Comparing Systems

Depends on what you want
>Sci-Fi
Eclipse Phase
>Fantasy
4e or the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. Hell, even 5e. If you want a bit of a departure, go with the One Ring RPG
>Low Fantasy
Warhammer Fantasy 2nd Edition
>Modern
I've never seen a system for modern that I've liked personally...
>"Anime"
OVA or BESM (not the d20 version though)
>Everything else
_____GURPS_____

At your convenience, haul your ass to OSR general.

This. Seriously, try something like Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Darker Dungeons. Hell, even OSRIC or Tales of the Space Princess.

You posted a picture from the D&D Basic Set, which I love.
-real simple, good for kids and non-grognards
-there are some premade adventures
-good collection of lore both commercial and homebrew
-tightly sets the scope to adventurers-vs-monsters as a world economy, with exploring monster dens as a feasible profession not requiring extra justification
-no rules for some things
-need a new book once you pass level 3 and a few more times
=If you're just starting out, give it a try, PDFs exist. This is the version you'd play with casual people who want to try RPGs.

Trying to find a system to run maze of the blue medusa with. Is 4th edition D&D good for healing and combat? The dungeon is fucking sadistic

>-there are some premade adventures
Wut? Dude there are a LOT of premade adventures in the BECMI/RC line and running AD&D games in it isn't too hard.

4e has every character having several "surges" that can heal them, and Leader classes can allow them to heal in limited ways. In combat they can do a "Second Wind" to use a surge but only once (usually). Potions can heal using ones surges, etc. Out of combat you can burn surges during the 15 minute down times known as short rests. Add to that the classes all start with a sizeable well of health and it's not too hard to die but still possible.

That said, I would not use 4e to run MotBM personally, I would go for a more traditional OSR games or something.

I worry about using OSR desu, I feel like the maze and its encouragement to have a random encounter every fucking room will wipe my party easily. Do you have any specific version in mind? I have the gygax anniversary edition of AD&D, pathfinder, 3.5, and thats about it aside from the 4th edition shit

Not that user, but the Trove has almost everything, if you don't mind .PDFs

Based on my reading of MotBM a while ago, aren't most things non-hostile by default?
Except for Pellory, who I'm pretty sure is supposed to be a recurring "oh shit it's coming outta the walls" monster.
Also isn't the random encounter table weighted to be "you're hungry/your torch goes out/etc"
Also, don't tell me your players would insult a beautiful lion?

The random encounter table is nothing but nonstop monsters dude. Also, FUCK PELLORY'S VINE/ROOT OH GOD JESUS CHRIST

Not counting the Oku, who may or may not be hostile depending on chance and circumstance, and not counting Decadent Waste and Lion in Lapis Lazuli (cause they aren't "hostile" per say), and assuming your party hasn't murdered anyone yet or pilfered from the Gallery, there's a 16-in-100 chance of a hostile encounter per encounter rolled.
This is rough of course, I haven't read the whole thing yet, still on the Archive, but it seems mostly correct based on my understanding thus far.

There are differences; and these differences can make playing one versus the others more or less enjoyable.

4e is great for the "linear combat arenas" style which 3.5 tended towards. For meaningful, tactically interesting combat, 4e is probably the best edition.

IMO, TSR D&D connection is more marketing than anything concrete.

I don't have it, but if you aren't using reaction tables, where a lot of things can be bargained with or appeased, you're missing one of the important parts of the B/X experience

5e is beginner friendly and piss easy to find a group for

One of the core conceits of Maze of the Blue Medusa is that you can talk to most monsters, and even the ones you can't reason with still have understandable motives.
Some of them are definitely dickheads though, *cough* neonate reptilians *cough*

Huh, not too bad so far. This is actually pretty reasonable. So, as someone who likes 5e best, here's the flaws that I've found with it.

As most people will say, it's great for running D&D, but that's about all you'll be able to run with it, mainly because of Limitations on Tech. There's a huge emphasis on magic Item tech, to the point where the artificer class they're working on is more like a Gunsmith/Alchemist than a crafting class. It really can't handle Steampunk or Modern settings all that well.

It also empowers players too much to really get gritty. The DMG does have stuff for harder mechanics, but encounter balance is almost always in favor of the players, to the point where the encounter creation system breaks down past level 5. I've used this instead: enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?367697-Encounter-difficulty-how-to-fix-it

I don't think you understand just how many systems there are to compare.

I find Edge of the Empire to be a better rpg system than DND or PF if you don't mind the star wars setting

I'm running it in my own setting. It handles pretty well without force powers, and even with force powers it handles lack of Jedi suitably.

Could use some guidelines on Balanced Combat, but running a few combat sessions and you get a pretty good idea of how to run it.

Character creation is that orgasmic blend of Class versus Point Buy that I can't get enough of. There's at least three different ways to create a "Force Using Mechanic" depending on your focus.

Also, this: game2.ca/eote/ basically replaces any need to buy specialized dice. We put it up on a TV screen through someone's laptop and everyone uses that to roll. It also works in Google Hangouts, and offline.

Yeah character creation is one of the biggest draws for me also. Combat so far is less stale and more lethal than dnd by far as well, which I enjoy.

Oh yeah, players are always imminently killable, without it feeling like it's got to be gritty and hard throughout.

Even some shmuck with a Blaster firing at point blank range can kill a character, which is as it should be.

The main flaw that I can find is that physical dice are 12$ a pop, and you need at least three sets to really play. The upside is that you're not all that uptight about sharing dice. Plus the digital options are all cheaper anyway.

And imho, the setting works best when you start playing it as Star Wars Adjacent rather than in actual Canon. It makes your players feel a little less outclassed by the movies. Sorta like Elminster and Drizzt in FR.

There's also some complaint about it being made by Fantasy Flight Games, but I really can't see what the problem is there.

4e is great, probably my favorite system when it comes to combat, class balance, and character building. Combat encounters generally take an hour, give or take, so it tends to be the meat of the session, but it's good combat.
4e tends to focus on group fights, with a general 1:1 matchup against the PCs, while 3.5 and 5e tend to skew towards fights against one big thing, what with how the CR system works.
When 4e says a monster is Level 4, it means this monster is equivalent in power in combat to a level 4 PC of a similar role. When 5e says a monster is CR 4, it means it should be powerful enough to challenge 4 Level 4 PCs, maybe.
I play a shit ton of 5e right now because it's just what everyone wants to play but man, I loved my days of playing and running 4e.

Also if you don't mind the proprietary dice.

But I agree. It takes some of the best parts of 3.5 and 5, along with some pieces of Dungeon World and some video game inspiration.

Character creation feels kinda like a video game, in a good way. Each class has their own talent tree that's very easy to look at and understand. Anyone who's played Skyrim will instantly understand it. You can multiclass for extra flexibility, or play a droid for even deeper customization.

Gear modding is very deep and has a ton of options. Everything has mod slots, so you can trick the hell out of your armor, guns, cyborg arm, etc. 3.5/PF players will love it.

The dice mechanic feels a lot like Dungeon World, you get success/fail along with threat/advantage, similar to DW's success/partial success/fail. There's also crit successes and crit fails. Outside of combat, it works somewhat freeform, similar to DW. In-combat, the number of successes/fails and threat/advantage are used as points that either add to damage or are used to active special abilities from your weapons. So the combat has some nice mechanical rigidness and depth that DW lacks.

Also, characters get Motivation that gives you an XP bonus for roleplaying, similar to Dungeon World, and the GM gets an Obligation roll at the start of each session that's kinda similar to Fronts from DW.

The overall crunch level is pretty similar to 5e. Combat also feels pretty similar to 5e, maybe with a little bit of GURPS flavor in some of the ranged combat mechanics. It has less of a power curve than D&D, so it's easier to balance encounters.

What system would be best suited towards combat that "respects" combat. I.E. not MMO-ish style of combat. Something that if you plop down a monsterous creature, the party seriously considers tactics or face death.

I haven't played a lot of gritty combat games, but CoC and Unknown Armies both have nasty combat where running is often your best option and a single blow threatens to kill you.

I'm assuming the old Unknown Armies, or does the new system still keep that vibe? While on the subject, is there a better system than UA for sanity damage/slippage?

I haven't gotten a chance to see the new UA 3rd Edition (they just sent out early pre-release copies to their backers for review, and I didn't know about the Kickstarter at the time), but I hear that combat is still a terrible situation to be in for all involved.

And not that I've seen, no. UA has the best sanity system I've seen in any game, roleplaying or otherwise.

4e?

Since it doesn't really have spells that bypass encounters, you actually have to (gasp!) fight things in it.

If you are just looking for deadliness, low level OSR games, or DCC are pretty deadly.

I'll agree that while 4e isn't gritty in the slightest, and is very MMO structured, the best powers in the world won't save you unless you have good tactics, teamwork, and coordination. Each individual fight is supposed to feel deadly on it's own and proper use of flanking, granting allies advantage, marking targets to keep them off of your squishies, etc are all necessary to survive.

Interesting. I'll need to check those out. I played a homebrewy-2ed setting sometime ago, and it was my first taste of RPGs, so these seems right up my alley.

>and is very MMO structured
You play a lot of Wakfu, or something?

The only vidya I'd compare 4e to are Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics.
Those aren't the best comparisons, but they're the only ones I'd try to make.

I was just meaning in terms of how the AEDU structure works. You level up and pick a power from an ability tree. It doesn't play like an MMO as such, it's very much it's own game.

Actually for Modern GURPS will be the best fit. It does Modern easily and without problems. Even 1 second turns go better because combat a lot of times transforms into short furious firefights that are interspersed with long periods of hiding and taking positions.

> from an ability tree
How the hell is it a tree? Nothing has prereqs.

What's with all this bullshit 4e shilling?

4e is shit. Even after the HP fix, combat still drags on, and is about as exciting as watching someone else play WoW.

The abilities are nonsensical, mechanics-first and built in a cookie-cutter and dull fashion, and the combat itself has you rotating between one or two and then occasionally using a third.

It's one of the least fun RPGs in regards to combat, and that's supposed to be its strong point.

I didn't play 3.5, but even I know that's bullshit. The reason people had a problem with 4e is because it was designed by a team that had no idea what it was doing, creating a game that thought "balance" meant "making the game boring as shit."

nice b8

...

Hey, I've played 3rd edition and have been reading the pre-release books since they first came out. If you have any questions I can answer them.

Oh jeez, I wouldn't even know what to ask, I'm so curious about everything that's changed/new

Here's an old thing that gives a rundown of the D&D editions through 4e.

Well, to start, here's one of the new character sheets.

Do they have a more clear cut skills system?

Are there new avatars? New adept magic "schools"?

Seems like that character sheet is a government file of some sort, especially the Adept section. Is the Underground Occult more heavily regulated by the government now?

Is the setting set in modern day or are we stil in the 90s?

>Do they have a more clear cut skills system?
Skills have been replaced with a more fleshed out form of the Identity system in Over The Edge

>Are there new avatars?
A few are new, like The Hacker for when you want to play as Doc Brown, but Avatars haven't changed much.

>New adept magic "schools"?
Yes, every single magic school in 3rd edition is new. There are 9 new schools, and all adept schools are designed to be far more player/party dynamic focused (there are no more schools that involve save or die to gain charges, and no more schools that require you to be rooted to one spot).

>Seems like that character sheet is a government file of some sort, especially the Adept section. Is the Underground Occult more heavily regulated by the government now?

Nope. Though the form could be related to a GNOMON database

>Is the setting set in modern day or are we still in the 90s?

It's set in 2016, now. The 3/3/03 event happened, but failed to restart the universe.

How have they handled the Avatar/Adept system? Are Avatars still percentage based? How were Adepts as a whole handled?

>3E
>DM is a slave to the rules
>overly complicated
that's biased bullshit and you know it

>How have they handled the Avatar/Adept system?
The base mechanics are more or less the same for each, but both have been integrated into the Identity system. You usually end up only having about 4 identities at the most at Street level so taking an Adept/Avatar is a 4th of your "skill" options making the investment required more significant.

>Are Avatars still percentage based?
Yes.

>How were Adepts as a whole handled?
A hell of a lot less brutal on your character, and with more utility added to each school.

>and in many ways OD&D does not feel -or look- like professional product.
That's not a fair assessment at all. It doesn't look professional, but it certainly feels professional.

How has the Sanity system fared? From the sheets it looks more-or-less intact.

this is a cute graphic but the grids on the floors and the cutesy fonts make it a pain in the fucking ass to actually read.

What game were you even playing? In terms of tactical combat RPGs, 4e is unsurpassed. It has its flaws, but uninteresting combat is not one of them, unless your whole group are incredibly boring.

3rd edition doubled down on the sanity system moving most of its mechanics over to is. Instead of Body/Mind/Speed/Soul you have base skills based on how high or low each sanity meter:

Fitness (starts at 60) vs Dodge (starts at 20) | Helplessness
Status (starts at 60) vs Pursuit (starts at 20) | Isolation
Knowledge (starts at 60) vs Lie (starts at 20) | Self

etc.

In addition there are also social combat mechanics where you can trigger a sanity check by doing certain things.

Neato. How about Ritual magic? That was always a cool looking, but kinda complicated mechanic I wanted to try.

The reality of it is that the differences between 3.5, Pathfinder, 4e and 5e are very different in their nuances that nobody can accurately give you a good description of what makes them so different without being overally generalized and people have a tendency to put their own opinions ahead of facts.

3.5 and Pathfinder are the. It's similar to each other because Pathfinder is basically the same system with some minor rule tweaks.

4th edition has been deceived as board game like, MMO like, Diablo like and so on. Of all the editions it's the most radically different. It has more to do with Star Wars Saga Edition than D&D, as it was based on it. Saga Edition was based on the Star Wars d20 system which was derived from 3.5 edition. You're basically missing two evolutionary steps from the evolution from 3rd edition to 4th edition.

Whike 3rd edition changed a lot from 2nd edition, most of what changed was how the math worked, no more percentage tables and matrices.

5e plays more similar to 3.5 but it has some minor elements of 4e that carried over. It's also thematically more similar to 2nd edition in terms of power. 3rd and 4 th edition characters tended to become super heroes, 5e characters tend to be more muted in terms of the power they wield.

To really understand you would actually need to play them all.

M&M 3e.
>giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?279503-D-amp-D-in-M-amp-M-a-new-approach-to-rebalancing-3-5-PF

Unfortunately rituals are still a little confusing in my eyes so I can't say much other than the fact that 3rd edition focuses more on letting everyone have a bit more access to unnatural phenomena if they want it. Thaumaturges are still there, and now there are Gutter Mages which basically act like the thematic opposite of Thaumaturges.

For a more combat focused game, I'd recommend Delta Green instead of vanilla CoC.

This. After a year or two combat tends to get more boring as you've learned all the rules and options, at which point 4e isn't too hard to learn and is great for more complex and interesting combat, plus you can hack 5e's out of combat systems into it to make it work there as well. Or if others still like 5e, you can just play a caster as they don't have those problems.

Are you kidding? 4e is baby's first board game, and hardly even close to the top of tactical combat. It somehow managed to mess up a simple formula and turned combat into "look at your list of powers, select the one that is appropriate."

It's a game that penalizes creativity by making any non-power action a tactically weaker option according to an outdated early template, and combat is about as exciting as watching people try to hack down a tree using pocket knives, asking "Is it dead?" every few minutes.

a worthy cause but as usual the debate has no direciton, no rhyme nor reason. a useful approach in classifying game system would be to weigh them according to GNS and attach genre.

So either you haven't played it or you sucked at it when you did. Got it.

Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf the Apocalypse and Mage rhe Awakening all received updated new books and compliations of their lore. Its pretty fun if you like modern, gothic and punk themes with a side of ultraviolence.

Werewolf is especially fun if you enjoy combat and a strong sense of teamwork, while the other two lean more toward political or intrigue themed games.