What Game Rules should be my alternate for WotC products?
- Thread starter smootrk
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Professor Phobos
First Post
WFRP is good, Spirit of the Century is good, GURPS is okay if you like the crunchy stuff...
Personally, I consider the Unisystem (Buffy, AFMBE, Army of Darkness., etc) the finest gaming system ever devised, and I have to actively convince myself to use any other system. Dungeons and Zombies is a fantasy-themed book for AFMBE, should do fine for your purposes.
Fantasy isn't my main focus, though. Exalted is quite popular and quite a change of pace from D&D.
Personally, I consider the Unisystem (Buffy, AFMBE, Army of Darkness., etc) the finest gaming system ever devised, and I have to actively convince myself to use any other system. Dungeons and Zombies is a fantasy-themed book for AFMBE, should do fine for your purposes.
Fantasy isn't my main focus, though. Exalted is quite popular and quite a change of pace from D&D.
Arkhandus
First Post
I am intrigued by the mentions and praise of Spirit of the Century. I am rather unaware of this game, sadly.
Myself, I would recommend Shadowrun, either 3rd Edition or the very new 4th Edition (I prefer 3E myself, but I haven't even tried 4E yet to see what it's like in play). Shadowrun 4th Edition, from what I've heard, has streamlined the system in places and fixed a few things, along with updating the timeline and making a few drastic changes to make it more in line with more-recent concepts of what technology and stuff will be around in the latter parts of this century.
SR is a mix of postmodern cyberpunk with a bit of paranormal and mystical stuff; magic has returned to the world after causing a surge of natural disasters in the early years of the Awakening, and now shadowrunners and other folk on the street have to contend occasionally with trolls, orks, elves, dwarfs, ghouls, bound demons, rogue elementals, the occasional scheming or psychotic dragon (one nearly became president before he was mysteriously assassinated, another is in charge of a megacorporation, and some others are still living 'wild' and terrorizing their home turf), mages, shamans, adepts (or physads/physical adepts, as they were called in 2E; they're sorta SR's equivalent to the D&D Monk but with less mysticism involved and more natural magical talent, of a sort only suited to personal development rather than external sorcery or conjuring), etc.
For more of a strictly-fantasy-ish sort of game, I suppose I'd recommend Earthdawn (SR's predecessor of sorts, taking place in the distant past where people are beginning to come out of hiding after the rash of demon invaders has mostly subsided, and the surface has become inhabitable again). Magic is prevalent in Earthdawn, and basically every player character has some kind of pattern magic or the like to supplement their physical skills. But the more magic strengthens, the easier it becomes for demons to enter the physical world from the Astral Plane or wherever it was they came from (I forget), so the more dangerous it becomes. Ergo humanity hides in underground caves every time the Awakening surges strongly enough for the demonic invasion to resume.
Or for other stuff......hrm. I guess I'd recommend trying out some independant games and such. Maybe try out The Burning Wheel, which IIRC has one or two alternate settings/rules supplements out now for stuff other than fantasy (the core books for the Burning Wheel system are fantasy-based). I believe the starfaring setting book is called Burning Empires, but I don't know if I'm remembering that correctly. It's a bit harder now to find basic info on the game at the website, since it's gone through an overhaul, but I think it'd be worth checking out. They probably still have a free download or a few on the website somewhere, for previewing the material. I haven't looked at it lately since I have no money to buy new RPG products. Check out the Burning Wheel website here. BW has been around for a few years or so, and is still actively supported and growing slowly to my knowledge.
You might try downloading the JAGS rules and checking them out. They're in PDF format and free, last I checked (I keep meaning to try out a JAGS campaign, but I don't want to put my current 3.0 D&D campaigns on hold to do so!). JAGS has rules for several genres/settings so far, and at least one or two supported campaign settings, like Thirteen Colonies. There are rules for horror, fantasy, magic, psionics, chi, cybertech, superpowers, etc. I liked what I've read of the basic rules so far, and some of the Chi Martial Arts rules and a bit of the JAGS Supers rules, but I haven't gone over any of the non-basic stuff in-depth yet (I need to get the hang of the basic rules first by running or playing through an adventure before I'll be ready to learn the more high-powered or exotic stuff). Go here for the JAGS website to check it out. JAGS has been around for about as long as Burning Wheel or a little bit longer/shorter, and I think it's even more actively supported (or at least it seems like it to me
).
You could try Palladium Fantasy or other Palladium games; I never got to try any out in play though, cuz my high school buddies who owned some Palladium games flaked out half the time they started planning a campaign or adventure (even just for D&D), and I haven't gamed with any other players of that game in recent years. Since I haven't tried it, I can't criticize it, so I dunno if the system is decent enough or not. Some people love Rifts or Palladium Fantasy, or their other properties like Robotech and Macross (or the old TMNT And Other Strangeness), while some other people despise it. So I dunno.
Of the stuff I'm suggesting you look into, the ones most likely to have a decent playerbase already find-able would be Shadowrun or Palladium (though Rifts, one of the Palladium settings, which is a mix of damn near everything IIRC, is the only one I know to be widely popular). Earthdawn probably still has some active players around, but as far as I know it hasn't gotten support in years, and is more or less out of print (I'm not sure; I never got the chance to try it out, though I've heard and read nothing but good things about it; FASA focused on BattleTech and Shadowrun more than Earthdawn, and now some other company holds the rights to Earthdawn; I can't remember if they've started reprinting the game or not, let alone doing anything more with it).
Myself, I would recommend Shadowrun, either 3rd Edition or the very new 4th Edition (I prefer 3E myself, but I haven't even tried 4E yet to see what it's like in play). Shadowrun 4th Edition, from what I've heard, has streamlined the system in places and fixed a few things, along with updating the timeline and making a few drastic changes to make it more in line with more-recent concepts of what technology and stuff will be around in the latter parts of this century.
SR is a mix of postmodern cyberpunk with a bit of paranormal and mystical stuff; magic has returned to the world after causing a surge of natural disasters in the early years of the Awakening, and now shadowrunners and other folk on the street have to contend occasionally with trolls, orks, elves, dwarfs, ghouls, bound demons, rogue elementals, the occasional scheming or psychotic dragon (one nearly became president before he was mysteriously assassinated, another is in charge of a megacorporation, and some others are still living 'wild' and terrorizing their home turf), mages, shamans, adepts (or physads/physical adepts, as they were called in 2E; they're sorta SR's equivalent to the D&D Monk but with less mysticism involved and more natural magical talent, of a sort only suited to personal development rather than external sorcery or conjuring), etc.
For more of a strictly-fantasy-ish sort of game, I suppose I'd recommend Earthdawn (SR's predecessor of sorts, taking place in the distant past where people are beginning to come out of hiding after the rash of demon invaders has mostly subsided, and the surface has become inhabitable again). Magic is prevalent in Earthdawn, and basically every player character has some kind of pattern magic or the like to supplement their physical skills. But the more magic strengthens, the easier it becomes for demons to enter the physical world from the Astral Plane or wherever it was they came from (I forget), so the more dangerous it becomes. Ergo humanity hides in underground caves every time the Awakening surges strongly enough for the demonic invasion to resume.
Or for other stuff......hrm. I guess I'd recommend trying out some independant games and such. Maybe try out The Burning Wheel, which IIRC has one or two alternate settings/rules supplements out now for stuff other than fantasy (the core books for the Burning Wheel system are fantasy-based). I believe the starfaring setting book is called Burning Empires, but I don't know if I'm remembering that correctly. It's a bit harder now to find basic info on the game at the website, since it's gone through an overhaul, but I think it'd be worth checking out. They probably still have a free download or a few on the website somewhere, for previewing the material. I haven't looked at it lately since I have no money to buy new RPG products. Check out the Burning Wheel website here. BW has been around for a few years or so, and is still actively supported and growing slowly to my knowledge.
You might try downloading the JAGS rules and checking them out. They're in PDF format and free, last I checked (I keep meaning to try out a JAGS campaign, but I don't want to put my current 3.0 D&D campaigns on hold to do so!). JAGS has rules for several genres/settings so far, and at least one or two supported campaign settings, like Thirteen Colonies. There are rules for horror, fantasy, magic, psionics, chi, cybertech, superpowers, etc. I liked what I've read of the basic rules so far, and some of the Chi Martial Arts rules and a bit of the JAGS Supers rules, but I haven't gone over any of the non-basic stuff in-depth yet (I need to get the hang of the basic rules first by running or playing through an adventure before I'll be ready to learn the more high-powered or exotic stuff). Go here for the JAGS website to check it out. JAGS has been around for about as long as Burning Wheel or a little bit longer/shorter, and I think it's even more actively supported (or at least it seems like it to me
).You could try Palladium Fantasy or other Palladium games; I never got to try any out in play though, cuz my high school buddies who owned some Palladium games flaked out half the time they started planning a campaign or adventure (even just for D&D), and I haven't gamed with any other players of that game in recent years. Since I haven't tried it, I can't criticize it, so I dunno if the system is decent enough or not. Some people love Rifts or Palladium Fantasy, or their other properties like Robotech and Macross (or the old TMNT And Other Strangeness), while some other people despise it. So I dunno.
Of the stuff I'm suggesting you look into, the ones most likely to have a decent playerbase already find-able would be Shadowrun or Palladium (though Rifts, one of the Palladium settings, which is a mix of damn near everything IIRC, is the only one I know to be widely popular). Earthdawn probably still has some active players around, but as far as I know it hasn't gotten support in years, and is more or less out of print (I'm not sure; I never got the chance to try it out, though I've heard and read nothing but good things about it; FASA focused on BattleTech and Shadowrun more than Earthdawn, and now some other company holds the rights to Earthdawn; I can't remember if they've started reprinting the game or not, let alone doing anything more with it).
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