What Game Did You Leave D&D For?

[Hand of Evil]

Warhammer v1 for the setting and feel of the game. Now that has moved over to Zweihander.

There was a lot of experiments to find something different, Top Secret, Chill, Boot Hill, etc. but always seemed to return to fantasy and Warhammer became game of choice.

 

[Bluenose]

Which time?

I first left D&D in the 1970s for Traveller and Runequest. It wasn't permanent then, but the current edition is designed to tell me that they don't want me as a customer and I don't see any reason not to respect that. Now I run Traveller and Pendragon and play Runequest, Fate, and the occasional other system, and I have no regrets for dumping D&D or reason to think it won't be permanent.

 

[MNblockhead]

When it comes to gaming I'm polyamorous. After going off and getting some Strange on the side, it's always nice to come back to the familiar.

 

[Nytmare]

Roughly in order of frequency (which in all honesty is low)

Band of Blades
Blades in the Dark
The Quiet Year
Girl Underground
Torchbearer
Dungeon World
Durance
Dogs in the Vineyard

 

[BrokenTwin]

Savage Worlds was the first game that truly pulled me away from D&D, but as fantastic as it was (and still is), it never really scratched that "fantasy heroes" itch that D&D did so well.

Thankfully, I now have Shadow of the Demon Lord to perfectly fill that void. Weirdly, I find the corruption mechanics to actually work really well for reinforcing the idea that the PCs are heroes out to help people, which is my preferred playstyle.

 

[Thakazum]

DCC RPG

 

[GrahamWills]

For fantasy, 13th Age is my go to; it’s all the good parts of 3E and 4E, updated to a more modern feel. Tried 5E, but it‘s too vanilla for me — doesn’t have much of an identity or an excitement factor. It’s just a genericlaly good version of D&D, an that’s no longer enough for me. With all the games that are out there now, games have to be more than just solid. They have to sparkle. 13th Age does.

Outside of fantasy, our group has gently migrated to Fate as the go-to system. First it was for genres ill-served by other systems (modern, mostly). Then we played a sci-fi campaign (Bulldogs) and I jumped back in with some Tim Powers - style adventuring in a weird version of 1838. Another player has started using Fate for Star Wars, and our current superhero campaign uses Icons, which is very Fate-influenced.

Not a concious decision; and we still okay other systems (Classic Deadlands, Numenéra, Call of Cthulhu), but Fate and 13th Age seem to do most of what we want.

 

[S'mon]

I'm currently GMing Palace of the Silver Princess using Mini Six RPG, which derives from the old d6 Star Wars RPG system from West End Games. It operates at a Hollywood cinematic action hero power level, so the PCs as a team can demolish small armies of say a dozen mooks, but are not demigods and don't ever slay hundreds in a single battle.
The lack of ablative hit points makes a very different feel - injuries are rare, and a major problem when they occur.

 

[Nebulous]

But in the ongoing home campaign -- especially one at low levels, which is where I prefer my D&D anyway -- leveling occurs and the game changes. the characters change quickly and their approach to the world changes. The way they interact with the NPCs and bad guys and environments all change. In short order it does not feel like the same group of protagonists or even the same world.

So I decided I am going to go for a system where advancement is more incremental and while characters grow they won't necessarily transform the way 5E PCs do.

What games have you decided to switch to from D&D -- any edition, any length of time ago? Why?

For these very reasons I love low level play and I do not use XP to push advancement. I kept the PCs at 3rd level for probably eight or nine sessions. I like when the players get to actually enjoy their abilities without adding new ones in two or three sessions. I know it is the nature of heroic Dungeons & Dragons, that is the way the game is played, but I would also like something more incremental. I am trying to learn Dungeon World, that looks like it would be a good fit for me.

Also, I hate DnD initiative, it is so tactically boring, but when I look at others games that make it interesting, it is much more difficult to steal those ideas because they're so ingrained in the rules. Easier to just play that game to use that initiative, like Shadow of the Demon Lord

 

[Ulfgeir]

Not leaving it. Have since I started playing rpgs played lots of different campaigns in different systems. Mixing and matching depending on what we feel like.