Game Systems

[Myrleena]

Just curious what systems people like, and why.  I'm also hoping to spark some discussion of what types of games people like.

My Systems:
D&D 3.5 - Started Roleplaying with it, and been doing it ever since.
Hero System - I absolutely love how much I can do with it!  I've looked at GURPS, but I've never found something so versatile before. *snuggles up to her intelligent starship character*
Pathfinder RPG - I know the final version isn't out yet, but I consider it just such an amazing upgrade to 3.5 D&D.

[The Overlord]

I must admit D&D 3rd met with some resistance from me when it first came out, but a lot of that was well-founded. For someone that's been playing 2nd Ed since it was new, convincing me I needed all new books didn't fly much further than the Wright brothers first plane.

But, 3rd Ed cleaned up a lot of things that needed it, the feats and skill system was great, paring down the saving throws was great, combat was streamlined. It's a very workable system.


But 3rd Ed is where I get off the D&D train...I'm convinced 4th Ed is made and playtested specifically for the mentally challenged, there's no better way to say it.

[Myrleena]

No arguments from me there.  I bought the 4th edition books just to give the game a chance, but after that first playtest... *shudders in horror* I was practically crying "Give my wizard back his spells!  I want Fireball more than once per day!"
I'd suggest taking a look at the Pathfinder RPG.  They cleaned up a lot of the problems I had with the 3.0 and 3.5 rules, including simplifying the skills.  Besides, their beta pdf is free!

[thewhiterabbit]

I'll stick 3.0 & 3.5. I enjoyed World of Darkness and others along that line too. Sadly they were harder to find GMs for though.

[Mnemaxa]

....hmn. Let me see.....

Rifts.
Shadowrun.
D&D 2nd, 3rd, 2.5, Pathfinder.
Splatterpunk.
Call of Cthulhu.
Nightbane.
Rolemaster.
GURPS.  Lots of GURPS.
Morpheus (one of the very first indies!).
WW Vampire the Requiem. (Eh.)
WW Kindred of the East. (Nummy.)
WW Werewolf the Apocolypse.
Weapons of the Gods (There is nothing better!)
WW Aberrant.
Mutants and Masterminds.
Mage version 1 (loads of fun!), Mage the Ascension (powered down so they wouldn't outshine the vampires), Mage the Awakening.

I think that's it.  Red means I gamemastered it as well.

[Avi]

I'm gonna be trying out my first 4e campaign this weekend, and frankly... thus far it looks decent to me.  Reading over the rules and such (I found a free PDF of the PHB), I don't find much to gripe about.  Then again, all I played before was 3.5e, and that was only a couple times.  I do understand the complaints about wizards, though, but I don't play them as a rule, since I don't have the patience to play a supporting/long-range class.  I prefer to have a bit more physical power, so I stick to fighters, rangers, or paladins.  In the discussions I've had about it, most people seem to either like the more-simple mechanics, or hate them. 

[Myrleena]

Okay, I suppose I should make it clear.  I think 4th edition is a decent game in it's own right, but I don't really consider it D&D.  It's simple and easy to play, but it takes out most of your choices, at least to me.  And what I love about roleplaying is choices.  That's why I love 3.5/Pathfinder/Hero.

[Avi]

I will admit, it makes it a bit harder to have a unique character, yes.  But at the same time, that's kind of a boon, since it makes players put much more into character development and developing in-character quirks.  Personally, I find that much more appealing than being able to nitpick what exact items and such your character carries. 

As an aside... it's possible that they will provide more of the missing variety in subsequent supplement books.

[Mnemaxa]

Please, no 4e vrs. 3.5 D&D sidetracks.  I have seen enough of those kind of threads to know that it only ever goes downhill. 

[Nadir]

Freeform! *ducks and runs*

[Myrleena]

Agreed.  I just stop posting in those, too tired of it, and I don't like to argue.  I noticed Aberrant on your list, and was curious what it's like.  I heard of it when I was considering running a superhero game, but I ended up going with Hero.  What are your thoughts on it?

I also understand freeform's attraction, but when I want non-scripted combat...I'm afraid I prefer a system.  I do like freeform though.

[Mnemaxa]

Aberrant was one of the last of the White Wolf 'Players Cannot Win' games in the vein of the Old World of Darkness books.  It is actually a precursor to their psychic game Trinity.  Your character has quantum, which is essentially mutational energy.  The energy can grant great powers, but the more you possess, the more it tries to twist and alter your character.  It was actually excellently designed, and made character creation easy.  Unfortunately, like all their games of that time period your character was doomed, from the start, period, to eventually mutate nd suffer as the more power he gained, the more quantum mutations occurred to him. 

Like vampire, the only way to gain any measure of character growth  in power was to be doomed.

[Myrleena]

Ouch, sounds like fun.  :D
I'm actually serious about that.  My character histories usually doom my characters from the start, so it wouldn't be that big of a change.  I'll have to see if anyone I know has a rulebook I can look at.  I've only played Exalted of WW systems, so I don't know much of it.  Fortunately my girlfriend was a storyteller for a Vampire chat, so...

[Mnemaxa]

It is one of the better done systems they had, and really fun if you can discard the 'doomed by your own nature' aspects of the system.  On the other hand, there are options, and those options are the basis of the main badguys. ^_^  Who might not really be so bad after all....

My friend collects RPG's and Boardgames, so if there is a game out there, chances are I've heard of it at the very least. 

Additional games: 
Torg.
Forgot about that one. Only played it a few times.

[Lithos]

There are two three exellent games that I would like to mention here:

Unknown Armies

Magic system in Unknown armies among other things is great, everything is based in paradox of some sort. Like, if you are practicing bibliomancy... the more comprehensive library you have the stronger you are... but you must never read any book. And who would not like game with Voodoo :P

Blue Planet

Blue Planet is exellent game and I love the lethality of combat system, but it is percent chance based system pretty much so nothing unique in that way. The world itself is unbelievably detailed and fun.

I wont say more of either cause everyone can wiki em anyway  :)

Edit: Was sure that this was mentioned allready but was not I think so here:

Legend Of The Five Rings

Great world, Great combat / magic system

[Myrleena]

I'll admit to being rather new to most types of systems.  Heck, I only started D&D by accident.  I was at my local game store waiting for someone to show up to play Magic:the Gathering, with, and a guy was starting a 3.0 teaching game, so I got hooked.  Eight years later, and despite being the youngest member of the gaming group, I'm always the one running games. *sigh*

[The Overlord]

 Eight years later, and despite being the youngest member of the gaming group, I'm always the one running games. *sigh*

Yeah I know exactly what you mean. Getting a game started can be tricky enough, but a GM is only as good as his or her players, and if you think starting one is a chore, keeping it alive can be as fun as root canal and brain surgery rolled up into a ball and stuffed into a sack of rabid ferrets on crack cocaine.

All my forum games seem to be populated by worthless slugs, liars, and Fletcher Christians. That why when City of Heroes/Villains releases Mission Architect I'm going to be all over that shite, putting out all my ideas for an entire MMO.

[HairyHeretic]

Legend of the Five Rings

Exalted

Dark Heresy

Qin

I'll edit this post later and put in more detail on why I like stuff.

[Thufir Hawat]

Well, here we go ;D!
GURPS, because I can do anything with it, and it's easier for me than HERO. Besides, I like bell curves in my dice spread!
BRP, especially China, because it goes fast and it's almost as versatile as GURPS. It's also easily customizable.
WFRP, because I like career and lifepath-based character creation. It also has a very cool setting. Of course, same goes for Dark Heresy, and lots of other systems, but this one is the most popular one.
UA2, because it always gives and takes at the same time, you always have to make some exchange when your character advances. I kind of like that. I also like the madness meters.
The Riddle of Steel, because it makes you answer the riddle if you want to play and have fun at all. It also has a very cool system, even if a bit crunchy.
Exalted, because it has a cool setting with lots of references to existing mythologies. Creation needs you, too! That one is despite the system, though. It has its own kind of cool moments, of course.
I'm sure I forget some system. But then, nobody's perfect. Yeah, not even me! Some of us just come closer to it :P!

[HairyHeretic]

Riddle of Steel .. fun system, but damn you want to pick your fights carefully. I still have fond memories of playing that, and my Sir Mandorallen wannabe knight ordering an entire castle to surrender to him  ;D

[Thufir Hawat]

Riddle of Steel .. fun system, but damn you want to pick your fights carefully. I still have fond memories of playing that, and my Sir Mandorallen wannabe knight ordering an entire castle to surrender to him  ;D

That's a bonus for me. I don't like pointless fights ;)!

And that's one of the cool moments that come with such systems ;D!

[HairyHeretic]

TBH I'm surprised I managed to survive that game. My knight challenged the Kings Champion at a tourney, when the knight jousting with him threw the fight, beat him, then beat two of his friends who charged out, and stared down 2 others. Because I'd crippled 3 of the kings knights, including champion, I got appointed champion, challenged his chief adviser who was running a slaving operation, killed him, and then took a portion of the army off to deal with the evil wizard behind it all.

That was the point I got to ride over the hill, up to the castle and order them all to surrender.

That got the expected response of "You and whose army?"

*army marches over the hill*

Gods, but that was a great moment  ;D

[Thufir Hawat]

That's precisely why it was such a great moment. You could have died, yet you faced the odds and turned it in your favour!
It's obvious I favour highly lethal systems, isn't it?

[HairyHeretic]

You'd probably enjoy L5R then. Not quite the same level of realism as RoS (shock and blood loss rules), but it is entirely possible to die from one lucky hit, even if you're an experienced character. Generally you can take a few hits, but no more than a handfull.

[Lithos]

Still, it is priceless in a good way when your experienced samurai is out of action for few months and takes permanent stat loss from lucky hit from some meaningles Eta's spear in small insignificant skirmish.

I love L5R

[HairyHeretic]

Unless you've a decent shukenja around, at which point he can be on his feet a bit sooner than that :)

[Apple of Eris]

The only systems I've ever cared for are:

In Nomine
GURPS

And that's it.
They're not in any particular order either. ;)

[Thufir Hawat]

You'd probably enjoy L5R then. Not quite the same level of realism as RoS (shock and blood loss rules), but it is entirely possible to die from one lucky hit, even if you're an experienced character. Generally you can take a few hits, but no more than a handfull.

I like the system more than the setting, actually ;).

Still, it is priceless in a good way when your experienced samurai is out of action for few months and takes permanent stat loss from lucky hit from some meaningles Eta's spear in small insignificant skirmish.

I love L5R

I don't know if that's ironic or not, but it has its own place in my games.
At least, the players learn to act like the pick their fights ;D.

[Myrleena]

I did like the L5R system, but I had a bad gamemaster for the game.  We were railroaded down the main metaplot, with starting characters for one.  Second he refused to change the plot, so we couldn't actually do anything worth meaning.  Third, he screwed characters over for making good decisions, (dropped a freaking Dark Oracle on my character) and the scenery of the game wasn't even good.  That game had...issues.  There's a reason we'll never let him GM again.
Nice, HairyHeretic, I've rarely heard of GM's letting people do things like that.  But still, sounds like fun.

[HairyHeretic]

Quality of GM can make or break any game. Doesn't matter if you've the best plot and system in the world, if you have a bad GM it will hurt.

Back in my early RPing days, in high school, one guy tried his hand at running MERP (Middle Earth). We were all starting characters .. I had some kind of human ranger, don't remember exactly what.

The GM took us into Moria.

We met the Balrog.

Maybe a quarter of the party managed to run fast enough to get somewhere it couldn't follow.

Surprisingly enough, he never got to GM again.

[Thufir Hawat]

I did like the L5R system, but I had a bad gamemaster for the game.  We were railroaded down the main metaplot, with starting characters for one.  Second he refused to change the plot, so we couldn't actually do anything worth meaning.  Third, he screwed characters over for making good decisions, (dropped a freaking Dark Oracle on my character) and the scenery of the game wasn't even good.  That game had...issues.  There's a reason we'll never let him GM again.
Nice, HairyHeretic, I've rarely heard of GM's letting people do things like that.  But still, sounds like fun.

I'm with Hairy Heretic in this one. The same guy could have spoiled Hero for you, so it's not about system or the lack of it...
And a good halfway decent GM should let you do such things if you work hard enough to get them, IMO!

[Myrleena]

Oh, believe me, I know that.  I would love to play L5R again, as long as I had a different GM.  I do have a friend who wants to run a game, but...he want's us all to be ronin, and I object to that.  On the other hand, I never let a GM ruin a game system for me.  I'm pretty good at ignoring bad GMs.  (I had plenty of them, that's why I ended up GMing, out of self defense. >.<)

[HairyHeretic]

An all ronin game could be interesting, but as ronin you're automatically inferior to all samurai, and that could cause a lot of problems.

[Myrleena]

I agree that it could be interesting, but he won't give a reason for it, other than he wants to be able to pay us. *rolls her eyes*

[HairyHeretic]

Hmm. I think I'd want a bit more info than that before starting a campaign.

If he can get his hands on it, play the City of Lies. It's a 1st ed campaign, but an awful lot of fun.

[Myrleena]

Definitely, I know that he wants to run a prebuilt module, but I don't know which one.  He says that he wants to learn the system with a module before he makes up his own adventures, but he tends to throw screwball rules like the ronin one into all of his games, and never gives reasons for them that make sense to us players.

[Thufir Hawat]

Definitely, I know that he wants to run a prebuilt module, but I don't know which one.  He says that he wants to learn the system with a module before he makes up his own adventures, but he tends to throw screwball rules like the ronin one into all of his games, and never gives reasons for them that make sense to us players.

The only question is, do you consider him a good GM ;)?
If yes, he should be able to run a decent game even with a module, and if not, well, module or no module... ;D
And I think the last few posts should be used to start a different thread on systems and good/bad GMing.

[Josietta]

Wooooo here we go...

DnD 3.0 and 3.5 (I prefer DMing than playing but I love me some DnD, 4th ed does not appeal, never played 2nd)
Shadowrun (love love love)
Marvel Superheroes (my preferred superhero system)
Heroes Unlimited (is okay)
Aberrant (definitely different with taints and such)
Marvel (diceless) (didn't care for it)
Champions (meh)
Mutants and Masterminds (no thanks)
Werewolf: the Apocalypse (LOVE!)
Vampire: the Masquerade (My first and absolute favorite)
Changeling: the Dreaming (Played a couple times but couldn't find people interested)
L5R (was kind of broken)
Rokugan (way broken as far as equality with character classes IMHO)
Kingdoms of Kalimar (pretty cool with the different setting and such than the basic Eberron/forgotten realms)
Rifts (Complex but once you get your character done, its cool)
Star Wars (not a favorite but decent for Sci Fi)

[Myrleena]

Ack!  I didn't even realize I'd hijacked my own thread!  Now THAT is embarrassing.  In any case, as I run away screaming from a Paragon Shadow dragon... (that was one of my own...embarassments)
Dang it, I never realized how few systems I'd tried.

[Idej]

Unfortunately, I have tried little as well.  I have mainly done most of the d20 system games.  I have played Dark Heresy which is very fun, and that is about it.  It is sad but true.

[Thufir Hawat]

Dang it, I never realized how few systems I'd tried.

Unfortunately, I have tried little as well.

You should really look at it from the positive side - it means you have lots of room to experiment ;)!
Of course, you might have to GM it in order to get other people to play it. But it's always fun to experiment, and you get to start the games you like ;D!

[Myrleena]

True, I'm currently going through my GF's Alternity books.  I'm finding them fun, and thinking about trying to convert Shadowrun to it. ^_^

[Transgirlenstein]

One's I am currently playing now:

Call of Cthulhu BRP system (my favorite game.  Right now we are playing Delta Green)

Changling the Lost (the best of the NWOD games)

Been reading Necessary Evil and am highly enjoying it/thinking of running it

[HairyHeretic]

Necessary Evil has a great setting. I tried running it here briefly.

[Transgirlenstein]

Would definatly love to run or play in it.  It looks like what I need and want for a super hero game.

[HairyHeretic]

What system would you use? Savage Worlds, or port it across to something else?

[Transgirlenstein]

Definatly Savage Worlds.  I am falling in love with the system.  It is like BRP in that it is simple and easy to use.  I really hate clunky systems.

[HairyHeretic]

Maybe a bit simplistic for my own tastes, but to each their own.

I sort of toyed with the idea of mixing it with City of Heros / Villians, but that never really got beyond the concept stage.

[Chris Brady]

I'm personally burnt out on the whole D&D line.  But games I like...  Well, Dark Heresy, HERO 5th, Dragon Warriors, Savage Worlds are the ones I'd like to play more often.

[Oniya]

Is it really a hijack if it's your own thread?  *has done that a few times*

Systems I've liked playing: 
D&D 2.0 with house rules (lucky shots rule!)
Changeling: The Dreaming with a completely insane group of players (not characters, players!)
Amber with rotating GMs (we all had home realms, so that we could trade off when someone got burned out - or when the group mutinied.)

Systems I've liked reading but never got a chance to play:
Synibarr (one book, interesting world)
Earthdawn (Lots of books, but even more interesting world to balance)

[Avis habilis]

I started with Moldvay D&D (the one with the Erol Otus cover) & ran a 1e AD&D campaign from c. 1984 to 1990. In college played a bunch of White Wolf (Vampire & Changeling mostly; the Werewolf game died after a couple of sessions). Still have a soft spot for TORG's genre-mashing crazy action capabilities. But from a strictly system standpoint, I like Over the Edge's bare-bones rules for the amount of latitude they allow within their framework.

[Thufir Hawat]

I'm currently learning ORE Nemesis, and so far, I like it enough to add it to my other systems.

I'm also hunting the Silhouette (SilCORE) system which has a reputation of being light yet simulationist. That one didn't look that hard to find, in the beginning, but it looks so now ;D!