A forum for discussing and organizing recreational softball and baseball games and leagues in the greater Halifax area.
A lesson so many need to learn
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I just started DMing an Ironsworn campaign for my wife. I like that it's fiction-forward rather than mechanics-forward, and being able to run a campaign built around having only 1 player makes scheduling so simple, reliable, and just an all around good experience.
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I'm a fan of old-school Shadowrun (2nd ed.); it didn't matter how bad-ass your character was, you could get killed by a lucky shot from a punk with a zipgun. It kept the grime of Cyperpunk, and added fantastical elements to it. IMO, it required more role-playing than is strictly necessary in a lot of D&D games, because going in guns blazing all the time was almost certain to lead to death; properly played (IMO), the GM should be *brutal* in how they handle stupid players. The downside was *so many* six sided dice.It's sister setting, Earthdawn, also had a lot going for it on top of the typical D&D formula. Weaving, instead of casting magic, was a much more involved process for the player/character which did a lot to ground such awesome power. At the same time, fighters of all stripes were also more or less magic users, which unified the whole rule system in a nice way. The setting itself was a fantasy post-apocalypse, dominated by evil horrors that dominated the landscape in the centuries before. In fact, much of the lore was intertwined with how people survived those times. And like Shadowrun, there were lots of dice thanks to the "step table" system. It could be a huge PITA to sum all the rolls on high steps, but then when else do you get to roll entire fists _full_ of dice all at once?
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I never got a campaign off the ground, but Palladium had, I thought, a great system. I loved the approach to alignment (good, selfish, evil) and awarding xp for roleplaying, clever ideas, and problem solving, rather than simply killing an enemy.
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I was introduced to flyweight RPGs a few years back and I absolutely love what they can do in the hands of a creative group. [Roll for Shoes](https://rollforshoes.com/) is about as minimal as it gets. You will need one D6, and something to track player inventory. The game world is best started by the GM in the abstract, letting the players fill in the world's details through creative use of questions that prompt die rolls. This is fantastic for players that want to stretch their improv skills. [Lasers & Feelings](https://johnharper.itch.io/lasers-feelings) has a tad more structure. Everyone has exactly one stat that sits on a spectrum of "lasers" to "feelings". The difficulty of challenges in the game sit on the same spectrum. Depending on the nature of the challenge and what the player's stat is, a single D6 roll decides the outcome. Everything else is role-playing in what is encouraged to be a Trek-like setting. In my experience, Roll for Shoes usually turns into a cartoon-esque "let's see what else is in my backpack" affair, that usually ends with everything on fire (because of course it does). Lasers & Feelings typically devolves into Lower Decks. All of these are positives in my book - I'd play again in a heartbeat.
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I literally can't believe it took us 50 years of ttrgs existing in basically their modern form for us to find the 3 action system. Its so intuitive and liberating compared to every other game system I've experienced.Out of curiosity, what is the *3 action system*? I know FATE has 4 actions (overcome, attack, defend, create an advantage) so did PF merge attack and defend? Or is it a different choice?
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Out of curiosity, what is the *3 action system*? I know FATE has 4 actions (overcome, attack, defend, create an advantage) so did PF merge attack and defend? Or is it a different choice?
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GURPS is my go-to system. It's incredibly flexible, both in what it allows you to do as a player, and what kind of game you can run as a GM. It's an older system, and by default is rather simulationist - it grew out of the same tabletop wargaming that D&D did, and tends to take a more realistic approach to what players can do than more narrative systems. I like some of the more narrative systems as well - Starforged is my other go-to system - but the characters always feel a little more loosely defined to me. GURPS is perfectly happy saying "okay, *you* can fly, *you* can turn invisible, and *you* can't be killed" - but if you want to make your character more nuanced, it's not only possible, but encouraged! On the other hand, if you just want to throw something together and go, you can do that too! One of my players has a character sheet that consists of their racial abilities, 5 or 6 regular skills, and a high level "Security!" wildcard skill. They're a nightmare in combat, because "Security!" is their all-in-one skill with pistols and melee combat, along with anything else a person with a security background would be expected to know - it's been rolled against to evaluate patrol schedules, reading a foe's body language, and shadowing a mark, among other things. That character plays alongside someone with three different templates (classes), a mount, a bevy of different equipment options, and something like 55 different skills - because that player -wanted- that kind of detail. And they're both very effective in their domains, and play off of each other well. That's the thing that really sticks out to me about GURPS - it's very playable with a very minimal ruleset (GURPS Ultra-Lite is free, and *2 pages* - http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/ultra-lite/), and can seamlessly expand when you want more detail. And not only are there a *lot* of options for that detail, they also show their work - so if you're still missing something, you can generally still come up with reasonable rules. It just gets a reputation for being super complicated because the people who discover it tend to get excited and throw *everything* in...Thank you for sparing me the rant I was inhaling to deliver. The system is *so good*. You wanna run a political intrigue campaign? Great! Not only are there dozens of skills to navigate the nuances of that style, but there are multiple supplemental guides if you want to get *real* nitty gritty. You wanna run a hyper-tactical combat heavy campaign? Great! The combat can be *extremely* rich, with an entire book dedicated to Martial Arts. You can run any setting you can think of: sci-fi, fantasy, modern, historical, cinematic, realistic. The mechanics are there. But the base system is so simple and modular, you can run it off an index card. I almost think of it less as an RPG than an RPG engine. You really can adapt it to any kind of game concept.
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You have three actions that you can spend freely on attacking, moving around, etc. If you want to attack more than once, you get a penalty on the roll. Some things and spells cost two actions.At least fading suns had something similar in the 90's with one action for free, 2actions with a - 4 and 3 actions a - 6(if my memory is right). The interesting part is that *dodging* would count as an action and you had to declare your intention at the start of the round.
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I'm a fan of old-school Shadowrun (2nd ed.); it didn't matter how bad-ass your character was, you could get killed by a lucky shot from a punk with a zipgun. It kept the grime of Cyperpunk, and added fantastical elements to it. IMO, it required more role-playing than is strictly necessary in a lot of D&D games, because going in guns blazing all the time was almost certain to lead to death; properly played (IMO), the GM should be *brutal* in how they handle stupid players. The downside was *so many* six sided dice.> The downside was so many six sided dice. While indeed it can get pretty extreme, it's also so fun to roll handful of dices. This is one of the reason I find dice-pool fun (and not just better statistically speaking)
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Dungeon crawl classic, start with 3-5 level 0 chars each and hope the best rolled character survives the initial onslaught. Using magic is dangerous, a miscast spell could leave you disfigured or worse. Thick boy rule book.
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I have seen people try to add systems to D&D to let them play Dragon Age within the system. I have then turned my head to the left and looked at the Dragon Age RPG on my shelf. If you want to play Dragon Age as a TTRPG, I'll tell you the easiest way to do that. No gutting, no retrofitting, no ship of Theseus... If you see that as hostile, that's on you.
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It's sister setting, Earthdawn, also had a lot going for it on top of the typical D&D formula. Weaving, instead of casting magic, was a much more involved process for the player/character which did a lot to ground such awesome power. At the same time, fighters of all stripes were also more or less magic users, which unified the whole rule system in a nice way. The setting itself was a fantasy post-apocalypse, dominated by evil horrors that dominated the landscape in the centuries before. In fact, much of the lore was intertwined with how people survived those times. And like Shadowrun, there were lots of dice thanks to the "step table" system. It could be a huge PITA to sum all the rolls on high steps, but then when else do you get to roll entire fists _full_ of dice all at once?
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I love Pathfinder 2E! I'm a pretty new player, but it's captured my heart. The three-action economy is great and offers so much freedom. The characters are INSANELY customizable, and I love how multiclassing works. And to top it all off, everything you need to play is free! Only the lore and campaigns have to be purchased. Plus, iirc, Paizo has vowed never to use generative AI in their works!
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No, 5e sucks. And it's most obvious when you play on level 1. DnD is a superhero sim with peper cutouts for humans. When you leave put the super powers, then the characters can't really do anything. Like... at all. Combat is DnD's only fleshed put system. Everything else is just "roll a D20" and sometimes add your proficiency modifier depending almost entirely on your class. Give me 20 different bards and I bet 18 of them will have a 90% overlap in the proficiencies they choose.
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All you've done is permanently write off any opinion you have on a replacement. It's insanely arrogant to push your own opinion as fact but even more so when the thing you're shitting on is something people actively enjoy. By all means. Drop something you enjoy next. Let us return the favor.
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No, 5e sucks. And it's most obvious when you play on level 1. DnD is a superhero sim with peper cutouts for humans. When you leave put the super powers, then the characters can't really do anything. Like... at all. Combat is DnD's only fleshed put system. Everything else is just "roll a D20" and sometimes add your proficiency modifier depending almost entirely on your class. Give me 20 different bards and I bet 18 of them will have a 90% overlap in the proficiencies they choose.Everything you just said is opinion. Nothing is factual. The only thing that sucks here is you for believing that your opinion is a universal truth and the arrogance of believing that everyone else is wrong. I mean this from the deepest parts of my soul, go fuck yourself and I genuinely hate you as a person
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We're RPG player, we have a long tradition of trolling each others, AD&D player will tell that Vampire is the opposite of a RPG while WOD player will reply that AD&D is a boardgames and that it misses the role play element to be called RPG. But all this trolling tend to be all fun, and not many people would straight up refuse D&D game (even I, play it like once a decade, there is so many other game out there and so few time)I know I straight up refuse to play pathfinder because until this thread I've never seen anyone ever recommend Pathfinder without actively shitting on dnd. If I did then maybe I'd have tried it some point in the past few years. Taken up the many offers to play in a pathfinder game. But I hard refuse everytime. If they just said how pathfinder does stuff better, that'd be fine. But it always devolves into what dnd does worse and the endless nitpicking and complaints. No longer is pathfinder the focus. The focus becomes bitching about everyone under the sun that dnd does to the point pathfinder doesn't even get mentioned anymore. It's not what it does better. Every convo I've seen isn't about how good pathfinder is but how bad dnd is and that level of negativity being focused on constantly just to recommend you play their game instead has always made my skin crawl. Should stand on its merits, not its competitions failures. If you can't do that then I'm not sure what the point of it is other than "HAHA DND GET FUCKED"
