There are a lot of games out there right now. I think I'm currently playing or running in 4 different games using 3 different systems - we all love L5R so that's doubled up. However, for today I want to know what your favorite RPG is, and why?
At present, I think my favorite system is 7th Sea 2nd Edition. I really like a lot of how the system works, but my favorite factor is the speed, and how that speed really encourages you to go for more complex scenes that don't really work in other games for various reasons.
For those that don't know, 7th Sea 2nd Edition works different from most RPGs. How? Well, most RPGs involve you declaring your action and turn, then rolling to see if you succeed or not. In 7th Sea you roll the dice - everyone rolls their dice - and then you go around the table telling each other what that means.
Because of this, fights go a lot faster and the system can naturally handle other things - like complex social interactions.
Also, Roll then Move naturally gets rid of things like the whiff factor because you rarely, if ever, end up with nothing you can do - and you know how much you can do before you start stating things. Which in turn encourages more complex events.
For example, 7th Sea doesn't do well with just straight combat. Straight combat is literally just "I rolled 7 points, I do 7 points of damage" unless you and the other person are duelists in which case you have a mini game. It's definitely fast - so yay for that - but you can do so much more. Consider one of the big set pieces from the second Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Jack Sparrow, Will, and the Commodore from the first movie are all in a 1v1v1 sword fight over a key. The fight rages all over until all three characters are moving along a giant wheel free rolling across the land while still fighting. In most systems this doesn't work. In 7th sea, it's easy!
And that is part of why I love the system, and really want to get my hands into it to play. How about you?
4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons
ReplyDeleteI'm well aware that it gets a bad rap, but I love it. Since the late 80s I've played every edition but 5th and it did everything I needed and wanted all those years. Here's a little as to why.
"Yes, and..." is encouraged. I didn't embrace improv in my games until about 8 years ago, but it's great to have the DMG actually use that term to encourage the DM to take and improve on player ideas. One can do this in any game, but it's nice for it to be official.
Fighters (and mundane classes in general) matter, at every level. They have abilities that scale just as much as a wizard or cleric. More than that, mundane classes can have actually purposes other than just dealing and absorbing damage.
The defender mechanic. There's a reason to face off with the defender, even though the striker is doing more damage.
Mundane healing is worthwhile. I always disliked that magical healing was required in D&D. No more. Most classes will still bring a leader character (such as a warlord, with its non-magical healing) but even without one, every character can recover in a timely manner. It benefits from some abstract thinking about HP, but that's already necessary.
Skill challenges. No, the.mechanics for them aren't perfect, but they're still more than any earlier edition (and most other games) advise. They changed my thinking in good ways.
The minion mechanic. Sheer brilliance.
Overall balance between characters. There are weaker races and classes, but not by any enormous margin.
Ritual magic. Anyone can use scrolls and anyone can take a single feat to be a ritual caster.
Monsters not built like PCs. Monsters are their own thing. If I want an orc mage, I don't need to give wizard levels to an orc and cope with his poor Intelligence, I just have to give him a zappy, thematic power and call it a day.
Evey class has its own powers. If a character is casting /magic missile/ all over the place, they're not a bard or a sorcerer, they're a wizard. Bards and sorcerers don't have to crib from the wizard spell list, they have their own shtick. Monster powers don't have to be created in terms of existing spells, they can be their own thing.
I realize that I've listed a lot of things that are exactly what others hate about the game, but for me they all work. There's a lot the game could have done better (and it started to, by the end) but I continue to play it pretty much as is.