Quote from: David Johansen on February 04, 2022, 02:52:39 PM
I run GURPS lots.  And in a wide range of settings.  I've long maintained that SJG has failed to give GURPS the kind of support it needs to thrive in the market and they've argued back that they have cases of unsold books in the warehouse and micro transaction pdfs are the way of the future because they make money.

Part of the problem is that people don't associate GURPS with the tight core game, instead seeing the bloated, over built templates in fourth edition and thinking of it as homework the rpg.

Steve Jackson Games has done a number of one book Powered By GURPS games: World War II, Vorkosigian, Girl Genius, Myth, Disc World, and Hell Boy before he was a movie.  They haven't done as well as hoped.

I have long maintained that an official, free, GURPS Lite Fantasy supplement would do a great deal to promote GURPS and undermine the impression that it's over complex.

Powered by GURPS died a long time ago, and instead of GURPS Lite Fantasy, we got GURPS Dungeon Fantasy.

I'm not sure how to turn around GURPS. They seem locked in a spiral of appealing only to their most hardcore fans.

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 11:35:26 AM

Quote from: trechriron on February 03, 2022, 10:02:27 PM
Hey. I love GURPS 4e!! I'm currently running a bi-weekly game. :-D

You've been a unicorn for some time already. This seals it.

Quote from: trechriron on February 03, 2022, 10:02:27 PMI also dig Savage Worlds, but trying to make a high-powered urban fantasy port from an IP has proved... difficult. I feel like a little more granularity would help, but it's a nitpick. Overall, it's fun to GM and with those Fantasy Add-Ons I can tune up Powers and Arcane Backgrounds to taste.

Agreed. Granularity is sketchy (but not impossible) with SWADE. It becomes part of the requirement that you as a GM will do all the fine-tuning. There has only been one Savage Worlds setting I didn't have to tweak (to varying degrees, and always in adding a little granularity) - and that's Rifts.

Quote from: trechriron on February 03, 2022, 10:02:27 PMD6 is cool, but it desperately needs an update and standardization. Also, in Star Wars the bash-fest back-and-forth that seemed to go on forever was a problem. A SWADE combat is likely NOT going to drudge on and on...

Agreed. I'm confident a D6 refluff and streamlining could really make it shine again. But I'm not the guy to do it. I have too many irons in the fire as it is, heh. My SWADE combats are pretty brutally fast, rarely lasting more than a few rounds unless chases or lots of tactical movement is required.

Star Anvil Studios is working to update Open d6 and make it more playable from the pile of rpg parts that it's currently in.

Quote from: Pat on February 04, 2022, 06:27:13 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on February 04, 2022, 02:52:39 PM
I run GURPS lots.  And in a wide range of settings.  I've long maintained that SJG has failed to give GURPS the kind of support it needs to thrive in the market and they've argued back that they have cases of unsold books in the warehouse and micro transaction pdfs are the way of the future because they make money.

Part of the problem is that people don't associate GURPS with the tight core game, instead seeing the bloated, over built templates in fourth edition and thinking of it as homework the rpg.

Steve Jackson Games has done a number of one book Powered By GURPS games: World War II, Vorkosigian, Girl Genius, Myth, Disc World, and Hell Boy before he was a movie.  They haven't done as well as hoped.

I have long maintained that an official, free, GURPS Lite Fantasy supplement would do a great deal to promote GURPS and undermine the impression that it's over complex.

Powered by GURPS died a long time ago, and instead of GURPS Lite Fantasy, we got GURPS Dungeon Fantasy.

I'm not sure how to turn around GURPS. They seem locked in a spiral of appealing only to their most hardcore fans.

Which is a shame because the game really isn't that complicated, i think the range/speed modifier was probably the most complex part.

I am working on Savages & Sorcery a system that borrows from Heroquest board game, Warhammer Quest and some other sources. So that would be the one I'm evangelizing the most, but its not complete yet. But hella fun in our playtests!

Right now we are playing Swords and Six-Siders heavily modified with rules and roleplaying charts from Five Torches Deep and Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells, and some other modifications to the characters to give them a few interesting abilities and choices they did not have before. The setting we are playing is loosely based on Cyberlore's computer game Majesty, but I am tempted to bring in more elements from Beasts & Barbarians.

One system I am very strongly in love with is Shadow of the Demon Lord and have modified some of the classes there to fit a Sword & Sorcery-like campaign. (The Witch, mainly, became the Sorceress) The kingdoms I made for that campaign were developed with the upcoming Realms of Solace map and adventure game.

We recently ran a Forgotten Tales of Swords & Sorcery campaign with several modifications to feel like Microprose's Master of Magic world. We ended up using the proficiency system from Adventurer Conqueror King System in that campaign to help flesh out the characters and their abilities a little better.

System I would recommend:

- BX/Becmi: I mean, Pundit demonstrated that it can do even Urban Fantasy.

- Over the Edge 2e/ Warp system ;

- Lex Arcana 2e;

- Ben Robbins' Microscope & Co (Kingdom, In This World) : very good for worldbuilding.

My go-to system is the Barbarians of Lemuria family of systems ( including  Everywhen,  Honor + Intruige etc). I think that's the one I'm closest to be an evangelist for. And also TSR/OSR D&D.

These days anything heavily inspired by our own myths and history is the type of settings I really care about.
Hyborian Age and Middle-Earth would be my most preferred  settings in fantasy. And in recent years I've also started to favor Mythic Earth kinds of settings like Pendragon, Howards historically inspired stories, Hellas, ancient Scandinavia etc. It has also rubbed off on my preferred D&D settings. These days I embrace a generic but more medival-style kind of D&D campaign filled with classical D&D thropes. And not even bothering to come up with stuff like different pantheons but just use gods from real world mythology. Everything that is the antithesis of current year fantasy Seattle.

I enjoy many a game, and have attempted to convince folks to try about as many. That said, if I had to pick one it'd probably be Ascendant. I love how the stats all effectively have real world meaning. Helps me visualize and/or arbitrate. At the same time the resolution system is simple and elegant, being widely applicable enough that you aren't just buried in edge case rules that aren't easily remembered. To me it's simulation that has a very solid resolution system applicable to most anything, but with a meaning and ability to model most everything.


Also, I've tried and failed many a time to press for OSR within my group(s). AD&D was the one instance I really got to try DMing it for some folks, so I'll count it as the runner-up to recognize my prior evangelical efforts, lol. 

DELETE

I prefer Pathfinder 1st edition.  Yes, there is a lot of number crunching, but the character customization is hard to beat.

It's a shame that Pathfinder 2nd edition was so bad though...

Quote from: Nameless Mist on August 25, 2023, 08:30:34 PM
I prefer Pathfinder 1st edition.  Yes, there is a lot of number crunching, but the character customization is hard to beat.

It's a shame that Pathfinder 2nd edition was so bad though...

You should take a look at Savage Pathfinder - your character customization options will blow your mind.

I guess that the system I'm an Evangelist of is D&D 3/3.5E (with some of the "fixes" that Pathfinder did). I need to be a Evangelist because, somehow, it is usually dissed by the community.

My guess is that one must answer a key question: "Do you play the 'crunch', or the crunch is a method to express the 'lore' (AKA 'fluff')?"

To me and my players it is the latter. D&D 3/3.5E had, at least in many official products, a level of quality in the text, and even maturity, I seldom find in the competition. That's where I start from. When I read about the Malconvoker Prestige Class I immediately found the answer to a problem I had in my campaign. I even created the NPC but I don't think I ever used the stats. It was the character the important thing, not the related crunch.

Regarding the crunch... what I can say? I flatly disagree with all those people who min-max a 20th level character "proving" that you can use tactical nukes up stat, as characters evolve organically - they don't spring to life like Athena from the head of Zeus. I liked the feats because they reminded me of the Advantages in GURPS (and I missed negative feats in 3E).

Even here, some "min-maxing" feats were natural, as it is normal for any living creature to try to improve their natural inclinations. Others came from the background, campaign necessities, and/or from how you wanted to role-play the character.

The latter, BTW, comes from my experience with GURPS: back in the day we created characters, with the crunch simply being, again, a way to express the underlying ideas.

Lastly, I never understood "the complexities of the crunch and the workload put on the DM" when a simple program like eTools (which I still have installed right now) gave me a fast way to create from encounters to everything else - and print the resulting info ready to use (today I would create a PDF).

D&D 3/3.5E gave me all I needed to play Planescape, a campaign based on the Iran-Contra scandal, C.S.I. Waterdeep, and I still have in the pocket my version of "The Hunt for Red October" for Dragonlance. Every then and now I re-read some of the books, and I always pine because life is too short to do everything (we are currently happy with our CoC 7E campaign).

I've become a bit of an evangelist for the old FGU Daredevils game. I run a Kolchack: The Night Stalker adventure every year at North Texas using it. Since Kolchak was a throwback to noir journalism movies, it's a great fit. I've been thinking about starting a space archaeology game using it, as well. An away team of archaeologists and anthropologists on a Trek-like ship.

I generally like the way it handles being talented in something, which fits in well with golden age science fiction as well as noir. And how age brings experience. It's also reasonably simple, although firearms are a bit wonky.

Quote from: tenbones on August 26, 2023, 01:19:31 AM

Quote from: Nameless Mist on August 25, 2023, 08:30:34 PM
I prefer Pathfinder 1st edition.  Yes, there is a lot of number crunching, but the character customization is hard to beat.

It's a shame that Pathfinder 2nd edition was so bad though...

You should take a look at Savage Pathfinder - your character customization options will blow your mind.

Thanks for the recommendation.  I'll check it out.

Quote from: Nameless Mist on August 26, 2023, 10:03:11 AM

Quote from: tenbones on August 26, 2023, 01:19:31 AM

Quote from: Nameless Mist on August 25, 2023, 08:30:34 PM
I prefer Pathfinder 1st edition.  Yes, there is a lot of number crunching, but the character customization is hard to beat.

It's a shame that Pathfinder 2nd edition was so bad though...

You should take a look at Savage Pathfinder - your character customization options will blow your mind.

Thanks for the recommendation.  I'll check it out.

As an evangelist for Savage Worlds - if you have any questions, feel free to ask! The "crunch" is much less chonky than PF, but the flexibility of the system extends not only to character customization, but also to campaign customization, even on the fly.

Quote from: Reckall on August 26, 2023, 05:43:37 AM
I guess that the system I'm an Evangelist of is D&D 3/3.5E (with some of the "fixes" that Pathfinder did). I need to be a Evangelist because, somehow, it is usually dissed by the community.

My guess is that one must answer a key question: "Do you play the 'crunch', or the crunch is a method to express the 'lore' (AKA 'fluff')?"

To me and my players it is the latter. D&D 3/3.5E had, at least in many official products, a level of quality in the text, and even maturity, I seldom find in the competition. That's where I start from. When I read about the Malconvoker Prestige Class I immediately found the answer to a problem I had in my campaign. I even created the NPC but I don't think I ever used the stats. It was the character the important thing, not the related crunch.

Regarding the crunch... what I can say? I flatly disagree with all those people who min-max a 20th level character "proving" that you can use tactical nukes up stat, as characters evolve organically - they don't spring to life like Athena from the head of Zeus. I liked the feats because they reminded me of the Advantages in GURPS (and I missed negative feats in 3E).

Even here, some "min-maxing" feats were natural, as it is normal for any living creature to try to improve their natural inclinations. Others came from the background, campaign necessities, and/or from how you wanted to role-play the character.

The latter, BTW, comes from my experience with GURPS: back in the day we created characters, with the crunch simply being, again, a way to express the underlying ideas.

Lastly, I never understood "the complexities of the crunch and the workload put on the DM" when a simple program like eTools (which I still have installed right now) gave me a fast way to create from encounters to everything else - and print the resulting info ready to use (today I would create a PDF).

D&D 3/3.5E gave me all I needed to play Planescape, a campaign based on the Iran-Contra scandal, C.S.I. Waterdeep, and I still have in the pocket my version of "The Hunt for Red October" for Dragonlance. Every then and now I re-read some of the books, and I always pine because life is too short to do everything (we are currently happy with our CoC 7E campaign).

This is probably the most honest post about 3.x I've seen in a while. I'm curious since you openly admit how much you love the crunch for its mechanical benefits *as* an element of the game, if you've ever taken a look at Fantasy Craft, and what your opinions of it were? Because... (and I've said this many times on this forum and other places) Fantasy Craft is the apotheosis of 3.x design. It fixes *all* the mechanical issues of 3.x and PF and is even more high-octane.

I have always liked Savage Worlds. It was never my favorite, but it was always high on my list, and I always thought it did a better job of being a general system than d20. The current edition really knocked it out of the park.