What to run when you are done with D&D?

[aramis erak]

That's the Rolemasyer retroclone?

No. It does a bunch differently, because...

Yes, though I'd say it's more of a MERP retroclone, without being a 1:1.

It's pretty much 95/100 MERP mechanics.
Trade Dress is close enough to MERP that if ICE still had the license. it'd be lawsuit time.

MERP was very playable, provided you don't...

• want to do Tolkien
• mind table driven combat
• want to keep a "Big Damned Hero" type alive
• want to avoid 2 and 3 digit additions

Against the Darkmaster shares those, solves a few minor issues...but has the issue of no adventure support.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

SJG's GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy both can do dungeon crawls. DF is the same core mechanics as GURPS, but I don't know the specifics.

I've fallen in love recently with DFRPG and can supply some specifics. GURPS is a system for designing games, and Dungeon Fantasy RPG is a game created using GURPS. It is more specific.

There are a few differences in actual gametime rules--slam/shield rush damage is simplified, for example. And the spell lists available to players are trimmed to omit dungeon- and economy-breaking spells like Teleport and Create Zombie.

The primary difference though between Dungeon Fantasy RPG and GURPS is at character generation time. GURPS chargen is pretty freeform and GM-driven: you take your point budget and spend it on anything the GM will let you spend it on. DFRPG chargen is more upfront: you pick a profession (i.e. class), such as Martial Artist (monk), which has mandatory features and optional features like Extra Attack and Power Blow, and as long as you do that, your character is legal. Furthermore, certain abilities are reserved only for certain professions: only barbarians can buy Tough Skin; only swashbucklers can buy Rapier Wit. (Certain races have Tough Skin too, but it stacks with barbarian Tough Skin.)

The upshot is min-maxing is less of a temptation in DFRPG: in GURPS it would be painful to avoid obvious "optimal" choices for your wizard such as spending a couple of points on healing spells and buying Rapier Wit (highly cost-effective free action that synergizes well with your high IQ) while leaving your DX at default and buying up Move and Magery instead. In DFRPG all those things are illegal. Whereas for me, trying to play GURPS Dungeon Fantasy back in the day resulted in either hyperspecialized uber-wizards (or warriors) way more cost-effective than they should be, or frustration because there was nothing but player restraint preventing hyper-specialization, and it was never clear where to draw the line. In DFRPG you can still create a highly effective warrior or wizard, but anyone who eventually has Broadsword-30 will also be strong and tough, and any wizard with Phantom-25 will also be a master of dozens of other spells, because the DFRPG chargen rules make conforming to archetype also the most cost effective way to build a character.

So anyway, DFRPG fixes almost all the things about GURPS that drove me back into D&D's arms in 2014, while keeping the good stuff like a good spellcaster/warrior balance[1], tactically interesting combat, an expansive list of skills that make talking and exploring interesting even if you don't have magic, and giving everybody enough vulnerabilities that even high-level/experienced dungeon delvers cannot afford to snooze even against mooks. (I.e. it's never boring to GM even when PCs are winning; there's always a chance they'll make a mistake that you can exploit.)

The monsters are fun too. In particular, crushrooms and Demogorgons[2] are worth stealing even for games you run in other systems, although the mechanics fit most naturally into DFRPG/GURPS. (The usual monsters like dragons and trolls are also well-done, and werewolves are more exciting than they are in D&D 5E.)

[1] Both are so much fun to play that it's hard to choose between them; it's even hard to choose among the dozen or so viable ways to play a warrior, whether a half-ogre martial artist who can kill a giant at thirty paces in one shot with a boomerang to the head, or a heavily armored knight who can protect by parrying attacks directed at others (sometimes lopping off the attacking limbs if monsters are not using weapons), or the martial artist who shoves enemies off ledges (falling damage is powerful in DFRPG) or stuns them with his warcries (Kiai), or the nimble knife-fighter who loves it when monsters rush into close combat where any other weapon-user would be at a disadvantage. Or the barbarian with Berserk and a humongous club or atlatl.

[2] Okay, technically it's called a "Ramex" (from DF Monsters 2), but since it behaves like a Stranger Things Demogorgon taking maximal tactical advantage of dimension-hopping, I'm just going to pretend the only reason it's called a Ramex in the books is to avoid legal issues.

 

[kronovan]

13th Age: For me it's really like an improved and cleaner D&D 4e, yet it still supports the rules game play you'd find in a D&D game. If I have a group of players that want something different, more narrative and got some enjoyment playing 4e, it's my go to.
Adventure Gaming Engine (Dragon Age, Fantasy Age & Midgard Campaign Setting AGE appendix): if I have a group that wants a lighter ruleset. Otherwise via the Fantasy Age supplements it supports all of the time of adventuring you'd expect with a D&D ruleset. If I run it I almost always run adventures set in the Dragon Age continent of Thedas, which is a setting I enjoy both for tabletop and video game play. Otherwise, I created my own hybrid edition of the rules called MidAGE, which I tailored to better support running campaigns set in the World of Midgard.
Mythras: If I have a group that want's rules with a good deal of crunch (especially combat), or players that just prefer a d% system. I find the CRB to be very complete in terms of rules to run a campaign heavy on adventuring and exploration. I prefer to use the rules for Historical Fantasy or Sword & Sorcery, but along with the Classic Fantasy supplement it does D&D style campaigning very well.
The Dark Eye: The English adaptation of the classic Das Schwarze Auge RPG. It outsells D&D in some Euro countries and in a way, at its inception it was designed to be a competitor to D&D. So understandably it supports running D&D style campaigns. I especially like the default campaign continent of Aventuria, the Almanac for which is one of the best I've ever read.

 

[Monayuris]

How about Against the Darkmaster? I think it checks on all parameters, plus it looks just amazing for the nostalgic factor alone.

I’m in the same boat. I’m kind of done with 5e for a while (I’ve been running it since the playtest).

Against the Darkmaster is getting a nice long look. Not sure how suited it is to pure dungeon crawling… for that purpose I’d just go with Old School Essentials. But it does seem a compelling choice for a sandbox style game.

I’ve also been curious about Forbidden Lands by Free League.

I think both are more suited to wilderness/sandbox/campaign play than dungeon play. Meaning I would probably use them for a campaign that involved some dungeon exploration, but I probably wouldn’t use them for a megadungeon.

But right now, I’m kind of up for a different game just for the sole purpose of playing something ‘NOT D&D’ even if it is potentially a better tool.

 

[pemerton]

Definitely, Torchbearer. The 2e is a beauty in terms of game-design.

And there's a solid actual play thread too, to show how it works: Torchbearer 2e - actual play of this AWESOME system! (+)

(If I do say so myself. But it did get a like from Thor and a shout-out from Luke on the BWHQ boards.)

 

[dbm]

The monsters are fun too

And there is a large selection of monsters available for GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy these days, which is a real boon for GMs.

Gaming Ballistic (an approved third-party publisher for GURPS) is running a campaign for three new Monster books. Their earlier campaign and monster books have been fantastic, so these are likely to be great, too.

 

[Fenris-77]

And there's a solid actual play thread too, to show how it works: Torchbearer 2e - actual play of this AWESOME system! (+)

(If I do say so myself. But it did get a like from Thor and a shout-out from Luke on the BWHQ boards.)

This. Everyone who's curious about Torchbearer should read the thread, its great.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

And there is a large selection of monsters available for GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy these days, which is a real boon for GMs.

Gaming Ballistic (an approved third-party publisher for GURPS) is running a campaign for three new Monster books. Their earlier campaign and monster books have been fantastic, so these are likely to be great, too.

I agree and wish to say a bit more:

The basic forty or so monsters in the DFRPG boxed set are great. They cover a broad range of archetypes (vampires, regenerating trolls, dragons, werewolves, etc.), but there's a whole separate tactical dimension on top of that: I'm still learning new tactics even just for the three varieties of giant spider on one page. (Currently I'm considering differentiating my spiders not by power but by NASTINESS, with the deepest levels of the dungeon having spiders with the same stats as up top but the nastiest tactics I have discovered.)

You could have dozens of adventures with just half the monsters in the boxed set and never get bored. The way I see it, more monster books are helpful not so much just to add variety as to (1) spark ideas, (2) ease conversions from mythology or other systems. You can make up your own hydra or Nemean Lion using the traits in DF Monsters, but it's kind of nice to have a book version already there. You can make up a mummy stat block in order to run Barrowmaze (famous OSR dungeon crawl) but it's nice to just have one ready so you can focus on running the adventure--and maybe the author will have thought of some nice twists that you would not have invented yourself.

I do have one complaint with DFRPG monsters, but it's one that applies to D&D 5E too: their writeups are pretty combat-oriented. They don't tend to have things like the Habitat and Ecology sections from AD&D 2E monster manuals, and they don't have diet/number appearing/frequency or even Treasure Type either. My solution has been to rip off Rasputin's spreadsheet (Happy Thanksgiving! Here is the monsters and treasure list), which in turn are ripping off the ACKS notion of treasure strategies (explained here: Updated Dungeon Fantasy Naturalism). So far that keeps me happy.

P.S. Oh yes, and it can be hard especially for a new GM to eyeball the power level of a monster, especially since as mentioned above it depends on how nasty your tactics are. 5E CRs are a terrible measure of power, but DFRPG doesn't even have CR-equivalents (except on Rasputin's spreadsheet, as "CER"), so at first you're not even sure which monsters are supposed to be horde monsters and which are small-group elites. Run a test combat to get the feel, but bear in mind that you might be overlooking a nasty tactic (or a rule) that the monster much stronger or weaker in actual play than they were in your test combat. The only actually useful guideline I can point to is Lanchester's Square Law: three Grues is about twice as nasty as two Grues, no matter what the stats are for a Grue.

 

[MNblockhead]

You already have 7 pages of great recommendations and discussion, so I'm not sure if you settled on anything yet.

You didn't mention if your prefered GM style is to homebrew your own adventures or if you prefer to run published adventures. One thing I always look at is how well supported is the system? It may have the greatest rules ever written for the style you are looking for, but if you have trouble finding adventures for it, are you okay with that?

In my experience, DCC gave the best fantasy dungeon exploration style of play that still felt different than D&D. I've backed Goodman Games Dying Lands kickstarter. I'm liking what they are doing with magic from what I've seen so far. Their Lankhmar set is also worth looking into.

You've already stated that more old-school, rules light systems were not well received by your players. So I think Swords & Wizardry is probably out. Even lighter systems like ICRPG as well.

If you want to go full home brew, use Cortex Prime to build the system you are looking for. That may be more work than you want, especially since you'd need to homebrew all your adventures as well.

Usually, when I want a break from D&D, I go with something radically different either in terms of genre or system (or both). But you don't seem interested in that.

All and all, my best recommendation would be one of the DCC setting sets, like Lankhmar or Dying Lands. Already DCC has a familiar but different flavor to it. Lankmar and Dying Lands add to that with heavily flavored new mechanics and settings.

 

[Monayuris]

I agree and wish to say a bit more:

The basic forty or so monsters in the DFRPG boxed set are great. They cover a broad range of archetypes (vampires, regenerating trolls, dragons, werewolves, etc.), but there's a whole separate tactical dimension on top of that: I'm still learning new tactics even just for the three varieties of giant spider on one page. (Currently I'm considering differentiating my spiders not by power but by NASTINESS, with the deepest levels of the dungeon having spiders with the same stats as up top but the nastiest tactics I have discovered.)

You could have dozens of adventures with just half the monsters in the boxed set and never get bored. The way I see it, more monster books are helpful not so much just to add variety as to (1) spark ideas, (2) ease conversions from mythology or other systems. You can make up your own hydra or Nemean Lion using the traits in DF Monsters, but it's kind of nice to have a book version already there. You can make up a mummy stat block in order to run Barrowmaze (famous OSR dungeon crawl) but it's nice to just have one ready so you can focus on running the adventure--and maybe the author will have thought of some nice twists that you would not have invented yourself.

I do have one complaint with DFRPG monsters, but it's one that applies to D&D 5E too: their writeups are pretty combat-oriented. They don't tend to have things like the Habitat and Ecology sections from AD&D 2E monster manuals, and they don't have diet/number appearing/frequency or even Treasure Type either. My solution has been to rip off Rasputin's spreadsheet (Happy Thanksgiving! Here is the monsters and treasure list), which in turn are ripping off the ACKS notion of treasure strategies (explained here: Updated Dungeon Fantasy Naturalism). So far that keeps me happy.

P.S. Oh yes, and it can be hard especially for a new GM to eyeball the power level of a monster, especially since as mentioned above it depends on how nasty your tactics are. 5E CRs are a terrible measure of power, but DFRPG doesn't even have CR-equivalents (except on Rasputin's spreadsheet, as "CER"), so at first you're not even sure which monsters are supposed to be horde monsters and which are small-group elites. Run a test combat to get the feel, but bear in mind that you might be overlooking a nasty tactic (or a rule) that the monster much stronger or weaker in actual play than they were in your test combat. The only actually useful guideline I can point to is Lanchester's Square Law: three Grues is about twice as nasty as two Grues, no matter what the stats are for a Grue.

Your posts on Dungeon Fantasy have definitely led me to look into it. What is the easiest way to get into the game, do they have a quick start or free version?

I’m familiar with GURPS but never played or ran it.

Any good actual plays or demos on YouTube as well?