Tell me about your favorite system and why Veeky Forums

Had a thread like this yesterday.

>What makes GURPs good?
Not that guy, but if you know the system you can play pretty much anything in it

And that thread died so I'll repost them anyway

Why you should and shouldn't play LotW

This is going to be weird, because first I'll start with why I love it, and then I'll give you a boatload of reasons not to play it.

Legends of the Wulin is a truly unique game. A Wuxia game (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon shit) with an extremely unusual set of design principles, combining a level of crunch, depth and detail with more narrative and story focused ideas. Usually, narrative design and crunch are considered opposites, but the game brings them together in a very novel way.

The best example of this is the combat system. Fights in LotW are great. They're mechanically engaging, with your mix of Kung fu styles interacting with your opponents in surprising and enjoyable ways, and they're also strongly narratively driven. Your ideals and beliefs, what your character cares about and why they're fighting, all these things can be just as important as the weapon in your hand. This even carries over to the damage system. Winning a fight might not mean killing your opponent- Conveying your sincerity through the clash of blades to win them over to your side, proving your skill and impressing them or even just coming to a greater mutual understanding are all perfectly valid consequences of a fight, and the system mechanically supports all of them just as much as injuring or killing a bad guy, giving them real mechanical weight in the system.

There's a lot more I could say... But now I need to get on to the downsides.

The first thing to say is that LotW is a very atypical system. It does a lot of things differently, meaning assumptions you've learned from other roleplaying games can trip you up, and things can seem very unintuitive until you grasp the systems internal logic. Even simple things like the idea of rolling dice first, declaring actions second can trip people up.

This is made oh so much goddamn worse by the terrible editing of the core book. I cannot stress this enough. For all the love I have for this game, it is oh so much harder to actually learn to play than it has any right to be. Internal contradictions, rules buried in the middle of fluff paragraphs or only stated offhand in an unrelated section, important rules not being explicitly said fucking anywhere in the book, and instead needing to be divined from implications and extrapolations... It's absolutely fucking appalling.

The system also has some core balance issues. Some Kung fu styles are way too strong or too weak, some things are really inconsistent, and there's a few insidious mechanical bugs that you notice more and more as you play the game. There's a fan made supplement, the Half Burnt Manual, which makes a good go at improving a lot of these, but even with that there's a lot of issues.

I love LotW, but that's why I think it's important to be honest about it. If you like the sound of it, then you might want to persevere in trying to learn it, there's a few people around on Veeky Forums, a IRC channel and a Discord server I'm aware of that are dedicated to it who can help explain some of its more twisted concepts and help clarify how it's meant to work, but even with a guide it isn't an easy road.

It also isn't a system for everybody. I've seen it rejected from both 'sides', narrative storygame lovers turned off by the crunch, and crunchy groups turned off by the narrative aspects.

Still, if you think you fit in that section of the venn diagram and are willing to get ready for an arduous journey into deciphering the ancient Kung fu manual that is the rulebook, I promise you it'll be a game experience unlike anything you've ever played.

TSR's version of Marvel Superheroes, also known as FASERIP. All the pdfs are available for free because nobody seems to care.

Savage Worlds is so boring, though. It's very lowest-common-denominator in terms of each one of its mechanics.

You want classic elves and dragons and dwarves and orcs? We got that shit. You want dwarves but they hoard magic? We got that too. Driders? Half-giant Vikings? Minotaurs? The Predator? Lizardmen? Space angels? Psionic plant greys? Got them all. Can play all of them but the dragon, too, plus extra.

How about some classes? Got 34 of those. Assassin clowns? Why the fuck not. Guys who have dedicated their lives to bringing together and mastering two diametrically opposing martial arts schools? Sounds good. Literal rockstar turbo-bards? What's a metal-inspired game without them? Necromancers who can claim the abilities of the undead or demons by slaying them and stealing their essence? What do you think our liches are?

And we got some neither-class-nor-race-but-a-combination-of-both's, too. Seven of them, ranging from vampires to guys whose whole power set is based around telling magic to fuck off to shapeshifters to guys who can steal souls and the abilities thereof.

And if that weren't enough you can get some mutations as well. Firebreathing dog-people? Go for it. Four-armed jungle tribesman with the ability (if not yet the power points) to lob his enemies 1000 years through time? If you can spare the points, go for it.

And I'm not even going to get into some of the nuttier parts of the setting, like the battlestation lurking in the depths of the solar system that makes the Death Star look like a tennis ball with a laser pointer stuck in it, or the moon that was enchanted to spew UV radiation over the planet, and so had to be sealed away for most of the year.

This whole damn game is a Gloryhammer album cover in the making.

I almost suspect somebody's spamming them, we've had a whole bunch recently.

That begs the obvious question of "How do mechanics make a story telling RPG boring?" Are the mechanics overly long and complex? Do they slow down the description of events, etc?

Shit I forgot my picture.

This is a perfectly reasonable SenZar campaign outline:

He seeks the Ultimate Chords, which together will form the Primeval Riff, which will allow him to bend the world to his will. The ancient lich-lords known only as the Metalwrights discovered them eons ago, and, fearing that they may be used against them, secreted them away beneath their mighty volcanic fortress. When at last the Metalwrights were brought low, they were flung screaming into the depths of the volcano, taking with them the knowledge of the Primeval Riff they had tried so desperately to play in those final moments. And there it has lain for these eons past.

This is the sort of shit that can end up with your Spellsinger engaging in a rock-off with a thousand-year-old lich lord in the crater of a dormant volcano while the rest of the party holds his skeletal army at bay, and the druid-analogue debates whether or not to summon an eruption from the earth below you, and risk setting off the whole range, only to ultimately decide that things look grim enough, so you have to duel the remnants of the army's elite while a rain of fire and rock plummets around you and the power of metal crackles through the air as the guitar duel reaches a fever pitch.

Like that Metalocalypse guitar duel. But with more volcanoes and skeletons.

For a mechanical overview, it's nice and simple. Attribute checks work on (21-stat) roll over, until you get to 20 or higher, when it switches to percentage roll over. The Power stat is an exception, IIRC i's always percentile. Saving throws are attribute checks. Skill checks are attribute checks, but you can get modifiers for having more skill ranks. Instead of alignments you have Karmas and Codes, which monitor your mental health (in an 8-axis way) and obedience to external codes of behaviour respectively. Character creation is point-buy, your class and race set minimum and maximum stat requirements and give you blocks of special abilities. Combat is pretty simple, most complex thing is probably initiative, which is a simple "you can act on these x phases per round, spells take a certain number if phases to cast".

As for flaws: The pure martial classes tend to be comparatively underpowered, because they seem to occupy the design space of "cheap to qualify for, giving you more points to spend on other shit to bring your power level up". 3e is trying to do something about that, giving buffs in the form of new martial arts schools (which have yet to appear, and actually got deleted off the rogue and assassin when I brought them up) and the energy DR of armour being switched from a flat rate to a percentage of the damage. Technically an optional rule, can make magic more effective at low levels/weak armours, but makes high-power magic significantly less effective while not affecting high-power martial attacks. There was also a nerf put in place on the hybrid martial/magic classes, because they were very powerful. Secondary magic used to give one less Power per level than Primary (which correlates to less of a power pool, which means they can't quite cast as many spells), but 3e changed it to giving the same Power per level, but halving the power pool calculated from that.

Old World of Darkness, specifically Vampire The Masquerade. Shady conspiratorial antics with a gothic punk world that is just an exaggerated version of real life. For me as the Storyteller/DM it means I can write a shit load of plot and interesting characters since the setting and lore have already done a good portion of the work for me.

A few picks

>The Witcher
It was my first TTRPG and I guess that's part of nostalgia. But it's tight, fast and extremely simple system to learn. You don't even have to run it for Witcherverse. Clunky, unpolished, but workable and enjoyable. Can be run as narrative game if you want to or as a crunch-heavy dice machine due to own rules
Pros: d6-exclussive; simple; really fast and intuitive combat
Cons: extreme power creep, somewhat hard to strike the balance between low-power and OP characters, with zero middle ground

>GURPS
THE generic system. You can run literally ANYTHING with it without much problem. The core elements are very accessable and easy to learn. Has some issues about futuristic technology (stops being generic and goes into late 90s vision of the future, with stealth tech, low armour and so on), but is extremely fun and allows to play mash-ups while keeping consistency of rules like no other game, even other generic
Pros: d6-exclussive; simple core;
Cons: takes a while to get hang of it to not bloat your own games with pointless elements; uses imperial units, which makes it annoying to run for non-Burgers

>FATE
Also generic system, but unlike GURPS, you play as a badass in it, always. This allows to run cinematic and cinematic-like campaigns. Simple rules and allows to pull regularly things that other games would consider special actions and super-feats due to own genre
Pros: does cinematic games like nothing else without feeling silly or OP
Cons: literally impossible to run low-power campaign

>Cyberpunk 2020
THE quintessential cyberpunk experience (unless you are skilled with GURPS, that is). I play it mostly for nostalgia, but this game is almost as old as I am and still rocks.
Pros: does cyberpunk like no other system; easy to learn; easy to run for even the worst GM imaginable
Cons: class-based; clunky; a lot of crappy mechanics; not exactly as fluid as modern games or even thngs from own period; requires bucket of different dice

>TBC

At the moment I have two
>Atomic Highway
A very simple system, it's for post apocalytic game, the system is very easy to master,it's using D6,you Roll your dice equal to your characteristics and then you add your skills, the goal is to have as many 6 as possible to succeed there are scavenging table, advices for various aspects of ttrpg, vehicular combat and a guide to create your own postapoc setting.
There is Also a supplément, Irradiated Freaks, which adds many mutation tables for the characters and rules to play humanoid animals and plants(though I m not using that, I like silly things in some game I play but that's to silly for me)

>Luchadores
I think it's only out in France for now, one of the best game I ran. The setting is focusing on an archipelago in the Bermuda Triangle during The 60'. The players incarnate masked heroes(which happens to be Luchadores) against Werwolves, Eldritch créatures,mummy and other monsters. The book give a lot of information on the setting, it might seems like it's only for silly one shot at first but you can run some fantastic campaign with it.
The combat is really interesting, you have to build your own attacks to fight like wrestlers, the more complex your addition of movements, the better it is.

>Continuing

>Tianxia
There are few wuxia games out there, but this one is the only balancing between being fun, accessible for people utterly unfamiliar with the genre and keeping things simple, but not simplistic.
Pros: comes with pre-defined setting and plot hooks for it; a lot of it is done as intuitive as possible for people new to wuxia
Cons: it's pretty much FATE expansions, so if you know a thing or two about wuxia, you can make a better game yourself

>Twilight 2000
Probably the best existing post-apo game, being in the same time bleak and realistic, but also fun to run and enjoyable as a whole package of gaming experience. While the setting dated and it's not exactly the most accessible game for new players or just players in general, it still deliver a fantastic military game and completely different take on post-apo genre than everything else in the setting, so it's rather "The Day After" rather than "Fallout" type of deal.
Pros: teaches tactical behaviour like no other game (aside maybe GURPS under competent GM); unique focuses for the gameplay; great atmosphere
Cons: requires GM who at least went through conscription and is a history witz/old enough to remember tail end of the Cold War; you need to play 2nd ed crunch with 1st ed fluff; the Polish in it is just plain horrible, translator-tier bad

And I guess that would be it. Call of Cthulhu 5.5 ed is great, but like all CoC games, a horror-capable GM is pre-requested for it, and those comes in a very short supply

>Tell me about your favorite system and why Veeky Forums

Check out Mutant: Year Zero. It's a D6 game based in a post apocalyptic setting. The players use a small D6 pool hoping to roll 6's (successes) and avoid 1's if they 'push' (re-roll their dice).

What makes the game different than DnD (besides just the setting / dice)?

1. The player characters are 'fragile' - while they gain experience and talents, they do not go up in 'hit points'. The characters are just as susceptible to injury and death after they've had a fair amount of experience as when they first start.

2. Everything can kill a character. The air, water, and soil are poisonous in many many places (Zone Rot). Starvation and dehydration are constant threats. Home (the Ark) isn't totally safe, and beyond the Ark dangers lurk everywhere.

3. The player characters are all 'Mutants' - some very human looking, others not so much. All posses some sort of ability. And all live in a 'bubble society' (the Ark) with dwindling resources and increasing social pressures.

3. The game isn't about 'the characters' who gain fame / fortune (i.e. murder-hobo their way through life). Instead it's about the players and their relationship with the tiny bubble society that they're trying to help survive. Do they help create a 'Brave new world' with a free society. Or do they foster a system of tyranny and slavery? And if they fail - the Ark dies and they almost certainly die along with it.

And then there's the initial campaign meta-plot. No one in the Ark knows much about where 'The People' (the mutants making up the Ark) came from. Or at least no one willing to admit it. And the people are dwindling - there are no children born to the mutants of the Ark and no one knows why. But perhaps answers might be found at the point of origin. 'Eden' - rumors whispered among the 'The People' indicate that perhaps answers and salvation lie there.

gurps is a meme
nodbody actually plays it

> CP:2020
>Cons: class-based; clunky;

True - and each class has it's own unique skill. Which can influence the tone of the campaign / result in some balance issues.

> a lot of crappy mechanics; not exactly as fluid as modern games or even things from own period;

About the only thing that stands out to my mind other than the character specific mechanics which are unbalanced would be the 'net-running' stuff which doesn't integrate well with the 'real time mechanics of the rest of the game.

> requires bucket of different dice

What? That's just plain wrong. A player needed a single D10 and was good to go. Pretty much ALL of the game mechanics follow this pattern:

Character Attribute Number [1-10] + Skill Number [0 - 10] + 1d10 roll result (unless you rolled a 10 - then roll again and add additional roll(s). The resulting value was compared to a difficulty number, or an opposed roll by an NPC to determine the outcome of a player action.

>A player needed a single D10 and was good to go.
You need up to like 10d6 for weapon damage.

OP here, I've been swamped with moving into a new house and work this past month or so, I didn't even know there was another thread up yesterday. Either way I'm glad I posted this, I've already found several new systems I'm interested in, but I am definitely going to check out the archived thread, thanks for letting me know about that.

I actually think I have Wulin saved on a hard drive somewhere, I'll have to give it another read through, I'm super into Wuxia style things, maybe I can get my group to give it a try as well

This sounds interesting

I actually forgot about World of Darkness, I'll need to download the old PDF's and read up on it.

This is one that I think my players may really like, neat

I'm writing every single one of these down. Thanks user.

How are they boring? You draw cards or roll dice to achieve success. Isn't that how most games work? At least in Savage Worlds the dice explode and you're taking the higher of two, which is at least a bit different from other rolling systems.

Not him, but I've always found SW's mechanics just a little bland and dull. They're serviceable, but they don't really do anything interesting or in a new or innovative way.

For some people that's fine, but others enjoy systems of mechanics which actually add to the experience of playing the game, rather than simply operating. How much people care about this varies a lot, and it's often a people have with generic systems. I can't stand GURPS because its mechanics just strike me as endlessly boring, even worse than just SW. That doesn't mean I think they're bad games, they just don't suit my preferences.

Alright, I can see where you're coming from. I think maybe Savage Worlds might have been considered innovative when it released fifteen years ago, but it is at its core a roll high system. I enjoy it because it's generic enough to run anything I think up while still being simple enough that it's not intimidating.

What kinds of systems are your favorites? I don't really keep up with the latest systems so I don't know how mechanics are being handled now, other than that star wars game with the strange dice.

If you want interesting alternate dice systems, look into Dogs in the Vineyard.

Basically, you build a pool based on whichever two of the four stats are most relevant, any relationships that are at stake, and any relevant traits and equipment the character has. Once both sides have assembled their dice pools (there's a generic 'environmental' dice pool the GM can use if there's not another person opposing) they roll the entire pool. Now that you have a pool of numbers (let's say for example we have: 1,2,2,4,6,6,8) you take it in turns to attack by assigning two dice (continuing our example let's say we attacked with our 6 and 4, giving us an attack of 10) the other person can then defend with any number of dice, but the more you need the worse your character takes the hit. The conflict ends when one person can't defend an attack even with all the dice they've got. There is then a roll based on how badly both characters got hit which determines consequences on both characters.

In terms of what's popular in design right now though, that's probably PbtA stuff, the basic gist of which is rule which go
>when you do [certain action] roll 2d6+[stat]. On a 10+ you get what you want, on a 7-9 you get it at a cost, on a 6- the GM makes something bad happen.

Generally, specific systems with mechanics tuned to support their premise.

The two I play most often are Legends of the Wulin (the ramble about it above is mine) and D&D 4e, but I love things like Dogs in the Vineyard, Don't Rest Your Head, some of the PbtA games and even weirder stuff like Maid RPG.

I have enjoyed some generic systems in the past, things like Mutants and Masterminds, FATE or Valor. But they all have a degree of mechanical identity, doing things in a particular way which adds an extra quality to the experience, at least for me.

Versatility, mainly. It does everything, albeit slightly worse than the specialized systems. It's good for converting your knowledge of the game after learning, as you use the same general skills to do medieval knight-stuff as sci-fi space piracy.

Not the person you're responding to, but I feel that Savage Worlds has some mechanical identify. It isn't really supposed to be generic, it's pulp action. You roll a bunch of dice and throw down bennies that you earn for doing cool or in character things to reroll your dice if you don't like them. It really does a good job at making your characters seem like the heroes of the movie, so to speak. But you're allowed to dislike it, and I can understand why you might. I dislike the common way discussion goes on Veeky Forums where everyone just shits on each other.

>having only a favorite system

Try Polaris for something VERY different but oddly enough classical fantasy, more classical than people play usually.

At the core the fiction is about knights doomed to live a tragedy in attempt to save their kingdom from demons from beyond that kingdom and within their citizen; at the same the setting is dreamy and almost surreal - a strange, magical and noble people that live in palaces under the stars of the pole, before it happens something very bad. (read it)

What is really mind-opening is the system
>no GM
>everybody has multiple roles that switch (the protagonist, the demons, the allies, the lovers/family)
>ritual phrases to manage conflicts
>the "abilities" are mostly descriptive aspects like a companion, a destiny or a specific lore

img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1377/89/1377893616873.pdf

Depends entirely what you want to do. Different systems do different things well. If you just want a generic system to try out different genres in then GURPS or BRP does that well in a relatively crunchy fashion. Systems like Fate and Hillfolk provide the same service but focus much more on the narrative side of things and does demand more of the group as a whole.

And it's still *NOT* and I quote "a bucket of different dice". It's literally a handful of D10's.

D6

It's fucking great.

That's all.

My favourite system for swords n' sorcery is Fantasy Dice. there's a few fate point mechanics that are kinda dumb, but they're easily ignored and the character creation is very freeform.

Numenera or Rogue Trader

Did a writeup for Strike! here >>It's a bit weird, but in my experience, it is pretty fun.

Warhammer Fantasy 2nd edition. It has always been my go-to system for low and mid fantasy.
It has simple, easy to pick up rules but at the same time pretty much everything that's needed is covered, quick gameplay and character creation and for me it strikes a perfect balance between crunch and rules lite. You don't even have to be into warhammer fantasy setting, it works perfectly well as a generic usage fantasy system. The only WH specific things are a few professions(out of like 100 of them) and partially the magic system.

>It does everything, albeit slightly worse than some specialized systems
FTFY. I went to GURPS because D&D, WoD, and Exalted all sucked dick at their supposed niche. Yes, there are specialized games that do that niche better than GURPS and work right out of the box, but I've found those to be the exception rather than the rule. I wouldn't bust out GURPS to replace, say, DRYH, but hell yeah I'll take it over any non-4e edition of D&D any day of the week.

I posted exactly the same in simmilar thread a thread yesterday, but whatever, I'm tired of re-writting it every time.

TOR shill #66

>you like Tolkien, like really like Tolkien? Its a game for you. It isn't shit that spits right into the feel and themes of original works to create some weird D&D-ME hybrid like MERP, it's geniuinelly fitting adaptation that fills blanks in Tolkien's worlds with lore and plothooks so smoothly i feels like i could be created by the professor himself.

>You don't especially like Tolkien, but still don't have anything against him? Well, if the following feels appealing to you, it still might be very much for you

>You're tired of combat-centric games and instead want a game that makes non-combat tast like travelling, negotiating, sneaking, avoiding temptations of the dark forces and many more as important game elements as occasional fight.
>You're tired of games where magic solves everything and/or are flashy and everpresent and instead would like more to play in a world where magic is subtle and mysterious force while heroes do their job by their brawn, wits, and will instead of relying on special-snowflake magical tricks
>If you'd like a game that focuses more on a narratice yet still resembles traditional RPG and not going full into "vague storygame" teritorry
>If you'd like a game that has gaming element that is varied, fun and satisfying, but in simple, boardgamey way instead of becoming a tacticool miniature wargame requiring a game mat, with tons of numbercrunching and theorycrafting, or a d100 simulator with skilllists 4 pages long and tons of tables

>Tell me about your favorite system and why Veeky Forums
Sure!
>My group and I are are finally getting tired of DnD and we want to branch out
Oh. Never mind, then.

>see thread asking about unknown RPGs
>"Oh boy, I can't wait to inform them about DnD!"
>has already heard about DnD and wants to hear about something else
>"WHAT?!"

GURPS and Savage Worlds, the two ends of the autistic stick

GURPS Lite or like the other user said, FATE accelerated. Depending if you plan to keep playing with that group and the type of scenario for your first game, either of those two will be more fitting.

>2017
>Surprised other user heard about 40 year old game

I'd probably go for GURPS either if I wanted to play a gritty game in a genre that no niche systems I know of handles well, or if I wanted to combine several different genres.

The latter, in particular, I feel is GURPS real strength. If you, for example, want to play a Cold War spy drama with occult undertones you can easily pick up two or three supplements that handle different aspects and combine them at your leisure.

>FATE
>Cons: literally impossible to run low-power campaign
It's not exactly impossible, but doing so requires your players to understand the thematic you're going for and being mature enough to not abuse the power the system grants them - as is the case with most narrative systems. If you're players are used to maximize character stats and see the session as a game where the goal is to "win over the GM" then they're likely not going to have a fun time with the system to begin with, and they certainly won't be able to play a low powered campaign with it.

If, on the other hand, your players are the types who are prepared to willingly make bad decisions or lose fights for the betterment of the narrative, then yeah, a system like Fate will work great.

That is entirely true. While some bring up the master of none fallacy, GURPS is simply a better game than Catalyst and White Wolf's half assed attempts at game design. It has a lot of its own merits as well including very good combat and a very smooth resolution system.

Anima: Beyond Fantasy.

A Spanish guy named Carlos thought 'Yknow, anime is cool, i want to do the things that are done in anime!.' Now dont run away! This game is by no means your weeb-ass power fantasy ( though min-maxers can push that fact ). Anima is great for one major reason that keeps my play group constantly coming back; you can do anything, you can be anything.

Want to mind-wipe an entire town? Be a psychic. Feel like summoning Satan and making him your bitch? Be a summoner. Want to literally be Goku, with going super saiyan and all? Its called 'Ki' and you can do it!

Anima is a d100 system that is admittedly very rough in translation on a good many fronts, and has some glaring errors ( those above listed Psychics are fucking OP as soon as a player learns how to completely offset any potential negatives of being a Psychic ), which includes an addendum to artifact creation in a supplemental book that then doesn't properly explain how a player builds an artifact they are starting with.

Character creation is exceedingly meaningful ( with less emphasis on constant leveling up, each level feels like a godsend ), combat is robust and allows every character and ability to shine ( easiest way to kill a Demon Duke? A generic low level 'flash-bang' spell ).

To continue the emphasis on 'you can literally do anything in this game' here are some examples of characters myself and others have created: Black Butler, Digimon Digi-destined ( complete with fusion, evolution, etc ), Judge Dredd, Kokujin monk from L5R.. Crazy psychic thats able to teleport between dimensions freely, 14 year old genius in a 'One Piece' setting that turned their boat into titanium and gave it both spider legs+tank treads to cross land ( in addition to automating their cannons on a revolver system ), mad scientist whose destructive capabilities and tampering with primal magic ascended him to being a minor death god, A light mage able to cast mid-to low level spells for free.

I enjoyed my time with Anima, but I always felt like the system didn't quite know what it wanted to be. All that awesome over the top stuff is presented alongside really granular mechanics like encumbrance limits and really punishing rules for recovering from injury.

Also, apparently It's because my GM was an asshole, but my group tended to spend about 50% of every combat getting to do nothing because of the 'if you get hit you lose your action' rule, which got really dull really fast.

I think it's meant to be going for something like Berserk at low levels.

A lot of that is simply gotten around through various abilities ( the go-to is magic ). Need to carry stuff? Infinite bag. Need regen? Creation magic is busted and can heal you up in no time.

Getting hit and losing your action is a core mechanic, but you as players can also do it to enemies too ( baring certain exceptions ). Its meant to make it so not every single round every player gets to simultaneously gang-band the boss to dust. There is also a risky combat maneuver that allows you to get hit but still attack, if you really want that damage. Or just min-max for absurd initiative so you can always hit first.

Yeah, I do get the idea of it, but losing your actions as a mechanic is something I just really dislike. You can see systems moving away from it more and more, and having it happen to someone seemingly every goddamn turn was just frustrating.

Then again, it didn't help that the GM told us not to optimise our attack/defence scores and then apparently did so on every single NPC we ever encountered.

Optimizing your characters combat is key. A good tank is garbage if they dont have enough defense, a DPS is nothing without the attack to back it up. I dont disagree that losing an action can be frustrating, but generally it comes down to player planing and cooperation to mitigate. Sounds like ( overall ) you might have needed a GM that encouraged players learning the system fully. Anima gets infinitely better the more you understand about it!

>the GM told us not to optimise our attack/defence scores
He's got a point in that the normal stat block for enemies are nowhere near optimised, and a heavily optimised character will tear through them like paper.

For me it's more about the game itself being simply designed with completely different thing in mind. What's the point of using game made for high-octane action and cinematic stuff for a sombre session about group of children lost in the woods.
You can do that, sure, but there are MUCH more suitable games to play that.

PbtA, because the rules are simple, fiction-focused, and the varied games that use it are really narrow and fun.

>Cyberpunk 2020
>this game is almost as old as I am
Sup gramps

Currently my favorite system is Hillfolk (though that name is terrible and I wish they'd just call it DramaSystem instead). It's a narrative system that creates the feeling of being a writing team on a tv drama.

The system is setting-neutral, though there is an assumed standard setting of bronze age Israel (don't ask me why they thought that would interest people), but that's also easy to ignore. The rulebook, and the supplement Blood on the Snow, offers a plethora of settings to choose from, of, admittedly, varying quality. Some are great, some feel a little forced and uninspired, and some I have a hard time imagining being able to sustain an entire campaign. But that doesn't really matter either, because as with the characters, the setting can easily be improvised and fleshed out during play with input from both players and GM.

What happens is essentially that no one is in full control of their own character, nor is the GM in full control over the setting. Rather, everything is decided by a board room, as in everyone around the table agreeing that a particular thing happening would be great for creating drama and tension. For example, when making your character you might decide that his name is Pieter and that he's the son of the king, and someone else might then say that their characer is having an affair with him, and someone else might then suggest that there's opportunity for drama if he's also an alcoholic. Actual play works similarly, where one player may say "I think it would be great if there now was a scene between Pieter and Cecilia where Pieter desperately wants her to confess her love to him" and if it's agreed that that would be agreat scene then the relevant players play it out.

hi lindy

>
I thought Lindy was in love with Runequest/Mythras or something

Back to bed sport.

Sorry to disappoint, I'm not Lindy. That guy actually makes money off of being on the internet.

>Pushing this shitty game
What next? Non-ironically praising 3.PF as "the only game you will ever need"?

Which parts exactly do you think are shitty about it?

IMO SW was a mistake, they shoulda stuck with Deadlands second edition rule system. Junkers are better than wierd scientists.

My favorite will always be the Megaversal System. It is a do anything system on the opposite side of the scale from the universal systems like GURPS.
It doesn't do generic, simplified, or streamlined, it does everything and everything gets its own bit of mechanics. Magic, psionics, superpowers, supernatural abilities, and technology all feel unique and different from each other in play.
Also nice is that a starting character is a fully fledged and functional member of whatever class or occupation they are trained as. They can always learn more and pick-up more gear and knowledge as they adventure and level, but they have the whole package of skills and gear.
Along with that, it goes by the old AD&D standard of more powerful races/classes having a steeper experience curve and does not try match different kinds of things to each other. More powerful things are simply more powerful.
This does raise the caveat that the GM and players need to work together to decided what sort of party or game they want to have.
Some players are cool with raw power disparity and playing the Justice League in a supers game. Where in others maybe most just want more of Scooby Doo power range in their supernatural horror campaign, rather than Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a lot of preference and knowing your players.
It is a very GM-heavy game, it relies on the gamemaster to do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to everything, from setup to setting tone to managing expectations. You can have a wildly different experience in the same system and setting depending on how the GM handles it, which is true in any game system, but in one without safety nets, challenge ratings, or guide rails where you could play damn near any concept you wanted to right out of the gate, it is important to have a good awareness of what everyone can do a GM. Player-end is the opposite, they only really need to know what's on their character sheet and maybe an extra print out on their abilities.

Like the first two characters of the name stand for: Generic and Universal. You can use it to play everything from capes to hard-sci to D&D-esque fantasy.

GURPS Pros:
* Probably the best researched books in the gaming industry. Like if you want to run a game set in Roman times for another system you could read the GURPS Rome book and learn everything you need. I recently did this with GURPS Mystery even though I'm actually using Delta Green to run my game.

* Lots of options. Most books tell you what you need to do if you want to run different types of games. So GURPS Martial Arts explains how to do something like adding Krav Maga to your gritty Mossad door-kickers game, but it also explains how to add the Five Finger Death Punch to your Kill Bill game.

GURPS Cons:
* Lots of options. This means lots of reading and gives people a chance to misunderstand. For example most people don't realize that you're not supposed to use the entire, massive skill list and instead the GM is supposed to pick out the relevant skills for his game and present them to the players. This includes combining or creating new skills as needed.

* It does everything decently but it doesn't do any one thing extremely well. There's none of those cool, synergistic mechanics that newer games have because everything is hot swappable.

If you're interested I suggest starting out with GURPS Lite. Despite the name it's the core of the game system, only 32 pages long, and everything you need to introduce players to the game.

>no one is in full control of their own character

dropped

But done well, it is a great system for superpowered romps, tromping around a post-post-apocalyptic world with a dragon and humanoid badger, barely escaping with your soul while investigating otherworldly horrors, punching demons in the face, Conan-esque fantasy chopping wizards in half and kicking tentacled horrors, to space operatic pan-galactic quests to find honest smuggling work while the 'verse teeters on wars on multiple fronts. Etc.

I have a lot of fun with it. I like the kludge, depth, and old school style of the system.

>If you, for example, want to play a Cold War spy drama with occult undertones you can easily pick up two or three supplements that handle different aspects and combine them at your leisure.

But there are already many games that tackle that better than GURPS (Cold City is a personal favourite for one-shots). The problem with generic systems is that they are less necessary in a day and age when someone has put in the thought to design mechanics that cater specifically to practically any niche you can think of.

There is a huge bonus in not having to learn a new system and its peculiarities.

Only if that new system is both complicated and not based on some more popular system.

If you are looking to pick it up though, it has one key issue in they have yet to do a collected rules book, so the rules mostly appear alongside each setting, expansion, and sourcebook, The setting mainbooks have the base rules and most key ones for the setting you are looking at, as something that does kitchensink stuff a lot, I've ended up reading a lot. Which was fine for me at the time, but I would have had a hard time picking it up now that I have less free time.
The system is probably most infamous for the greatest of gonzo kitchensink settings, Rifts, but there a many more reasonable and easier to run settings to start from.
Palladium Fantasy and Beyond the Supernatural great places to start, or if you want to start a little gonzo, then Heroes Unlimited Revised 2nd Edition is great fun, also nearly collects all the different sorts of things in one place, even if there is a megaverse of variety more out there.

Exactly. If your group likes lots of different settings, it's sometimes easier to just go generic. Though even generic games have qualities that stay true no matter how you play them. GURPS is usually gritty, Savage Worlds is usually pulpy.

Do you also take offense at the idea that dice rolls inform you on how good your character is at fighting with a sword or wilderness lore?

I can get some pulpiness out of GURPS, but I end up switching off all the realism restrictions and pay less attention to damage multipliers.
Our main GURPS guys runs things closer to the realism and grittiness end of the ruleset.

Meanwhile I'm doing Saints Row out of it. Which is one I ended up going to GURPS for because my usual standby treated gunplay as deadly enough to not quite get the feel I wanted.

I still need to play Savage Worlds, looks interesting, and have a pile of books related to it now, though it's a bit different from my usual.

Mekton Zeta.

It's clunky, the pilots get little attention, it's based on an already clunky and not-so-effective system CP2020, and it's so easy to game and break without good GM supervision.

...but the combat feels chunky in a good way. Hits feel like they /matter/, I have never encountered a design I couldn't either build immediately or easily homebrew a niche rule to make work, shooting or tearing a limb off an enemy mecha feels great and rewarding, and overcoming more powerful enemies with strategy or even stupid luck like a powerplant hit feels like a real victory. The system is flexible in the settings it is capable of hosting, and thanks to its close relation to CP2020 you can both grab things from there to use in Mekton, or even build mechas to use there with simple conversions that the books give you.

Overall, the actual combat is fairly simple, and with decent macros or a good party it can actually go fast if people know what they want to do and are on top of their game.

I just find it a fun system, and it's got all the fun of a rockem sockem robots game distilled into an RPG system with that delightful 90s charm.

It really depends on what kind of setting you want to delve into.

Tell me, do you want more fantasy?
Maybe something SciFi?
Or do you want to try something horror related, or a mystery, or maybe something else altogether?

Let me know.

If you have no idea, then I would suggest giving Shadowrun a spin. It's close enough to D&D in theme and setting (players are still mostly trying to enrich themselves, and their magic and other fantasy shit) but instead of being medieval/pulp fantasy, it's set in a cyberpunk dystopia.

My only warning is that the game is very crunchy even in its current edition, so be prepared to read and probably homebrew away a lot of fiddly rules. Or if that isn't your cup of tea but you want to try the setting g out regardless, I suggest checking out their newest supplement, Anarchy. It's streamlined to allow for a more cinematic style of play without all the crunch.

So let me get this straight - it's better to pick unflexible, predefined and (often) barely moddable game that fills Niche A than pick a generic game and use is to create a game catering perfectly to your neesds and actually filling Niche A, rather than pretending it does so?

Let's make it as straight as possible - predefined games for predefined settings are more often than not AWFUL at their supposed niche. It's more of an exception rather than a rule that they are good in their own category. Most of them FUCKING SUCK.

And that's why in 2017 you still need a generic and/or quasi-generic games. Because they are the toolkit you need to get your perfect niche game, rather than buying a pre-measured cake mix in a box and then learning it tastes like shit upon baking it.

>GURPS
>It does everything decently but it doesn't do any one thing extremely well
Objection!

GURPS does few things like nothing else. in the market. All sort of games between TL 4 and TL 8 are great (that's what for GURPS is really made), it does early modern the best of all existing games, as it does WW2 and modern things. It is also one of few games capable of running good cyberpunk.

As long as you want to get guts, blood and tears, but with a tactical flair thrown in, GURPS fucking rocks. So scenarios between Master and Commander and Predator make it really shine.

>Comparing GM taking over your character on regular basis with outcome of a dice roll
Like the other user said, this is bad game and you should feel bad for pushing it.

>"Man, I hate being a slave. I wish I had freedom in my life."
>"Oh, you hate being a slave? You must also hate the fact that you can't control the weather or your luck then, too? Fuck off."

The GM doesn't take control of your character in Hillfolk, nor any other player. You'd know that if you had continued reading. Other players help create him, and anyone can name him as part of a scene, but what he does in that scene is ultimately up to you.

...

Well I'd rather a game that fills a niche mediocrely than a game that tries to be everything at once and does a shit job at all of them.

And how do I know GURPS is shit? It used to be my go to system. Guess what? It sucks.

Character creation takes hours. NPC creation is the same commitment. The rule system is so autistic that it made me scream in rage sometimes. And at the same time, everytime I would use it to play in an established setting, it would feel hollow.

Oh and all the fucking supplements. When I want to run an RPG about sky pirates, I'd rather not have to scramble between 3 pdfs or drop that much money for physical copies, thank you very much.

If you want a generic rpg, maybe play something like FATE. It's a meme game, but even it is better that GURPS.

The thread is called "tell me about your favorite system" not "shit on each others systems".

Go do that in some other thread.

>It used to be my go to system
No it didn't. You're the Hasbro shill that shows up in every thread that shows the least bit of sign of being critical of D&D.

This entire board might as well be about shitting on games. I see way more shit than praise, no matter what the system.

I mean, of course, it's Veeky Forums, I just think when 90% of the board is doing that, we may as well have a thread that doesn't.

>how do I know GURPS is shit? It used to be my go to system
>Character creation takes hours. NPC creation is the same commitment. The rule system is so autistic that it made me scream in rage sometimes. And at the same time, everytime I would use it to play in an established setting, it would feel hollow.
>Oh and all the fucking supplements. When I want to run an RPG about sky pirates, I'd rather not have to scramble between 3 pdfs or drop that much money for physical copies, thank you very much.
Did you just confirmed you never in your life played GURPS?

You sound like a lazy GM who is more interested in artwork and fluff.

Scramble between pdfs? Learn to retain what you've have read.

You sound like a GM too lazy to learn multiple systems.

Nobody has a true photographic memory. Unless you autistically focus on a single system, having well laid out pdfs that you can quickly reference is a necessity, and that the materials available aren't user friendly is a legitimate complaint.