What Should I Play?

I’m looking for a better TTRPG experience. Started with AD&D in satanic panic era, left, came back to 5E a half dozen years ago. Got a great group & GM but some things just don’t suit me. For one, wouldn’t mind being done with Hasbro. My biggest issues in D&D? Character regret, & swinginess. Rolling up a character idea that sounds fun, but in-game always seems to go some completely different direction & now I’ve got an established character everyone depends on but locked into an un-fun stat / ability set. And ALWAYS whatever my concept is I can’t seem to roll for crap in those stats even with the bonuses, failing check after check when it’s the one thing I should be good at. That should only be possible rarely IMHO. Goals: I want above to go away or be much weaker. I want to be able to introduce friends & family who are new & unsure, probably rules light? But I do like dice rolling & some structure, don’t know if a pure storytelling game would work. Can’t be purely abstract. I love a good campaign but also a lot of times just want to be a beer league player, sit down, go to a cave & smash stuff, without needing a complex story to it. Party needs gold, rescue the missing turtle, let’s get swinging. Have thought for a long time about maybe west marches type scenarios. Show up, solve problems, check boxes, bring a new sheet to the next game whenever. Would work great for some of the gang. Not at all adverse to player death. Sorry so long, love to hear opinions!

Hello everyone!

I’ve had some issues with D&D 5E lately and would like to try something else. I’ve thought a bit about what I actually want from a new system and came up with this:

The RPG should

• be universal a.k.a. adaptable to different settings
• be able to include magic of some kind, preferably already offering that option by its default rules
• be balanced between different character archetypes/classes (if such exist)
• guarantee smooth and fast combat (specifically less complicated than D&D 5E)
• guarantee smooth play in general, no constant looking up rules
• encourage role-playing (not necessarily via rules, but IMO D&D 5E neglects RP by its rules being overly focused on combat)
• still offer as much customization options as possible
• be easy to modify if needed and easy to create homebrew content for (e.g. items, monsters)
• be suitable for one-shots as well as longer campaigns
• have an online tool or a clearly structured index to look up rules/other stuff
• already have some homebrew content available on the internet, as well as a platform to discuss rulings

Using the criteria above, I put together a list of potential candidates:

• Adventurers!
• AGE
• Apotheosis
• Cortex Prime
• Cypher
• Dungeonslayers
• Fate (Core, Accelerated and/or Condensed)
• Freeform Universal
• Fudge
• Genesys
• Hero System
• HeroQuest
• Ironsworn
• Low Fantasy Gaming
• Mini Six
• Old School Essentials
• PbtA (and/or more specifically Dungeon World)
• Prose Descriptive Qualities
• Risus
• Savage Worlds
• The Black Hack
• World of Dungeons
• Worlds Without Number
• Whitehack

However, I only read about each RPG briefly… and as you can see, the list is still very long. Do any of the systems named don’t fit what I’m actually looking for or meet the requirements listed above especially well? My goal is to bring the list down to 2-3 RPGs, ultimately choosing from them. Oh, and if you think there is another RPG that I haven’t named, but fits my needs better than all the others: Recommend away!

Many thanks for all your help!

EDIT: added suitability for longer campaigns as a desirable quality

I want to go on adventures with my kid. I'm not an experienced GM so something or things that are relatively simple to run and also levelled for a 5 or 6 year old. Could be campaigns or one pages

I’m DMing a 5e game and I really don’t like how tacked-on social encounters feel. I could certainly use some homebrew systems, but tracking them is still fairly arbitrary since 5e just doesn’t have good underlying mechanics for them.

I really like the implementation in Modiphius’ Infinity 2d20 system, where you have separate “wound” trackers for combat, social encounters, and hacking. Combat of all 3 types works basically the same too; there’s no need to learn wildly different rules. I played the Song of Ice & Fire RPG a while ago and remember liking its implementation too, though I don’t remember the rules.

What are some other systems that treat social encounters with the same importance as combat?

This system is super easy to pick up and learn, and has a very unique set of rules and character progression to make it feel like a completely new experience to anyone who tries it. The system is also very easy to homebrew with, letting you create anything you'd like in minutes!

more information can be found on the website: https://www.apotheosisrpg.com/#h.7kgdf2uvhfek

If you'd like to get potential access to early release projects, playtesting opportunities and an easier time finding a group to play with, then join the official discord for the system, where you can talk directly with the developers and the devoted players in one place! https://discord.gg/KP6PcRSPbr

have an amazing day and happy playing!

Came here from the blog post from Sly Flourish who linked to this site. I really hope it grows into something special.

Hi,

I recently had the idea that it would be funny to play a mini campaign or oneshot where the players are the builders of the dungeon some big bad evil wants to build. They would have to put up with the silly wishes of the client and traverse the dangers of trap building without hurting themselves.

My question now is: do you know of a system or game where this kind of play would be doable. Or maybe someone else already had the same idea and wrote something exactly like this. I could imagine some easy rules lite game like laser & feelings but written with the new scenario in mind.

Thanks in advance

Just a little idea I had, think it would be fun. Comment your favourite systems and the rest of us will give you recommendations for something that could possibly fit your interests.

There's a thing about D&D - it's actually a wargame. Big share of its rules is tailored to tactical combat. "I go forward for 3 squares, use this ability, use that ability, end of turn" - that kind of stuff. You can play without it (system is a tool, yes) - but in that case you throw off half of the game rules, so what's the point? Anyway, there's nothing wrong with it and there're many people who seek for just that gameplay style.

D&D is the most famous game system due to enormous amount of money spent on it by publisher / copyright owner, and it lasted for decades. But TTRPG is much more that that.

There's TTRPG design framework, called "Powered by the Apocalypse", or PbtA, as the first game made with it was "Apocalypse World". Here's a short list of PbtA features and principles:

• it's narrative, which leads to making and telling interesting stories
• "Fiction first" principle - player don't use character abilities like pressing button in videogame, they describe what they want to do, and that description (possibly) triggers a move
• Moves system. Moves are NOT abilities. Their goal is to make emphasis on key game aspects. When you trigger a move - it matters!
• "Fail forward" principle. When player fails a roll - GM makes a move, and story takes a turn. Player gets XP for failing,
• "Play to find out" principle. GM doesn't know what will happen. Players make the story together.

Dungeon World is a PbtA game with strong D&D flavour. That means, it has kinda familiar character classes, races, and atmosphere - full of dungeons, taverns, orcs, goblins et cetera. But it plays vastly different. It's rules-light system, easy for new players, but somewhat demanding for the GMs skills.

As for me personally, I was using reddit for its DW sub mostly, but now it's still in blackout.

Help an injured restauteur prep a 5 course meal while avoiding the health inspector! Rules light, but easy to learn, with a variety of rats, meals, and things that could go wrong to make each game fresh and interesting!