daddystabz
Explorer
If you had to pick just 1 between those 2, which would it be?
I assume Tales of the Valiant hews closer to straight-out 5e.
Other D&D Variant What is your favorite version of D&D offshoot/D20 fantasy today? Tell us why it is the best!
- Thread starter daddystabz
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I assume Tales of the Valiant hews closer to straight-out 5e.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
I'm pretty simply never going to buy from Goodman Games again...but that won't stop me from using what I have already, and DCC fills the "Appendix N Genre Emulation" niche to perfection. Shadowdark seems nice, but I prefer funadwlic to gritty and I already have the DCC books, so...
5E 2024 is the current D&D-est iteration of D&D, very satisfied with that.
But the real star for me right now is the Cosmere RPG. Sort of an anti-DCC, being more of a "Modern High Fantasy Literary Genre Emulation" engine, it is likely DCC a to the roots rethink king of d20 to achieve it Genre goals. It solves problems I didn't even know l had with the D&D family of games, like solving fhe combatant/noncombatant imbalance along wifh solving wizard/fighter issues...I am really excited to get my hard copies and get this running.
daddystabz
Explorer
The Cosmere RPG is fantastic.
BenjaminPey
Explorer
I confess having zero interest in all the 5e clones. Even the distant cousins like Shadow of the Demon Lord or 13th Age are far too close to DnD for me that I would bother investing in them, even though I will (and did) gladly play them when the offer is on the table. I have a DnD itch that needs scratching, and, no surprise, DnD scratches it. When I want something else (something other than, say, adventure game which revolves around combat, with level advancements and character builds), I play something else: Apocalypse World, Heart/Spire, Vampire, Nephilim, City of Mist, Lady Blackbird, Call of Chtulhu, Neon City Overdrive, whatever.
Legends in the Mist is such a game for me, though, another type of game entirely, and I wouldn't have put it as a "different version" of d20-fantasy, even though I get why OP did (it did market itself as a DnD alternative). It doesn't revolve around combat, there's no levels, there's no character builds.
Legends in the Mist is such a game for me, though, another type of game entirely, and I wouldn't have put it as a "different version" of d20-fantasy, even though I get why OP did (it did market itself as a DnD alternative). It doesn't revolve around combat, there's no levels, there's no character builds.
daddystabz
Explorer
Legend in the Mist is quite possibly my favorite fantasy game overall, alongside Barbarians of Lemuria Mythic + and Conan The Hyborian Age.
I've played some sessions and enjoyed it immensely.
I've played some sessions and enjoyed it immensely.
BenjaminPey
Explorer
It is a great game.
mamba
Legend
Shadow of the Weird Wizard
yes, it’s easily compatible with 5e, Shadow is not, but will still be pretty familiar
In my area (in-person tables), the popular fantasy games besides D&D 5E roughly are:
- Dungeon Crawl Classics
- Shadowdark
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Boy, a lot of good answers here.
At various times, my answer would be Castles & Crusades, Beyond the Wall (and related games Grizzled Heroes and Through Sunken Lands), Shadowdark and Pirate Borg.
C&C, although hampered by a weird resolution system that's actually worse than the default d20 resolution system popularized by 3E, works seamlessly with all TSR D&D materials and even 3E D&D stuff, meaning that it's a great replacement system to use if you want something that feels more like TSR D&D, but without some of the clunkier outliers. It's also got a wonderful class-and-a-half multiclassing system that I would love to see other RPGs adopt. That said, its SIEGE resolution system is awful -- we ran C&C online for years and we had to regularly re-explain the system, which is a real issue. And C&C books have the worst editing you can imagine (at one point, they had identically named, but different, monsters in two different bestiaries, along with numerous typos and factual errors). The Troll Lords seem like nice guys, and it's very cool that they're working on building an RPG printing press in the US to help out the rest of the industry, but the sloppiness of their books, along with the damned SIEGE engine, eventually exhausted me and I threw in the towel on them.
Beyond the Wall takes an AD&D chassis, tweaks spellcasting rules a bit and then -- their real innovation -- create fiction-first playbooks to use to roll up characters. You're not a fighter/magic-user, you're a fey-touched child. You're not a wizard, you're the daughter of the village witch. Everyone rolls their characters up together, and the playbooks have you roll on tables that knit together everyone's backgrounds together (Powered By the Apocalypse style), creating a real cohesion for the group before play begins. The playbooks also guide the group through helping create their starting village and then the DM uses a similar mechanism to run adventures more or less on the fly, based on simple tables. And these adventures are among the best I've ever run, despite being incredibly simple to generate. I was skeptical about moving over to Shadowdark, because the adventure generators in Grizzled Adventurers (about elderly adventurers, instead of young heroes) is just so good. If the folks at Flatland Games ever wanted to make their adventure generators system-neutral, they'd have a huge hit. And every RPG would benefit from playbooks like their games use to create characters and the starting town. I am over most of the 1Eisms, which can't really be defended on any grounds other than nostalgia, but the new stuff Flatland brings to the proceeding are best in class.
And then there's Shadowdark, which is all of the grit and danger I like of TSR D&D and the OSR, with the modern innovations like advantage/disadvantage and innovations that I didn't think I needed until I tried them in play. Always on initiative and real time torches tend to ruffle feathers when people hear about them, but they work amazingly in play, solving perennial problems (at least at my tables). The game runs fast and efficient, and is the OSR game that even my 5E players are excited to play.
I like the idea of Mork Borg, but it's simply too miserable, and the book is too difficult to use, for my tastes. But it's endlessly getting remixed, and Pirate Borg, which I describe as Pirates of the Caribbean meets the Evil Dead, uses the system to create one of the most purely fun RPG experiences I've ever had. I grin so hard during adventures, my face hurts at the end of the game. Couple that with some really great adventures (Buried in the Bahamas is, for my money, the best starter adventure I've ever run, and I've run it four or five times now) and I'm really excited for the expansions shipping later this year and, beyond that, the full Dark Caribbean setting.
We live in a time of riches for fantasy RPG players and groups.
At various times, my answer would be Castles & Crusades, Beyond the Wall (and related games Grizzled Heroes and Through Sunken Lands), Shadowdark and Pirate Borg.
C&C, although hampered by a weird resolution system that's actually worse than the default d20 resolution system popularized by 3E, works seamlessly with all TSR D&D materials and even 3E D&D stuff, meaning that it's a great replacement system to use if you want something that feels more like TSR D&D, but without some of the clunkier outliers. It's also got a wonderful class-and-a-half multiclassing system that I would love to see other RPGs adopt. That said, its SIEGE resolution system is awful -- we ran C&C online for years and we had to regularly re-explain the system, which is a real issue. And C&C books have the worst editing you can imagine (at one point, they had identically named, but different, monsters in two different bestiaries, along with numerous typos and factual errors). The Troll Lords seem like nice guys, and it's very cool that they're working on building an RPG printing press in the US to help out the rest of the industry, but the sloppiness of their books, along with the damned SIEGE engine, eventually exhausted me and I threw in the towel on them.
Beyond the Wall takes an AD&D chassis, tweaks spellcasting rules a bit and then -- their real innovation -- create fiction-first playbooks to use to roll up characters. You're not a fighter/magic-user, you're a fey-touched child. You're not a wizard, you're the daughter of the village witch. Everyone rolls their characters up together, and the playbooks have you roll on tables that knit together everyone's backgrounds together (Powered By the Apocalypse style), creating a real cohesion for the group before play begins. The playbooks also guide the group through helping create their starting village and then the DM uses a similar mechanism to run adventures more or less on the fly, based on simple tables. And these adventures are among the best I've ever run, despite being incredibly simple to generate. I was skeptical about moving over to Shadowdark, because the adventure generators in Grizzled Adventurers (about elderly adventurers, instead of young heroes) is just so good. If the folks at Flatland Games ever wanted to make their adventure generators system-neutral, they'd have a huge hit. And every RPG would benefit from playbooks like their games use to create characters and the starting town. I am over most of the 1Eisms, which can't really be defended on any grounds other than nostalgia, but the new stuff Flatland brings to the proceeding are best in class.
And then there's Shadowdark, which is all of the grit and danger I like of TSR D&D and the OSR, with the modern innovations like advantage/disadvantage and innovations that I didn't think I needed until I tried them in play. Always on initiative and real time torches tend to ruffle feathers when people hear about them, but they work amazingly in play, solving perennial problems (at least at my tables). The game runs fast and efficient, and is the OSR game that even my 5E players are excited to play.
I like the idea of Mork Borg, but it's simply too miserable, and the book is too difficult to use, for my tastes. But it's endlessly getting remixed, and Pirate Borg, which I describe as Pirates of the Caribbean meets the Evil Dead, uses the system to create one of the most purely fun RPG experiences I've ever had. I grin so hard during adventures, my face hurts at the end of the game. Couple that with some really great adventures (Buried in the Bahamas is, for my money, the best starter adventure I've ever run, and I've run it four or five times now) and I'm really excited for the expansions shipping later this year and, beyond that, the full Dark Caribbean setting.
We live in a time of riches for fantasy RPG players and groups.
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daddystabz
Explorer
I have Pirate Borg and also backed their Dark Caribbean Kickstarter. I just can't ever find a game to join.
How much do I have to pay you to run it in an online campaign and allow me to play in it? Pirates of the Caribbean + The Evil Dead = sign me up!
