Most of us started in D&D - so D&D doesn't count. What is the non-D&D system that made you realize you could do this TTRPG thing in a different way, that while not D&D, gave you joy?
For me, can't remember which one was first:
Talislanta. It was the ads in Dragon that got me interested (it was either that or Jorune both staple adverts - but I picked up Talislanta) and my mind was blown. Talislanta still blows my mind. Its system is still insanely good - better than D&D imo.
Marvel Super Heroes - It landed on my table around the same time, and simply has never left. WAY ahead of its time. It showed me how to scale games to high-power levels and not be afraid of letting players cut loose. Invaluable for GMing from a totally different perspective at that time for me.
Honorable Mention - I also dove into Palladium Fantasy around this time too... and yeah that completely clicked with me. Super-high-octane D&D with the dials turned up.
MERP - probably doing it wrong in the beginning when I ran it for the group but had so much fun we didn't care. Ignored the tolkien baggage and set it in Karameikos. The players hacked and hewed their way through Goblins and Orcs with jarring E Crush criticals and gore galore. Found it hard to go back to D&D after that.
Star Wars D6 - when it first came out we played it to death. Doesn't (to my mind) hold up too well to 'high level' play but had a lot of fun sticking to the Empire back in the day.
Marvel Superheroes - Villains and Vigilantes wasn't doing it for the group, I found Golden Heroes a hard sell on them and we were never going to get Champions up and running ("Point buy? So we spend all this session and next just making characters? Fuck that." etc). Made supers gaming easy. I preferred DC Heroes (and still GM it now) but Marvel kicked off Supers gaming big time for us.
Others like Tunnels and Trolls and Star Frontiers grabbed our interest for a while and we tried pretty much everything from 1981 to around 1988 at one time or another but more often than not came back to D&D (BECMI was the winner of our edition warring. AD&D 1e came second and other editions trailed far behind or came nowhere) because the players had years invested in the characters.
Gamma World. Then Star Frontiers (maybe within 2 weeks of GW).
RQ3 would be it for me. It made HP ever so much easier to handle without the guess work. Armor subtracting damage is brilliant! I've played a ton of systems since, but RQ is a default, and with so many sister games I can pick and choose certain rules what I want for my game.
I'm not sure to what extend it gave me "joy", but the first non-D&D game I ever played was the Robotech Palladium RPG, cuz a couple people in my first group were obsessed with that series. It was nice conceptually and had cool mechs, though, I wasn't super into it. I also played RIFTS with that same group soon after, and that one I freaking loved--the setting, I mean. By that time I realized that Palladium system mostly sucked, though, it had its cool imaginative bits and greater emphasis on skills, which I liked and D&D lacked, even with Proficiencies in 2e.
I'm not sure which came later, cuz it's all a haze now, but I know I played Shadowrun, WEG Star Wars and Cyberpunk 2020 around that time (also CoC, but I never fully got into that one either). Shadowrun probably came first, which I struggled to read through (2e I think), and was the first one in my gaming circle to actually understand the rules (eventually). I liked d6 dice pools, and the idea of increasing degrees of success based on number of "successes" scored, including attack damage being affected by it. This was the first RPG I played with some measure for Degrees of Success and attack damage being affected by how well you rolled. I also liked skill-based magic (also a first for me), and the idea of mystic characters just being able to see in the Astral (as they always should, IMO).
WEG Star Wars had a simple task resolution mechanic that was easy to understand once you got WTF "pips" were, and felt like a solid elegant system that was easy to use. Also the first system I ever played that tracked Health Condition instead of some HP analog for damage. Cyberpunk 2020 was the first RPG I ever played with a Roll+Mod vs TN mechanic, which eventually became my go to task resolution mechanic for homebrewed stuff.
The game that blew my mind, though, was Marvel Super Heroes RPG (FASERIP), which came a bit after Cyberpunk. It was the simplest, most elegant game I ever played, basing everything around easy to use descriptive Ranks to track how strong your abilities were, with degrees of success baked right into the core resolution mechanic. I loved the way you could just slap a Rank on anything and figure damage, damage resistance or ability rolls/difficulty based on that. It made it easy to just improvise powers and stuff, cuz everything was basically just "Power Rank Damage", "Power Rank Range", "Power Range Difficulty" to resist, etc. Which eventually led me down the rabbit hole of effect-based powers, which I extrapolated from FASERIP (years before I became aware of Champions) even though it wasn't technically an effect-based system per se, but close enough.
Traveller: Skills instead of classes, 2d6 task resolution, and risking death during character creation to get a better start were all major departures from what I'd been used to.
The VERY first RPG system other than D&D i played would have been M.E.R.P. ... i was fascinated by the cover art of the old
"Bree and the Barrow Downs" module and bought it at waldenbooks along with whatever else i was buying that day. Still have
it today and i still consider it one of my favorite modules for any system. Well after having it, it wasn't long before i bought the
rulebook and more supplements. Being a Tolkien fan made it easy to do so.
The "OTHER GAMES" can-o-worms being opened, i also soon after started playing Stormbringer (2nd Ed), which i bought the
first time i saw it (being also a Moorcock fan). Followed soon after by Call of Cthulhu (also liked Lovecraft's stories).
Paranoia and Tunnels and Trolls i also learned later that same year, and played both quite a bit, i'd thought Tunnels and Trolls
was dumb when i bought the book as a joke, and was suprised to find i enjoyed it as much as i did.
Had a bunch of other bit and pieces of various systems from Steve Jackson's Wizardry to parts of the Atlantean trilogy, though
I never got to play them fully, same with Hidden Kingdom (& "Fantasy Wargaming") which i never quite wrapped my head around
though i cribbed something game-like out of combining the two books.
By 1987 i discovered both Warhammer and SPI bagged wargames, and i was pretty much finished with RPG's for a very long
time to come after that, until a few years ago when i started working on the campaign we've been playing now.
My first RPG was actually Drakar & Demoner, which was originally a Scandinavian Runequest offshoot (no Glorantha though). Because of this I could never make sense of D&D as I always thought Runequest was better. I also played Rolemaster, which was a bit D&D-like in some ways, but when we streamlined it (heavy houseruling) it was actually one of the more fun systems.
Star Wars d6
Star Wars D6 and FASERIP Marvel. Not entirely sure which one I really got into first. Shadowrun followed those two.
Serenity. One of the few times that a skill-based ruleset actually had some sense to it. Elegant die mechanic. The Big Damn Heroes Handbook for it only felt natural. Not patched on.
Runequest. I think it was 2E, but might have been 1E. It was borrowed, and didn't have it very long, but did get to run a few games with it.
I am eternally grateful that Apple Lane didn't really have a lot of Glorantha embedded into it (at least not where it mattered). Such a great module for teaching the rules to both GM and players.
Though we played RQ a lot like D&D, only skills-based. The first radical departure was Toon, followed very closely by Fantasy Hero 1E.
Even though I read Dragon Magazine for years and knew about other games, I never played anything but D&D until I went away to college. I can't remember which was first, but it was either Star Wars d6 or Vampire the Masquerade 2e.
Quote from: tenbones on February 08, 2022, 11:42:39 AM
Most of us started in D&D - so D&D doesn't count. What is the non-D&D system that made you realize you could do this TTRPG thing in a different way, that while not D&D, gave you joy?
For me, can't remember which one was first:
Talislanta. It was the ads in Dragon that got me interested (it was either that or Jorune both staple adverts - but I picked up Talislanta) and my mind was blown. Talislanta still blows my mind. Its system is still insanely good - better than D&D imo.
Marvel Super Heroes - It landed on my table around the same time, and simply has never left. WAY ahead of its time. It showed me how to scale games to high-power levels and not be afraid of letting players cut loose. Invaluable for GMing from a totally different perspective at that time for me.
Honorable Mention - I also dove into Palladium Fantasy around this time too... and yeah that completely clicked with me. Super-high-octane D&D with the dials turned up.
Dungeon World
The FASA Star Trek RPG and Starship Combat Simulator.
My friends and I had tons of fun with that game. Totally different set of rules than DnD, but it worked really well for that game and milieu.
Bushido was set in a low fantasy version of Japan. That focus on a specific setting distinguished it from D&D which only had mish-mash settings that combined anything and everything. Tight settings are a feature of all the games I have enjoyed ever since.
Star Wars D6 was my first. It would be several years later before my parents realized that d&d would not convert me to satanism.
Traveller, now called Classic Traveller. In three little black books were the tools to create settings for players to adventure in that were formatted to be used over a wide spectrum. You didn't have to wait for new monsters or magic items or setting from a published source, you could do it yourself. It gave me a lot of freedom to create, and I did.
(Plus, since my mom was one of the Satanic Panicked, my 13 year old self could open up the LBBs to the equations and tell her that it was helping me with my algebra and she would get off my back.)
Robotech is what saved me from abandoning RPGs entirely after my experience with an abusive DM. The break from the attempted forced religious BS and no longer dying like punks (Robotech PC mecha were significantly stronger than the enemy units, which relied on numbers) was the perfect antidote to that DM's toxicity.
After that I expanded into Heroes Unlimited, Rifts and Palladium Fantasy (still on 1E at the time). The fact that these systems allowed much easier emulation of the sort of heroes I read about in novels and comics than D&D had ever managed for me kept me from looking back at D&D until the major revisions of 3e.
WEG Star Wars was another favorite of mine, but the Battletech setting is the one I keep coming back to for running/playing RPGs (using various systems; their own RPG rules are almost always substandard).
I also gained a fondness for Mage the Ascension after a campaign I played in for one semester, then ran one of my own for three more. I continued it after college as an ongoing setting with each generation of PCs graduating to NPC status and further shaping the setting until I barely needed to devise plots anymore. I just needed to know what the current PCs were trying to accomplish and which prior PCs would be interested in supporting or opposing those (some groups gravitated to Technocracy, others wanted to be fierce independents, one ended up entirely Order of Hermes... so there were many diverse NPCs with competing interests that evolved naturally over the decades of ongoing campaigns as people came and went from the table and players decided their past character's stories had reached natural endings.
And... since many say its not D&D... 4E was basically everything I had wanted D&D to be when I first started playing it back with the Red Box in '84. It has its flaws that my own system endeavors to correct, but circa 2008 it was perfection for me.
GURPS.
Felt like I could play anything with it - horror, westerns, fantasy, sci-fi, etc. And I did. Awesome game.
Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 08, 2022, 12:45:12 PM
Traveller: Skills instead of classes, 2d6 task resolution, and risking death during character creation to get a better start were all major departures from what I'd been used to.
Took the words out of my mouth
Tunnels and Trolls fifth edition. Well written and it gets so much right even though it gets so much wrong: Armour as DR, Hit Points equal Constitution, scalable spells, a core task resolution system, capable spell casters at first level, magic staffs, monster as characters table, weapon descriptions, and so well written and engaging, nicely laid out and illustrated. Of course there's stuff that doesn't work, invulnerable fighters, Conan the librarian, massively unbalanced stat multipliers, solitaire adventures that make Monty Python look like Scrooge McDuck. Good times...good times...
My first RPG was Fighting Fantasy, but my main alternative to AD&D was WEG D6 Star Wars 1e, and 1e PARANOIA to a degree too. Both very different. Also GM'd Call of Cthulu a lot when I was 13!
The ones that impacted me mostly were Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu when the boxed editions came out in 1981 as 'licensed' properties. The system was so different but it was the literary licenses that got me interested both to play and to run.
I had played Metamorphosis Alpha and Traveller before then (78-79). My group though wasn't interested in MA and the GM for Traveller didn't really know what he was doing, so that ended I believe on our second session with a near TPK.
Probably too many to mention, to be honest.
I stopped playing D&D when I bought WFRP 1e. I found the mechanics more interesting, and character generation a lot more fun with the flavourful careers. Plus the dark low fantasy vibe and lore really suited me better. It was only the OSR that got me back interested in D&D-related stuff.
From there it went onto a whole slew of games like: CoC, Stormbringer, Traveler, Twilight 2000, Dragon Warriors, etc.
Greetings!
Rolemaster, by Iron Crown Enterprises.
Then, I was exposed to Talislanta, by Bard Games, and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1E, by Games Workshop. Then, a little bit of Gurps.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
For me, it has to be In the Shadow of the Demon Lord. Once I started playing that, I never went back to Dungeons and Dragons again, although I do keep the DMG around for the worldbuilding/history/geography charts. From there, I went on to OSR games without the Dungeons and Dragons baggage, and still looking through anything Sword & Sorcery-y that comes up on the market. It's a favorite genre of mine.
Adventurer Conqueror King System worked pretty well, but I really wanted something that was a bit more streamlined. So, now I'm looking for other rulesets that are similar but swifter.
I have Only played D&D. All the flavors of D&D, are D&D to me. I definitely like some, better than others.
For me it was MERP. Started with it because of a love of Tolkien. Played a bit through the 80s then it became our game of choice in the mid-90s when I was in grad school as there was another big fan of Tolkien I played with. Love the critical tables, though it made for lots of party deaths. I had forgotten how complicated character creation was until I made a few PCs for it last fall, hoping to entice my group into playing it. They ended up not wanting to do it, so we'll be using White Box to play The One Ring rpg scenarios if I ever get my stuff from Free League.
MERP has lots of tables, but in fact the system itself isn't that complicated and I kind of like the way they (and Rolemaster) do their magic with grouped lists and spell points.
RuneQuest (1E) was a breath of fresh air. A system that modelled "realism" was the break from D&D that I needed.
It was also where I learned that D&D was King and if you were not playing it, you would struggle to get players.
Tie between RuneQuest 2 and DragonQuest: we quickly realized there was more than dungeoncrawling with these two games, and then spent a decade plus combining them and houseruling with all kinds of add-ons. But these were the core of all our campaigns/settings: everything from Sanctuary to Fantasy Earth to Mystara using that combo. Still love both games too.
If allowed to list the second "click" it would be Talislanta, hands down: True 20 and C&C before either was a mote in anyone's eye. I've often wanted to combine Tal 1e with the Bard Games Atlantean setting (i.e., ditch the Arcanum rules, which are as unholy as Tal is holy). 8)
Quote from: rhialto on February 09, 2022, 07:00:42 AM
Tie between RuneQuest 2 and DragonQuest: we quickly realized there was more than dungeoncrawling with these two games, and then spent a decade plus combining them and houseruling with all kinds of add-ons. But these were the core of all our campaigns/settings: everything from Sanctuary to Fantasy Earth to Mystara using that combo. Still love both games too.
Another DQ fan! Rarer than cockatrice teeth. Welcome. :)
I tried Tunnels & Trolls and Traveller early on, but I'd say neither of them "clicked" for me. With Traveller, I loved reading the rules and background, but I couldn't get a handle on how to run adventures. With T&T, it was too close to D&D, and I couldn't figure out how to make things different. (It just seemed more dull because it was simpler.)
I think the first new system that really clicked was Champions. It had a clearly different model for how play went, but it made sense, and there were a lot of options to play with.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 09, 2022, 01:10:00 PM
Quote from: rhialto on February 09, 2022, 07:00:42 AM
Tie between RuneQuest 2 and DragonQuest: we quickly realized there was more than dungeoncrawling with these two games, and then spent a decade plus combining them and houseruling with all kinds of add-ons. But these were the core of all our campaigns/settings: everything from Sanctuary to Fantasy Earth to Mystara using that combo. Still love both games too.
Another DQ fan! Rarer than cockatrice teeth. Welcome. :)
I liked eating at DQ back when I was a teen, but the food wasn't really all that good.
I was used to wargames so provided I was interested in the setting or genre getting the idea behind something like Traveller wasn't a stretch for me. However first time I went AHA! for a system was with Champions 2e.
I liked the idea of point buy, and the inherent flexibility of the system. The fact it had skills, advantages, and disadvantages as well as powers. However when I heard that Fantasy Hero was coming out, I was all over that the system and it became my main system for the next two years until GURPS 2e came along.
Quote from: rhialto on February 09, 2022, 07:00:42 AM
Tie between RuneQuest 2 and DragonQuest: we quickly realized there was more than dungeoncrawling with these two games, and then spent a decade plus combining them and houseruling with all kinds of add-ons. But these were the core of all our campaigns/settings: everything from Sanctuary to Fantasy Earth to Mystara using that combo. Still love both games too.
I had hopes for Dragonquest but the implementation proved clunky. By the time 2e came out I planted my flag with Fantasy Hero.
Runequest should have been a system I used but I wasn't keen on the whole bronze age nature of it all. Mind you I was prepared to ignore Glorantha and all that in favor of what I was doing. But weapons and armor being bronze age tech was a non-starter. So I thought.
Then a couple of years later Runequest 3 came out and how the equipment was represented wasn't changed much at all. Plus I learned by then that bronze was basically as good (or better) than iron but way more expensive. And also as good as an average steel weapons (but not the best quality alloys).
So I had realized that in the early 80s, I would just said everything was iron or average steel and moved on adapting the system for my purposes.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 09, 2022, 01:10:00 PM
Quote from: rhialto on February 09, 2022, 07:00:42 AM
Tie between RuneQuest 2 and DragonQuest: we quickly realized there was more than dungeoncrawling with these two games, and then spent a decade plus combining them and houseruling with all kinds of add-ons. But these were the core of all our campaigns/settings: everything from Sanctuary to Fantasy Earth to Mystara using that combo. Still love both games too.
Another DQ fan! Rarer than cockatrice teeth. Welcome. :)
Nah, we're around it just doesn't come up much.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 09, 2022, 01:10:00 PM
Quote from: rhialto on February 09, 2022, 07:00:42 AM
Tie between RuneQuest 2 and DragonQuest: we quickly realized there was more than dungeoncrawling with these two games, and then spent a decade plus combining them and houseruling with all kinds of add-ons. But these were the core of all our campaigns/settings: everything from Sanctuary to Fantasy Earth to Mystara using that combo. Still love both games too.
Another DQ fan! Rarer than cockatrice teeth. Welcome. :)
Thanks, it's a game which deserved better: had SPI not imploded...
Quote from: estar on February 09, 2022, 03:13:46 PM
I had hopes for Dragonquest but the implementation proved clunky.
How so? While baroque, the system is sensible.
Quote from: estar on February 09, 2022, 03:13:46 PM
Runequest should have been a system I used but I wasn't keen on the whole bronze age nature of it all. Mind you I was prepared to ignore Glorantha and all that in favor of what I was doing. But weapons and armor being bronze age tech was a non-starter. So I thought.
Then a couple of years later Runequest 3 came out and how the equipment was represented wasn't changed much at all. Plus I learned by then that bronze was basically as good (or better) than iron but way more expensive. And also as good as an average steel weapons (but not the best quality alloys).
So I had realized that in the early 80s, I would just said everything was iron or average steel and moved on adapting the system for my purposes.
Pretty much what we did: the system was the key, not the setting.
Quote from: rhialto on February 09, 2022, 09:54:09 PM
Quote from: estar on February 09, 2022, 03:13:46 PM
I had hopes for Dragonquest but the implementation proved clunky.
How so? While baroque, the system is sensible.
It's sensible, but way too unnecessarily baroque to the point that it makes it hard to bring players on board. I've said for years that you could get 80 to 90% of the exact game in a fraction of the rules space by just standardizing a few thing. Note, I'm not talking a single, unified formula for everything, just making it far more consistent. I've taken a couple of stabs at it, but keep getting pulled into doing other things that don't exactly fit under the "streamlined DQ" umbrella such that I can justly say that's what I'm doing.
Anyway, I love it for the content and aesthetic, not the presentation of the mechanics.
Plus, not everyone loves a game where the party can win a fight in the wilderness but all die of diseases before they can get back to civilization, but that's a different issue. :D
On topic, DQ very much "clicked" for me. But it was another borrowed set of rules that I didn't get to use very long then, and couldn't afford my own copy at the time (or rather, made some bad decisions when I should have bought it with the limited funds available). So it didn't end up having the net effect it might have.
I'm interested in hearing more about Dragonquest. Can I see the rules for it anywhere?
Just google
Dragonquest Rules
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 09, 2022, 10:37:25 PM
Quote from: rhialto on February 09, 2022, 09:54:09 PM
Quote from: estar on February 09, 2022, 03:13:46 PM
I had hopes for Dragonquest but the implementation proved clunky.
How so? While baroque, the system is sensible.
It's sensible, but way too unnecessarily baroque to the point that it makes it hard to bring players on board. I've said for years that you could get 80 to 90% of the exact game in a fraction of the rules space by just standardizing a few thing. Note, I'm not talking a single, unified formula for everything, just making it far more consistent. I've taken a couple of stabs at it, but keep getting pulled into doing other things that don't exactly fit under the "streamlined DQ" umbrella such that I can justly say that's what I'm doing.
I'd be interested in your attempts to smooth out the edges for consistency, as the new players problem is still a problem, and one I'm likely to face this year as our group continues to do our "let's try an old game" path.
Quote from: rhialto on February 10, 2022, 05:31:29 AM
I'd be interested in your attempts to smooth out the edges for consistency, as the new players problem is still a problem, and one I'm likely to face this year as our group continues to do our "let's try an old game" path.
Probably off-topic in this thread. If you want to start a new one to talk about DQ, specific or general, I'm always up for that conversation. :)
This has been a good thread. I've really only played D&D due to time, money, and player interest. But I really like reading about other folks who have had experience with different systems.
I wish I could go back in time, with the money I have now mind you, and pick up those other books I saw on the shelf at Waldenbooks. Ah well.
Yeah the purposes of this thread was to bring attention to the fact that how we engage (or no longer engage) with D&D has been greatly impacted by other systems in varying ways.
Plus - I love knowing what moves people, especially in the hobbies I engage with. It's far too common in hobby-communities to be so tribal about their favorite thing, to suddenly find someone you otherwise had no idea was into something you didn't realize was a thing. For me there is always something new to learn from other systems. It doesn't mean they're all equal - it simply means there's usually something novel in how a system expresses a game that can be useful.
I have several systems I've had on the backburner for YEARS that I've never engaged with that I want to - Mythras/RQ, GURPS, and Warhammer Fantasy, being very high among them.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 10, 2022, 08:12:11 AM
Quote from: rhialto on February 10, 2022, 05:31:29 AM
I'd be interested in your attempts to smooth out the edges for consistency, as the new players problem is still a problem, and one I'm likely to face this year as our group continues to do our "let's try an old game" path.
Probably off-topic in this thread. If you want to start a new one to talk about DQ, specific or general, I'm always up for that conversation. :)
Done!
The first RPG I ever tried after D&D was MERP but, even if the supplements were high-quality, we didn't feel that the mini-Rolemaster system was good for Tolkien. Then we loved Star Wars d6.
With my second group it was all Call of Cthulhu or Cyberpunk 2020 and we liked both.
My third group was totally into GURPS 3E. We loved it. We played 4/5 campaigns, starting with my Cyberpunk/Horror and going on with Wild Cards, Cliffhanger/Lost World, and a mix between Star Wars and Space Pirate Captain Harlock (the anime).
Then for a while I stopped playing RPG and actually thought that I was done with the hobby. In 1999 some fellow comic book writers and artists told me that they wanted to try D&D and then result was a 13 years campaign that spanned from 2E to 3.5E.
Now we are playing Cthulhu. I like 7E a lot even if it is in dire need of a 7.5E Edition. My only problem is how there is, literally, too much material among which to choose what do next.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for me. A very well designed game, which I now find surprising, considering the subject matter,
The Fantasy Trip, which was the first rpg I played and it had me hooked immediately. D&D (AD&D2e to be exact) was the third rpg I played, so it was a relative latecomer for me.
D&D wasnt even my first game I played (that was TMNT).
AD&D 2nd ed just barely makes it into the 10 first games I played, at 7th place at earliest.
The RPG I always comes back to to having the most influence on me would be Mage the Ascension as the possibilities were endless, although it needs a playerbase with above average intelligence and imagination to run.
Started on the Holmes set, played a few games and moved on to AD&D. Then, after several straight months of nothing but D&D, the group got bored and started looking around. Over the next few years we played (in no particular order, and some many years later) Rolemaster, WHFRP, Palladium's TMNT and BtS, a ton of Battletech, Top Secret, MSH, Champions, WEG Star Wars, a little Call of Cthulhu and Vampire (too emo for us), along with a bunch of other stuff, in addition to our regular AD&D and 2e (when it came out). After the first few months, we never considered ourselves a "D&D" group as much as an "RPG" group. Ironically, it's only been in the last 10 years or so that the group (all of us over 50, with 2 newbies in their 30s and 40s) has pretty much stuck to just one system at a time for long stretches. I guess we just don't have the time or inclination to keep swapping off anymore...
I never played D&D at all until I had been gaming for about 10 years. I started with WFRP and then Call of Cthulhu. As a result when I have played D&D I've enjoyed it but never really considered it an rpg (which I appreciateis is the height of irony ) but as a very detailed heroic minature skirmish game.
The two games that really click for me are Dark Heresy 1e as a GM and Runequest as a PC.
Castles and Crusades. Love the Siege Engine system. Easy to use, and easy to convert 1E stuff on the fly.
Star Frontiers! Loved the setting and system as a kid. Great memories. Took another look at a few years ago to run sci fi and found it just a bit too hokey. Went with MT2e.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 08, 2022, 02:19:22 PMThough we played RQ a lot like D&D, only skills-based. The first radical departure was Toon, followed very closely by Fantasy Hero 1E.
That is interesting as the first non-D&D game I really got into was Stormbringer (which is similar to RQ) and it so fundamentally changed the way DMed, that years later when I ran AD&D 2e for a new group, all those new players were confused by how I ran my game. It was a bit more open and not as adventure-based as than what were used to. It took me several sessions before I adapted back to the AD&D playstyle.
What really clicked?
We did OD&D for 5 years. 1975-80. We tried other stuff in the 80s. We didn't do much serious stuff until a thing hit for us in the 90s... Amber Diceless... even then it was family-building time so we weren't overly into deep-dive. Now I'm running The One Ring. Our group is 3 priests, 3 deacons, and a seminarian. I am sure a little nudge will aim us at Amber.
I started with AD&D 2E shortly before 3E and stayed within D20 for many years. Because of playing Call of Cthulhu D20, I eventually went to the BRP version and fell in love with it. Still enjoy BRP products.
For me, it's how the game system is easy to comprehend and is woven into itself nicely. It just feels intuitive. Natural. I never stop to wonder, "Why did they do it this way" and I can usually guess how a rule would normally work without looking it up. Not much of a fan of Runequest, but found Cthulhu Dark Ages to be fun, as well as Elric/Stormbringer.
I also love that the settings are woven into the rules. Each game feels unique.
Quote from: hedgehobbit on February 13, 2022, 12:21:59 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 08, 2022, 02:19:22 PMThough we played RQ a lot like D&D, only skills-based. The first radical departure was Toon, followed very closely by Fantasy Hero 1E.
That is interesting as the first non-D&D game I really got into was Stormbringer (which is similar to RQ) and it so fundamentally changed the way DMed, that years later when I ran AD&D 2e for a new group, all those new players were confused by how I ran my game. It was a bit more open and not as adventure-based as than what were used to. It took me several sessions before I adapted back to the AD&D playstyle.
I was a teenage killer DM. RQ was less deadly than D&D in our hands. So I already had players used to avoiding fights whenever possible and using every trick they could imagine to get an edge. For a DM starting out, that can actually be a little easier to pull off in RQ.
Although it was not the next game I played after D&D, the first one that clicked for me was Ghostbusters RPG 1st edition. The rules are elegantly simple, and they work very well for what it is supposed to do.
We played lots of games after years of AD&D but the one we always liked was Marvel Super Heroes RPG. Innovative, bright, fun, horribly unbalanced, and with no real guide for game masters we really loved it. The problem was you couldn't really have a meaningful campaign, but it was still a lot of fun to play. Despite this, it really changed the way we looked at RPGs, and made it easier to see the innovations in other games like Vampire, WHFRP, Champions, and GURPS.
Recently a new super heroes RPG was released on Kickstarter called Sentinels Comics RPG, and we've play-tested, and played that. It takes a lot from Marvel, including the green-yellow-red intensity theme, but uses ideas from the Cortex RPG System. Campaigns are easy to build, there's still some imbalances but it's a lot of fun and easily the best super heroes RPG I've ever played. It's VERY easy to recreate other super heroes using this system.
Traveller - OMGerd, we're in space...with guns and swords? Okay, we got a space ship, let's go and shoot people and take their stuff. Wow, those firefights are dangerous. Oh well, roll up some new dudes while we order pizza. We loved Traveller insanely as teens.
Champions was very big with our crew. For some reason, it overtook Marvel Super Heroes and Heroes Unlimited for us.
Personally, the big click 2nd RPG for me personally - apart from our gaming group - was Call of Cthulhu. That was one-shot heaven and allowed me to really dig into my love of HPL's work via a system that was barely there in actual play. While not to big in our group, it was something I ran and played at every con for many years.
I spoke with my brothers about this and we think Villains & Vigilantes was the next game we played after D&D. We started with 1e but 2e quickly came out. We've played V&V for probably 40 years, on and off, but are now giving Icons a whirl.
Boot Hill was a close third for us. One of my bro's is planning on running a Boot Hill campaign in the near future.
I played Boot Hill and Gamma World 1e specifically because of its references in the DMG.
Good times. Boot Hill never stuck but Gamma World most certainly opened up my gaming to new vistas and forever changed things at my table.
Quote from: Spinachcat on February 17, 2022, 02:10:24 AM
Champions was very big with our crew. For some reason, it overtook Marvel Super Heroes and Heroes Unlimited for us.
Champions was the first
character build system that really blew me away. Remarkable number of permutations, and I found myself inspired by it to imagine new supers devised vis-a-vis creative combinations of the build widgets.
One of my favorites was Whiplash, whose whip attack would slow opponents while speeding her own attacks, using the "steal dex" ability (whatever it was called).
Call of Cthulhu, I believe 2nd edition. Boxed. I loved the BRP system and from there went on to Stormbringer and Runequest. Why? The percentile-based system I felt was perfect for the sort of low-fantasy game that D&D did poorly. Dragonquest (1st ed. boxed set) was actually the second RPG I ever got, but while there was a lot to love about DQ, I found the rules pretty obtuse and to this date haven't really figured out how to play that game, although I still own it and have used it for source material in other games. So, since Dragonquest didn't "click" for me, I don't consider it to be the answer to this question. With BRP you could start out with a decently powerful character from the outset, yet that character always had to worry about getting killed in every fight. In D&D, your low-level characters were weaker than mosquitos but became ridiculously overpowered superheros at high levels. Which is fine for a high-fantasy game; it allows a player to run characters like Achilles, but I enjoy different types of rpgs with a distinctive feel between each one.
Quote from: tenbones on February 17, 2022, 07:57:48 PM
I played Boot Hill and Gamma World 1e specifically because of its references in the DMG.
Good times. Boot Hill never stuck but Gamma World most certainly opened up my gaming to new vistas and forever changed things at my table.
Same. I remember reading about them in the DMG and it was like I discovered some lost bit of history. We also played both Boot Hill and Gamma World 3e. I fell in love with Gamma World ever since.
RuneQuest 2 back in 80 or 81.
Runequest.
This one is easy. It's because I'm 46 years old and proudly say that I've NEVER played D&D to this day. And I never will. I was already well invested into my game of choice when I saw my first D&D game played by some classmates, learned about some bizarre things called THAC0 and Armor Class that my interest soured immediately.
My game of choice was RoboTech/Rifts/Palladium Fantasy/Heroes Unlimited. Opposed rolls just seemed more logical, as does starting out with lots of hit points, but never getting that many more.
These days I'm softening up a bit. I'll play an OSR, but not official D&D. The closest I want to play right now is RPG Pundit's Star Adventurer.
The ones I'm playing now are Pocket Fantasy and Dungeons and Delvers dice pool edition.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on February 21, 2022, 07:20:41 PM
This one is easy. It's because I'm 46 years old and proudly say that I've NEVER played D&D to this day. And I never will. I was already well invested into my game of choice when I saw my first D&D game played by some classmates, learned about some bizarre things called THAC0 and Armor Class that my interest soured immediately.
My game of choice was RoboTech/Rifts/Palladium Fantasy/Heroes Unlimited. Opposed rolls just seemed more logical, as does starting out with lots of hit points, but never getting that many more.
These days I'm softening up a bit. I'll play an OSR, but not official D&D. The closest I want to play right now is RPG Pundit's Star Adventurer.
The ones I'm playing now are Pocket Fantasy and Dungeons and Delvers dice pool edition.
Ok, who wants to be the one to break it to this dude that the Palladium system started as a heavily houseruled D&D...
Quote from: Eirikrautha on February 21, 2022, 11:18:58 PM
Quote from: weirdguy564 on February 21, 2022, 07:20:41 PM
This one is easy. It's because I'm 46 years old and proudly say that I've NEVER played D&D to this day. And I never will. I was already well invested into my game of choice when I saw my first D&D game played by some classmates, learned about some bizarre things called THAC0 and Armor Class that my interest soured immediately.
My game of choice was RoboTech/Rifts/Palladium Fantasy/Heroes Unlimited. Opposed rolls just seemed more logical, as does starting out with lots of hit points, but never getting that many more.
These days I'm softening up a bit. I'll play an OSR, but not official D&D. The closest I want to play right now is RPG Pundit's Star Adventurer.
The ones I'm playing now are Pocket Fantasy and Dungeons and Delvers dice pool edition.
Ok, who wants to be the one to break it to this dude that the Palladium system started as a heavily houseruled D&D...
So are a bunch of other games that aren't D&D either. And it's still distinct and plays differently enough, with a different feel and features that didn't exist in D&D, that it doesn't really matter what the game supposedly started out as. It isn't really D&D and you couldn't port almost anything from it to D&D without modifying the crap out of it.
Quote
Ok, who wants to be the one to break it to this dude that the Palladium system started as a heavily houseruled D&D...
I actually find that funny. To be fair, I did know Kevin Seimbieda's game was based on his extensive house rules for D&D.
But after changing so much, is it D&D anymore?
One other game I've played was The Black Hack (The Anime Hack actually), which is supposed to be an OSR based on D&D. I can safely say that it's so heavily changed to not fall under OSR. The Black Hack family are their own thing.
Same with Palladium with it's Blocks and Parries you roll instead of fixed AC rating. Or Armor that is essentially extra hit points, not more AC rating. Hit points that don't really go up with your level, but your dodge and parry bonus does. Those are the core changes that Palladium does differently enough that I don't think Palladium is in the OSR either. And smaller things like classes that make sense like Soldier and Knight, but not Fighter.