I need your help Veeky Forums.
I hate rules lawyers and min maxers who obsess over "character builds". I hate crunch too. I want a rules-light system that isn't "one size fits all" like GURPS or FATE. So something that is designed for a particular genre/tone or setting. Can you guys suggest a system for me?
Suggest a System
Ayden Gutierrez
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Christian Richardson
What kind of genre/tone are you looking for?
Cooper Rogers
Try Apocalypse World, if you like that then you can start to look at all the other games using the same engine to find one in a genre you like
Luke Perez
preferably sci fi but low fantasy works as well. or any sort of fantasy for that matter.
Josiah Thompson
Do you hate crunch in general or do you hate crunch because you automatically associate crunch with min-maxing?
Dominic Roberts
Dogs in the Vineyard
Brandon Roberts
>rules-light designed for a particular genre/tone or setting
pbta games. Tales from the loop. Mouse guard for a very particular low fantasy. Though, it's more of rules-medium i guess. Jap games like Ryuutama and Tenra Bansho Zero.
Also maybe take a second look at FATE based games that actually go into trouble of building past the baseline FATE. I think there is one for Eclipse Phase, and i heard Mindjummer has a lot of thinks added to it. But again, those are more into rules-medium category.
Dominic Turner
>Tenra Bansho Zero
I wanted to recommend this, but it's decidedly not rules-light.
Andrew Jackson
Oh, sorry then. I remember it being pretty setting heavy, and i guess it kind of overshadowed actual mechanical complexity for me.
Hudson Morales
PbtA has already been mentioned, so I'll suggest OSR. Maybe one of the Conan-esqe ones for non-D&D-fantasy setting?
Carson Stewart
I don't mean to hijack your thread, but I'm looking to run Burning Wheel for the Black Sun nightmare setting from a month or so back. How do I run Burning Wheel? I have BW:Gold and the character burner from the .pdf thread, what is the system's strengths and weaknesses? Do I need Duel for combat? I keep hearing it's difficult to start, but focuses on dynamic storytelling and character goals. I'm used to running Shadowrun and Paranoia, any tips to spinning the Wheel instead?
Jonathan Foster
I hate doing math when I want to play a roleplaying game. But also because it attracts min maxers.
Adrian Howard
>How do I run Burning Wheel?
Use charred.herokuapp.com
DO NOT use duel of wits for the first couple of session. Until you and your party gets a hang of how things run, stick to the simple tests and bloody versus.
Watch first roll20 present BW series, it's has a lot of great examples of how to do things from the very beginning to end youtube.com
Alexander Hill
Barbarians of Lemuria for Sword & Sorcery fantasy, it's pretty good and rule-lite
Parker Lee
>i stab it
but thats because SHIKI is one of the few things that could kill arc
Evan Reed
Stick to human only and no-magic for your first game, it minimizes the number of rules you need to get started which makes life simpler.
Second, and this one is very very important: make sure you have a strong central concept for the campaign. As a GM, come to the first session with a simple, one sentence idea which appeals to you, if you can get your group enthusiastic about it you should all spend most of the first session talking about what you want the main conflict of the campaign to be around, what are the group's goals, what opposition are they facing. Since Burning Wheel is reliant on the players being able to write strong beliefs about the situation there needs to be a clear central conflict for them to have beliefs about. Once you've done that each player should give a one-sentence description of a character involved in that central conflict, and that's how you start character creation, which should always be done as a group.
On the subject of player beliefs, they need to be debatable, 'criminals should be brought to justice' is a bad belief, 'I am the only one who can be relied on to enforce true justice' is much better. When you introduce antagonists you should give them a belief which conflicts with the PC's, an obvious or noncontroversial belief doesn't give you much opportunity for disagreement and so it makes your job as GM harder. When making antagonists there are two ways of making a conflicting belief, straight up disagreement (in response to our earlier example something like '[PC] is a deluded vigilante, only the courts can create true justice' would work) or you can agree but have methods differ (for example 'We need someone like [PC] but his punishments need to be harsher').
Once you've decided on a central conflict and everyone's made characters, you create the initial action, this is whatever conflict is going on right now, that the PCs are in the middle of dealing with when the game starts.
Jacob Brooks
to continue because I hit the word limit:
When prepping for a session chose two of the PCs and then pick one belief from each of them, then make an NPC or group of NPCs who conflict with each belief (or one who conflict with both if you can manage it). Make it a different pair and different beliefs each time so that the spotlight it shared.
In order to stay invested when their character isn't one of the ones in focus, the PCs should all have beliefs about each other so they have a reason to be involved in each others' conflicts. And of course, they all have a connection to the central conflict of the game tying them together anyway.
Leo Rodriguez
Dark Heresy
Rogue Trader
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e
Traveller
Landon Robinson
I just realized that Diomedes and all the old school heroes were just PCs.
No force of nature made manifest was immune to a good ol' asswhuppin.
Jaxon James
Crunch doesn't necessarily mean excessive math, just an excess of options. If it's only math you don't like, then Tenra Bansho Zero is fine for you.
Parker Rivera
Thank you guys so much, seriously makes a huge difference. This is perfect.