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ITT: Non-D&D TTRPG Reccomendations

Last posted Oct 24, 2023 at 07:32PM EDT. Added Oct 20, 2023 at 05:34AM EDT
7 posts from 5 users

I'll start!

Changeling: the Dreaming

Basically, that Creative people meme mixed with the sincerity of Tiburcio . you play as a changeling, in this world, that means a half-fae, half-human who, in some capacity, fights against the death of whimsy and hope in a series where everyone else is brooding, edgy loners.

Lancer

A TTRPG that's also technically a wargame, Lancer takes place in the far, far, far future where technology has advanced to the point where you can 3D print mechs, and ride them.
You take control of one of these mech joyriders, going about through the galaxy while your AI-like god-in-a-box yells obscenities and cat memes to your opponents, in a space-anonymous-designed angel from Neon Genesis Evangellion using a gun so advanced it can always hit you, even through walls.

Strap in,

If you're more for the "role" side of "roleplay", you can't do much better than Burning Wheel. Character traits and beliefs intervowen into the very core of the system – you get better at fighting for what you believe, chasing your dreams. Fights are messy but rarely lethal, social interaction's precisely as important and impactful, magic is powerful and oozing with flavor, or, at the far lower end of things, could be your character's cobbling skills or big beard ends up saving the day. Anything they have is important. Simple d6 system where everything clicks together like good clockwork. Can't recommend enough. Setting is geared for old fantasy like Middle-Earth and Earthsea, but it's easy enough to port into other things: there's some scifi stuff to be found, or medieval Japan, or Dune with serial-numbers filed off, and the core books have plenty guidelines for whatever you yourself might want to turn it to.

If you're more for the "play" side of things, or just can't shake D&D out of your system, Basic Dungeons & Dragons has you covered, or many of the great OSR systems based on it (I like ACKS best). If you must play D&D, you should at least learn what D&D used to stand for. Go down into caves, avoid monsters, mind the traps, get treasure. Be cunning, be clever, cheat always, back down when you must. Simple as. It's like a medieval fantasy heist game, rather than the modern try-everything mess you may have gotten used to. Characters are defined by what they go through in-game, rather than tragic backstory and emotional baggage: see image.

(If that looks like a similar sort of exaggeration as in the whole "straights vs. queers" topic that brought us here in the first place… it kind of is, but the guy on the right is very accurate. Also "0e" stands for the Original Dungeons & Dragons, the White-Box, which is a bit too thick even for me. But maybe you'll get it one day. People still play it for a reason. Make it a quest.)

Or maybe you don't want to do a fantasy heist game? Maybe you don't know what you want to do and so need something that can cover a bit of everything? Pick up GURPS, go nuts. Run some dimensional crash where every party member comes from different worlds and different settings and have no idea what's going on and need to learn to work together. Most comprehensive chargen, fine-tune every single point, get some extra point from all that emotional baggage we all like so much. I like to just create characters for the fun of it, there's a lot to go for there. Not too intuitive to actually play, takes some time and dedication to chew into, but definitely worth your while: once you have it down, you'll never need to pick another system again.

Maybe something lighter? You haven't got the time to read all that shit and just want to pass a fun afternoon with friends? Or you're all completely new to this hobby and need to learn fast? Grab Risus. The whole thing's six pages long, but those six pages are worth the six hundred of some other systems. Grab an archetype, roll some dice whenever that archetype can fix things up for you, get bonuses for coming up with crazy outside-the-box solutions. Best introductory system in my opinion, hands-down.

Or you want to get spooked up for Halloween? AtlasJan brought up World of Darkness stuff, but I'd like to add to that Don't Rest Your Head. Can't sleep, go down the sewers into fairy realms, develop crazy-ass superpowers, survive the world of wacky shit without turning into a monster like them. Read Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere to get a good idea. Or pick up the My Little Pony hack, we all know how much we like the ponies.

You like pulp action? Flash Gordon, Indiana Jones, Doc Savage, raygun gothic science fiction and two-fisted adventure tales and wild western? Have a look at Savage Worlds. Fast-paced and fun, exploding dice everywhere, adventure cards make things crazy, great for improvisation from both player and GM side of things – though it breaks down a bit if you try for longer adventures.

For dark fantasy there's Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and its science fiction counterpart, Dark Heresy and derivatives. I'd go for the second edition of both: I've heard some contradictory things of the fourth edition of the former, and Wrath and Glory doesn't much interest me.

Got no friends but still want to roll dice? Check out Quill. Write letters for people, see how that goes.

There are other systems that I haven't personally tried but I've heard good things of. Shadowrun and Cyberpunk are different variants of the same setting, the former adding a bunch of fantasy to the mix. Call of Cthulhu I've only played little, but it seems to work all right for spooky adventures. Dogs in the Vineyard looks cool. Apocalypse World and its derivatives were never for me, but you might find things in them. Ryuutama is comfy as heck just to read through, but I don't know how well it works for practice. There's even some roleplaying games that need no dice at all, such as Nobilis, if you just really hate the idea of things randomly fucking up. For high fantasy crazy shit, Exalted should be named. And if you're just looking for something to laugh at with friends and the very concept of Content Warning gives you hives, give FATAL a read.

Bottom line – never play 5e. 5e is a terrible mashup of a system that tries to do everything and thus fails at everything. It's bearing the baggage of half a century of history, understanding almost none of it yet forced to hold on to it for the sake of nostalgia points. Throttled by the fat hands of the corporate overlords that believe in nothing and want nothing but your money. Forever steeped in controversy and drama that nobody sane should give a shit about. The sooner you drop it, the better off you are.

4e is fine if you're looking for tactical combat.

Last edited Oct 20, 2023 at 07:45AM EDT

Tier -1 – "Avoid"

  • Powered by the Apocalypse-based things: Once you've played one you've played them all.
  • Ryuutama and Japanese TTRPGs: They are meant for a completely different way of playing ttrpgs so I generally don't recommend them.
  • Any Cyberpunk system: Shadowrun is so dense and complicated without a proper experienced GM, old Cyberpunk 2020 has not aged well mechanically or aesthetically at all, and Cyberpunk Red is so limited. I have not seen a single system in this genre I like, just play the video games instead.
  • Fallout 2d20: They made Fallout 4 in ttrpg form, bugs and all. I would probably give Modiphus's 2d20 system another chance since it was cool but this gave me a terrible first impression.

Tier 0 – "I want D&D 5e without WOTC"

  • Project Black Flag by Kobold Press

Tier 1 – "I want D&D but I'm tired of 5e"

  • Shadow of the Demon Lord: More horror-oriented 5e, trades out advantage system for more balanced boons/banes, loads of options.
  • Pathfinder 2nd Edition: Crunchier than 5e with a more concise lore overall, extremely good support on Foundry VTT

Tier 2 – "I want a fantasy TTRPG but it doesn't have to be d20"

  • Zweihander or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th: More grimdark like SotDL, d%
  • UESRPG: Elder Scrolls but in tabletop form. Fanmade but free and with a lot of support out there for it. d%

Tier 3 – "It doesn't have to be fantasy"

  • Warhammer 40k RPGs: There's a lot of them but all of the ones by Fantasy Flight Games are pretty good. Imperium Maledictum is a new one coming out that takes some notes from Hunter and looks pretty good. d%
  • Hunter: Of all the World of Darkness RPGs Hunter is the only one that interests me personally, starts from a more human perspective. Personal experience says that the Chronicles of Darkness version is best. d10s
  • Traveller: Peak space opera. Less conventional progression but a very rich world with thousands of variations and third party/homebrew content from nearly 50 years. Go for Mongoose 2e version. 2d6

Tier 4 – "I want a radically different experience"

  • Blades In The Dark: Sorta breaks my no-PbtA rule since it's loosely based on it but it has a very interesting task resolution system and a very detailed world. d6
  • FFG's Star Wars / Genesys: Uses a wonky dice system that actually leads to a lot of really interesting results to task resolution. Surprisingly fun, embrace the candy dice.
  • Narrative Wargaming: Necromunda, Inquisitor, Blood Bowl and other systems can be really fun to do over a season. It's heavier on the wargaming aspect obviously but it can create some equally memorable role play moments.

Tier 5 – "Surprise me"

  • Achtung! Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu mixed with WW2 esoteric pulpiness. Comes in CoC flavor and 2d20 flavor.
  • Maid RPG: Just try it. d6
  • Eclipse Phase: Transhumanist scifi rpg. Love-hate relationship with this one. Mindjammer (a traveller setting) is a more competent galactic scale version of this. d%
Last edited Oct 22, 2023 at 02:44PM EDT

wisehowl_the_2nd wrote:

Tier -1 – "Avoid"

  • Powered by the Apocalypse-based things: Once you've played one you've played them all.
  • Ryuutama and Japanese TTRPGs: They are meant for a completely different way of playing ttrpgs so I generally don't recommend them.
  • Any Cyberpunk system: Shadowrun is so dense and complicated without a proper experienced GM, old Cyberpunk 2020 has not aged well mechanically or aesthetically at all, and Cyberpunk Red is so limited. I have not seen a single system in this genre I like, just play the video games instead.
  • Fallout 2d20: They made Fallout 4 in ttrpg form, bugs and all. I would probably give Modiphus's 2d20 system another chance since it was cool but this gave me a terrible first impression.

Tier 0 – "I want D&D 5e without WOTC"

  • Project Black Flag by Kobold Press

Tier 1 – "I want D&D but I'm tired of 5e"

  • Shadow of the Demon Lord: More horror-oriented 5e, trades out advantage system for more balanced boons/banes, loads of options.
  • Pathfinder 2nd Edition: Crunchier than 5e with a more concise lore overall, extremely good support on Foundry VTT

Tier 2 – "I want a fantasy TTRPG but it doesn't have to be d20"

  • Zweihander or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th: More grimdark like SotDL, d%
  • UESRPG: Elder Scrolls but in tabletop form. Fanmade but free and with a lot of support out there for it. d%

Tier 3 – "It doesn't have to be fantasy"

  • Warhammer 40k RPGs: There's a lot of them but all of the ones by Fantasy Flight Games are pretty good. Imperium Maledictum is a new one coming out that takes some notes from Hunter and looks pretty good. d%
  • Hunter: Of all the World of Darkness RPGs Hunter is the only one that interests me personally, starts from a more human perspective. Personal experience says that the Chronicles of Darkness version is best. d10s
  • Traveller: Peak space opera. Less conventional progression but a very rich world with thousands of variations and third party/homebrew content from nearly 50 years. Go for Mongoose 2e version. 2d6

Tier 4 – "I want a radically different experience"

  • Blades In The Dark: Sorta breaks my no-PbtA rule since it's loosely based on it but it has a very interesting task resolution system and a very detailed world. d6
  • FFG's Star Wars / Genesys: Uses a wonky dice system that actually leads to a lot of really interesting results to task resolution. Surprisingly fun, embrace the candy dice.
  • Narrative Wargaming: Necromunda, Inquisitor, Blood Bowl and other systems can be really fun to do over a season. It's heavier on the wargaming aspect obviously but it can create some equally memorable role play moments.

Tier 5 – "Surprise me"

  • Achtung! Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu mixed with WW2 esoteric pulpiness. Comes in CoC flavor and 2d20 flavor.
  • Maid RPG: Just try it. d6
  • Eclipse Phase: Transhumanist scifi rpg. Love-hate relationship with this one. Mindjammer (a traveller setting) is a more competent galactic scale version of this. d%

I'm curious, how exactly do you find Cyberpunk Red limited ?

I personally have no gripes with the system itself, but I don't like how everything is too polished and packed in neat categories with little to no differences. I understand that not everybody wants to ponder the mechanical and style differences between a Dai Lung and a Militech, but lumping everything under extra-broad categories like "Medium pistol" just doesn't feel right in a game which is all about style over substance.

I had to use a homebrew to add revolvers tho, so that's like -5 stars.

Turian Gentleman wrote:

I'm curious, how exactly do you find Cyberpunk Red limited ?

I personally have no gripes with the system itself, but I don't like how everything is too polished and packed in neat categories with little to no differences. I understand that not everybody wants to ponder the mechanical and style differences between a Dai Lung and a Militech, but lumping everything under extra-broad categories like "Medium pistol" just doesn't feel right in a game which is all about style over substance.

I had to use a homebrew to add revolvers tho, so that's like -5 stars.

I mean you pretty much hit the nail on the head in regards to my thoughts. Those types of games are usually all about progression through gear, and it's rather stunted in that department.

wisehowl_the_2nd wrote:

Tier -1 – "Avoid"

  • Powered by the Apocalypse-based things: Once you've played one you've played them all.
  • Ryuutama and Japanese TTRPGs: They are meant for a completely different way of playing ttrpgs so I generally don't recommend them.
  • Any Cyberpunk system: Shadowrun is so dense and complicated without a proper experienced GM, old Cyberpunk 2020 has not aged well mechanically or aesthetically at all, and Cyberpunk Red is so limited. I have not seen a single system in this genre I like, just play the video games instead.
  • Fallout 2d20: They made Fallout 4 in ttrpg form, bugs and all. I would probably give Modiphus's 2d20 system another chance since it was cool but this gave me a terrible first impression.

Tier 0 – "I want D&D 5e without WOTC"

  • Project Black Flag by Kobold Press

Tier 1 – "I want D&D but I'm tired of 5e"

  • Shadow of the Demon Lord: More horror-oriented 5e, trades out advantage system for more balanced boons/banes, loads of options.
  • Pathfinder 2nd Edition: Crunchier than 5e with a more concise lore overall, extremely good support on Foundry VTT

Tier 2 – "I want a fantasy TTRPG but it doesn't have to be d20"

  • Zweihander or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th: More grimdark like SotDL, d%
  • UESRPG: Elder Scrolls but in tabletop form. Fanmade but free and with a lot of support out there for it. d%

Tier 3 – "It doesn't have to be fantasy"

  • Warhammer 40k RPGs: There's a lot of them but all of the ones by Fantasy Flight Games are pretty good. Imperium Maledictum is a new one coming out that takes some notes from Hunter and looks pretty good. d%
  • Hunter: Of all the World of Darkness RPGs Hunter is the only one that interests me personally, starts from a more human perspective. Personal experience says that the Chronicles of Darkness version is best. d10s
  • Traveller: Peak space opera. Less conventional progression but a very rich world with thousands of variations and third party/homebrew content from nearly 50 years. Go for Mongoose 2e version. 2d6

Tier 4 – "I want a radically different experience"

  • Blades In The Dark: Sorta breaks my no-PbtA rule since it's loosely based on it but it has a very interesting task resolution system and a very detailed world. d6
  • FFG's Star Wars / Genesys: Uses a wonky dice system that actually leads to a lot of really interesting results to task resolution. Surprisingly fun, embrace the candy dice.
  • Narrative Wargaming: Necromunda, Inquisitor, Blood Bowl and other systems can be really fun to do over a season. It's heavier on the wargaming aspect obviously but it can create some equally memorable role play moments.

Tier 5 – "Surprise me"

  • Achtung! Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu mixed with WW2 esoteric pulpiness. Comes in CoC flavor and 2d20 flavor.
  • Maid RPG: Just try it. d6
  • Eclipse Phase: Transhumanist scifi rpg. Love-hate relationship with this one. Mindjammer (a traveller setting) is a more competent galactic scale version of this. d%

forgot Tier -2 – "You don't wanna know"
FATAL: "roll for anal circumference"
RaHoWa: made by and for people that even the KKK think go too far

digital_m3m3 wrote:

forgot Tier -2 – "You don't wanna know"
FATAL: "roll for anal circumference"
RaHoWa: made by and for people that even the KKK think go too far

RaHoWa shouldn't come up in the conversation at all, really, since it barely has any kind of rules. It's like an insane manifesto that doesn't even try to make a game.

Skeletor-sm

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