Another vote for Savage Worlds.  It isn't everyone's cup of tea, I know (and not necessarily mine, either).  But it definitely plays a lot better than it reads.  I've posted a few questions on the official boards, only to be politely urged to try the rules as written first before tinkering.  And in every case so far, they've been right.

And yet even though I pretty much entirely disagree with Seanchai's thesis and think it has more to do with his ego than anything logical despite his claims to the contrary, Savage Worlds serves as pretty convincing evidence for it regardless, at least based on my totally different experiences.

As I discussed the last time we had this thread, I found SW actually very dull in play, and too simple to be interesting mechanically either as an RPG or a wargame, and use for the latter suffered from a lot of unnecessary cruft that came from trying to be both.

Quote from: J ArcaneAs I discussed the last time we had this thread, I found SW actually very dull in play, and too simple to be interesting mechanically either as an RPG or a wargame, and use for the latter suffered from a lot of unnecessary cruft that came from trying to be both.

Your description of Savage Worlds as "dull" reminds me of another game system, Unisystem.  I remember reading Buffy and thinking the system was fairly bland and uninspiring.  According to the fanboys, though, this is a selling point!!  I'm told the game plays much better than it reads, though I'm yet to give it a try.

I might get accused of shilling here, but I read PIG's Active Exploits Diceless and found it hard to grasp.  My group had had no experience with (or interest in) diceless RPGs, but we were looking for something different so I convinced them to give it a try.  We made characters for an occult WWII session and it was awesome.  Because there was no randomness, the PCs knew what they could do naturally and what they would have to spend points for to excel, and the game system quickly faded into the background.  It's kind of hard to explain, but it just flowed very well.  

Looking back, I had the opposite experience with White Wolf's Storyteller system.  The basic concept is simple enough, but when you start factoring in Disciplines, Merits and Flaws, and other poorly described aspects you get into a lot of headbutting and house ruling.  Combat looks straightforward on paper, but was a nightmare in actual play, especially with multiple opponents, multiple attacks, etc.   I ran VtM for years and loved it, but we used tons of house rules.  A "mook rule" really would have helped with combat, but I hadn't even heard of that at the time.

I played 2E for over a decade.  When 3E came out, I couldn't make heads or tails of it.  Things that had been skills were now something called feats, no weapon proficiencies, attacks of opportunity, etc.  It was just too much of a bother to learn a new system all over again.  Then d20 Modern came out, I gave it a try and I suddenly "got it."  I'm still not sure why one and not the other.  It's basically the same system.    

Pete

Quote from: Tyberious FunkYour description of Savage Worlds as "dull" reminds me of another game system, Unisystem.  I remember reading Buffy and thinking the system was fairly bland and uninspiring.  According to the fanboys, though, this is a selling point!!  I'm told the game plays much better than it reads, though I'm yet to give it a try.

I'm still interested in Buffy/Angel, as I liked the shows, and suppsoedly the way the system handles having one powerful dude followed by a bunch of losers, which would be good for Doctor Who if adapted, but I've yet to actually pick it up.

Maybe it's just my instinctual darling resistance.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkYour description of Savage Worlds as "dull" reminds me of another game system, Unisystem.  I remember reading Buffy and thinking the system was fairly bland and uninspiring.  According to the fanboys, though, this is a selling point!!  I'm told the game plays much better than it reads, though I'm yet to give it a try.

The Buffy games I've played in were carried by excellent GMs and PCs who really loved Buffy and tried to recreate the feel in-character. The system didn't interfere in doing that, but it only barely helped either.

I get what Seanchai's saying - sometimes it really is disingenuous fanboyism.
On the other hand, yeah, some things work better than they seem to.

The example that springs to mind for me is a scenario rather than a game - "Horror's Heart", a Call of Cthulhu mini-campaign, set in Montreal in the 1920s.
On reading it, it seemed to me very disorganised and jumping from one place to another without much rhyme or reason. "Why do they assume the Investigators would do that?" I'd think. Nonetheless, I liked the premise and reckoned I could wing it over the gaps when it came to it.

In play, it turned out the authors were bang-on about the clue paths and had put almost (almost - there was some furious page-flipping at one point) everything in the right place to find it when you needed it.

I think that, in the case of adventures, the best ones to play aren't necessarily the best ones to read. Steading of the Hill Giant Chief isn't exactly a gripping read, and the modern RPGer is likely to complain that there isn't enough backstory or explanation.

Yet, in play it's a ton of fun. Open-ended, challenging, and perfectly set up to go in any one of a million directions. It sets a great stage for a good DM and a motivated group to have a memorable adventure.

You can certainly tell a lot from the text, but there'd be no point in playtesting if it was possible to predict the experience of play from the rules.

I'm sure some publishers do use this as an excuse, but to be honest I've only ever seen punters defending games they like and have played, rather than publishers.

The flip side of this mistaken belief is that it makes it easy for certain reviewers to review products without actually playing them. For this reason, non-playtest reviews are far less valuable to me than ones based on actual play. You can tell something from the rules, but it's like reading the script of a film - you really need to watch it to get an idea of what it's like, particularly if you want other people to take your opinions more seriously. The "Go" example was a really good one.

Quote from: TechnomancerIf you buy a refrigerator with an icemaker, don't you have to buy the tubing/wiring to connect it to the water line separately?

Or did I get ripped off?

You were ripped off Technomancer. :mad:

This thread reminds me of one over on ENWorld.  It's a list of supposedly 'broken' things that didn't turn out broken at all.

The chief examples for 3.x are the monk (there was a huge furor over how 'overpowered' they were in the early days) and, more recently, the warlock (which looks way more potent on paper than in play).  Right when 3.5 came out, the Mystic Theurge got a lot of attention - but again, in play, it was much weaker than it read.  ("Whaa?  The class advances in both arcane and divine spellcasting?!")

I don't think it's possible to get a good feel for relative balance & rules integration without giving them a spin.  It's like trying to buy a new car by just looking at specs sheets without test-driving any of them.

-O

Quote from: obrynI don't think it's possible to get a good feel for relative balance & rules integration without giving them a spin.  It's like trying to buy a new car by just looking at specs sheets without test-driving any of them.

-O

Preach it!
RPG reviewers should have this tattooed on their writing-hand.

You can speculate about what a game might be like, and that can be interesting, but it's not the same thing as playing it and telling us what it's actually like.

Yeah.  I'm often skeptical about the claim that a game is "better in actual play" ... just because, damn man, how can you tell whether it'll be "better" for that person or not?  You probably don't know how they'll feel about it.

But I can often say with some certainty that something will be different in actual play than what people are describing as how they assume it will play.

I mean ... you might well still hate it, but at least hate the game for what it actually does, eh?

If you play published Adventures from WotC or Paizo, "balance" becomes a whole new meaning...

Quote from: SettembriniIf you play published Adventures from WotC or Paizo, "balance" becomes a whole new meaning...

Could you elaborate? I played some of the earlier WotC adventures and nowadays I'd have to go over them with a fine comb to adapt to all the new rules and more powerful abilities/characters.