Is there some rpg system that keeps players relatively close in power/capability to normal people...

Is there some rpg system that keeps players relatively close in power/capability to normal people? I genuinely dislike how players become gods among men in d&d, it just turns everything into a power trip and players tend to become extremely sociopathic towards common people (which becomes more predominant as they gain levels/power), completely indifferent towards how their actions influence (read: destroy) the lives of others. But I suppose that's not the main reason I dislike it. I just feel like it cheapens everything. All the titanic tasks that actual great men (and not by themselves, mind you, but through their subordinates and the people they moved by their example) spent their whole lives working towards (and failing more often than succeeding) fade into nothingness before John Doe, a random adventurer who saved the world last thursday. It just feels wrong.

So, is there any system that keeps the players relatively near the ordinary being level? I'm fine with most settings, even if I have a slight leaning towards sci-fi.

WOD/COD
FATE
GURPS
WHFantasy to an extent

Just keep your players at level 1 forever if you want them to stay as joe nobodies

...

Thanks, lad.
Also, what are the opinions of other anons on adventurers being (or not being) overpowered?

REIGN
ONLY WAR

Traveller.

One my players get overpowered I get bored. I find things more compelling when there isnt a power creep. Your characters know what they are good at, you know their flaws, the villain is the same. It doesnt make sense to me to make every game play out like its Dragon Ball Z or Bleach where characters get a powerup every few episodes.

I don't want them to be Joe Nobodies. It's perfectly fine that they fight harder than ordinary people if they went through training or learned by experience. It is perfectly fine that they are smarter than average. It's perfectly fine that they get praised for their works and even possibly granted a place in stories or songs. But things get ridiculous pretty fast with the power (and the power-gaining curve) adventurers have in relation to their environment.

'Overpowered' is meaningless outside of context. A group of relatively ordinary men and women might be incredibly powerful if they're in a grim world where they have equipment and training that puts them significantly ahead of common bandits and such.

Meanwhile, a party of heroic demigods might actually be less powerful than they are, relatively, if they're in a setting full of ridiculously strong true gods.

I think high powered character and settings can lead to just as interesting storytelling as low powered ones, it's just a matter of style and preference.

I meant overpowered as "in relation to their surroundings".

Myfarog is pretty good. But game play can be pretty vicious and brief - a bear is enough trouble let alone a troll.

Traveller (not T20)
GURPS, if you ensure NPCs have the same points

The thing is, no matter how powerful your players are they should always be facing threats and challenges on the same level of capability by the dint of being PCs and it being boring if everything is completely beyond them or a total cakewalk.

The big thing, for me, isn't the personal power of the players but their degree of ability to influence the setting. As a GM I like my PCs to be potent people in their context, real movers and shakers whose choices and actions can create significant change in the world around them.

This is just a style and personal preference thing. I know other GMs who prefer the PCs to be less influential, them reacting to the world rather than actively shaping it, although I've seen this applied in Exalted as much as in WHFRP.

>but their degree of ability to influence the setting
It may have been my poor wording, but this is actually the thing I was having a problem with. I'm fully capable of giving the players equally-matched challenges. But letting them influence the setting with such ease (and carelessness, more often than not, because they tend to have power trips) always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Influencing anything in real life is incredibly difficult - you may labour your whole life just to see the tiniest sliver of influence you have left on the world. But that is enough to make you die with a smile, as you have made a difference, small as it may be. And adventurers? There is no task too herculean for them, nothing that can't be accomplished in several sessions. And I fully understand that my dislike of it is just my personal opinion, I just wanted to see if someone shared it.

I'm unironically considering buying MYFAROG 2.6 considering it's only like 13 bucks but the only opinions I see about it are more about Varg (both positive and negative) than the actual mechanics
Is it actually good? I'd love the tabletop equivalent of UnReal World, where it's tough to survive and stay warm and all that.

Any system really.

For D&D for example, you could merely put a level cap on heroes.

>13 bucks.

Which distributer?

Amazon, for a new paperback of version 2.6

>I genuinely dislike how players become gods among men in d&d
Agreed. I like things to be a lot lowerer power level.
One man holding off four armed opponents is a fairly epic, and strains what is humanly possible.
Once it get's more powerful than that it's general too much in my opinion.

When I run DnD(I try not too) I usually run something like E6, with most normal people being level 2-3.

>Is there some rpg system that keeps players relatively close in power/capability to normal people?

Sword Path Glory
Rhand Morninstar Mission
Phoenix Command

DnD is actually pretty tame if you take out the full casters. As with most grid games, numbers matter a LOT.

The whole point of having a royal guard isn't to have a couple ultra-rare supersoldiers, it's to have 1000 disposable, common combatants of lv 1~4 to overwhelm anyone who dares to challenge the king.

Mechanically, this is supported by Aiding, where you can have a lv 10 Barbarian tied down by a dozen guards aiding eachother (roll Grapple with the strongest guard's modifier, +2 for each extra soldier). Numbers trump nearly anything when used right.

Now, full casters... that disparity is why DnD is seen as shit in the first place. You could have disposable magic enemies that are little more than Counterspell-bots, but that can be seen as a problem by itself.

WoD (Depends)
CoC
Dogs in the Vineyard
Stars Without Number (I haven't hit high levels yet, but you can always cap it)
Some PbtA games.
Into the Odd

FATE kind of works. It doesn't use gear, for example. Aspects can represent gear, but they're usually things like "My fathers battered sword" that are supposed to have some significance beyond a damage bonus. FATE is supposed to emulate pulp though, so characters have a lot of ways to save their hide, but the focus definitely isn't on getting more powerful.

I think both styles of play are fun at different times, and D&D/Pathfinder are both perfectly capable of being low-key, but at the end of the day they're more suited for killing/looting/leveling up.

Thanks mate. Purchased the Men and Monsters supplement as well.

Now I need to find a group to play with

>Is it actually good?

He's meming. We've only got a few pages that were scanned and a review or two to go by, but based on what we can actually see, it's mediocre shit.
Like babby's first fantasy heartbreaker, it appears to be poorly designed, loaded down with clunky tables for bullshit, and filled with the designer's particular flavor of batshit crazy. (not-jews who murder babies to get in the club, and get racial bonuses to stealth, deception, and acquiring money, for example.)
Honestly, if it weren't for the author's fame, and some persistent memesters, it wouldn't even be a blip on Veeky Forums's radar.

>Traveller

Came here to say this. In Classic, characters didn't advance outside chargen. You came out as grizzled veterans, and you try to stave off the inevitable decline as long as you can. Winning involves acquiring wealth and power in the world, not ramping up your numbers until you're a god.

Depending on the equipment you allow your players to acquire, DARK HERESY.

Song of Swords or any of the other Riddle of Steel successors fit the idea of being men and nothing more quite well.