What the title suggests. The link below is what CRACKED.com thinks they are, but I've only heard of two of them.
https://www.cracked.com/article_33173_4-tabletop-rpgs-that-are-way-better-than-dd.html?fbclid=IwAR37r6hPMz-RLssG60m-xV2t43GzwSSJfLe-j8FB8PMKUSdQbonHnxtFS3o
So, name four RPGs that are better than Dungeons & Dragons and let us know why they are better.
First off, you're linking to Cracked and you should feel bad about that. They haven't been funny or insightful for years now.
Secondly, that list is hilariously stupid. Traveller games can be just as deranged as D&D games. I've never even HEARD of Brindlewood Bay (and it sounds more like a craptastic ripoff of Clue, to be honest). Mork Borg has been covered before, and it ranges from excessively woke to excessively nihilistic. And Gloomhaven sounds more like a boardgame than an RPG -- why is it even on the list?
Fuck, I think I lost brain cells parsing this article. Dammit, Jeff...
The important question is better at/for what?
For my "like" D&D but more what I want I nominate:
Hackmaster (5e) - second by second combat is really cool here, and shields are really good. Lots of neat tactical options that have very little to do with how much you've "leveled."
For my different kind of Fantasy:
Mythras is tempting, but I'll pick Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok (or Children of Eiru). Norse myth where you usually play dead heroes battling in the after-life, resolved with norse runes.
For my crew of a Spaceship:
Free Spacer (to be fair I haven't tried many besides Cortex stuff, but Free Spacer is very slick).
For my Superhero:
Simple Superheroes - I wrote it, I am biased.
Well, one of the four they listed, MB, basically is D&D, just an art-punky OSR version of it. Gloomhaven is not an RPG, although it can be a fun game. Traveller, at least the original, is great, but not better.
I can think of certain games that do different genres better, but that isn't the same as saying the game itself is better. I can think of games I like just as much, but not better. I am thinking of D&D in the expansive sense, here, not any particular edition. Nope, I've got nothing to list, despite having dozens of tabletop RPG's on my shelf.
4) Palladium Fantasy
3) WEG Star Wars
2) Mutants & Masterminds
1) Ruins & Realms (my own system, so personal bias may be a factor).
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 28, 2022, 10:57:38 AM
So, name four RPGs that are better than Dungeons & Dragons and let us know why they are better.
Any 4 rando games titles will do. They're better, because D&D.
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 28, 2022, 10:57:38 AM
What the title suggests. The link below is what CRACKED.com thinks they are, but I've only heard of two of them.
https://www.cracked.com/article_33173_4-tabletop-rpgs-that-are-way-better-than-dd.html?fbclid=IwAR37r6hPMz-RLssG60m-xV2t43GzwSSJfLe-j8FB8PMKUSdQbonHnxtFS3o
So, name four RPGs that are better than Dungeons & Dragons and let us know why they are better.
Without reading the other posts...It seems the author of that article thinks board games are RPGs (I know the line is blurred, but sheesh...is this the state of game journalism now?) so I am not so sure their opinion should matter too much.
I have not played traveller, but have the box set. 4 games I think are better are GURPS, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Savage Worlds, and Warhammer 2nd edition.
1. OD&D
2. LotFP or Basic/BECMI
3. Into the Odd
4. Whitehack
4 Fruits Better then Tomatoes:
4: Apples
3: Bananas
2: Walnuts
1: Rasberries
On sheer whim, I'll toss out a few answers and why:
1. GURPS -- at being a universal roleplaying system that defaults to a simulationist baseline with more verisimilitude.
2. Barbarians of Lemuria -- at being boatloads easier to pick up and run with.
3. The Riddle of Steel -- at creating a simulationist approach to combat with a much more realistic feel.
4. RIFTS -- at being RIFTS.
None of these, however, are very good at replicating the feel of Dungeons & Dragons.
Any of them that has a good GM.
WEG D6 probably starwars but the open D6 stuff was also pretty great
GURPS (3rd preferred) easily and the 1st and 2nd books with their freaky full color covers scratch a nostalgia itch very powerfully So it has nerve jangle power with the old stuff and flexibility with the newer stuff
Mekton Z (interlock)
Savage Worlds even going back to it being the spine of Deadlands it's good stuff.
The licensed Chaosium stuff like the Stormbringer, CoC, and even ElfQuest.
4color/FASERIP stuff
Warhammer FRP 2nd ed.
Forbidden Lands
Mutant Century clone-ish but wonderful
MERP
yeah, that's four! Good job me.
(And no I would not pick Gloomhaven or MorkBorg or even Travelle. I like Traveller and respect it though more for its past than present which feels forced to me like most latter day Star Trek..yah mule! yah! March mule! Keep moving mule! )
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 28, 2022, 03:47:13 PM
4 Fruits Better then Tomatoes:
4: Apples
3: Bananas
2: Walnuts
1: Rasberries
I feel like we need a "BUT NOT ON SPAGHETTI PLS" clause to seal this deal otherwise I am on board mostly.
Quote from: palaeomerus on March 28, 2022, 06:09:14 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 28, 2022, 03:47:13 PM
4 Fruits Better then Tomatoes:
4: Apples
3: Bananas
2: Walnuts
1: Rasberries
I feel like we need a "BUT NOT ON SPAGHETTI PLS" clause to seal this deal otherwise I am on board mostly.
I think we can all agree they'd be great on pizza!
Ignoring the cool ones that are basically modifications of D&D (ACKS, Lion and Dragon, Hackmaster, etc.), I would go with
WEG Star Wars
Top Secret/SI
Harnmaster
Deadlands (1e or 2e)
with honorable mentions to Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer.
...although none of those actually mimic a D&D-style game.
Quote from: Pat on March 28, 2022, 06:29:54 PM
Quote from: moonsweeper on March 28, 2022, 06:22:32 PM
Top Secret/SI
SI was fun. It needs a retro-clone.
Yeah, we loved it because it was very versatile for all sorts of styles...paramilitary, James Bond, mystery, John le Carre stuff...
We played a lot of James Bond and Twilight 2000, which were a bit better for their specific genres, but TS/SI was still our favorite.
...a retro-clone would be nice. :)
Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AM
First off, you're linking to Cracked and you should feel bad about that.
I don't..... ;D ;D
Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AM
Secondly, that list is hilariously stupid. Traveller games can be just as deranged as D&D games.
Last time I checked, Traveller never had Strixhaven or a Radiant Citadel.....
Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AMFuck, I think I lost brain cells parsing this article. Dammit, Jeff...
You would have regained them and gotten some extra if you had answered the question..... ;D ;D
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 28, 2022, 03:47:13 PM
4: Apples
3: Bananas
2: Walnuts
1: Raspberries
"I'll take breakfast cereal toppings for $500, Alex."
The CRACKED.com article does suck, admittedly. While Dungeons & Dragons is the 800 lbs. gorilla in the room, there are a shitload more games out there that are better due to various reasons. I'm pretty sure that we can come up with a more relevant list than CRACKED.com.
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 28, 2022, 10:57:38 AM
What the title suggests. The link below is what CRACKED.com thinks they are, but I've only heard of two of them.
https://www.cracked.com/article_33173_4-tabletop-rpgs-that-are-way-better-than-dd.html?fbclid=IwAR37r6hPMz-RLssG60m-xV2t43GzwSSJfLe-j8FB8PMKUSdQbonHnxtFS3o
So, name four RPGs that are better than Dungeons & Dragons and let us know why they are better.
So Cracked's List:
1: Perennially outsold by whomever is publishing a Star Wars RPG; regardless of what system the SW IP holder uses. But it still is a legit RPG.
2: STORYGAME - Not an RPG.
3: Incomplete RPG, but still hits the threshold for an RPG, so there is that.
4: BOARDGAME - Not an RPG.
These people really need to get out and play more games...
Well, my default answer would be any and all of them but really, D&D does D&D pretty well, but it doesn't necessarily do anything else well.
Quote from: palaeomerus on March 28, 2022, 06:09:14 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 28, 2022, 03:47:13 PM
4 Fruits Better then Tomatoes:
4: Apples
3: Bananas
2: Walnuts
1: Rasberries
I feel like we need a "BUT NOT ON SPAGHETTI PLS" clause to seal this deal otherwise I am on board mostly.
Walnuts aren't a fruit tho, they are the seed. Also you should try my wife's recipe for Spaghetti with 2 types of walnuts, olives, apples, cream. Fucking delicious man.
Quote from: tenbones on March 28, 2022, 05:47:15 PM
Any of them that has a good GM.
That's definitely the strangest thing about RPGs - which is regardless of mechanics (modern or traditional) a great engaged GM (assuming the game has one) and engaged players can make any RPG experience amazing (or vice versa). That's kind of weird.
- Dark Heresy, 1st edition, before the gonzo end of the line supplements came out.
- Call of Cthulhu. Even if your GM sucks, you can rush the cultists/monsters and have a good time dying.
- Shadowrun, earlier editions when the rules made more sense and they hadn't leaned fully into the woke. I'm really dating myself in my first post.
- D20 Conan. Grittier than standard DnD and has really cool weapon rules that incentivize you to pick different weapons for different situations. Does this count as not Dnd?
Hello forum. I thought most rpg communities had been lost to the woke and their censorship; I'm glad this place exists.
Quote from: Jaeger on March 28, 2022, 07:36:31 PM
So Cracked's List:
1: Perennially outsold by whomever is publishing a Star Wars RPG; regardless of what system the SW IP holder uses. But it still is a legit RPG.
2: STORYGAME - Not an RPG.
3: Incomplete RPG, but still hits the threshold for an RPG, so there is that.
4: BOARDGAME - Not an RPG.
These people really need to get out and play more games...
Counter argument: There are a lot of people playing D&D who probably would be better served by storygames or board games.
Better for what?
(The cracked post is horrible)
Any rpg not FATAL is probably better than bog standard D&D.
Quote from: Bloody Malth on March 28, 2022, 09:34:11 PM
- Dark Heresy, 1st edition, before the gonzo end of the line supplements came out.
- Call of Cthulhu. Even if your GM sucks, you can rush the cultists/monsters and have a good time dying.
- Shadowrun, earlier editions when the rules made more sense and they hadn't leaned fully into the woke. I'm really dating myself in my first post.
- D20 Conan. Grittier than standard DnD and has really cool weapon rules that incentivize you to pick different weapons for different situations. Does this count as not Dnd?
Hello forum. I thought most rpg communities had been lost to the woke and their censorship; I'm glad this place exists.
Welcome to this wretched hive of scum and villainy, enjoy your stay.
Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 28, 2022, 09:42:57 PM
Better for what?
(The cracked post is horrible)
Exactly.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 28, 2022, 11:15:26 PM
Welcome to this wretched hive of scum and villainy, enjoy your stay.
Thanks. I've heard the best forum posters in the galaxy can be found here. I'll watch my step.
Earthdawn - it was my first NON DND game and to this day all games I run are tainted with its corrupting knowledge :)
Shadowrun - 1st and 2nd editions only didn't care for the other.
Savage Worlds - recently gotten into this one not too long ago.
Pathfinder 2e - despite who made it and what other's think, it isn't half bad but the ones I've ran across that is playing it are very Lawful Neutral about the rule system.
For DnD my go to is Old School Essentials of late ( backed the boxed sets Kickstarter they just did even though I already own the tombs ). Forgot how much fun a simple system could be :)
Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 28, 2022, 09:42:57 PM
Better for what?
(The cracked post is horrible)
Hipster lifestyle bloggers need to tell us how we are hobbying wrong and how to fix that by checking in with them for our new curated consumer interests or else we'll be sent back to the nerd wilderness or something by muckymucks and such.
Quote from: palaeomerus on March 29, 2022, 01:19:07 AM
Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 28, 2022, 09:42:57 PM
Better for what?
(The cracked post is horrible)
Hipster lifestyle bloggers need to tell us how we are hobbying wrong and how to fix that by checking in with them for our new curated consumer interests or else we'll be sent back to the nerd wilderness or something by muckymucks and such.
Is that a promise? They can't threaten me with a good time. I long for the days when my hobbies were seen as dirty nerd stuff.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AM
First off, you're linking to Cracked and you should feel bad about that. They haven't been funny or insightful for years now.
Secondly, that list is hilariously stupid. Traveller games can be just as deranged as D&D games. I've never even HEARD of Brindlewood Bay (and it sounds more like a craptastic ripoff of Clue, to be honest). Mork Borg has been covered before, and it ranges from excessively woke to excessively nihilistic. And Gloomhaven sounds more like a boardgame than an RPG -- why is it even on the list?
Oh, goody! I get to
complain comment about Gloomhaven.
I got Jaws of the Lion (the cheaper kinda starter version) and it was a slog of cards an tokens and clunky rules. I really wanted to like it, I love the themes and some of the legacy game ideas, but the gameplay is ech.
And yes, it's a board game. Cracked are doing what they do best, make terrible lists that don't make sense.
If you go into a game of (say) Traveller, expecting it to be "D&D but BETTER", you're going to be sorely dissapointed.
WEG D6 Star Wars 1e is the only game I know that is obviously better designed & possibly more fun, with Mini Six as a Coda. I mostly play/GM various iterations of D&D and love the game. Call of Cthulu is a very good game for what it does.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on March 28, 2022, 08:39:27 PM
Quote from: tenbones on March 28, 2022, 05:47:15 PM
Any of them that has a good GM.
That's definitely the strangest thing about RPGs - which is regardless of mechanics (modern or traditional) a great engaged GM (assuming the game has one) and engaged players can make any RPG experience amazing (or vice versa). That's kind of weird.
Some of them you notice that while the experience is great, the system is crap. I've played a few games of HarnMaster (not sure which edition), with a good GM and a great group of players. Each game was fun. But it made it absolutely clear to me that the system isn't good at all - the GM was constantly compensating for the system.
Quote from: migo on March 29, 2022, 07:32:20 AM
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on March 28, 2022, 08:39:27 PM
Quote from: tenbones on March 28, 2022, 05:47:15 PM
Any of them that has a good GM.
That's definitely the strangest thing about RPGs - which is regardless of mechanics (modern or traditional) a great engaged GM (assuming the game has one) and engaged players can make any RPG experience amazing (or vice versa). That's kind of weird.
Some of them you notice that while the experience is great, the system is crap. I've played a few games of HarnMaster (not sure which edition), with a good GM and a great group of players. Each game was fun. But it made it absolutely clear to me that the system isn't good at all - the GM was constantly compensating for the system.
I am not going to minimize the value of good GM. That part of the point being made is solid.
However, for what is being said here to be true, D&D would literally have be to the worst system. A talented GM would elevate any system, with the ceiling being the system itself. I think that is what Migo is implying, which is closer to what I agree with.
But the idea that 5e D&D is literally the worst system is hyperbole. Head out to itch or Reddit to see countless shit examples of TTRPGs being "created" all the time.
Who the fuck cares what a hate site thinks is better?
Games I like as much as or more than D&D?
BX D&D: Gets the job done with fewer moving parts.
2e/r Gamma World: Great setting when you ignore the "ha-ha its funnyyyyyyy!" morons. Good system too. Though artifact figuring out isnt quite as good as other editions.
Beyond the Supernatural: DMed this alot way back. Pretty solid system and better than the 2nd ed by far.
Aberrant: WW does a suprisingly good supers RPG.
Star Frontiers: Personal favourite. Great semi hard-fiction setting and very solid rules.
Albedo: Interesting setting and 1st eds system I think was alot better than 2nd ed. Definltly played smoother and the combat is suitable lethal.
Dragon Storm of course since I designed 2 cards for it. Neat simple system that played very well. Least that was till the guild fucked things up.
There are others but those few come to mind right off.
Quote from: Bloody Malth on March 28, 2022, 09:34:11 PM
- Shadowrun, earlier editions when the rules made more sense and they hadn't leaned fully into the woke. I'm really dating myself in my first post.
I'm intrigued by this perspective because it's the exact opposite of my own -- I thought Shadowrun's rules were
much easier to grasp after the 4e overhaul, particularly regarding magic and injury (if I never hear the word "staging" again in a ruleset it'll be too soon). How did you find later editions less comprehensible than the earlier ones?
Shadowruns rules always sucked, and its setting did as well. Its potential was always more impressive then reality.
Quote from: Thondor on March 28, 2022, 11:30:25 AM
The important question is better at/for what?
This. D&D is great at being D&D. Which means exploration and survival in closed spaces while facing monsters in tactical combat to varying degrees. The more you get away from that premise, the more other games become more attractive. I could cite a bazilion games that are better than D&D in their own premises.
About the article, I would say it's trying to shock more than provide an insightful content, even if the presented games seem good in their own way. I've only heard good things about them (even Brindlewood Bay) but I doubt they're better than D&D at doing D&D.
1. Dungeon Crawl Classics (currently playing)
2. Traveller Classic (played back in the late 70s/early 80s)
3. Harn (never played)
4. Ars Magica (never played)
Quote from: S'mon on March 29, 2022, 02:30:00 AM
WEG D6 Star Wars 1e is the only game I know that is obviously better designed & possibly more fun, with Mini Six as a Coda. I mostly play/GM various iterations of D&D and love the game. Call of Cthulu is a very good game for what it does.
Early D6 is a great and well thought out system.
In my opinion, it would have had a greater impact and longer legs within the hobby if it was
properly converted to a count success die-pool system as opposed to adding dice values.
I think such a d6 system like that introduced pre Shadowrun/Vampire could have become very prevalent. But such is 20/20 hindsight.
1) WFRP 1e/2e
2) VtM (when playing the Sabbat).
3) Beyond the Wall & Through Sunken Lands.
4) Anything by SNP.
5) C&C
Truth be told for me at least D&D would be waaay down the pile.
Quote from: Jaeger on March 29, 2022, 05:51:18 PM
Quote from: S'mon on March 29, 2022, 02:30:00 AM
WEG D6 Star Wars 1e is the only game I know that is obviously better designed & possibly more fun, with Mini Six as a Coda. I mostly play/GM various iterations of D&D and love the game. Call of Cthulu is a very good game for what it does.
Early D6 is a great and well thought out system.
In my opinion, it would have had a greater impact and longer legs within the hobby if it was properly converted to a count success die-pool system as opposed to adding dice values.
I think such a d6 system like that introduced pre Shadowrun/Vampire could have become very prevalent. But such is 20/20 hindsight.
I somewhat prefer success counting dice pools, but some people hate them for some reason. Adding dice up is nice too, and provides a different feel that some might prefer, plus "pips" add an extra element of granularity to ability progression. But I think counting successes is faster than adding up a bunch of different d6 results, which is why I ultimately like it better. In fact, counting successes using d6s Shadowrun style is my second favorite mechanic, after d20+Mod.
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 29, 2022, 07:28:33 PM
I somewhat prefer success counting dice pools, but some people hate them for some reason. Adding dice up is nice too, and provides a different feel that some might prefer, plus "pips" add an extra element of granularity to ability progression. But I think counting successes is faster than adding up a bunch of different d6 results, which is why I ultimately like it better. In fact, counting successes using d6s Shadowrun style is my second favorite mechanic, after d20+Mod.
I would postulate that counting success results in smaller "numbers" and some people really like their "big number" to be as big as possible, so a 15 is better than 6 successes to them. I prefer dice pools for counting successes as that gives me the feeling that the RNG is balanced out instead of arbitrary, thus I would take 2d10+Mod over d20+Mod.
1. Palladium: strike vs dodge/parry is much more logical than AC and hit points that accrue to ridiculous levels. And it's a system with LOTs of worlds/genres to pick from. Rifts. RoboTech. Palladium Fantasy. Heroes Unlimited.
2. WEG Star Wars. Because it's Star Wars. Truthfully, I prefer Mini-D6 version of D6 rules, and especially using Dueling Blades for lightsaber fights. Dueling Blades is so fun for me I might make an RPG using it as the core rules.
3. Tiny-D6 Mecha vs Monsters: I love a good transforming jet/robot game, and this game is easy to learn, and lets you design your own mech/monster, and game world.
4. Pocket Fantasy. I like rules lite, but 1-page RPGs are usually terrible. However, because this little free RPG has avoided that, and is multiple pages in length, it is all you need in a pint sized set of rules. It is a full game. It's also fun right out the gate.
*. Dungeons and Delvers Dice Pool Edition. Honorable mention in this case for being easy and slick system that isn't D20 based. It has a dice mechanic like Savage Worlds, but better, and more logical. 1D4 to 1D12 for attribute, and ditto for skills, as well as frequent additional dice to throw into the roll, then just pick the best 2. Easy. And no massive hit point increase either. You may only go from an initial 3 to maximum of 5. But I still say honorable because the rules started as D&D, even if it's so changed it only superficially like D&D anymore.
Quote from: Wisithir on March 29, 2022, 08:26:12 PM
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 29, 2022, 07:28:33 PM
I somewhat prefer success counting dice pools, but some people hate them for some reason. Adding dice up is nice too, and provides a different feel that some might prefer, plus "pips" add an extra element of granularity to ability progression. But I think counting successes is faster than adding up a bunch of different d6 results, which is why I ultimately like it better. In fact, counting successes using d6s Shadowrun style is my second favorite mechanic, after d20+Mod.
I would postulate that counting success results in smaller "numbers" and some people really like their "big number" to be as big as possible, so a 15 is better than 6 successes to them. I prefer dice pools for counting successes as that gives me the feeling that the RNG is balanced out instead of arbitrary, thus I would take 2d10+Mod over d20+Mod.
Yeah, big numbers can be cool sometimes, particularly when dealing with damage, where seeing big numbers looks like you're wreaking the enemy. Though, I think that the reason some people don't like counting successes is more a stylistic thing, but I don't recall seeing it fully explained so I'm not sure what it is.
The reason I like d20+Mod is because it's fast, simple and a single roll with a decent variable range that's easy to translate into percentages on 5% increments. Plus the d20 has a certain "feel" in my hand that I like. Though, if going with multiple dice for task resolution I tend to prefer counting successes using d6s over anything else. But I've never tried 2d10+Mod, and that could work too. Stylistically, I tend to prefer the feel of the d20 and d6s, though. But d10s are my third preferred die type.
Counting successes can feel unreliable and swingy. Doesn't mean its a bad system, but thats AN explanation.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on March 29, 2022, 10:11:41 AM
Quote from: Bloody Malth on March 28, 2022, 09:34:11 PM
- Shadowrun, earlier editions when the rules made more sense and they hadn't leaned fully into the woke. I'm really dating myself in my first post.
I'm intrigued by this perspective because it's the exact opposite of my own -- I thought Shadowrun's rules were much easier to grasp after the 4e overhaul, particularly regarding magic and injury (if I never hear the word "staging" again in a ruleset it'll be too soon). How did you find later editions less comprehensible than the earlier ones?
Add 1e SR to my like list as well. Its another pretty solid system. 2e is ok and does not change things too much. But I encountered it right around the time I was getting sick and tired of all these edition treadmills and so for me a 2e was a fuck no. That and with each edition they have lost some of the backstory.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 29, 2022, 11:11:15 PM
Counting successes can feel unreliable and swingy. Doesn't mean its a bad system, but thats AN explanation.
Because if you're adding up numbers, you're always getting at least a number, while with successes you can get none at all?
1. Warhammer Fantasy 1-2-4. (Maybe even with some few decent idea stolen from Fox)
2. Warhammer 40k - Dark Heresy & Rogue Trader (anything up seems just less fitted to d100 overall mech)
3. Forbidden Lands
4. Fading Suns
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on March 29, 2022, 10:11:41 AM
Quote from: Bloody Malth on March 28, 2022, 09:34:11 PM
- Shadowrun, earlier editions when the rules made more sense and they hadn't leaned fully into the woke. I'm really dating myself in my first post.
I'm intrigued by this perspective because it's the exact opposite of my own -- I thought Shadowrun's rules were much easier to grasp after the 4e overhaul, particularly regarding magic and injury (if I never hear the word "staging" again in a ruleset it'll be too soon). How did you find later editions less comprehensible than the earlier ones?
Oh, I'll agree that 4th edition made the rules easier to grasp at first, but I didn't think this lead to a better played game at the table. I didn't like the hard cap, and I didn't think the other changes it made from 3rd were all that significant, but honestly I'm mostly basing this off of memories of disliking the game at the table. I can't remember too many specifics, so this is pretty subjective.
5th edition was (is? Is it still the current edition?) trash: if you play a b/e character with high b/e skills, it actually behooves you not to use any b/e equipment because it makes you worse, which makes no sense in a game that is mostly about technology. I found this problem with a lot of equipment in the game, not just b/e stuff, which makes me wonder if it was playtested well or if they looked at how it would integrate with the game.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 29, 2022, 10:56:38 AM
Shadowruns rules always sucked, and its setting did as well. Its potential was always more impressive then reality.
To each their own. I liked how terrifying and mysterious cybermancy was when it was introduced and that they "killed off" one of their stock npc's to show its ugly affects.
The metaplot was hit or miss (I don't give a crap about a dead dragon's will, though I thought the arcology shut down was cool), but it moved the universe forward and things actually changed from sourcebook to sourcebook. Dnd settings are largely static; transformations to a setting seem to only happen at an edition change, so your players are never involved and they don't even get to witness the changes happen in the background.
I liked this living, breathing, and moving style of a game world. When playing Shadowrun, I didn't have to do all the heavy lifting myself; I could pick and choose what I liked from the background elements of sourcebooks.
1. Genesys/Fantasy Flight Star Wars
2. Shadowrun
3. Warhammer Fantasy 2e
4. World of Darkness*
Genesys despite being burdened by custom dice is excellent at doing fairly cinematic play where little stuff doesn't bog down the game and big stuff is appropriately challenging. Shadowrun, by which I specify 3rd and 4th editions as the sweet spot for the series, is fantastic for having a whole rainbow of character options for how someone wants to play. WFRP2 throws a brutal gory vibe into the whole fantasy genre that is extremely fun to play. And WoD, well. I prefer the original 90s setting but the nWoD ruleset, which helped make fights vastly less of a slog. I haven't kept up with the versions since then as the property spirals the drain.
Quote from: Bloody Malth on March 30, 2022, 06:58:30 PMI liked how terrifying and mysterious X was when it was introduced and that they "killed off" one of their stock npc's to show its ugly affects.
They do this like twenty times. Over and over. I could fart in Shadowrun and release another new horrific monster, or a new form of mind control. Because Shadowrun is a monster of the week setting and lacks real internal change.
QuoteI liked this living, breathing, and moving style of a game world.
Living, breathing, and moving yes, but also comatose. The setting does not expect shadowrunners or PCs to play a big role. It plays with itself and then your just there to watch. Which would be fine if the focus was on low end stuff, but it almost exclusively focuses on what the 'big players' do. And focusing on small ground level stuff never happens or is ULTRA boring (as in presented in a boring way). Having PCs do interesting and high end stuff is limited exclusively to the videogames.
But even then, the changes that do happen are utterly irrelevant. Assholecorp gets overtaken and replaced by Bastardon. The High Dragon Oyboi gets defeated and put into stasis by the Aquatic Dragon Bulloni. Maybe another city becomes a no-go zone. Whatever.
But the Shadowrunners are never involved or are only involved in a token state. Their stock NPCs are not the real authors pets. Its the antagonists.
Static settings are better because they expect the PCs to change stuff, or live in it. Changing settings pressure players into not.
Hmmm. Well i still very much enjoy AD&D (and B/X as well, which has a charm all its own)... and avoid more modern (post 2e)
versions this list will be pretty dated.
1. Warhammer Fantasy Role Play (1st Editon)
2. RuneQuest (Any, but i still have the old Avalon Hill 3rd edition as well as Chaosium's more recent version)
3. RoleMaster/M.E.R.P
4. ?????
Couldn't decide between Old HarnMaster, Stormbringer or Call of Cthulhu... would have helped if it was a list of SEVEN games
"better" than D&D. Which for me still means B/X or AD&D, so i like it just fine... though all of the above got me out of playing
it back in the late 80's (particularly Warhammer) when i was annoyed with TSR's direction at the time.
Quote from: Omega on March 29, 2022, 09:56:49 AM
2e/r Gamma World: Great setting when you ignore the "ha-ha its funnyyyyyyy!" morons. Good system too. Though artifact figuring out isnt quite as good as other editions.
I love Gamma World and 2nd Edition was my introduction to it, but the setting was clearly intended to be ridiculous. There are evil humanoid bunny rabbits whose touch turns metal to rubber. Lion-bats with beetle mandibles that shoot lasers out of their eyes and eat ancient clothing. Many-legged insect-horse hybrids with the obviously jokey name "Centisteed". Savage humanoid creatures descended from dogs that eat human hands (literally biting the hands that once fed them). There's a faction that's led by a megalomaniacal mutated bear who believes he's Napoleon and finds inspiration in Mein Kampf and Animal Farm.
The published adventures, which give a sense of how the game was intended to be run, include things like: Evil badger men worshipping the University of Wisconsin Bucky Badger mascot as a god. A race of mutated chickens who are military geniuses and would conquer the world if not for a complete blind spot when it comes to the robotic jailers who keep them confined to an ancient poultry processing plant. Mutated bears called "Smokies" who ironically start forest fires by using pyrokinesis in order to cook their prey. (The illustration depicts a salivating bear in a park ranger uniform holding a mess kit knife and fork.)
That sort of stuff is clearly intended to be funny, and people who recognize that aren't morons.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 30, 2022, 10:06:49 PM
Static settings are better because they expect the PCs to change stuff, or live in it. Changing settings pressure players into not.
I look at it the other way: Static settings let you know that nothing your character does matters because the setting just reboots to the start again.
Quote from: Shasarak on March 31, 2022, 03:53:39 PMI look at it the other way: Static settings let you know that nothing your character does matters because the setting just reboots to the start again.
Static settings are designed with 'Here is what is going on, how do you wanna change it?'. More often then not, they are written with YOU being the main changer in mind.
Active setting generally suffer from 'Level 65 God King Is planning an attack on an army of 22 Demon Princes, how will you stand and watch?'. Active settings with assumed proactive PCs just tend to wind down (Dark Sun, Golarion) as the active threats are taken out.
My four:
1) Tunnels and Trolls for Dungeon Crawling. Plays faster, more flexible, easier to get hold of (apart from the Deluxe Edition) and into (again, apart from the Deluxe edition) and it's got an entirely different feel to D&D whilst doing sorta pretty much the same thing.
2) MERP for D&D but more interesting. It's the crits, see? Once you've dungeon crawled with MERP rules in Karameikos and Mystara as a whole it's much less interesting to go back to D&D. Fast, deadly combat, a little crunchy on character creation (organisation of the book could be better) and if you don't like Tolkien (I don't) there's a fair bit to ignore but it can be done, and done fun.
3) DC Heroes 3rd Edition/Blood of Heroes 2e. Yeah, forget that the art for BoH is gash and the layout/text wall-ness of 3e DCH makes your eyes close, this covers street to cosmic better than any supers game before or after. Not perfect. I house ruled it to ditch the tables and switch to D12s and it just zips along in play by post. Our campaign is in year 13 in October, no signs of stopping. I tried other Supers games (All the Marvel games, Golden Heroes, Mutants and Masterminds etc) and some were good, some great, but none surpassed the DC Heroes rules set for me. Needs a retro clone. If you are buying it and can get it for a reasonable price, 2nd Edition Boxed set is the sweet spot. Blood of Heroes best rules but that art... ack!
4) Star Wars 1e. The REUP version is probably refined, better, tweaked, sharpened up and a great production from fans (and free!) but we got the most play from 1e. It broke for us when the PCs hit 7D + in all the combat stuff (Dodge, Blaster etc) and I had to start coming up with different colours of Stormtrooper who could shoot straight. There's only so much space terrorist stuff you can do before you re-tread old ground and it was our go to for a while but Star Wars is dead to me now. The game I'll always have fond memories of.
I had to trim the list down to just four but if I played D&D again it would be BECMI, without doubt. It's better than any other version of the game (for me) and I loved some of the other versions.
I like and enjoy Gloomhaven, but it's in no way an RPG of any kind. It's just a board game, with a lot of tactile play, and some written story to read depending on what broader choices you make about what to do. I do recommend it, though there is no reason to buy the very expensive main game when the much less expensive Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion gives you everything you need (and more) for about a quarter of the price. There are a LOT of parts to the game too. Like, so many parts that third party sellers have made 3d printed organizers for the parts. This is not all the parts but it gives a good representative example of the parts (which excludes the boards):
(https://thedicetroyers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/TheDicetroyers_Gloomhaven-01.jpg)
Jaws of the Lion uses map pages out of a binder of maps, which I like. I believe the full game uses individual maps:
(https://tabletopbellhop.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/PXL_20201107_192515627-scaled.jpg)
Oh and noteworthy, the game can be played entirely solo. And it remains fun solo, though still better with friends.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 31, 2022, 04:37:28 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on March 31, 2022, 03:53:39 PMI look at it the other way: Static settings let you know that nothing your character does matters because the setting just reboots to the start again.
Static settings are designed with 'Here is what is going on, how do you wanna change it?'. More often then not, they are written with YOU being the main changer in mind.
Active setting generally suffer from 'Level 65 God King Is planning an attack on an army of 22 Demon Princes, how will you stand and watch?'. Active settings with assumed proactive PCs just tend to wind down (Dark Sun, Golarion) as the active threats are taken out.
The metaplot destroyed Dark Sun and the Revised & Expanded boxed set was complete crap because of it (plus all the uninspired crap that got added that wasn't part of the original). And I still think that Dark Sun was the greatest D&D setting ever created, but when I say that, I'm talking about the original boxed set and initial supplements that truly expanded on the OG boxed set. Everything that came after was complete crap. Even the novels sucked after the first two or three books (though, I barely remember them now and lost them to a termite infestation so I can't reread em).
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 31, 2022, 07:06:09 PMThe metaplot destroyed Dark Sun.
Yup. Either a setting becomes 'Solved' or hopeless, as things become cyclical and go nowhere. Metaplots suck for TRPGs
Dunno. I think Golarion did it relatively well with it's Adventure Pathes (though of course fact they were taking just half-a-year each was often really dumb considering 1-20 leveling of characters and scope of danger). Some dangers were extinguished, new were introduced, and TBH it's not like you need to obsess about those small change in canon when running own Golarion, you can easily cherry pick own changes fitting what your characters done.
It's not static film universe with one canon. So if some players take 2nd edition of such game and start to whine their own exploits were not used... they're just clearly have very wrong perspective about RPGs.
The trick with Dark Sun is to set any new campaign just before or just after Kalak's death, and ignore all the published metaplot after that. (Almost) anything a GM comes up with for their home campaign will be better than what was printed. Or at least break even.
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 31, 2022, 07:06:09 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 31, 2022, 04:37:28 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on March 31, 2022, 03:53:39 PMI look at it the other way: Static settings let you know that nothing your character does matters because the setting just reboots to the start again.
Static settings are designed with 'Here is what is going on, how do you wanna change it?'. More often then not, they are written with YOU being the main changer in mind.
Active setting generally suffer from 'Level 65 God King Is planning an attack on an army of 22 Demon Princes, how will you stand and watch?'. Active settings with assumed proactive PCs just tend to wind down (Dark Sun, Golarion) as the active threats are taken out.
The metaplot destroyed Dark Sun and the Revised & Expanded boxed set was complete crap because of it (plus all the uninspired crap that got added that wasn't part of the original). And I still think that Dark Sun was the greatest D&D setting ever created, but when I say that, I'm talking about the original boxed set and initial supplements that truly expanded on the OG boxed set. Everything that came after was complete crap. Even the novels sucked after the first two or three books (though, I barely remember them now and lost them to a termite infestation so I can't reread em).
What was good with DS Revised is re-adjusting the Strength scores. Percentile Strength really messed with the 5-20 ability score range.
QuoteThe trick with Dark Sun is to set any new campaign just before or just after Kalak's death, and ignore all the published metaplot after that. (Almost) anything a GM comes up with for their home campaign will be better than what was printed. Or at least break even.
Now without any knowledge about DS metaplot, that seems like good solution for any setting - pick moment you prefer.
More editions moving things through - well fine you have more moments to choose.
And since moment you start playing rest of metaplot simply does not matter.
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 28, 2022, 10:57:38 AM
What the title suggests. The link below is what CRACKED.com thinks they are, but I've only heard of two of them.
https://www.cracked.com/article_33173_4-tabletop-rpgs-that-are-way-better-than-dd.html?fbclid=IwAR37r6hPMz-RLssG60m-xV2t43GzwSSJfLe-j8FB8PMKUSdQbonHnxtFS3o
"If you think Lord of the Rings sucks, then maybe you've been turned off of D&D entirely, because c'mon, the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork."
The depth of the research is astounding.
Quote from: Reckall on April 01, 2022, 06:35:12 AM
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 28, 2022, 10:57:38 AM
What the title suggests. The link below is what CRACKED.com thinks they are, but I've only heard of two of them.
https://www.cracked.com/article_33173_4-tabletop-rpgs-that-are-way-better-than-dd.html?fbclid=IwAR37r6hPMz-RLssG60m-xV2t43GzwSSJfLe-j8FB8PMKUSdQbonHnxtFS3o
"If you think Lord of the Rings sucks, then maybe you've been turned off of D&D entirely, because c'mon, the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork."
The depth of the research is astounding.
While obviously D&D drew inspiration from a number of sources and not just Tolkien, there are also elements that are incredibly obviously taken from Tolkien and couldn't come from anywhere else. Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings? That's straight up Tolkien. Tolkien's influence on D&D gets both overplayed and underplayed.
Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:21:57 AM
While obviously D&D drew inspiration from a number of sources and not just Tolkien, there are also elements that are incredibly obviously taken from Tolkien and couldn't come from anywhere else. Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings? That's straight up Tolkien. Tolkien's influence on D&D gets both overplayed and underplayed.
Mike Mornard, one of Gygax's players, described OD&D as "Leiber and Vance garnished with shaved Tolkien." Given that Gygax's use of Tolkien tended to be superficial, reluctant, and umsympathetic, I'd call it '
dehydrated shaved Tolkien,' but the point stands. :)
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on April 01, 2022, 07:30:12 AM
Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:21:57 AM
While obviously D&D drew inspiration from a number of sources and not just Tolkien, there are also elements that are incredibly obviously taken from Tolkien and couldn't come from anywhere else. Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings? That's straight up Tolkien. Tolkien's influence on D&D gets both overplayed and underplayed.
Mike Mornard, one of Gygax's players, described OD&D as "Leiber and Vance garnished with shaved Tolkien." Given that Gygax's use of Tolkien tended to be superficial, reluctant, and umsympathetic, I'd call it 'dehydrated shaved Tolkien,' but the point stands. :)
Tolkien is also the most obvious especially if you're looking at Basic D&D that most people started with. The makeup of the adventuring party is straight up Tolkien. And while Leiber is the inspiration for the Thief class, it's easy to forgive people for thinking that's from the Hobbit, with Bilbo being a 'Burrahobbit'. The only element that is front and center that really doesn't look like Tolkien is the Cleric class. With a slight tweak, if you dropped it and had the Elf using Cleric spells instead of Magic-User and it would suddenly look more like Tolkien again - with Frodo only able to get healing from the Elves at Rivendell.
You had to read Appendix N to really see where the inspiration all came from, and back in the day the AD&D DMG was supposed to be DM's eyes only. With that Gygax's choice to split the game up like that is also responsible for that misconception.
" Name Four Tabletop RPGs That Are Better Than Dungeons & Dragons"
They're only thinking of 5e D&D.
"Better" is a subjective word, and with a competent GM, you could have a better time that with a mediocre 5e DM with.....
0e/1e/2e/3e D&D. Maybe 4e D&D. (It's not exactly traditional D&D, but it's a game)
Castles and Crusades.
Call of Cthulu
Paranoia.
Warhammer Fantasy
And many others, some of which are already listed by other posters in this thread.
Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:21:57 AM
Quote from: Reckall on April 01, 2022, 06:35:12 AM
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 28, 2022, 10:57:38 AM
What the title suggests. The link below is what CRACKED.com thinks they are, but I've only heard of two of them.
https://www.cracked.com/article_33173_4-tabletop-rpgs-that-are-way-better-than-dd.html?fbclid=IwAR37r6hPMz-RLssG60m-xV2t43GzwSSJfLe-j8FB8PMKUSdQbonHnxtFS3o
"If you think Lord of the Rings sucks, then maybe you've been turned off of D&D entirely, because c'mon, the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork."
The depth of the research is astounding.
While obviously D&D drew inspiration from a number of sources and not just Tolkien, there are also elements that are incredibly obviously taken from Tolkien and couldn't come from anywhere else. Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings? That's straight up Tolkien. Tolkien's influence on D&D gets both overplayed and underplayed.
Tolkien invented humans? Silly interpretations aside, I think you're overstating the degree of congruence. The four races are the iconic ones who made up the Fellowship, but when you get into the specifics, they're very different.
There are certainly Tolkienesque elements in D&D, but I think the tendency is to overstate rather than understate them, simply because Tolkien's work is so widely known and recognizable. Cracked saying "the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork" is ridiculously wrong.
Quote from: Pat on April 01, 2022, 08:10:33 AM
Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:21:57 AM
Quote from: Reckall on April 01, 2022, 06:35:12 AM
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 28, 2022, 10:57:38 AM
What the title suggests. The link below is what CRACKED.com thinks they are, but I've only heard of two of them.
https://www.cracked.com/article_33173_4-tabletop-rpgs-that-are-way-better-than-dd.html?fbclid=IwAR37r6hPMz-RLssG60m-xV2t43GzwSSJfLe-j8FB8PMKUSdQbonHnxtFS3o
"If you think Lord of the Rings sucks, then maybe you've been turned off of D&D entirely, because c'mon, the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork."
The depth of the research is astounding.
While obviously D&D drew inspiration from a number of sources and not just Tolkien, there are also elements that are incredibly obviously taken from Tolkien and couldn't come from anywhere else. Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings? That's straight up Tolkien. Tolkien's influence on D&D gets both overplayed and underplayed.
Tolkien invented humans? Silly interpretations aside, I think you're overstating the degree of congruence. The four races are the iconic ones who made up the Fellowship, but when you get into the specifics, they're very different.
There are certainly Tolkienesque elements in D&D, but I think the tendency is to overstate rather than understate them, simply because Tolkien's work is so widely known and recognizable. Cracked saying "the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork" is ridiculously wrong.
Now this is where it's getting ridiculous. Halflings are straight up copied from Tolkien, and can't come from anywhere else. Elves are also closer to Tolkien Elves than any other imagination of a creature called an Elf before then. Dwarves you could make some argument for being more generic, but they're also quite a lot like Tolkien Dwarves.
No, to suggest that the four core races are anything other than primarily inspired by Tolkien (whether it was reluctantly done by Gary is irrelevant) is wishful thinking - an overreaction to the claim that D&D is just inspired by Tolkien.
Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:37:20 AM
Tolkien is also the most obvious especially if you're looking at Basic D&D that most people started with. The makeup of the adventuring party is straight up Tolkien. And while Leiber is the inspiration for the Thief class, it's easy to forgive people for thinking that's from the Hobbit, with Bilbo being a 'Burrahobbit'. The only element that is front and center that really doesn't look like Tolkien is the Cleric class. With a slight tweak, if you dropped it and had the Elf using Cleric spells instead of Magic-User and it would suddenly look more like Tolkien again - with Frodo only able to get healing from the Elves at Rivendell.
You had to read Appendix N to really see where the inspiration all came from, and back in the day the AD&D DMG was supposed to be DM's eyes only. With that Gygax's choice to split the game up like that is also responsible for that misconception.
Well, you left out "Vancian" magic, which is not a small thing. Also Howard's Conan.
The thief is a mix of Leiber
and Vance. You are forgetting Cugel and some of the lesser characters in the Vance stories. Plus, you don't have to read Appendix N to see it. You just have to read the books that are in Appendix N one way or the other. The trick is that the influence runs more widely and deep, which is I think Armchair Gamer's point. The more widely and deep you read in Appendix N, the more you see the varied influences. When the Red Box sets were in the Sears Christmas catalog and D&D was really taking off as a thing, you could still get most of the Appendix N books in actual books stores (back when those were a thing). A lot of people played D&D in the first place because they had read some of those books, not the other way around.
Also see Andre Norton and Poul Anderson, whose influence on D&D is not limited to occasional monsters (Anderson's troll for example) but is less obvious from a tone and feel. Though some of the more obvious feel connections are tricky, because Anderson wrote them after D&D was a thing. Anyway, people are interested in myth and fantasy, full stop. Where that interest begins, varies.
Quote from: Wrath of God on April 01, 2022, 03:16:37 AM
Dunno. I think Golarion
Is another good example of a deflated less interesting universe over time.
So much of the mystery is gone. The world post changes is duller and less interesting.
In addition mystery is a limited quantity.
Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 08:29:21 AMNow this is where it's getting ridiculous. Halflings are straight up copied from Tolkien, and can't come from anywhere else. Elves are also closer to Tolkien Elves than any other imagination of a creature called an Elf before then. Dwarves you could make some argument for being more generic, but they're also quite a lot like Tolkien Dwarves.
And the half-orcs, who tend to get played pretty straight as they're seen in
The Two Towers and the Scouring of the Shire.
Now that said, while the tropes and trappings of Tolkien's races are clearly the inspiration for the folk as they show up in Greyhawk and other Gygax-source documents, it is notable that in terms of style and thematic atmosphere they come off very differently. To put it as bluntly as possible, Gygax's elves, dwarves and halflings all had a far greater capacity to be outright a$$holes than Tolkien ever attributed to them, at least in his primary stories. That lack of spiritual and moral
gravitas is very clearly an injection from the pulp traditions of Lieber, Moorcock and Vance, which were in their turn influenced by the distinct
noir sensibilities of their origin period.
Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 08:29:21 AM
Quote from: Pat on April 01, 2022, 08:10:33 AM
Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:21:57 AM
Quote from: Reckall on April 01, 2022, 06:35:12 AM
Quote from: jeff37923 on March 28, 2022, 10:57:38 AM
What the title suggests. The link below is what CRACKED.com thinks they are, but I've only heard of two of them.
https://www.cracked.com/article_33173_4-tabletop-rpgs-that-are-way-better-than-dd.html?fbclid=IwAR37r6hPMz-RLssG60m-xV2t43GzwSSJfLe-j8FB8PMKUSdQbonHnxtFS3o
"If you think Lord of the Rings sucks, then maybe you've been turned off of D&D entirely, because c'mon, the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork."
The depth of the research is astounding.
While obviously D&D drew inspiration from a number of sources and not just Tolkien, there are also elements that are incredibly obviously taken from Tolkien and couldn't come from anywhere else. Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings? That's straight up Tolkien. Tolkien's influence on D&D gets both overplayed and underplayed.
Tolkien invented humans? Silly interpretations aside, I think you're overstating the degree of congruence. The four races are the iconic ones who made up the Fellowship, but when you get into the specifics, they're very different.
There are certainly Tolkienesque elements in D&D, but I think the tendency is to overstate rather than understate them, simply because Tolkien's work is so widely known and recognizable. Cracked saying "the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork" is ridiculously wrong.
Now this is where it's getting ridiculous. Halflings are straight up copied from Tolkien, and can't come from anywhere else. Elves are also closer to Tolkien Elves than any other imagination of a creature called an Elf before then. Dwarves you could make some argument for being more generic, but they're also quite a lot like Tolkien Dwarves.
No, to suggest that the four core races are anything other than primarily inspired by Tolkien (whether it was reluctantly done by Gary is irrelevant) is wishful thinking - an overreaction to the claim that D&D is just inspired by Tolkien.
Elves in D&D are short. They cast fireballs. They don't have any real woodland abilities. They can't walk on snow. They're level-capped, instead of being vastly more powerful. Why do AD&D elves have a Con penalty? Why are they resistant to charm? Humans don't include high men with elven ancestry and extended lives. Half-elves don't get to choose whether they're elves or human. Wizards aren't divine spirits. Why do demihumans have infravision?
And that's the core races, which are superficially the most Tolkienesque aspect of the game, barring a few very specific cases like treants and elven cloak and boots. How many swords glow only when goblins are around? How many magic items are based on the Phial of Galadriel? How many herbs can only be used by a true king? Where are the ringwraiths? Even when Tolkien and D&D share some core roots, like wights/barrow wights, there's almost always absolutely nothing about the D&D version that suggests the source was Tolkien.
Even more importantly, the design and structure of the game is nothing like anything in Tolkien. The idea that characters start weak and level up is nothing like Tolkien. The magic system is entirely different. The core premise isn't grand quests or tragedies, but money-grubbing. Even dungeon crawls are nothing like Moria.
There are some elements cribbed from Tolkien, but calling it a "direct rip-off" is completely absurd.
Quote from: Valatar on March 30, 2022, 08:28:36 PM
1. Genesys/Fantasy Flight Star Wars
2. Shadowrun
3. Warhammer Fantasy 2e
4. World of Darkness*
Genesys despite being burdened by custom dice is excellent at doing fairly cinematic play where little stuff doesn't bog down the game and big stuff is appropriately challenging. Shadowrun, by which I specify 3rd and 4th editions as the sweet spot for the series, is fantastic for having a whole rainbow of character options for how someone wants to play. WFRP2 throws a brutal gory vibe into the whole fantasy genre that is extremely fun to play. And WoD, well. I prefer the original 90s setting but the nWoD ruleset, which helped make fights vastly less of a slog. I haven't kept up with the versions since then as the property spirals the drain.
Aren't those all official games? My topic was about games used for those settings, but are not those games.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 01, 2022, 08:37:57 AM
Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:37:20 AM
Tolkien is also the most obvious especially if you're looking at Basic D&D that most people started with. The makeup of the adventuring party is straight up Tolkien. And while Leiber is the inspiration for the Thief class, it's easy to forgive people for thinking that's from the Hobbit, with Bilbo being a 'Burrahobbit'. The only element that is front and center that really doesn't look like Tolkien is the Cleric class. With a slight tweak, if you dropped it and had the Elf using Cleric spells instead of Magic-User and it would suddenly look more like Tolkien again - with Frodo only able to get healing from the Elves at Rivendell.
You had to read Appendix N to really see where the inspiration all came from, and back in the day the AD&D DMG was supposed to be DM's eyes only. With that Gygax's choice to split the game up like that is also responsible for that misconception.
Well, you left out "Vancian" magic, which is not a small thing. Also Howard's Conan.
The thief is a mix of Leiber and Vance. You are forgetting Cugel and some of the lesser characters in the Vance stories. Plus, you don't have to read Appendix N to see it. You just have to read the books that are in Appendix N one way or the other. The trick is that the influence runs more widely and deep, which is I think Armchair Gamer's point. The more widely and deep you read in Appendix N, the more you see the varied influences. When the Red Box sets were in the Sears Christmas catalog and D&D was really taking off as a thing, you could still get most of the Appendix N books in actual books stores (back when those were a thing). A lot of people played D&D in the first place because they had read some of those books, not the other way around.
Also see Andre Norton and Poul Anderson, whose influence on D&D is not limited to occasional monsters (Anderson's troll for example) but is less obvious from a tone and feel. Though some of the more obvious feel connections are tricky, because Anderson wrote them after D&D was a thing. Anyway, people are interested in myth and fantasy, full stop. Where that interest begins, varies.
Yes, Anderson is a huge influence. Alignments, paladins, even the trolls. Same with Leiber, Merritt, Burroughs, Vance, and more. One of the points I've been making is that people unfamiliar with those writers but familiar with Tolkien will tend to overplay the Tolkien influences because that's all they see.
D&D primarily gets its inspiration for its gameplay and look and feel from a mix of historical wargaming and the appendix N sources, not Tolkien. D&D in many ways is more sword & sorcery than epic fantasy.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 01, 2022, 04:29:01 AM
The trick with Dark Sun is to set any new campaign just before or just after Kalak's death, and ignore all the published metaplot after that. (Almost) anything a GM comes up with for their home campaign will be better than what was printed. Or at least break even.
Yup, that's pretty much what I've done every time I've had the chance to play the setting. I usually start the campaign right as Kalak is getting killed, and the PCs who're slaves take the chance to escape during the commotion.
Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 04:58:02 AM
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 31, 2022, 07:06:09 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 31, 2022, 04:37:28 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on March 31, 2022, 03:53:39 PMI look at it the other way: Static settings let you know that nothing your character does matters because the setting just reboots to the start again.
Static settings are designed with 'Here is what is going on, how do you wanna change it?'. More often then not, they are written with YOU being the main changer in mind.
Active setting generally suffer from 'Level 65 God King Is planning an attack on an army of 22 Demon Princes, how will you stand and watch?'. Active settings with assumed proactive PCs just tend to wind down (Dark Sun, Golarion) as the active threats are taken out.
The metaplot destroyed Dark Sun and the Revised & Expanded boxed set was complete crap because of it (plus all the uninspired crap that got added that wasn't part of the original). And I still think that Dark Sun was the greatest D&D setting ever created, but when I say that, I'm talking about the original boxed set and initial supplements that truly expanded on the OG boxed set. Everything that came after was complete crap. Even the novels sucked after the first two or three books (though, I barely remember them now and lost them to a termite infestation so I can't reread em).
What was good with DS Revised is re-adjusting the Strength scores. Percentile Strength really messed with the 5-20 ability score range.
Yeah, Percentile Str was a mess in general, even outside of Dark Sun I hated it. But characters being able to start at 19-20 Str made it even more jarring.
QuoteIs another good example of a deflated less interesting universe over time.
So much of the mystery is gone. The world post changes is duller and less interesting.
In addition mystery is a limited quantity.
Dunno, for me it's generally on simmilar level of massive kitchen-sinkness. And again the virtue of RPG setting is - you decide how much to move with setting evolution.
But then I generally despise published settings with some big myshterhies that even authors of game clearly didn't think through - for me it's anathema of proper worldbuilding.
Quote from: Wrath of God on April 01, 2022, 10:22:35 PMBut then I generally despise published settings with some big myshterhies that even authors of game clearly didn't think through - for me it's anathema of proper worldbuilding.
I don't understand how a mystery that you as a GM and your group gets to resolve, is worse then somesort of pre-planned thing where things just get safer and more boring.
Golarion as a kitchen sink was like a continent of problems. Each country made no sense, but existed to be a catalyst for adventure. Resolve those problems and you just have a patchwork of boring nonsense.
Quote from: Wrath of God on April 01, 2022, 05:58:44 AM
QuoteThe trick with Dark Sun is to set any new campaign just before or just after Kalak's death, and ignore all the published metaplot after that. (Almost) anything a GM comes up with for their home campaign will be better than what was printed. Or at least break even.
Now without any knowledge about DS metaplot, that seems like good solution for any setting - pick moment you prefer.
More editions moving things through - well fine you have more moments to choose.
And since moment you start playing rest of metaplot simply does not matter.
Kalak's death is specifically a good starting point for a new Dark Sun game, because it kicks off a ton of opportunities for adventure with the power vaccum created by the death of a Sorcerrer King.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AM
First off, you're linking to Cracked and you should feel bad about that. They haven't been funny or insightful for years now.
Secondly, that list is hilariously stupid. Traveller games can be just as deranged as D&D games. I've never even HEARD of Brindlewood Bay (and it sounds more like a craptastic ripoff of Clue, to be honest). Mork Borg has been covered before, and it ranges from excessively woke to excessively nihilistic. And Gloomhaven sounds more like a boardgame than an RPG -- why is it even on the list?
Fuck, I think I lost brain cells parsing this article. Dammit, Jeff...
This thread is tainted now.
Quote from: VengerSatanis on April 02, 2022, 10:37:27 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AM
First off, you're linking to Cracked and you should feel bad about that. They haven't been funny or insightful for years now.
Secondly, that list is hilariously stupid. Traveller games can be just as deranged as D&D games. I've never even HEARD of Brindlewood Bay (and it sounds more like a craptastic ripoff of Clue, to be honest). Mork Borg has been covered before, and it ranges from excessively woke to excessively nihilistic. And Gloomhaven sounds more like a boardgame than an RPG -- why is it even on the list?
Fuck, I think I lost brain cells parsing this article. Dammit, Jeff...
This thread is tainted now.
This thread wallows in the taint of VengerSatanis and uses it to shine its dark glossy finish....
"If you: want to play as a mystery solving granny..."
Not even a tiny, tiny bit. No.
GM: "Everyone, roll up a mystery-solving granny."
Me:
(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogspot.com%2F-dQ8svtmIPxI%2FW8n4mNP5-UI%2FAAAAAAAAJ88%2FKY4eNXe0yGoj4QUq8sQvIYpWtN60V3eKgCK4BGAYYCw%2Fs640%2Fq2zj1arogime35uctdrf.jpeg&f=1&nofb=1)
QuoteI don't understand how a mystery that you as a GM and your group gets to resolve, is worse then somesort of pre-planned thing where things just get safer and more boring.
Golarion as a kitchen sink was like a continent of problems. Each country made no sense, but existed to be a catalyst for adventure. Resolve those problems and you just have a patchwork of boring nonsense.
And how many of those can you resolve.
Like you had 24 APs for Pathfinder. Probably like 18 solved big threats, and remodeled some bigger situation on continent. That's not as much ultimately - but more importantly when you start to play - you don't take Golarion after 24 AP's - you take fresh one and then mold it to your taste by starting own timeline.
About first - because I generally dislike in wordlbuilding even kitchensinkey - just leaving some BIG MYSTERY of setting than authors clearly had no idea about - this is Aroden's death for Golarion.
If I want to add to setting I'm gonna add and carve my own mystery - I don't need such pidgeonholing.
Quote from: Zalman on April 02, 2022, 02:59:10 PM
GM: "Everyone, roll up a mystery-solving granny."
Me:
(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogspot.com%2F-dQ8svtmIPxI%2FW8n4mNP5-UI%2FAAAAAAAAJ88%2FKY4eNXe0yGoj4QUq8sQvIYpWtN60V3eKgCK4BGAYYCw%2Fs640%2Fq2zj1arogime35uctdrf.jpeg&f=1&nofb=1)
Done.
A.I.M. has created and deployed G.O.F.S.M. the Granny Only For Solving Mysteries and now Thor or the Thing will have to fight her at some point I presume.
(https://i.imgur.com/031tIKq.png)
" Odin's beard! It rolled right up to me! It's grasping mine ankle in its mechanical claw and accuseth me of murdering someone! Could this vile contraption be a weapon left on Earth since ancient times by the Warrior Kree that has slept through the millennia and only now somehow been unearthed and reactivated by...the scampish antisocial vibrations of litterbugs and casual users of profanity? The noble son of Asgard must needs restrain his mighty fury for now! Begone demon! I know not of this Carl the organic grocer that though dost e'en now insist I have sent to the domain of dreaded Hela! If this be not mischief and thou canst prove thy claims then summon the police! Thor hath nothing to hide! "
Quote from: Wrath of God on April 02, 2022, 06:49:47 PMAnd how many of those can you resolve.
However much you like. A RPG world isn't a novel. JJ abrams isn't selling you a mystery box. I do not understand why a mystery, intentionally unanswered, in an interactive media, bothers you so much.
Answered mysteries and pre-planned adventures aren't pidgeonholes, but a open ended mystery is?
Yeah sort of that my take.
Because I can cherry pick them, and make my own, while this weird mystery in a middle of setting gonna bother me.
Just because I can invent own solution for that as GM... it's kinda not satysfying. I'd rather either use published material and tweak for my team... or... invent some mystery from get go and drop it into setting on my own. Either specific stuff or just free space to build my own shit - no black holes of shroedingerian uncertainity.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on April 02, 2022, 07:21:38 PM
Quote from: Wrath of God on April 02, 2022, 06:49:47 PMAnd how many of those can you resolve.
However much you like. A RPG world isn't a novel. JJ abrams isn't selling you a mystery box. I do not understand why a mystery, intentionally unanswered, in an interactive media, bothers you so much.
Answered mysteries and pre-planned adventures aren't pidgeonholes, but a open ended mystery is?
Pigeonholing might not be the right term for it, but I find the advantage of a published setting or adventure is that players of different groups can share the same experience and talk about it. So if it's a mystery that's answered for the GM, and just the players have to figure it out in play, it is that shared experience. If you have a mystery that's hinted at, but not answered, you might as well have something that the GM created from scratch, because there won't be that shared experience. Then you'd rather be talking about a fully homebrew campaign, or something that just happened in a sandbox.
Precisely. I can mess up with setting on my own, not need to have left purposeful holes to fill by authors.
Especially when if I play multiple campaigns - I will carve own alternate timeline anyway.
I would really like setting that is shown across thousand years of evolution without given assumption of start 0 - no GM and players pick start 0 and anything later is non-canon for them, simple as it is. And just as so - setting evolution across editions and APs is not that important unless you have some weird parasocial relation with canon in RPG.
And I rather mess with existing features than see places that are bland just for sake of it.
Like Sembia in old FR - WHATEVER LAND FOR GM SKETCHES is like utterly non-inspiring compared to still fairly bland Sembia as merchant republic in shadow of former Netheril.
Quote from: migo on April 03, 2022, 03:38:22 AMPigeonholing might not be the right term for it, but I find the advantage of a published setting or adventure is that players of different groups can share the same experience and talk about it.
But I see the advantage of RPGs as a customized experience. Not as bootleg MMOs.
Quote from: Wrath of God on April 03, 2022, 05:00:50 AM
Precisely. I can mess up with setting on my own, not need to have left purposeful holes to fill by authors.
Il be honest this just sounds so...bizzare to me. So utterly bizzare I don't know where to begin to comprehend it.
QuoteIl be honest this just sounds so...bizzare to me. So utterly bizzare I don't know where to begin to comprehend it.
What can I say for me it's like most obvious thing.
And look I totally get mysteries they left around for new AP or Society Year. I'm just pissed about one that's clearly meant to be empty place for GM.
Srsly if I wanna setting with empty places for GM I'll take map of Kazakhstan, interpose hexmap on it, and start to randomly roll for content :P
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on April 03, 2022, 12:03:19 PM
Quote from: migo on April 03, 2022, 03:38:22 AMPigeonholing might not be the right term for it, but I find the advantage of a published setting or adventure is that players of different groups can share the same experience and talk about it.
But I see the advantage of RPGs as a customized experience. Not as bootleg MMOs.
But if you're paying money, you don't want to have to homebrew it yourself anyway. You want to get what you paid for. If you make it from scratch, you can, and then don't pay anything at all. If you want to change it, that's also fine, but if you're spending money you should get something complete.
Quote from: migo on April 03, 2022, 04:20:07 PMBut if you're paying money, you don't want to have to homebrew it yourself anyway. You want to get what you paid for. If you make it from scratch, you can, and then don't pay anything at all. If you want to change it, that's also fine, but if you're spending money you should get something complete.
I personally see a 'framework' of the world as the most difficult and time consuming part to develop. Conclusions to story threads are the funnest bit, especially if I don't have to work everything else around them.
Worlds built around a specific resolution become more and more barren the further off track from this plan. While 'Adventure hook worlds' have the 'detail' spread around much more evenly.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 31, 2022, 04:37:28 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on March 31, 2022, 03:53:39 PMI look at it the other way: Static settings let you know that nothing your character does matters because the setting just reboots to the start again.
Static settings are designed with 'Here is what is going on, how do you wanna change it?'. More often then not, they are written with YOU being the main changer in mind.
Active setting generally suffer from 'Level 65 God King Is planning an attack on an army of 22 Demon Princes, how will you stand and watch?'. Active settings with assumed proactive PCs just tend to wind down (Dark Sun, Golarion) as the active threats are taken out.
If you look at the Realms aka the longest lasting metaplot in DnD history you never run out of active threats.
The same is true with the second longest metaplot aka Dragonlance.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 31, 2022, 07:30:05 PM
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 31, 2022, 07:06:09 PMThe metaplot destroyed Dark Sun.
Yup. Either a setting becomes 'Solved' or hopeless, as things become cyclical and go nowhere. Metaplots suck for TRPGs
Everyone knows that the Metaplot did not destroy Dark Sun - it was the Halflings (and TSR going insolvent but I repeat myself)
QuoteIf you look at the Realms aka the longest lasting metaplot in DnD history you never run out of active threats.
The same is true with the second longest metaplot aka Dragonlance.
Yup. Alas dunno if Golarion can work that way. Something new demands itself to be introduced.
But then most of FR great catastrophes opening each edition were not well accepted by fans, so maybe truly Paizo gonna produce APs till there is no serious problem to solve.
I just skimmed through 2nd edition of Tal'Dorei setting and clearly Mercer did something like that to amend for routine murderhoboing of duergars and goblins in Vox Machina, now all humanoid races lives in peace in love in cosmopolitan cities, and all conflicts between orcs, goblins and other races were solved by empathy, understanding and apparently full fertility between all races including Dragonborn.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 01, 2022, 04:29:01 AM
The trick with Dark Sun is to set any new campaign just before or just after Kalak's death, and ignore all the published metaplot after that. (Almost) anything a GM comes up with for their home campaign will be better than what was printed. Or at least break even.
The single thing I did like about Revised was killing off Abalech-Re and leaving Raam a hotbed of chaotic upheaval. In every other "Death of a Sorcerer King" scenario, some semblance of order within he respective city-state was established with each death.
I want to use the original rules for the Dark Sun setting, and include that ruler's death to set up a Raam campaign.
The four games that I think are better than D&D are:
1. SWADE
2. Shadowrun (any edition, but preferably 4E)
3. Talislanta (any edition, but preferably 2E)
4. Atlantis (Bard Games)
Quote from: Dropbear on April 03, 2022, 08:27:21 PM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 01, 2022, 04:29:01 AM
The trick with Dark Sun is to set any new campaign just before or just after Kalak's death, and ignore all the published metaplot after that. (Almost) anything a GM comes up with for their home campaign will be better than what was printed. Or at least break even.
The single thing I did like about Revised was killing off Abalech-Re and leaving Raam a hotbed of chaotic upheaval. In every other "Death of a Sorcerer King" scenario, some semblance of order within he respective city-state was established with each death.
I want to use the original rules for the Dark Sun setting, and include that ruler's death to set up a Raam campaign.
Maybe "all" was too harsh. I'm sure DMs can salvage interesting bits and pieces out of the metaplot.
Quote from: tenbones on March 28, 2022, 05:47:15 PM
Any of them that has a good GM.
So true. I'd say 4 great games (possibly better than D&D, possibly not, YMMV) are
Runequest - myth-making and world are just detailed enough to get by with the basics, and there's sooooo much stuff out there that you can use, abuse or lose (as Greg says, Your Glorantha May Vary)
Call of Cthulhu. 1st of the "you get to play a normal person and the monsters are still monsters" games. "Winning means going mad, losing all your friends and being locked away as a dangerous lunatic. Good luck)
Shadows of Esteren - system sucks but the world just oozes gothic greatness.
Paranoia - the ultimate palette cleanser. Not suitable for long campaigns. Awesome fun though.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 28, 2022, 09:36:00 PM
Counter argument: There are a lot of people playing D&D who probably would be better served by storygames or board games.
There is a lot of truth in this...
A whole lot of people would actually enjoy Dungeon World more than D&D mechanically, except for the fact that DW does not say Dungeons and Dragons on the cover...
Quote from: VisionStorm on March 29, 2022, 07:28:33 PM
Quote from: Jaeger on March 29, 2022, 05:51:18 PM
Early D6 is a great and well thought out system.
In my opinion, it would have had a greater impact and longer legs within the hobby if it was properly converted to a count success die-pool system as opposed to adding dice values.
I think such a d6 system like that introduced pre Shadowrun/Vampire could have become very prevalent. But such is 20/20 hindsight.
I somewhat prefer success counting dice pools, but some people hate them for some reason. ...
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 29, 2022, 11:11:15 PM
Counting successes can feel unreliable and swingy. Doesn't mean its a bad system, but thats AN explanation.
In Fairness, when count success systems first hit like Vampire/Shadowrun; They were a mathematical mess. And they made some strong negative first impressions that linger to this day.
The issues with count successes systems are in the past now that more game designers realize that you do actually need to pay attention to probabilities, because your customers surely will!
But negative perceptions linger.
That's why I wish WEG did a count successes conversion. It would have been a solid design, and set a standard for others to emulate.
Was there more problems with WOD pool counting aside of -1 success for 1 scewing overall probabilities?
Quote from: Wrath of God on April 05, 2022, 08:09:02 PM
Was there more problems with WOD pool counting aside of -1 success for 1 scewing overall probabilities?
I want to say something in old WOD was as bad as set the target number of success, the DC of a success, and dice penalties on top of one's subtract and whether or not ones form an exploding die subtract. Good luck setting the difficulty of the check/test appropriately.
QuoteI want to say something in old WOD was as bad as set the target number of success, the DC of a success, and dice penalties on top of one's subtract and whether or not ones form an exploding die subtract. Good luck setting the difficulty of the check/test appropriately.
Yeah I think two axis table: DC as pure difficulty vs. number of success as time restrictions let's say would be suitable.
Maybe count all 1's as COMPLICATIONS that does not influence your passing test or not really, just minor thing.
Quote from: Wrath of God on April 05, 2022, 08:28:16 PM
QuoteI want to say something in old WOD was as bad as set the target number of success, the DC of a success, and dice penalties on top of one's subtract and whether or not ones form an exploding die subtract. Good luck setting the difficulty of the check/test appropriately.
Yeah I think two axis table: DC as pure difficulty vs. number of success as time restrictions let's say would be suitable.
Maybe count all 1's as COMPLICATIONS that does not influence your passing test or not really, just minor thing.
StoryPath got the resolution mechanic right, mostly one success to pass and extra success buy off complication and add additional effects and no further rolling to resolve damage in combat. Unfortunately it insists on trying to ruin a good RPG by smearing it with storygame mechanics and ditching some of my favorite mechanics from earlier editions.
There are probably dozens of games that are better than D&D for whatever you want to do... EXCEPT if you want a game that all your friends probably know and like.
Now, even some of my favorites are not necessarily better than D&D. Let's see...
- GURPS is easy and realistic, but has too many skills and the "Charisma/perception" thing doesn't work very well.
- Shadow of the Demon Lord is simpler, faster and, in some ways, cooler than D&D, but at higher levels you're piling up so many boons you can easily get lost.
- I haven't played 13A but from reading it, it becomes too epic, too fast, with too many dice.
- Dungeon World has some cool ideas but doesn't manage to feel like D&D. Too many HP at level 1 and doesn't really get you from zero to hero.
- Runequest/Mythras etc. has a very simple core with more detail than D&D, but still have some issues (the excessive background modifiers IMO).
- Other than that, there are specific "genre" games (CoC, Pendragon, UA, etc.) that beat D&D in genres D&D is not meant to be used.
And then there are games that are HEAVILY inspired by D&D (such as my own and all retroclones), which is not really a fair comparison, but... I prefer some of them over the original versions.
The one thing that beats all old school D&D versions IMO is Delta's Target 20 mechanic. Just make everything simpler and better.
A good GM will run the game that they are "into" and they will convert their players if they do their due-diligence.
My group tends to have gaming inertia. Getting them to try new things is *difficult* unless I come with the hard sell, but I have to have i's and t's dotted and crossed, the ducks lined up, the barrels full o' fish with naked dancers oiled up and ready to go, in order to get them to try something new, over something that I've already established with them as a known quantity.
D&D obviously is the big tent under which all other RPG's are played for most people... but frankly, if you're in this hobby for any length of time, especially these days, you're an absolute fucking fool for not trying some of the cool systems and settings out there right now. There is obvious comfort in familiarity, sure, and I'm not suggesting changing systems/settings beyond a handful, but it's always good for a GM to shake things up. That means you have to be more hungry than your players, as well as more curious.
D&D Fantasy as a trope is already better served by other systems - and it's well emulated according to what most people like. You want a little more "verisimilitude" - Runequest/Mythas, you want a little more tactical? go Dungeonworld or 13th Age or something. You want more scalability and flexibility with less rulesbloat? Go Savage Worlds. You want things more streamlined and Basic - go OSR.
In the end - you're still doing Fighters, Thieves, Mages and Clerics dungeondiving/Hexcrawling/tactical-combat simulating to your hearts glee. It still gonna take a Good GM to win them over.
D&D is its own thing. I don't think it does anything in 5e particularly good that other systems might not specialize in doing better - depending on the emphasis you're looking for. I don't even think 5e does D&D Fantasy particularly better than older editions. But it has the massive weight of its brand to cast its net vastly further and wider to draw people in and hold them. It's the GM's jobs, if they're *really* interested, in luring those players out to new vistas. And that takes skill, and/or a lot of frustration and dissatisfaction with what is being served AND understanding WHY, then having the wherewithal to outline those needs and put it into action using another system to mitigate those perceived issues.
Whether those issues are objective or subjective is irrelevant. You're the GM.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AMMork Borg has been covered before, and it ranges from excessively woke to excessively nihilistic.
Mork Borg being dark, satanic, and nihilistic, it does sound like it should be a contradiction somewhere, but somehow I think you're completely right that it's woke. I'd still like to hear how though?
Quote from: Trond on April 06, 2022, 11:07:26 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AMMork Borg has been covered before, and it ranges from excessively woke to excessively nihilistic.
Mork Borg being dark, satanic, and nihilistic, it does sound like it should be a contradiction somewhere, but somehow I think you're completely right that it's woke. I'd still like to hear how though?
From our infamous Redlist:
" Uses OGL to shoot down authors they disagree with. Supports BLM and bailing out rioters. "
Woke and dark are not contradictory because woke itself is contradictory. Woke thrives on principles of subversion and destruction before alternating to manic utopian-ism.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 06, 2022, 01:38:00 PM
Quote from: Trond on April 06, 2022, 11:07:26 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AMMork Borg has been covered before, and it ranges from excessively woke to excessively nihilistic.
Mork Borg being dark, satanic, and nihilistic, it does sound like it should be a contradiction somewhere, but somehow I think you're completely right that it's woke. I'd still like to hear how though?
From our infamous Redlist:
" Uses OGL to shoot down authors they disagree with. Supports BLM and bailing out rioters. "
Oh wow. As someone who saw the riots up close that's a hard no from me.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on April 06, 2022, 02:29:29 PM
Woke and dark are not contradictory because woke itself is contradictory. Woke thrives on principles of subversion and destruction before alternating to manic utopian-ism.
Quote from: G.K. Chesterton, link=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1695/1695-h/1695-h.htm
This is a vast philosophic movement, consisting of an outer and an inner ring. You might even call the outer ring the laity and the inner ring the priesthood. I prefer to call the outer ring the innocent section, the inner ring the supremely guilty section. The outer ring—the main mass of their supporters—are merely anarchists; that is, men who believe that rules and formulas have destroyed human happiness. They believe that all the evil results of human crime are the results of the system that has called it crime. They do not believe that the crime creates the punishment. They believe that the punishment has created the crime. They believe that if a man seduced seven women he would naturally walk away as blameless as the flowers of spring. They believe that if a man picked a pocket he would naturally feel exquisitely good. These I call the innocent section."
...
"Naturally, therefore, these people talk about 'a happy time coming'; 'the paradise of the future'; 'mankind freed from the bondage of vice and the bondage of virtue,' and so on. And so also the men of the inner circle speak—the sacred priesthood. They also speak to applauding crowds of the happiness of the future, and of mankind freed at last. But in their mouths ... in their mouths these happy phrases have a horrible meaning. They are under no illusions; they are too intellectual to think that man upon this earth can ever be quite free of original sin and the struggle. And they mean death. When they say that mankind shall be free at last, they mean that mankind shall commit suicide. When they talk of a paradise without right or wrong, they mean the grave.
"They have but two objects, to destroy first humanity and then themselves. That is why they throw bombs instead of firing pistols. The innocent rank and file are disappointed because the bomb has not killed the king; but the high-priesthood are happy because it has killed somebody."
--G.K. Chesterton,
The Man Who Was Thursday
Greetings!
The Mork Borg game is very interesting and inspiring. Some have said that the game is really a kind of "Artistic Coffee-table Book". I somewhat disagree with that assessment. As a DM, I find that the game "system", such as it is, is indeed very quick and simple. I can see how the rules as presented are "Compete" in the sense that they provide the framework for everything that Mork Borg is primarily intended to do. The rules, however, are not what some would call or certainly desire as being "Comprehensive". Mork Borg is not designed to be a heavy, comprehensive game system. Light, quick, and simple. So, I think the rules provided in the main rulebook deliver on that premise and goal.
I own the main Mork Borg rulebook, and one supplement, "Roads to Damnation".
I think I paid $25 bucks for the rulebook, and $15 bucks for the "Roads to Damnation" supplement. Less than $50 bucks total though. "Roads to Damnation" is a supplement dealing with travel in the game world, random encounters, monsters, exploring ruins, and several mini-scenarios.
The Mork Borg game seems very much "Doom Metal" and is all about strange, doomed characters seeking to survive in an apocalyptic world that is doomed to come to a fiery end, actually much sooner than later. The artwork is intriguing and inspiring. The book's themes, rules, and art, combined, present lots of interesting and inspiring elements for a DM to play the game with their group, or to be inspired at using such elements in their own game world. Mork Borg is dark, Heavy Metal, apocalyptic. The classes in the game for example, are Fanged Deserter, Gutter-born Scum, Esoteric Hermit, Wretched Royalty, Heretical Priest, Occult Herbmaster. There are more than a few elements in the rulebook that are hilarious as well. Dark, funny, over the top doomed, grim, and based. I would say it is well-worth purchasing. I am glad that I bought the Mork Borg book and a supplement. Both of which have been inspiring, entertaining, humorous, and darkly fun. And Heavy Metal.
That is my assessment and recommendation.
I would also add that Professor Dungeon Master also recommends Mork Borg--and the good Professor Dungeon Master is, to the best of my knowledge, neither woke, or an atheist or Satanist. I'm pretty confident Professor Dungeon Master is a Christian. Professor Duneon Master is a long-time DM and fan of D&D and RPG's. He runs the Dungeoncraft Youtibe channel. With his Deathbringer Chaos Warrior miniature. *Laughing* Dungeoncraft is an awesome YouTube channel, too. Professor Dungeon Master presents a weekly program on his channel, typically each being interesting and fun commentary and discussion for 20 minutes or less.
As for Twitter and whatever--I don't do Twitter, Facebook, or anything like that. I am simply presenting what I have gained from the rulebook itself, one game supplement, and as mentioned, one YouTube recommendation. (Dungeoncraft program does an episode discussing Mork Borg and recommends the Mork Borg book).
So, there you go. SHARK lights up a pipe and enjoys some fresh brewed coffee. Good stuff.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on April 06, 2022, 02:44:58 PM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on April 06, 2022, 02:29:29 PM
Woke and dark are not contradictory because woke itself is contradictory. Woke thrives on principles of subversion and destruction before alternating to manic utopian-ism.
Quote from: G.K. Chesterton, link=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1695/1695-h/1695-h.htm
This is a vast philosophic movement, consisting of an outer and an inner ring. You might even call the outer ring the laity and the inner ring the priesthood. I prefer to call the outer ring the innocent section, the inner ring the supremely guilty section. The outer ring—the main mass of their supporters—are merely anarchists; that is, men who believe that rules and formulas have destroyed human happiness. They believe that all the evil results of human crime are the results of the system that has called it crime. They do not believe that the crime creates the punishment. They believe that the punishment has created the crime. They believe that if a man seduced seven women he would naturally walk away as blameless as the flowers of spring. They believe that if a man picked a pocket he would naturally feel exquisitely good. These I call the innocent section."
...
"Naturally, therefore, these people talk about 'a happy time coming'; 'the paradise of the future'; 'mankind freed from the bondage of vice and the bondage of virtue,' and so on. And so also the men of the inner circle speak—the sacred priesthood. They also speak to applauding crowds of the happiness of the future, and of mankind freed at last. But in their mouths ... in their mouths these happy phrases have a horrible meaning. They are under no illusions; they are too intellectual to think that man upon this earth can ever be quite free of original sin and the struggle. And they mean death. When they say that mankind shall be free at last, they mean that mankind shall commit suicide. When they talk of a paradise without right or wrong, they mean the grave.
"They have but two objects, to destroy first humanity and then themselves. That is why they throw bombs instead of firing pistols. The innocent rank and file are disappointed because the bomb has not killed the king; but the high-priesthood are happy because it has killed somebody."
--G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday
The quote is probably 100 years old. Who is Chesterton talking about? Communists?
Quote from: Trond on April 06, 2022, 07:03:56 PM
The quote is probably 100 years old. Who is Chesterton talking about? Communists?
Anarchists. But I see philosophical commonalities between many of the revolutionary movements of the past few centuries. "Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again." :)
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on April 06, 2022, 08:44:17 PM
Quote from: Trond on April 06, 2022, 07:03:56 PM
The quote is probably 100 years old. Who is Chesterton talking about? Communists?
Anarchists. But I see philosophical commonalities between many of the revolutionary movements of the past few centuries. "Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again." :)
It started with Rousseau, which Chesterton well knew. He couched it in the language of that crowd as they existed at the time.
The Man Who Was Thursday is a masterpiece that will
never be recognized as such because it is short, seems simple at first glance, and because of who and how it pokes.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 06, 2022, 09:52:02 PM
The Man Who Was Thursday is a masterpiece that will never be recognized as such because it is short, seems simple at first glance, and because of who and how it pokes.
It did, however, make it into the Recommended Reading list of an RPG—
Castle Falkenstein—which is how I discovered it. There are good reading lists in the hobby beyond Appendix N. :)
Quote from: SHARK on April 06, 2022, 03:57:11 PM
I'm pretty confident Professor Dungeon Master is a Christian.
Interesting leap. I'll give you 3-to-1 odds he's Jewish.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 06, 2022, 01:38:00 PM
Quote from: Trond on April 06, 2022, 11:07:26 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AMMork Borg has been covered before, and it ranges from excessively woke to excessively nihilistic.
Mork Borg being dark, satanic, and nihilistic, it does sound like it should be a contradiction somewhere, but somehow I think you're completely right that it's woke. I'd still like to hear how though?
From our infamous Redlist:
" Uses OGL to shoot down authors they disagree with. Supports BLM and bailing out rioters. "
But does the game itself contain any 'wokeness'? If it's just the author/company and the game isn't dripping in that stuff that's a difference worth mentioning.
Based on Shark's review it doesn't sound like the game is really an issue. If that's the case I may try to find a way to get a copy that doesn't give them money (2nd hand or something) rather than avoid it outright.
Quote from: rgalex on April 08, 2022, 07:29:40 AM
If that's the case I may try to find a way to get a copy that doesn't give them money (2nd hand or something) rather than avoid it outright.
And do what with it? If you play it, write content for it, or even talk about it you are generating publicity, sales, and profit for its creators.
Quote from: Zalman on April 08, 2022, 09:47:07 AM
Quote from: rgalex on April 08, 2022, 07:29:40 AM
If that's the case I may try to find a way to get a copy that doesn't give them money (2nd hand or something) rather than avoid it outright.
And do what with it? If you play it, write content for it, or even talk about it you are generating publicity, sales, and profit for its creators.
Play it. I only play with a group of friends, same group for over 15 years now. We play in a private house, not out in public. Us playing isn't going to generate jack or shit for anyone.
I guess we could talk about it, which is what's going on here. That may generate $$$ but it's not a sure thing. Letting people know about the shit the people behind the game do lets them make a choice about if and how they would want to get the game. I mean, Sharks take on it convinced me to look into it more but it's not going to get them any money from me.
Quote from: Zalman on April 08, 2022, 09:47:07 AM
Quote from: rgalex on April 08, 2022, 07:29:40 AM
If that's the case I may try to find a way to get a copy that doesn't give them money (2nd hand or something) rather than avoid it outright.
And do what with it? If you play it, write content for it, or even talk about it you are generating publicity, sales, and profit for its creators.
Citation needed.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 08, 2022, 10:21:28 AM
Quote from: Zalman on April 08, 2022, 09:47:07 AM
Quote from: rgalex on April 08, 2022, 07:29:40 AM
If that's the case I may try to find a way to get a copy that doesn't give them money (2nd hand or something) rather than avoid it outright.
And do what with it? If you play it, write content for it, or even talk about it you are generating publicity, sales, and profit for its creators.
Citation needed.
There's no such thing as bad press. You can see that with woke RPG designers wanting to get onto the redlist.