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Author Topic: D&D, which edition? or something else?  (Read 12127 times)

Offline Doomhippie

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #45 on: May 07, 2012, 03:47:45 PM »

I have Warhammer FRP first ed and I personally would not play it. Too many rules and tables. Not quite roll monster by ICE but right up there with it. Anything with a crit hit/fumble table should be burned at the stake of imagination. Though I did like the way in roll monster the characters slowly lost fingers toes eyes and ears as they developed. GM- "You come across an evil black knight blocking the path, he is a limbless torso with a head attached missing one eye both ears and nose what do you do?" Players - "We run for it! he must be at least 15th level with that many bits missing!"

Easy, easy! ICE is my RPG bible. Nothing beats the crit tables. So cool. Here's a chance for a 1st lvl character to really be heroic. And vice vera: I remember a friend's character (around lvl 12) got knocked out by a measly 2nd lvl orc due to a lucky (or unlucky) crit. And once you understood the rules ICE wasn't really that difficult. Roll your D100+your attack value, subtract the enemies defence and look up the result on the table. If you got a critical hit, roll on that table. A maximum of two die rolls, no more than D&D. And after a while you knew where which table was found (or add a little reading sign). So the fighting was fairly quick and very vivid. I still play it after over 25 years...
Roky Erickson flies my spaceship!

Offline thebinmann

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #46 on: May 07, 2012, 05:54:53 PM »
I have Warhammer FRP first ed and I personally would not play it. Too many rules and tables. Not quite roll monster by ICE but right up there with it. Anything with a crit hit/fumble table should be burned at the stake of imagination. Though I did like the way in roll monster the characters slowly lost fingers toes eyes and ears as they developed. GM- "You come across an evil black knight blocking the path, he is a limbless torso with a head attached missing one eye both ears and nose what do you do?" Players - "We run for it! he must be at least 15th level with that many bits missing!"

I could disagree more he system is easy, % to hit and d6 damage for combat, the rest is % based. The tables are optional and the sudden death is an option, the crit table is for flavour and player development esp when insanity is added in. I remember the "unoffical" dandd table being much worse 20/20 death 20/19 triple damge plus bonus minus shoe size. WFR is a real roleplayig game and nothing I have played outside of cthulhu has a roleplaying campaign any where near as good as EWI.

Offline thebinmann

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #47 on: May 08, 2012, 11:05:43 AM »
Whats EWI?

Enemy Within

With WHFRP one look at the book and it was shelved. Just not my sort of game. Too many professions ect.

For me that is the beauty, you aren't hopeless tied to being a fighter etc, rather a real person who can decide what he/she wants to do. The profressions are the real beauty of the game...

My tastes are more rules lite systems with strong role playing elements.

The depends on the group, but for my moeny the strongest roleplaying games are Pendragon (though you have to play to the "characters rules/social position"), Cthulhu and Warhammer. You can't get much easier than % system like WFRP or Cthulhu, the rest of the rules are simply a guide... and with Pendragon the est way to advance is to aviod combat because you die easiely, in the EWI we played about 5 sessions with no combat for the Power Behind the throne.

DW is another one with a simple system and strong RP.

Agreed I love it!

I think its a case of different strokes for different folks. I only played Roll Monster and only a few times. After it took 2 hours real time to kill an orc sentry I bailed. The orc sentry was for all intents and purposes a throw away 'goon with gun' and not worthy of 2 hours of my life.

Absolutley right, I have never play Role Master, but I can advise steering clear of Sky Realms of Journe (?) the character gen took about 5 hours!

Cyberpunk 2020 was a good system as well. Except for netrunning, better running that as just like any other skill as opposed to something that takes that player into their own mini game and chews up hours of game time where everyone else just drinks all the beer and gets bored.

Other people might think all these systems are simplistic and direly need crit tables several thousand character archetypes and all the rest. Fair enough too, As I said different strokes. 

I only played the old Box Set of cyberpunk but liked it, I read but never played Shadow run.

Re the crit tables, in WFRP we only used the big tables for Characters and big NPCs

Offline The Dread Pirate GeorgeD

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #48 on: May 08, 2012, 03:16:19 PM »
I you want a nice alternative to Pathfinder or D&D 3.5,  have a look at Fantasycraft from Crafty Games. It has the 3.5 vibe, but it has a few ideas that I find appealing ( like Magic users having as many hit points as other classes and classes getting bonus dice to spend like fate points to help with failed rolls ). They also divide encounters into scenes. The group can replenishes hits and magic between the minor fights and be rested and ready for the grand finale. overall I like the feel of the rules and am dying to try them out with a group. Did I also mention that you can play a Dragon as a character and it balances out in power with the rest of the party.

Ciao
George
"In my way of thinking. The only way to be sure to remember not to
do something, is to forget about it. Then your absolutely certain to
remember not to do it! Do you follow me mate? "

Dread Pirate GeorgeD

Offline revford

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #49 on: May 09, 2012, 09:03:43 PM »
With profession tables I personally would prefer not to have them. Either have a loose character archetype or an open system where you custom build the character you want. Foresight by T Leowald (you will never find it anymore) allowed you to build any sort of person you wanted. Very good system apart from it being a bit sheldon cooper in places. (Tony the guy who wrote it had a big science based brain and it showed.)

The current version of Traveller, from Mongoose, has a points-buy character creation system, as an alternative to the usual career method.
Gav Ford
revford@gmail.com

Offline Too Bo Coo

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #50 on: July 02, 2016, 02:51:43 AM »
Only just saw the thread.  As to AD&D, it's first edition all the way.  A wonderful toy chest that any group can use to make a fantastic game.  It's loose enough that not every rule has to be used, but robust enough that one can make it as crunchy as they like.  Every edition after 1st was either nerfed (2e/4e) or made ridiculously complicated (3e/pathfinder).  If you like a Tolkienesque world, it's the way to go. If you dont have the books, you can get OSRIC for free.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2016, 02:54:17 AM by Too Bo Coo »
"A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men."
-Willy Wonka

Offline Too Bo Coo

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #51 on: July 02, 2016, 02:53:26 AM »
Outside of AD&D, WHFRP is a great game.  Very different flavor than AD&D.  DCC is also nice as a simplified version of 3e.

Offline Hobby Services

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #52 on: July 02, 2016, 07:22:48 PM »
More than four years gap between responses is some serious thread necromancy.  Still, gives me an opportunity to plug 13th Age from Pelgrane Press, which wasn't even out back in 2012 and is arguably all the best elements of D&D 4E without the rules bloat.  The setting alone is worth the price of admission, and many of the core ideas (the Icons and character relations to them, the escalation die, and your One unique Thing) are readily adaptable to any set of rules.

Offline Too Bo Coo

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #53 on: July 02, 2016, 07:34:31 PM »
More than four years gap between responses is some serious thread necromancy.  Still, gives me an opportunity to plug 13th Age from Pelgrane Press, which wasn't even out back in 2012 and is arguably all the best elements of D&D 4E without the rules bloat.  The setting alone is worth the price of admission, and many of the core ideas (the Icons and character relations to them, the escalation die, and your One unique Thing) are readily adaptable to any set of rules.

LOL  I realized after I posted the second time  :D

Offline phreedh

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #54 on: July 03, 2016, 07:18:43 AM »
Threadomancy has the benefit of bringing old absent LAFers back. Hi Doomhippie, nice to read you again! Hope you'll start visiting and posting again...
Please visit my miniature gaming blog at http://ministuff.godzilla.se


Offline Conquistador

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #55 on: July 04, 2016, 05:46:18 PM »
Well, since the dead are now undead...

For me, were the wife to become interested again in FRPG, I would take white box OD&D, with supplements; bolt on the colorful/more logical elements of AD&D 1st, and resurrect our old Seattle years campaign.

Probably will win lottery first.  And I don't gamble with my own money.
Viva Alta California!  Las guerras de España,  Las guerras de las Américas,  Las guerras para la Libertad!

Offline Hobgoblin

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #56 on: July 04, 2016, 06:19:27 PM »
I've got a couple of recommendations. First, Dragon Warriors. It's terrific - simple (character creation takes perhaps five minutes), smooth and terrifically evocative in its background.

Another great game - and a somewhat different one - is Ganesha Games' Tales of Blades and Heroes. Its huge strength is that it builds on a very successful skirmish-gaming engine. So, although the system is very simple, it works just as well as Song of Blades and Heroes when a fight breaks out. And I think that's actually quite unusual for RPGs - very often, their combat is more complex than a skirmish wargame but much less compelling.

The other thing that's a very strong mark in TBH's favour is that it's explicitly designed to be played with miniatures. That's not for everyone, of course, but it's probably very much for everyone on this forum! Character creation involves designing a PC using a simple points system, and it's suggested that you use a specific miniature as your starting point. That's the reverse of the norm, but it's a nice innovation - "I want to be this guy," rather than "Have you got a miniature that looks like this?".

If I were going for an optimal RPG experience, I'd probably use TBH with something very like the background of Dragon Warriors. Games, I find, improve immeasurably when a goblin is a tricksy, spell-weaving sprite rather than a  Tolkien knock-off with the flavour drained out (as in many default RPG settings).

Offline Hobby Services

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #57 on: July 04, 2016, 07:01:18 PM »
The other thing that's a very strong mark in TBH's favour is that it's explicitly designed to be played with miniatures. That's not for everyone, of course, but it's probably very much for everyone on this forum!

That's true, but it's hardly unique to TBH.  D&D 3.0, 3.5, and 4E all made minis (or at least maps and counters of some kind) effectively mandatory due to the nature of their combat systems.  Pathfinder (which is pretty much D&D 3.75) is just as minis-oriented, with the same "combat becomes a tabletop sub-game" design philosophy.  4E was probably the peak of this style of thinking, and 5E has been a big step away from it.

13th Age (which I recommended earlier, and which might be considered D&D 4.5 in a lot of ways) goes back to a freeform combat system that doesn't require maps and minis but can benefit from them.  Which is probably the best approach for an RPG in my book.

Offline Sir_Theo

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #58 on: July 04, 2016, 07:31:51 PM »
Seeing as this thread has resurrected!

For retro clones I like Labyrinth Lord. Quite reasonable to buy from Lulu.

For more modern games Barbarians of Lemuria is a great system, based on a sword and sorcery setting. Cubicle 7s recent Lone Wolf game seems great, particularly for newcomers to roleplaying. 

Offline Hobgoblin

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Re: D&D, which edition? or something else?
« Reply #59 on: July 04, 2016, 10:19:02 PM »
That's true, but it's hardly unique to TBH.  D&D 3.0, 3.5, and 4E all made minis (or at least maps and counters of some kind) effectively mandatory due to the nature of their combat systems.  Pathfinder (which is pretty much D&D 3.75) is just as minis-oriented, with the same "combat becomes a tabletop sub-game" design philosophy.  4E was probably the peak of this style of thinking, and 5E has been a big step away from it.

Sure - and, apart from hearing that "recent" versions of the game have been more miniature-based, I confess to complete ignorance of any D&D systems apart from OD&D, Basic and first-edition AD&D (I only recently became aware that there was more than one edition!).

I suppose there might still be a distinction, though, along these lines: SBH is, for many people, the skirmish game of choice. But is any version of D&D the go-to game for many people for pure skirmish wargaming? I can't imagine that Otherworld Skirmish (and indeed SBH) would be so popular if those versions of D&D worked as well as miniature games. I could well be wrong, though!

13th Age (which I recommended earlier, and which might be considered D&D 4.5 in a lot of ways) goes back to a freeform combat system that doesn't require maps and minis but can benefit from them.  Which is probably the best approach for an RPG in my book.

I've heard very good things about 13th Age. I gather it's being used - officially - with the Glorantha setting.

I tend to agree with you on the best approach. I've been thinking for a while about posting a topic here to ask people what they tend to do in practice. The obvious problem with the "pure" miniatures-based approach is that they tend to limit the imagination (even if only subliminally: "Hmm, what can I see in the cabinet to stock this dungeon with?").  Conversely, the problem with miniature-less gaming is that complex fights can be hard to manage, envisage and - most importantly - enjoy.

 

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