Al-Qadim Update: What System?

5e in a heartbeat but in my heart of hearts is the best option.

No one should ever pick Pathfinder.

Keep it in AD&D because it's a better system.

Flavor isn't tied to editions. You could do either.

This

We all know that's bullshit. Mechanics inform flavor.

5e. Pathfinder already has a (needlessly more complex, just like Pathfinder) option in the form of the Southlands supplement.

Wait, huh? Why does 4e make the PCs feel like an Arabian Nights protagonist?

Because one of the things, like it or hate it, that 4e actually does, is make the PC's into fairy tale protagonists with plot shield and magical artifacts aplenty, and with inherent bonuses on (which I'd suggest for this setting) you can even be a destined hero from the dregs who doesn't have a magic sword... just a destiny. That's VERY Arabian Nights, because part of the conceit of the story, is that the whole point of the story is to lead into the next story and keep the story going, which is exactly what 4e does. If you want to play "seemingly normal peasant is thrust into an extreme situation and discovers his destiny thanks to narrativium" but you still want crunchy combat mechanics (or for some reason you're really attached to the name D*D) then 4e with inherent bonuses is sort of what you're looking for.

Mechanics inform tone, and the tone of fairy stories.... or the half of fairy stories in which the protagonist isn't a lamb to the slaughter (vid related).... is what 4e informs the best.

youtube.com/watch?v=uDSpkQ8U2Hs

In many ways, Al-Qadim is closer to its original fairy tale inspiration than "western fantasy" because it hasn't been slowly shaped by "Classic D&D Campaigns" informing "Fantasy Novels" informing "Classic D&D Campaigns" in a metamorphosing ouroboros that eventually doesn't look anything like what it started out as.... or at least it is to us because we haven't been exposed to middle-eastern folklore outside of a single seminal work of mostly fairy-tales.

>and with inherent bonuses on (which I'd suggest for this setting)
So...5e's Proficiency bonus?

>Inherent Bonuses
>So...5e's Proficiency bonus?
Sort of, but not really. They are two different solutions to the same problem that approach it from completely different ways. The problem was that in 3e and it's derivatives, at the beginning of the game, the d20 was so much more important than the static bonuses, and by the end of the game the d20 was practically worthless next to the mountian of static bonuses you could stack on top of your focused rolls. 4e solved this by standardizing the math of how much higher and/or lower than a certain central average you should be at what you're good at vs what you're bad at, and then scales that average up with your static bonuses as you level up, so as long as you're facing things within the bell-curve for you, the balance between static bonuses and d20 significance is roughly equal. 5e collapsed the static bonuses into a much smaller range that also scales up as you level, but not enough to ever make the d20 less important than static bonuses.

It may seem like a fiddly mathy difference that only a statistician would care about, but it informs two very different tones if you've actually played both enough to get a feel for them.

No, I get the gist of it. So you're saying more chance in a roll is bad?

Not him but considering you can whiff with only a 5% margin of error in D&D, I would say yes.

> So you're saying more chance in a roll is bad?
No, but I'm saying having the bell-curve of a roll vary wildly from early levels to late levels was a problem, or at the very least was inconsistent and made DMing a bit of a chore.

4e made the impact of static bonuses and d20 roughly equal from lvl1 to lvl30, but only if you were facing things appropriate for your level, thus the swingyness of the curve was a result of the party underdogging against more powerful challenges rather than a result of what level you are in a vacuum

5e made the weight of static bonuses increase, but never enough to outweigh, or even match, the d20.

Neither solution is necessarily worse, they just make the game feel different. 4e's math solution makes the players feel like Big Damn Protagonists who are rising above their station to meet their destiny. 5e's math solution makes the players feel like real denizens of a living breathing "realistic" world in which you indeed grow, but where nothing ever truly ceases to be a threat. Which of those you prefer is really more of a matter of taste. Personally, however, if we're trying to create "Arabian NIIIIIGHTS" feels, I'd probably go with 4e's bellcurve. If you wanted to run a more grounded game in fantasy Arab-ruled Andalusia, then I'd go 5e. The system doesn't so much inform the SETTING as it informs the TONE.

> Mechanics inform tone
I wish this was more commonly understood. This exact principle is why universal systems are not universally applicable and why refluffing a nonuniversal system can produce surprising hacks and adaptations of certain properties. It's the underlying reason why some of us sperg out over people who try to use D&D 3.PF for anything and everything.

Agreed, universal systems, and even easily re-fluffed systems, can theoretically run any SETTING, but they can't run any TONE.

Nicely put. I should ask and talk more about tone when researching or shilling RPGs now that this is being said.

No.

>or
>not yes or no

The question is "would you pick PF or 5e?". By answering "no", user states that he would not pick either of those.

....You're making a lot of sense there Satan...

I love the fact that the only game stated to be ran of it, on this board, did it pathfinder.

So many butthurt bitches that can't realize that a fun game can be run in that system as well as any other.

Fucking hilarious.

Okay and some people enjoy shoveling feces down their throat. What's your point?

Everyone knows plebs will be plebs, but this is an anonymous message board, expect people to disagree with your taste.

>inb4 wow hipster virgin xDDDD if u no like popular thing u just dont like it cuz its popular

Did you use the old Standing and Station system? How'd that work?

No. The question was over porting Al Qadim to either PF or 5e. One user did just that in PF. The question was not whether anyone ever ran Al Qadim. Most who run or ran it probably used AD&D.

i wouldn't. 2e is sufficient

bump

Depending on the task, a given amount is bad. That the difference between. A trained professionals and some random shmuck being 25 to 30% can be an issue.

And yet everyone used d20 for everything until WOTC changed the srd.

Universal systems do/did work. They just had to hitch it to the industry leader (at the time) D&D.

Most universal systems fail for the reason most systems that aren't derived from D&D fail.

>uses d20 SRD 3.PF as an example of a good universal system

>d20 Modern wasn't a steaming pile of failure and dogshit
>most universal systems fail
>what is Savage Worlds
>or Fate

>"most" means "all"
It's nice that you're so willing to argue about stupid stuff, but pick your battles.

Any d20 system is comets garbage. The d20 system has made every single game pretty much the same with a thin veneer of setting mashed over it.
In other words: d20 is a shit

The d20 boom was not a result of D&D 3rd being a superior game system. It was the result of the OGL allowing game companies to latch onto the biggest, most popular rules set in the industry.

As it is the point is not that universal systevms fail on all counts. They just have a specific tone created by the mechanics which works when the game you have in mind matches that tone.

I think when you
say fail, you mean on a design level, as in failing to be an interresting game and when you
say fail, you mean financially.

Personally I'll take a financially failed game that got enough material out for me to run a satisfying game over garbage that makes money.

More or less. D20 is a design failure mainly by starting out mediocre and then having a shitload of dubious material built off of that mediocre foundation. Sales wise it is probably the most successful RPG system of all time.