| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| keftiu |
Posted - 17 Dec 2019 : 04:23:29
Super curious to hear from folks who've used other systems for their Realms games.
I'm asking because I had a lot of luck using Fate Core for Eberron back in the day, and have an Impiltur-set game that I think would run like a dream in Blades in the Dark.
And yes, Pathfinder counts as D&D for the sake of this thread :p
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| 8 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 20 Dec 2019 : 23:38:14
RPGs designed for their settings are often well done.
The SWD6 ruleset (for Star Wars) is quick, simple, relevant. You can make a good character from scratch and get yourself immersed in the heart of the action in less than two minutes. Grab a blaster (or lightsaber) and start having fun. But the game isn't intended for long term play, things get imbalanced and oversimplified to the breaking point. Lots of dice keep happening and they never slow down the pace but the whole style of the game is basically episodic with closed arcs (the Star Wars saga always has endless conflicts but the victories and defeats and the characters/stories behind them are sort of self-contained milestones.).
Contrast vs FASA STRPG or Decipher STRPG (for Star Trek) which are more "cerebral", complex, and technical. Character generation (through Starfleet Academy or whatever) takes hours, especially if your character is some sort of command officer with years of service experience. You just can't make a character for a quick and simple adventure, you're kinda stuck investing in fine details and long duration campaigning, you get bogged in the math and numbers and endless tables of tables. So your adventure momentum keeps grinding to a halt (or a series of arguments) whenever the rulebooks get hauled open.
So the game rules, mechanics, and engine contribute a lot to the setting. They would dramatically change the "tone" of the setting if they were swapped.
I perceive the same sort of differences in tone between some (A)D&D editions, different enough to substantially change the Realms. To me it seems problematic in the later rules editions because they've had to explain why the setting is now the way it is or they have to accommodate setting details which they've attempted to try to address through the "better" rules in different ways. You can't streamline things while hauling tons of clunky baggage, you can't discard the baggage without losing some things which are definitive components of the setting to older-edition players. |
| Diffan |
Posted - 20 Dec 2019 : 19:18:42
Different systems to get the D&D feel is sort of a mixed bag. Sometimes you get things that "feel" more like how D&D should buuuut, learning a whole new system can really be a pain in the butt. Some systems I've tried are
GURPS (generic universal role-playing system): This is, on the surface, mainly D&D but bare-bones. No classes per-se, simply options galore with LOADS of points you have to spend so much time devoting to specific things - race, powers, feats, skills, etc. For people who don't think 3.5/Pathfinder don't have enough variations, this is the system for them. Personally, the time and cost of Ultimate customization was never worth the time and aggravation.
Shadows of Esteren - A dark gothic Gaelic world with it's own system and apparently it's own video game and soundtrack too (so the core rulebook says), it too is mired a bit more into a huge list of stats/attributes/skill trees that allows for a wide range of customization. I only looked at this for a bit because I really liked the setting and the sort of gritty dark style it had. Reading through the rules though, made me think that it would work FAR better using a sub-set of D&D rules (modified to be grittier) than their own.
The One Ring RPG - the RPG game for Lord of the Rings, it follows similar footsteps as above. I think 5e's Middle Earth is far better received and done better because the rules aren't convoluted as they were in The One Ring.
I'd be really curious as to how/what a Role-playing game system would look if it was actually designed FOR the Forgotten Realms. Obviously the Realms are designed after D&D but with SO many iterations of the game out-there and besides 1e/2e most of them are all pretty different and yet the setting endures. Would it be classed based OR would it be attribute/skill based like GURPS? Would spells be crazy difficult to cast or would it follow the simplicity of Vancian magic of fire-and-forget? Is combat fluid or are there a bunch of different things each warrior is doing per round of attack and counter-attack (by this i mean opposed rolls every time)?
HERO/Fuzion - After I really got into Record of Lodoss War I discovered that there was a system build around it called Fuzion (based on the HERO [Champions] system and Interlock (Cyberpunk, Mekton Z). Having no clue how Fuzion OR HERO worked, I went out and got some PDFs for both. Annnnnd, that's where I finished. Looking through both systems, it's sort of like GURPS but with more math, percentages/fractions (no rounding either), and more headaches. Talk about derivative stats! D&D is weird in that X stat has Y bonus because....math or some junk. There's really no rhyme or reason why it's Score - 10 divide 1/2 = modifier other than we wanted it to make "more" sense than TSR's versions - which also make little sense. But still, there's a math formula that's easy to follow, unlike Hero Champions/Fuzion which gets really really into depth on just about every single part of your character.
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| Omenborn |
Posted - 19 Dec 2019 : 05:53:15
Im Using the old Rolemaster RPG as Rules for my Forgotten Realms Group. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 19 Dec 2019 : 02:16:56
Answer to that is eady:
My love for the earliest editions outweighs my hatred of the more recent editions. |
| keftiu |
Posted - 19 Dec 2019 : 02:15:29
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
I've played plenty of other RPG systems. But generally stuck with whatever "settings" they were each written around.
The Realms got too juvenile, contrived, and confining for my tastes - not to mention that it's thoroughly elf-infested and prone to increasingly implausible "Mystra Died Again" Apocalypses - so even my (A)D&D gaming moved far away from the Realms, towards Planescape and other settings.
Not to derail, but; what are you doing on a Realms forum if you hate the last several editions of the setting? |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 19 Dec 2019 : 02:10:27
I've played plenty of other RPG systems. But generally stuck with whatever "settings" they were each written around.
The Realms got too juvenile, contrived, and confining for my tastes - not to mention that it's thoroughly elf-infested and prone to increasingly implausible "Mystra Died Again" apocalypses - so even my (A)D&D gaming moved far away from the Realms, towards Planescape and other settings.
Not trying to trash the Realms. I had a lot of good times there. I'm still one of Candlekeep's "great readers".
Just saying that some things in the Realms changed too much (in some of the wrongest ways possible) while other things in the Realms never changed (even though they should), it's not really a place for me anymore. |
| jamesewelch |
Posted - 17 Dec 2019 : 12:44:58
My group switched to Pathfinder when 4e came out. Unfortunately, they really haven't wanted to go to 5e. |
| Dalor Darden |
Posted - 17 Dec 2019 : 04:46:38
I’ve used the Conan RPG (from TSR) a long time ago. It is a excellent role playing game; but there were just too many conversions I had to make.
I also used the Conan RPG from Mongoose publishing...still my favorite magic system from any game.
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