Alright DnD haters, recommend me a system

GURPS

dude, read the catalog before making threads
54429350

I currently play 5, not 3.5, and I readily admit 3.5 has tons of flaws, 4 did a very bad job solving any of them though.

I'm here looking for a NON dnd game, not 3.5, 4 or 5, but by all means, keep shitposting.

Any details about any of those? What do you think they do well, or do badly? What advantages do they offer over dnd?

>making casters and maritals exactly the same

3.5 had a similar amount of saying you do X damage for Y effect or having you use Z ability for Y bonus. It's just that before, martials usually just had doing X damage and maybe Z ability for a bonus if they were lucky, while casters had pages and pages and pages of that.

All 4e did was pull back the curtain, look you in the eye, and tell you that wasn't fair, so everyone gets the same number of cool things to do in a day.

I already responded to you actually.
And if you think that 4e "did a very bad job" then I can only say what I said. You act like a grognard. You don't like it because it's different. The design in 4e is good.

PLAY MYTHRAS.

Harnmaster

Shadow of the Demon Lord.

And if you don't like that, just play Essentials ffs.

My group wanted to move back to 3.5 around when the first essentials book came out, so I didn't read it desu. What did they change?

Yeah, ordinarily I argue against Essentials, but until level 10 or so it works perfectly, and still gives martials some options while still having them be distinct from spellcasters.

At the very least, the Knight subclass of Fighter can actually protect his party from enemies in a way that isn't just asking politely for the DM to attack them instead of running past.

Essentially, they added in more 3.5-esque versions of martial classes that were simplified and relied a lot more on just making basic attacks or using at-wills and encounter powers, rather than the standard allotment.

The problem there is that they drop off more sharply past level 11 when you get into Paragon, since at that point the damage on the various strikers doesn't keep up, and the Defender aura mechanic they came up with doesn't work properly when enemies start flying or teleporting all over the place.

SenZar.

I'm currently looking at their webpage, looks promising.

And also Anima - Beyond Fantasy.

I like Strike!

Want me to sell it to you?

I could give you a history lesson on why it's a great system that's stood against D&D since it's creation as the fourth oldest commercial RPG.

I could make the argument that it succeeds better at being GURPS than GURPS.

I could also make the case that you have SIX different magic systems you can choose from, mixing and matching or simply choosing one to use and balance relative to Martials.

Or the fact that in terms of Martial capabilities, combatants, by default, get a variety of combat actions in combat besides "Swing Sword, Roll Damage."

Take your pick, I'll pick my rant.

Tell me about magic :)

>I could make the argument that it succeeds better at being GURPS than GURPS.
Bullshit.

>The grognard want to know about magic

>The grognard want to know about magic
I like magic, magic and mythic beasts are what separates fantasy from historical fiction. I know you are trying to insult me for like the OP casters, but I pretty much always DM, so nice try.

Magic has five different Vairieties in the core rulebook, a Psionics option thanks to M-SPace, and the Classic Fantasy system, which emulates D&D style casting, albeit on a much more balanced scale.

Folk Magic is Practical Cantrips: The Magic System. Low level spells anyone can cast, anyone can use, and the GM can hand out like candy.

Animism: Thank Stormbringer for this one... Spiritual Channelling and Binding: The System, you cast spells and bind items using spirits.

Sorcery: It's classic Sorcery, Through Force of Will and Understanding you bind the universe to your will.

Mysticism: Classic Wizardy.

Theism: Clerical Magic.

Each system has different rules governing it, and different spells and abilities, but as the GM you can mix and match in order to create a unique system and even creat "Cults" which allow you to create your own Metagame Balance by limiting abilities and options for each cult.

GURPS is great because it's granular, which also makes it terrible. You're balancing fifteen different rulesets each of which involve at least five or more individual rules you had to tailor to fit the system you want, whereas Mythras invite you to deal with a given structure and modify it using large, moveable pieces. If GURPS is the granular, detailed, yet unsturdy sand castle you build with your own hands, Mythras is the more stable lego set you're able to build, take apart, and modify.

Plus, with the existence of the RQ Firearms Supplement, M-Space, Ships and Shield Walls, and the ability to adopt relatively any mechanic or facet of any other BRP game to the system, and you've got all the versatility you need without the absolute slog of having to deal with players reading through fifty different individual rules each a quarter of a page in length just to get the basics of your system down. GURPS does well because each rule is clarified in and of itself, so it can work with every other rule, however this makes for a slog of reading.

Stop shilling Strike!

Why does Veeky Forums keep shilling Strike!?

>Plus, with the existence of the RQ Firearms Supplement, M-Space, Ships and Shield Walls, and the ability to adopt relatively any mechanic or facet of any other BRP game to the system, and you've got all the versatility you need without the absolute slog of having to deal with players reading through fifty different individual rules each a quarter of a page in length just to get the basics of your system down. GURPS does well because each rule is clarified in and of itself, so it can work with every other rule, however this makes for a slog of reading.

Sorry, Extreme sentence fragment here. The sleeping pill is starting to hit. long story short, Various supplements for Mythras and use of other BRP System Mechanics make it almost as versatile as Gurps. The one thing it doesn't have is a good Decking/Hacking system, which, to be honest, are all complete slogs if they're more than a skill roll.

Also Gurps works because every rule is its own paragraph of clarification, which works well for system building... not so much for system reading and system playing when getting all your players to read the damn rules is like pulling teeth.

Is there a mega with some mythras books?

Here:

I just looked up Runequest and realized it is set in the same world as one of my all time favorite video games, King of Dragon Pass. I will definitely have to check that out.

Mythras is what became of the latest version of RuneQuest, and still runs Glorantha quite well. They're nearly the same system.

Ah cool, Mythras is looking like the way to go then. I can't believe how much I played that game as a kid, and never realized the setting existed outside the game.

How did you manage to miss every good edition?

Try OD&D, Basic, or AD&D.

by being to young i guess? I started playing dnd in elementary school, and 3rd edition was what was at the gamestore and what my parents bought me.

It's 4e mechanics without having to admit that 4e was built around a solid idea.

it's pretty good?

Okay, so I've read over the basic rules, and it seems like Mythras isn't played with any sort of grid or battleboard, is that right? And this might sound like a dumb question, but I have never played an rpg without one, so, how do you keep track of where all the pcs are, npcs, terrain etc without one? Like how do you know if somebody is in range, if that big boulder is between you and the npc you want to shoot, that kind of shit?

You draw a picture. Or go Theatre of the Mind, and just imagine it, but that tends to lead to people having disagreements because they imagined things slightly differently.

Don't reply to 4ies, they're really confrontational.

It's what having a game you like misrepresented by internet memery does to you.

I mean, wouldn't it just be easier to have a table and put minis on it so that everybody knows where everything is? Can you really have tactical combat without knowing where all your enemies and allies are? How can I push the orc off the cliff and watch him fall to his death if I don't know where me, the orc or the cliff is at? Not trying to bait or anything, I am legit wondering this.

Well, ideally you'd know all those things roughly, enough so that you can ask the GM questions about it.

>so, you said the ork is standing on the left side of the road, that's where the cliff edge is, right?
>yeah
>can I push him off?

etc.

I still prefer map for precise positioning/movement/flanking, but it's workable.

>wouldn't it just be easier to have a table and put minis on it so that everybody knows where everything is?
The game not having everything measured in squares or hexes or inches doesn't stop you doing that. Dry erase boards work even better, because all you need is a pen and some basic drawing abilities.

>How can I push the orc off the cliff and watch him fall to his death if I don't know where me, the orc or the cliff is at?
The GM gives you a description and you imagine the situation. Works best with being a bit loose with the movement rules, so you don't waste heaps of time going "exactly how far away is he?".

Why do 4babies get upset so easily?

see

Anybody have a good video of people playing this type of system? Tactical movement has always been in my mind a big part of combat, so I'm just having a hard time imagining running combat without precise distances.

Ignoring the martial-caster balance of 4e for the moment, was that the sort of complexity you want from your combat?

What do you consider 'cool spells'?

Yeah, I would say in general that is the sort of complexity of combat I want. I do think 4e did a lot of things well, even if I don't like a lot of other things it did.

In general cool spells for me are the more flexible and control type of spells. I think most direct damage spells are fairly boring and step on the sword swingers or archer's toes a bit. I like things like fog cloud, that gain their value by be used as part of a plan, like making it so the archers on the other side of the river can't see you anymore for example, rather then just being good because it does x damage. I also like magic that can be used outside of combat.

How about a spell that just pulls a fucking volcano right out of the ground?

That sounds pretty cool

So, looking at descriptions of the Mythras classic fantasy book, it looks like that uses a grid? Imma have to find a pdf for that.

Other spells from the Natural school include the ability to fly, age and weather objects, produce water out of nothing, talk to the stones about the past and future, create an aura of fear over an area that will get pretty much anything to fuck off, create a geyser of boiling oil, mind-control people by looking them in the eyes, magic yourself up a tar pit, curse some guy with enmity of everything natural (up to an including food and drink), force areas of barren wasteland to become paradises, and terraform the planet as you like.

This is before you ascend to godhood and acquire deific bullshit powers.

I can get into that

If that seems a bit extreme, one of the extreme weather events that can happen is a firestorm that periodically shoots fireballs at the nearest, largest cluster of intelligent life.

That is only one of the 13 schools of magic, which all have similar levels of bullshit scattered throughout them. Since one of those is Spellsinging, and one of its 7th Order spells is essentially Power Word: Kill, you can rock people so hard that they disintegrate. A couple orders up, you can do it to 99 levels worth of people. In a system where mortal people top out at level 20.

I honestly wanna know- why is that a problem for you? You later admit you like magic (and DMing) anyway, so it's not like you hated PLAYING martials. What about other classes having spell-ish-things bugged you enough that you just couldn't dig it?

I didn't realize this was a meme until now.

>periodically shoots fireballs at the nearest, largest cluster of intelligent life.
>intelligent life
So not just destructive, but actively "God hates you in particular" malicious. I like it!

4rry here

I'm honestly interested what sort of tactical depth a game can have where you can pull actual active volcanoes out of your ass and power-word kill almost a hundred people. It feels like any sort of tactical approach when such brute force options are available would be pointless. Like, flanking sorta loses meaning when you can just drop a volcano on an army, you know?

Of course, it's possible that the spells are liited to such a point when using them regularly is unfeasible, but then I feel like showing them off is sort of disingenuous. "You can do all these powerful cool things! Except you'll only get to do them very-very rarely!"

Have you considered Fantasy Craft?

The jury's out on whether the malicious firestorms are a final "fuck you" from the demonic overlords that ruled the planet 3000 years ago, or just the result of slowly failing and heavily damaged terraforming magic. Probably the former, but the latter is possible, given that it occasionally produces bizarre things like a frozen lake in the middle of a
hot desert.

Other fun weather includes multiple-vortex tornadoes that can shred everything in an up to 10,000 feet RADIUS area. That's 60,000 square miles. Of storm.

Or how about low clouds of radiation? That's not how radiation normally works, but somebody's made it work that way just to fuck you in the ass. Roving teleports that can lob you into another plane of existence on a bad day? Winds composed of tortured souls? Storms capable of altering not only your body, but your fate and the very form of reality itself?

Makes one long for a good rainstorm, doesn't it?

>I honestly wanna know- why is that a problem for you?
With everybody using powers, it just felt like everybody was a caster. I want martials to be the equal of casters power level wise, but I don't want them to just become them. The classes all just felt kind of similar. It wasn't just me, my whole group wanted to go back to 3.5, so anyways, while I think I can convince them to try a new system, I doubt I could convince them to play 4 again.

I have not. Tell me about it, what does it do well? Is there anything you think it does poorly?

I think you just jumped into 4e a little too early in its lifespan then. Later supplements fleshed out options across the board; your fog cloud example could be Obscuring Mist (Druid 2, PHB2), Solid Fog (Invoker 6, Divine Power), or Stalker's Mist (Ranger 2, HotFK), in addition to Wall of Fog which was in the original PHB (Wizard 6).

4e never stopped you from using powers out of combat, it's just whether or not the DM agrees it does anything useful. Rituals are also explicitly out of combat but I've never seen anyone use them.

>The classes all just felt kind of similar
This is really a 3.5 thing. It's not true AT ALL. Playing a Rogue or a Wizard is very different, you don't do the same thing at all in combat and the powers you have are way different.
It's just a format issue. It's made with the same format? Well, it's the same thing!
It's as nonsensical as saying that all spells feel the same because they're made like spells.

I'll admit, I may have just been dumb. Its been several years since I played 4e, and I was a lot younger then. Maybe I'll read through my old rulebooks and give it a second change, but like I said, I don't know if I could ever get my group to try it out again.

I've heard it makes a great mecha game.

Maybe Gamma World? It's 4e-like but more obviously diverse.

>It's not true AT ALL.

>Most people criticized this game for this flaw, and they are all WRONG, because my opinion is superior to theirs!

Whoa dude. Moving your character to where their role is supposed to stand and then cycling through your handful of powers may feel really different to you, but you can't just ignore what the majority of players felt just because it upsets you.

He's upset about their feelings not aligning with reality. Stupidity is upsetting for some people.

You gonna do that Fighter who fights like a swordmage any time soon?

>He's upset about their feelings not aligning with reality.

It sounds like you genuinely think "move (?), select power, repeat" for all the classes genuinely doesn't get tedious as fuck, especially when the classes are pigeonholed into weird artificial niches.

That's the reality, and why 4e largely failed.
But wait, tell me people are wrong and stupid for not seeing the nuances of your unloved game.

i made a wizard in 3.5 and it felt like playing a martial because i ran out of spells and spent the rest of the session shooting a crossbow

>It sounds like you genuinely think "move (?), select power, repeat" for all the classes

How is this different from any of the WotC editions?

For one thing, improvising isn't just another power, and a power that fails to scale well as you increase in level because your class's powers have better synergy.

Well, I'm heading to bed, thanks for the dudes who helped, I have a good list of games to research, I'm pretty excited.

>For one thing, improvising isn't just another power,

What does this even mean? A "power" is just a format for actions you could take. An improvised action _could_ be presented in the power format, but you usually don't because that's why it's improvised in the first place.

>and a power that fails to scale well as you increase in level because your class's powers have better synergy.

As opposed to all the scaling improvisations other D&Ds have?

The fact that 4e improv table scales at all is fucking huge advantage it has over the others.

It's gonna be funny though when you just end up playing D&D again because you tried to take D&D haters seriously, and end up realizing only weeks from now that most of the games listed in this thread are just hollow imitations.

>a "power" is just a format for actions you could take.

You mean a restrictive template that fails to adapt to anything outside of a set of limited parameters?
It's basically a system that assumes its players are idiots, and frankly, that's actually pretty fair.

>You mean a restrictive template that fails to adapt to anything outside of a set of limited parameters?

Worst case, you can literally add anything into a "special" line at the bottom.

But feel free to describe anything that you think wouldn't work as a power.

Uh, there's nothing inherently restrictive about power formatting. The closest thing to a restriction is 'too much text and it'll be hard to read in a playing card size box', but if you have that much text you probably want to rethink your power anyways.

>You mean a restrictive template that fails to adapt to anything outside of a set of limited parameters?

Doesn't that apply to spells in most games?

>Uh, there's nothing inherently restrictive about power formatting.

I guess you could argue that, but the issue is that with the game itself failing to do anything but prove that the format is restrictive and makes the game feel like a tedious slog, so I'm amazed that you think you can somehow redeem the game that failed.

>I guess you could argue that, but the issue is that with the game itself failing to do anything but prove that the format is restrictive and makes the game feel like a tedious slog, so I'm amazed that you think you can somehow redeem the game that failed.

How is it restrictive then? What can't you do with it?

One of the Planeshaper Epic destiny abilities remains my favourite thing ever in 4e for how thematic and fun it is.

Shape Reality (30th level): Your transcendent understanding of the universe empowers you with the ability to bend and warp your environment. You gain an aura 10 that allows you to reshape reality as you see fit. During your turn, you can alter the environment in any of the following ways by spending a minor action:

• Change the temperature. Creatures that start their turns within your aura automatically take 15 cold damage or 15 fire damage (your choice). You can spend another minor action to return the temperature to normal, eliminating this damaging effect.
• Permanently transform any squares of difficult terrain within your aura into normal terrain.
• Permanently transform any squares of normal terrain within your aura into difficult terrain.
• Create breathable air in any or all squares.
• Fill 9 unoccupied squares with a solid surface, such as stone or wood. If you fill a square with a solid surface that is not attached to another surface (in other words, you create a stone slab 5 squares up in the air), the surface hovers in place.

That shit makes you FEEL like the sort of guy who can craft a plane of existence. Rather than it being a level 9 spell any spellcaster can do on his weekend off.

Yeah OK, I guess I can't make a spell with unique flavor or anything.

The biggest issue with 4E's power mechanic, or certainly the extent it used it, was that most of the powers were inherently disassociated mechanics within the game space that had little context outside the scope of the mechanic being used.

Basically if the character in the world can't explain what the mechanic is actually representing then the mechanic is disassociated.

For example if you asked a wizard in a game world that uses vanician magic why he can only cast X fireballs per day he'd be able to explain to you about how preparing spells works etc. This is directly translated into the mechanics.

However if you ask a 4E Rogue why he can only use his blinding barrage ability once per day he won't be able to answer you because there isn't a fictional reason it's purely a mechanic.

>Blinding Barrage Rogue Attack 1
A rapid barrage of projectiles leaves your enemies clearing the
blood from their eyes.
Daily Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Close blast 3
Requirement: You must be wielding a crossbow, a light
thrown weapon, or a sling.
Target: Each enemy in blast you can see
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, and the target is
blinded until the end of your next turn.
Miss: Half damage, and the target is not blinded.

Yes he could come up with some justification 'this ability requires specialised ammo so I can only use it once' To which you'd then say ' well can you just go buy more ammo then, why do you need to sleep to replenish it? He could say 'my enemies would only fall for it once' to which you could say ' well what if you're fighting a different group then?' etc.

Any of these explanations then effectively becomes either meaningless fluff which doesn't change your decision making and roleplaying or a house rule - which is just the rule zero fallacy and also hugely complex to implement for hundreds of different combat powers.

>Cont

For another example take the War Devils 'Beseiged Foe' ability.

Besieged Foe (minor; at-will)
Ranged sight; automatic hit; the target is marked, and allies of the war devil gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls made against the target until the encounter ends or the war devil marks a new target

On the surface this looks simple mechanically if you understand 4E. However how can the GM describe what's happening here in the game world? He can't and so the players can't interact with it via the game world. They have to resort to mechanics.

Again he could make it up and say 'the devil is cursing you with his magic' to which a player could say 'well can I dispel the mark then?' and again you have the fluff/ house rule issue.

In contrast a wizard can explain why his fireballs are limited and the players can then interact with that, for example stealing the wizards spell book, countering the fireball with the knowledge he can only cast so many , it interuptting the wizard while he rests so he can replenish his spells.

Disassociated mechanics inhibit actual roleplay choices and decision making and reduces the game purely to video game style mechanics which I don't think roleplaying games should be in the business of impersonating as they simply can't do it as well as video games.

While all RPGs have disassociated mechanics to one degree or another, experience points for example are another one, when the system is built from the ground up with them in mind as 4E is you get a disjointed feeling RPG hence all the comparisons to MMOs etc.

Likewise players aren't going to think of inventive options when they have a bunch of mostly combat powers infront of them and are instead going to lean on those hence the game mostly being a combat slog.

I think the issue you bring up here can actually be explained using GNS theory (sorry, I just think it's actually relevant here). Fourth edition D&D is one of the most gamist systems ever designed. The game often does things for gameplay reasons without thinking how they make sense in the universe or incentivise creating a compelling story. For some people, that's fine, but a lot of people got into RPGs for the things that they can do that other kind of games can't, and 4e kind of ignored that in favour of having the best mechanical combat design it could.

>GURPS

I'd second this, but further refine it, head over to the GURPSGEN, the first pic is a pdf with links.

You want Dungeon Fantasy and Basic Set--I might even wait until the DF omnibus thing comes out because that will all be consolidated.

The thing you MUST remember with GURPS is that most shit is preloaded. Imagine it not as making a level 1 or 5 character, but making a level 10 or 20 character, there're many options.

Further, there are no mistakes. if D&D if you bugger up your feat selection of skill point roll you might be a little fucked, or a lot fucked. In GURPS you just save up the points again, which will take a while, but there's no level cap, so yeah.

GURPS does murderous combat and tactical combat really fucking well. Lots of basic options.

Also, if you're into it, you can make your own magic systems.

>For example if you asked a wizard in a game world that uses vanician magic why he can only cast X fireballs per day he'd be able to explain to you about how preparing spells works etc. This is directly translated into the mechanics.

And why does it work like that for clerics? Your god will only grant your prayers X times a day no matter how many times you pray?

>On the surface this looks simple mechanically if you understand 4E. However how can the GM describe what's happening here in the game world? He can't and so the players can't interact with it via the game world. They have to resort to mechanics.

...it's pretty easy to justify. He's directing his allies to focus on you.

I mean, that's how the Warlord as a class works.

I'm a little surprised to see somebody discussing SenZar. What books do you have, user?

Yes , such is the nature of how deities bless their clerics in this world.

Likewise if a cleric loses their faith/their god dies / they switch to an alignment they lose their powers. Hence the mechanics linked to the game world.

>Yes , such is the nature of how deities bless their clerics in this world.

So no matter how dire and desperate the situation, a god won't give his follower more powers a day? A worshipper of Thor could be fighting giants and despite the fact that they are fighting his personal foe, it won't help?

Shut the fuck up. OP said a game OTHER than DnD specifically. Stop screaming about HP Bloat: The Game and actually stay on topic, kay?