Saga, and virtually nothing of 3e in Alternity (other than "having a skill system"). Star Wars Saga seems more of a reskinned d20 Modern (expected multiclassing, classes alternate between bonus feats from a class list and talents which are essentially class features you choose from a menu) with some 4eisms in it (defenses rather than saves, everything goes up with level and class/proficiency gives you a fixed bonus).

 

[Reynard]

And I always said Alternity was pre-3E, the progenitor and Star Wars Saga was 5E Lite

Alternity has very little in common with 3E, mechanically speaking.

 

[TiQuinn]

I get that there's 'game collectors' who have the kind of income that enables them to engage in fashionable consumption. That's nice. But, some of us have more important things to spend money on. Especially with rpgs costing five to ten times what they cost forty years ago.

Judgy, judgy, judgy.

Income has very little to do with the rate at which they’ve accumulated their collection. It is possible to be very selective in what one purchases and still come out with a good collection of RPGs over the years.

 

[R_J_K75]

Alternity has very little in common with 3E, mechanically speaking.

Yeah you are and @Staffan are probably right. It's been years since I played Alternity, d20 Modern or SW Saga, but to me, in retrospect, they seemed foreshadow what was to come from WotC

 

[Reynard]

Yeah you are and @Staffan are probably right. It's been years since I played Alternity, d20 Modern or SW Saga, but to me, in retrospect, they seemed foreshadow what was to come from WotC

That may come from the later incorporation of some Alternity setting elements into D20 Future.

 

[R_J_K75]

That may come from the later incorporation of some Alternity setting elements into D20 Future.

I think one would be more surprised coming to 3E from 2E rather than someone going from 2E to Alternity to 3E.

 

[Reynard]

I think one would be more surprised coming to 3E from 2E rather than someone going from 2E to Alternity to 3E.

Maybe, but not because 3E is mechanically similar to Alternity. Playing more games means accepting new games more easily.

 

[Ringtail]

Last year I moved out of my parents house into my own apartment. I have way less space to store stuff, and less money to spend on stuff.

And... its fine. I realized the things that I already have are more than adequate, and they have been. So I'm certainly moving in a more minimalist direction.

However I am spending more on digital resources. I have one consistent Foundry game. The money I used to spend on physical products often goes to purchasing the fancy, foundry integrated version. I'm more likely to acquire a new book in PDF than physical. Better for my wallet and my organizational sanity.

 

[overgeeked]

The thing with generic systems is that while you can generally plug in different trappings into the system, the game will still feel the same. You can play GURPS with swords & spells, or as a Western, or as a Victorian vampire hunter, or as a 40s noir detective, or set on a far-future spaceship. In either case, you're still dealing with a game with hundreds of skills, a strong emphasis on attributes (particularly Dexterity and Intelligence, as those are what most skills are based on and the huge number of skills means it's more efficient to pump base stats), low skill defaults unless your stat is super high, a combat system which slices things down to seconds and uses fairly detailed hit locations (with different effects) and different damage types. There are some things that can soften the game a little, but it'll still fundamentally be the same game.

You can also play either of those settings with Savage Worlds. Savage Worlds has 32 skills (with the potential to add more if needed, but the skills are pretty broad), and while core stats play a role in skill development it's not as big as in GURPS (primarily, GURPS stats set the skill floor from which you build up, while Savage Worlds stats set a soft ceiling above which it becomes harder to increase a skill). Characters are fairly broadly competent, at least PCs which get to roll a Wild Die meaning that even without actually having a skill they have about a 50% chance of success at a regular-difficulty task. Combat in Savage Worlds is pretty fast and not as lethal as GURPS, and hit locations only matter if you take serious injuries. Oh, and Savage Worlds have a metacurrency in the form of bennies, which lets players add extra oomph when it matters.

Or you could do either of those settings in FATE. In FATE, you have a smaller number of skills, and skills also take the place of things that in other games would be attributes (e.g. Strength) or social traits (e.g. Resources). Equipment matters little, and a large portion of the game mechanic revolve around gaining and spending FATE points, which makes your Aspects very important as those are the main vehicle through which you do this.

My point here is that a swords & spells game in GURPS will be more similar to a Western in GURPS than a swords & spells game in Savage Worlds or FATE. It's like the samurai movie Yojimbo: you can transplant it to a spaghetti western and get A Fistful of Dollars, or to the prohibition era and get Last Man Standing, but either way it's not going to be Shanghai Noon.


I haven't seen the last few versions of M&M, but my impression is that it takes a very simulationist view of supers, as channeled through the d20 system. Characters have distinct powers that can do distinct things, and while there's a fairly flexible system for Alternate Powers (using the same narrative ability for multiple mechanical powers, such as using "Webshooters" both for making binding attacks and for swinging movement) and the occasional improvisation, the focus of the game is on the mechanical aspects.

Thing is, the super-hero comics I like tend to be much more narratively focused. The podcast X-Plain the X-Men (which is well worth listening to) proclaims the X-Men to be "comic's greatest superhero soap opera". I mean, it's all well and good that Rogue can punch you from one state to the next, but the really important part is if she can forgive Gambit for his unwitting role in the Mutant Massacre. And I don't think M&M is the game for that. I'm not sure any game is, to be honest.

Yes, crunchy and medium rules generic systems feel samey when used for different genres. That’s unavoidable and partially the point for some. If that’s seen as a problem, the solution is simple. Go lighter. The lighter you go the more you rely on the referee and the genre, world, tone, etc for that feeling of unique and different.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So, batteries not included? And if they do, they probably require D-Cells, & good luck finding those in 2024, I'm looking at you, Mauler, the GI Joe tank.

Oh no, you've definitely got the batteries; but you're buying an erector set or tinkertoys (i.e. you have all the components, but you'll need to put them together). Sometimes the assembly is easy (almost any of the three I mentioned can produce a modern-adventure game with minimal or no work for example) some times its hard (those games don't have magic systems per se (at least in the core book), what they have is the tools to put one together in a coherent way. Same things for things like nonhuman characters and the like.

There are, of course, hybrid cases like GURPS or Savage Worlds which may supply you with more up-front tools--but won't really give you much help when building something off the beaten path. GURPS is better about magic systems than it used to be (in terms of supplying you more varieties so one might land on or close enough to what you want), in contrast to its first and second edition which offered a somewhat broad skill-based system, but still one that didn't work for a lot of concepts and if it didn't you were entirely on your own. Savage Worlds still suffers from this a bit.