What kinds of RPGS do you like?

[Dragon Snack]

When some guy on the street says "oh you play rpgs, like DnD?" you say "yes"
When some guy who has mostly played DnD asks "whats Savage worlds like?", you say "its like DnD"

Gotcha.

[Elephant Jack]

[Radijs]

I began to play DnD about 4-5 years ago now. During that time I've also played some Vampire: The Masquerade and more recently I've begun to play Exalted.

Looking at the games now I'm favoring Exalted and DnD (3.5 mind you). Both games provide me with each their own distinct advantages.
I like Exalted because the rules are incredibly flexible and for me, doing a lot of things is very intuitive, with the exception of the combat and social combat systems which are more complex. Because most of the rules are a lot simpler in play you're not really distracted by them. And the system rewards creativity very well through the use of 'stunts' whereby giving a good description, using your environment and being terribly herioc awards the player immediately and visibly through a bonus in his dice pool.

DnD supplies me with something else, mainly because its not setting-specific like Exalted which is set in Creation and its nearly impossible to put it anywhere else.
DnD rules are generic enough to let me adapt them to every possible setting I can think of, and I can think of quite a few settings.

[Rev]

{Talking about Mage}

Everyone gets the same points, and being class-less, everyone would be fairly similar in terms of power, check.

Hmmm. I've been playing a fair amount of Mage recently & I really have to disagree with that. Life & Fate in particular out of the Arcanum have far too much going for them.

In addition, the separated character creation & XP systems leads to absurd differences in XP costs between identical characters who have achieved their abilities in a different order.

For an extreme example: Take a pair of characters who are identical. One bought Gnossis from 1 to 3 with Merit points (cost 6 merit points) & his 6 points of individual merits with XP (cost 6x2:12XP), the other did the reverse (Gnossis 3, [2+3]x8:40 XP).

Total difference between these identical characters? About 7 sessions XP (28XP). Not too balanced IMO.

SW plays faster, handles groups of people better, initiative is better, Every character has more options, it better incorporates cinematic elements, it better incorporates social elements and it is easier to add new ideas to.

Great system (one of my favourites in fact) & sold at a decent price ($10 for the current core book)

Hmmm. Actually that edition's sold out at the minute. PEG are doing a second run of it though.

[Caelic]

In general, I like two types of games:

1. Metagame engines that allow me to build the game I want.  HERO is my system of choice in this category, although I also enjoy GURPS.  In general, I prefer these systems when playing with a group that is already highly familiar with the system; they tend to have a steep learning curve.

2. Games with a compelling premise and setting and rules designed with the express purpose of modelling that premise and setting.  I'm very fond of TSR's old Marvel Superheroes system.  I would never use it for any other setting, but when it comes to modelling the reality of the Marvel comics universe, it does so extremely well. 

[BobismyRhino]

I like playing DnD, but the settings cannot be something familiar to me. Part of the reason I refuse to read up on Eberron and the like is because I want it all to be new and exciting to me. Homebrews are the way to go.

I mean, I've read a little quest that adventurers could go on in Heroes of Horror (and my god, I loved how sick and twisted it was), but seriously, if I had a DM try to throw that setting at me without tweaking ANYTHING, I would metagame the hell out of it. I would try really hard to restrain myself from metagaming, of course, but that would definitely detract from my gameplaying fun... and that would make me want to cheat so I could get to the "juicy" parts...

I also need a DM who's extremely creative and can pull stuff out of his ass when I or one of my fellow players ventures away from the main adventure for that day. If a kitty seems to attract the attention of me and a fellow player and we want to follow it, let us follow it! It makes things more realistic. Silly, but realistic.

I guess I'm demanding of my DM, but then again, I'm not opposed to following any restrictions he/she may impose on character creation etc, so I think it's somewhat fair. As long as everyone has fun at the end of the day, it's been a good game. 

[Omen of Peace]

Elegant and Simple game systems - Everway: Visionary Roleplaying.

I'd like to hear more about Everway if you have the time. I have heard positive things about it ; in fact, an absolutely fantastic PBEM I'm lurking in, House of Cards, has a homebrew system that is a mix of Amber and Everway (it's an Amber campaign).


Published settings: I really like Eberron.

Games: unfortunately I haven't used enough systems to draw general principles.
- like pfooti, my favorite system is Amber. Of course it's not a very general one, since it's tied to the (awesome) series by Zelazny. Amber games generally contain a fair share of intrigue, mixed in with exploration... and whatever the character wants, since (s)he can literally create new worlds. You are a 'godling', but there are 'gods' above you... and they are family. A family with a history of bickering, backstabbing, blundering... who still comes together every now and then for a glass of brandy.

There are very few precious artefacts in this universe, so the main currency is information. There are canon exemples of the Elders stopping in the middle of a sword duel to exchange news...

- I have played D&D (3E) quite a bit. I like that it's mechanic-heavy and allows for a wide range of characters.

- I played Shadowrun years ago - not enough to have a clear vision of it though.

[Callix]

I'm going to chime in on the Mage argument. The system works OK, although the "swap merits for Gnosis" rule means that all characters start with Gnosis 3 and Order Status 1 or else shoot themselves in the foot (free High Speech).

Aside from that, the arcana are actually somewhat balanced, but they all have their "good" and "bad" dots. For example, the Life arcanum is fantastic at 4 and 5 dots, but leads to huge redundancy if you only have it at 2, since everyone now needs it. Prime is similar; having a single, highly skilled character (Supernal Dispellation, Create Hallow) is very, very useful, but the lower dots are slightly meh. Fate and Time, on the other hand, are very valuable at the low levels; Time 2 and Time 3 are very nifty, but Time 4-5 doesn't really add that much except better Postcognition and dice pools.

Also, I'm actually discussing Mage: The Awakening, as I think Rev might be.

One completely broken trick: Do something in a Hallow while you have Time 3. If you don't like the result, cast a reflexive Glimpsing the Future on it. Should you fail witht he spell, cast a reflexive Glimpsing the Future on that. This allows you to reroll arbitrarily many times until you get a result you like. Since the nWoD d10 system rerolls 10s, this allows you to accumulate any number of successes in a single round, starting with any dice pool; even a chance die (0 dice). The Hallow negates the cost of the Glimpses.

Also, Time 3 is within the reach of a starting character. As is one dot in the Hallow merit.

Dammit, I just discovered another Pun-Pun.

What I like in a system? Good character creation rules, where you have a few different options that will actually affect what your character does, rather than just how good he is at [Role]. Oddly, I still like 4e, as the two "build options" are actually different quasi-roles - an Orb Wizard is a full-blown Controller, while a Wand blaster wizard is half-striker.

[Rev]

Also, I'm actually discussing Mage: The Awakening, as I think Rev might be.

Indeed, whoops - that kind of shows how successful nWoD has been at replacing oWoD.  :-\

I'm going to chime in on the Mage argument. The system works OK, although the "swap merits for Gnosis" rule means that all characters start with Gnosis 3 and Order Status 1 or else shoot themselves in the foot (free High Speech).

Bingo. All Mage characters effectively start with gnosis 3 & a free merit point to season with. The in game system plays quite well though.

I was talking about it in the pub last night & came to the decision that the best way to fix mage character gen is to allow retro-fitting XP later (in other words, if you buy an attribute dot @2 in character gen, you can later spend 10xp (buying that second dot) to reclaim the character gen dot & place it wherever).

Seems to solve the "same character, different XP" problem

Aside from that, the arcana are actually somewhat balanced, but they all have their "good" and "bad" dots. For example, the Life arcanum is fantastic at 4 and 5 dots, but leads to huge redundancy if you only have it at 2, since everyone now needs it. Prime is similar; having a single, highly skilled character (Supernal Dispellation, Create Hallow) is very, very useful, but the lower dots are slightly meh. Fate and Time, on the other hand, are very valuable at the low levels; Time 2 and Time 3 are very nifty, but Time 4-5 doesn't really add that much except better Postcognition and dice pools.

I''ll agree with you there more or less (prime 1 is one of the best arcanum dips because of the dispel & supernal vision rotes & life 3 is where life becomes the gift that keeps on giving).

Fate is a wonderful arcanum for just about anything because it can do the 'heavy lifting' in turning something from vulgar to subtle very easily in addition to the great rotes it has at nearly each dot.

For example, matter 5 (or death 5) weakening a wooden floor someone is standing on=vulgar. Matter 2 (or Death 2) + Fate 3, making them shift their weight at the wrong moment onto a single rotted (by matter) plank= less vulgar & less XP spent.

Hmmm. Interested in starting a talk about Mage thread Callix?

[Skara Brae]

I can't honestly tell you what kinds of games I like because I've only ever played D&D 3.x and 4e.  I've read a lot of other stuff, wouldn't mind trying it -- but my group is system monogamous, and they loves them their D&D.    I've heard they tried out other systems in the past, but those campaigns apparently never lasted very long.  (Mind you, to my knowledge they were DC Heroes and Shadowrun, which aren't really the same genre as D&D.)  I did make a SR 3e character once, but never got to play her.

Games I'd like to play/DM sometime:
Risus
Fudge (I have a homebrewed version of this set in the style of Zorro/Three Musketeers/Count of Monte Cristo that I want to DM sometime)
Fate.  Maybe.  Seems very odd, but worth a try.
nWoD.  Shiny production values are so seductive....
Microlite 20.  I would face a riot and be subjected to random mocking if I seriously suggested this to the group.  If it aint crunchy, they want no part of it.
Castles & Crusades
really old D&D -- like all those alphabet soups that came before 2nd e.  (I know, I now have no gamer geek cred...oh well, at least my vodka still likes me. )
Weapons of the Gods
Serenity...but I don't know if I could separate the rpg from the show.
BESM
d20 modern Urban Arcana - a setting idea that always intrigued me.

I was so excited to get 4th edition because the claim was that they fixed all the big problems.  And I think they did.

However, They also removed almost everything interesting or cool.

I had to go back and double check which system you were talking about. o.O  For me, this applies to D&D's 4e...I've been trying really hard to like it but it's just not working for me.  (Which sucks, cuz my primary DM loves DMing it.)

[Bejik]

I got my start on D&D 3.5 a year or so ago, in a kitchen sink campaign no less. Since then I've become a heavy mechanics whore and just absorb rules text. I really enjoy D&D but recently have been getting more and more excited by the Exalted game I'm concurrently involved with. AT first the storyteller system, and the really bad production values on many of the supplemental books in the line, was a real turn off. Eventually as I became more familiar with the system, and as my ST started getting involved in the WW forums and talking to the actual writers who are frequent posters there, I really started having more fun with it. Also on the subject of Exalted, the combat system may look really complex, it has 10 steps, but in most cases many of those steps get skipped or are very short so it really takes very little time.

[AndyJames]

At the moment, 3.5 is the RP system for me, especially if it is done by a DM who actually knows his 3.5 stuff and therefore is not too concerned with power levels except amongst the players. I just can't stand DMs who are too scared to allow stuff because they don't know the system well enough, or those that think Mystic Theurge is the uber-borken (yes, this is deliberately misspelled).

I also prefer homebrew myself, because settings are too easily metagamed and it frustrates me when a DM arbitrarily blows canon out of the water. I had one DM who based his game on the Forgotten Realms, but hated everything that made FR FR (Elmisnter, the Seven Sisters, the great struggle between the Harpers and the Zhentarrim, all the powerful wizards and tyrants and the like), so he went and did a hack job on it with no thoughts to the consequences of what it meant to the setting as a whole because, hey, the setting was borken to begin with. I mean what the-?? Then why use that setting??

But I digress. Currently, I am DM-ing a wholy home-brewed setting, and I have others in the wing (both from before and after). I might one day see if I am allowed to DM a Magnamund campaign, but I have to homebrew the Kai Lords first into 3.5. I love that setting with its continent sweeping war and rich history. In the meantime, I merely have a skeleton of a story arc, and am pulling things out of my rear due to my players' uncanny ability to get creative on me at the most inopportune moments.

[j0lt]

Depends on what kind of experience I'm looking for.  My main RPG experience is with the d20 System and Palladium.

For any kind of fantastic high adventure gaming, my favourite system at the moment is Saga.  I'm really hoping to play a fantasy game using those rules.

For a more gritty/real-world type game, nothing feels more right for me than d20 Modern.  It's the only system I've found where I can fairly accurately build most movie/TV/video game characters and even real people due to the generic nature of its class system.

[Tetsubo]

I actually have a hard time articulating what components of a game system make it one of my favorites. But I do *have* favorites:

Fantasy: 3.5 D&D in general. The best specific set of 3.5 rules I've read is Everstone. I'm looking forward to the final Pathfinder.

Sci-Fi: Star Wars SAGA. Hands down the best version of the game. If I were to run a SW game this is the system I'd use.

Post-Apocalyptic: Gamma World 4th Edition. I love this game so much it's obscene. I keep a copy literally at hand at all times. I could run a thousand campaigns from this one, slim soft cover. This book is sort of proto-3E in structure. The best mutant animal creation rules I've seen though are from the second edition of the After the Bomb game. Yes it's Palladium and the system sucks. But the mutant animals are so cool it out weighs the suck. I reread this book a few times a year just for fun. I'm thinking of getting a PDF version. And I've never purchased a PDF before.

Modern era: D20 Modern and all of the ancillary works.

Supers: Mutants & Masterminds. The best supers game ever written. And I own a lot of supers games...

Well, after having read what I just typed, I apparently really like the D20 system.

[dither]

I like an RPG that's easy to learn but takes years to master. Y'know, kinda like Chess or Go.

To get started in the game, it's gotta be simple, fast, and fun. You gotta be able to feel like you have a fighting chance with (or against) people who've been playing the game for ages. To hold my interest, it's gotta be nuanced enough and have enough options so that I can continue to explore, tinker with, and enjoy the crunchy bits for years to come. Finally, it's gotta be modular enough with its rules that I can "drag and drop" things from one rulebook into another without making too many ripples in the game. Also, it's gotta be able to work with just about any setting with only minor interface tweaks.

Now, that's not asking too much, is it?

[ReaderOfPosts]

[Alea_Iacta_Est]

I like a variety of games. Savage Worlds (Both Deadlands:Reloaded and Savage World of Solomon Kane), Burning Wheel, Warhammer Fantasy Role-play, Dark Heresy, Paranoia, Mouse Guard, Monsters and Magic, Spirit of the Century, Fate, Don't Rest Your Head, World of Darkness (all of the subsets as well), and Crimes People Play.

It isn't anything specific I look for, each game has its own flare that I like. For some games it is the setting (like Savage Worlds), the feel and mood (WFRP), and the rules (Burning Wheel).

[Eepop]

I like a game that has mechanics that I haven't seen before.  I love buying random game books from like Half Price Books just to check out what people have tried in their games.

During play, I like a game where the character a person picks to play doesn't make them inferior to someone who made a different choice.  We have a few constant players, and then over the years we have had players that are more casual.  So I don't want system mastery to be a requirement to keep the game somewhat even.  That said, I like there to be enough fiddly bits to play with.

For this D&D 4E has made me very happy. It does exactly what I want a game to do in the arena of combat.  If only the non-combat were half as good.

Another big thing to me when I am DMing is how much prep a game takes. I enjoy a good bit of prep time, but lets take 3.5 vs 4E for example: In 3.5, I spend most of my time making the encounters for the night then the rest on non-combat and other world flavor.  In 4e, I crank out the encounters in no time, then can spend the majority of the time on the non-combat elements.  The additional time allows me to make the non-combat sections better than I could when we were doing 3.5, even if the 4E non-combat system is weak.

Setting is more or less irrelevant to me. I will play in any world someone wants to DM. If I had to rank them I would say Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Super Hero, everything else.

Regarding Sci Fi, I would suggest people try out Alpha Omega.  My group is having a lot of fun with it.  It has some holes in it that could really use a few more source books to cover, but its a well built game and it has some interesting mechanics.

[Tetsubo]

I like a game that has mechanics that I haven't seen before.  I love buying random game books from like Half Price Books just to check out what people have tried in their games.

During play, I like a game where the character a person picks to play doesn't make them inferior to someone who made a different choice.  We have a few constant players, and then over the years we have had players that are more casual.  So I don't want system mastery to be a requirement to keep the game somewhat even.  That said, I like there to be enough fiddly bits to play with.

For this D&D 4E has made me very happy. It does exactly what I want a game to do in the arena of combat.  If only the non-combat were half as good.

Another big thing to me when I am DMing is how much prep a game takes. I enjoy a good bit of prep time, but lets take 3.5 vs 4E for example: In 3.5, I spend most of my time making the encounters for the night then the rest on non-combat and other world flavor.  In 4e, I crank out the encounters in no time, then can spend the majority of the time on the non-combat elements.  The additional time allows me to make the non-combat sections better than I could when we were doing 3.5, even if the 4E non-combat system is weak.

Setting is more or less irrelevant to me. I will play in any world someone wants to DM. If I had to rank them I would say Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Super Hero, everything else.

Regarding Sci Fi, I would suggest people try out Alpha Omega.  My group is having a lot of fun with it.  It has some holes in it that could really use a few more source books to cover, but its a well built game and it has some interesting mechanics.

I find it interesting that you give 4E kudos for *failing* to have a non-combat system. I guess it succeeds at spaceships as well...

[Eepop]

Maybe I was unclear. Non combat in 4e suck suck suckity suck sucks.

What I meant to say was "combat is so much faster to prepare for, I have enough preparation time left over to compensate for the relatively non-existent non-combat system".

Vs 3.5, who in my opinion didn't have all that much better of a non-combat system (better yes, but not by much), but whose combat system took damn near every minute I could allot to preparation time.

But this isn't an edition war thread, so that's where I will be leaving this. Just wanted to be sure that I clarified what I was saying since it obviously was too ambiguous for at least one person.