What Licensed RPG Do You Wish Used A Different System?

I wish Avatar: The RolePlaying Game used something other than the Powered by the Apocalypse engine, though to be honest, I am not sure what. PbtA just didn't do it for me. I am not a big fan of class based systems, and to me, that's essentially what playbooks are. The balance mechanism was interesting, but the playbooks just felt way too contrived and constraining for me. It didn't help that none of their archetypes appealed to me, which is a shame, because I love Avatar-verse.

I think the bending powers would have been modeled interestingly through the Ars Magica magic system (probably still the best magic system I have seen so far in a game). No game engine truly does martial arts well, at least to the point of detail that I would like. The closest is the Hero System which has a nice build-your-own-martial-arts system. It's also quite crunchy to my liking. And you can build pretty much whatever magical system you like. My main beef with the system is the Action Phase system, and the min-maxing abuse (eg, always only buying a score of 13 or 18, because it's just as good mechanically as a 15 or 20). Also, good luck trying to get anyone into the Hero System nowadays.
 

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And because I came to the thread late, if you enjoy PbtA games, more power to you :) I just wish Avatar had used something more flexible and detailed.

Another one came to mind. I haven't fully read through the Marvel RPG rules yet, but again, I think the Hero System or even Mutants and Masterminds would have been a great fit. I enjoy being able to tweak powers and I think both games could do a great job modelling characters from Marvel. I also got a feeling reading the stat blocks from the RPG game, that they are basing it off MCU heroes and not the comic book heroes. That being said, I feel like even in the comics, the power levels change with every new writer.
 



Play of it was great.

I have several times thought of going to Cortex Prime, and seeing if I could cobble together something cogent around character generation, which I felt Marvel Heroic RP lacked.

Melding in something akin to the FASERIP Game's Power Stunts would be fantastic.

It sort-of already has a way to do that.
 


I wish Firefly was updated from Cortex to Cortex Prime. The original Cortex wasn't that good, Cortex+ was better and they learned to use it better. Cortex Prime they've got pretty good.
 

Babylon 5. Both of 'em. The d20 version is, as was the case with most IP shoved into the d20 system, a very poor fit. The Traveller version could've been good, but it re-used a lot of the bad d20 version content and suffered from Mongoose's then trademark editing gaffes. Meh.
And lack of support for either edition. And insistence on mapping whole ships for publication to happen; no deckplans, no inclusion.

The Chameleon Ecclectic version was not horrible, but a single punch from a Minbari Warrior Cast NPC put a security goon PC into sickbay for a month.

I'd like a B5 flavor that isn't a half-assed moneygrab... nor overly complex, nor overly fatal... but given the nature of the setting, That leans towards a BRP flavor... but BRP can cause severe analysis paralysis, FFG Star Wars (but NOT genesys) would be excellent, especially with the nature of the talent trees and careers; that said, B5 needs a much more realistic flight model for ship combat, as half the league lacks gravity drives.
 

I wish Firefly was updated from Cortex to Cortex Prime. The original Cortex wasn't that good, Cortex+ was better and they learned to use it better. Cortex Prime they've got pretty good.
Unlikely to happen -- the persons who did it have all split up, Cortex Prime has changed hands to Fandom, who are letting it languish...
 

7th Sea 2nd edition

I really want to like this game but the resolution mechanics is just too alien to my mind, both as a player and as a DM. I’m not sure what to do with it either though, or what system would be a good fit.
If John could be forced away from it, and his incredibly bad layout (lack of) skill blocked... L5R 5E would do the same justice for it as it did for Old L5R... The Roll and Keep being now meaningful choices, rather than self-evident. the use of two damage tracks, the crits system...
Keep in mind: 7th Sea 1E was same core mechanics (but different att list and skill list) as L5R 1E. The same changes would make sense in a new edition.

Also, there was that d20 version.... Swahsbuckling Adventures, IIRC.
 

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