Help me find a system...

Ok all ... I've been gone from RP a long time and just recently gotten back into it. When I left RP, there was D&D 3.0 (brand new at the time), Shadowrun, and a handful of small label rpgs. Now there are many many more. Before I go wading through this list: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_role-playing_" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_role-playing_</a>... (which I'm sure isn't all inclusive), I'm hoping you all can help me narrow down my search. Here's what I'm looking for: A system that is gritty (one arrow can kill even a "high level" character). A system that allows a player to be a caster AND a fighter AND a rogue AND a ... (flexibility) NOT Vancian magic (ghastly magic system - uhn ... I just threw up in my mouth a little) A system that allows for POWERFUL magic without ridiculously high skill costs, character point costs, or fatigue costs (GURPS). {I don't mind fatigue costs - but when 1 spell uses ALL of your FP ... and its a "low level" spell, well, that's just silly}. NOT stupid rules intensive that has thousands of modifiers and hundreds of tables through dozens of books (GURPS again). GURPS checks three out of five boxes but the big kickers against GURPS are all those conditional rules (I know - I can throw them out if I don't want to use them - but then I'm basically breaking the system) and the fact that GURPS is NOT designed to have HIGH POWERED magic without imposing very steep costs in terms of skill points, character points, and fatigue (and I know - I can run a campaign without fatigue too, but the skill and CP costs are still there). Basically I could break GURPS to fit my needs ... BUT... If you all know of a system that hits the 5 boxes above, I'd love to hear suggestions. And as a bonus criteria but not 100% necessary - a bestiary or monster manual type catalogue of random beasties so I don't have to spend a few weeks designing beasts for random encounter tables, etc... BTW - NOT Savage Worlds - took a look at that and really don't like the feel of gameplay.

Interestingly Mutants and Masterminds hits most, if not all, if your requirements. 1. Least applicable but easy to change with the "high lethality" rules. Since damage saving throws are all d20 rolls theoretically even high level characters (since "high level" could still have a low toughness save) could be knocked out or killed in a single hit with a bad roll. Most characters tend to have higher saves so it's unlikely to get knocked out quickly but you could house-rule or otherwise tweak those numbers easily. 2. M&M has no classes...you character is based on the abilities you buy with points (similar to GURPS, but simpler). There's a lot of flexibility in characters with the array system (essentially, you can have an ability that can do X or Y, but not at the same time, for the cost of X+1, if that makes sense). 3. Magic is simply a descriptor of power, and Vancian magic takes works to implement. Most powers are typically at-will. 4. M&M is all about crazy power. You can even keep the power level low and have magic break those limits. This will take some house ruling and limitations so you can set up the magic however you want. Typical M&M characters are supposed to be superheroes so you'll need to manually lower their power a bit. 5. The rules in M&M, minus character creation (which can take some time, especially if you have custom limitations), are a simplified version of D&D 3.5. Similar, but minus hit points, flanking, grappling, and other complex rulesets. The only additional complexity is that there is a lot of d20 rolls (since you have to roll to attack, then if you hit, the enemy has to roll to save vs damage), but it's really not bad. I personally consider M&M to be "GURPS lite". I ran an anime-themed campaign with it before I had to stop due to real life obligations. It may be a bit loose on rules for what you're looking for, though. Other than that my only other suggestion would be to take a look at nWoD's Mage setting. The setting and style is a bit grittier and fairly simple to play. It's designed more for a "modern horror" style of game. Good luck!

Well, I'd normally suggest Gurps and Savage Worlds in order to meet your needs, but since that's not on the table... How about something off of the RuneQuest tree? Current version is RuneQuest 6 by The Design Mechanism which seems to hit all the points and has at least four systems of magic available right out of the box to customize to your needs. If you didn't grab the $5 pdf on black Friday and the normal $25 pdf is a bit too much, there's Mongoose Publishing's Legend (it used to be known as Mongoose RuneQuest 2, not to be confused with original RuneQuest 2). Don't let the buck price tag fool you, it's a refined version of the percentile based system with plenty of combat options and magic systems as well. If that looks too intimidating or costly, then I'd go with Openquest , a cut down version with a free SRD and some house rules. Runequest and the rest of the above is a close cousin to Chaosium's BRP and Call of Cthulhu lines. No classes or levels, instead you pick skills and roll against those skills using percentile dice. It's been around in one form or another since the late 70s, so it has staying power.

I'll check out RuneQuest. I had just been reading up on BRP and it seems like it might be a contender as well. I also just stumbled across Fuzion which seems like GURPS Lite in many ways but with a good deal more flexibility and less complexity. I really REALLY wanted GURPS to work because I really like its gritty nature. But in a setting with high-powered magic GURPS just falls flat (even after reading Thaumatology). And GURPS has those crazy modifiers that just add to complexity more than realism. And WHY for the love of GOD does GURPS not but out a condensed, sorted, list of Advantages/Disadvantages/Skills in table format? It would be much easier to look at a table of Advantages/et al which gives concise info and then refer to the narrative description rather than having to wade through page after page. (Rhetorical question - don't want or need an answer - don't want to derail my own thread).

I will always suggest my favorite system, Anima: Beyond Fantasy published by fantasy flight games, but I will try and justify how it can fit your needs. I apologize ahead of time for rambling/ranting about my favorite and (I find) under appreciated system. A system that is gritty (one arrow can kill even a "high level" character). Well, this system can definitely have that happen. Defense and attacks in this system are active (each party rolls dice), with ability and some special powers directly affecting the damage capability of the weapon/spell. Thus, a single arrow from a powerful character can instantly kill a character with similar ability if they botch their defense roll or the attacker plans ahead / situates himself. Additionally, health pools in this system stay relatively low for non JRPG battle sponge style monsters, to facilitate this. A system that allows a player to be a caster AND a fighter AND a rogue AND a ... (flexibility) This system uses a number of point costs that translate into abilities based on class chosen. Therefore a wizard can still wield a sword effectively, they just spend more points to do it (double I think in that specific case). There are also hybrid classes for most pre-defined combos, the freelancer class (average at almost everything), and nothing stops you from just tweaking the values to make your own class. Additionally there are advantages/disadvantages that allow for even the most bland of fightery types to have flavor and uniqueness (or more stats). NOT Vancian magic (ghastly magic system - uhn ... I just threw up in my mouth a little) I know that feeling sometimes (though it does have it's place for strict balancing). In A:BF , you accumulate a resource called zeon (essentially mana) with your turns (and modifiers) to launch spells. Nothing stops a wizard from preparing 30 spells in advance (other than the visual side effects) and unleashing all holy hell in 1 turn of badass-magickry. However zeon returns slowly so most mages find themselves drained for about a week to a month depending on build after that scenario. A system that allows for POWERFUL magic without ridiculously high skill costs, character point costs, or fatigue costs (GURPS). {I don't mind fatigue costs - but when 1 spell uses ALL of your FP ... and its a "low level" spell, well, that's just silly}. In this system, mages only require a moderate amount of INT to cast most spells at least at base level, and they scale up to redonkalus levels. There are also no 'skill' requirements for spell use (unless you take the disadvantage), but a mage will have to specialize in spending their development points towards magical areas so that they can cast and hit reliably, depending on build (can elaborate further if you need me to). There are also psychics and summoners, as well as Ki (think DBZ without the hair) that allow almost every character to live out the awesome feel of being high level and able to do something cool. I've been told it's less extravagant than exalted, but I've never had the pleasure of using that system. NOT stupid rules intensive that has thousands of modifiers and hundreds of tables through dozens of books (GURPS again). Ehh.... you may have me here. The books are originally Spanish, and FFG hasn't done the greatest job in translating them consistently... There are errata's, fan corrections, balance concerns (damn psychics) and misnomers/mistranslations that make it hard to keep things straight sometimes. There are also quite a few tables for situational modifiers in combat and how things interact. The core book is perfectly fine in terms of rules and balance, but once you get the expansions for the core systems, things get a bit inconsistent and wacky. However, there is a very fantastic community of which I am a part of that tries to eliminate the shortcomings of the system as best we can. Additionally after you get through the initial hurdle of how the system plays (even with the expansion books), you can simply have people stack their modifiers on their end, tell you what they are doing, and roll. You then compare this to a difficulty or someone else's roll (mostly the latter for combat) and do some math. Most of the time it follows common sense (unless your a psychic) and improvisation is really easy I find. a bestiary or monster manual type catalogue of random beasties so I don't have to spend a few weeks designing beasts for random encounter tables, etc... There is a bestiary expansion, which contains many monsters from silly fire salamander level 0 guys to world ending 'jesus why do you do this to me' bosses like Omega (note his entry is like 4 pages by itself... ech). You can also build monsters relatively fast in this system (i have it down to about 20 minutes if i have a solid idea for it) since attack/defense (or your magical equivalent) is a primary point sink that allows you to get balance for a fight out of the way and get to cool powers like flight or camouflaged/automatic attacks. Again if any of this needs elaborating, even if its already in the 'noooooooooooooope' category, i'd be happy to fire off PM's or other posts about mechanics / feel / whatnot. Sorry if this is a bit too long and I hope you find what you are looking for in a great system, and that I can help narrow that at least ;)

Basically I could break GURPS to fit my needs ... Not really breaking it. GURPS is a manual for building your game. It provides a framework with a logical baseline so when you decide which bits to include in your game, everything still makes sense. I really REALLY wanted GURPS to work because I really like its gritty nature. But in a setting with high-powered magic GURPS just falls flat (even after reading Thaumatology). And GURPS has those crazy modifiers that just add to complexity more than realism. That stuff doesn't even matter most of the time; it's just there in case you decide you need it someday. Mostly it's roll 3d6 and get a result. I've restarted my old GURPS campaign on Roll20 (on and off for like 17 years) and I use goofy complex rules about once per session if I can't avoid it. It's actually been playing super fast. Your campaign concept sounds like you won't be referring to rules on a defensive gripped spear performing a retreating parry all that much anyway; the headaches will come from trying to referee someone using Wheel of Time magic in the first place. GURPS can be broken at high power levels, but that's true of any game system. 1e AD&D IMHO is a lot less fun to play after about level 8. But it can be done without too many problems; like any system, you can just GM fiat away abusive numbercrunches and let people know up front if something becomes unfun, you'll change it. In any game, a party consisting of a street thief, an apprentice hedge-wizard, a town guard out of work, and a dude who's gamed the system so he can do everyone else's job 4 times better than they can is no fun. Based on your previous post you have a problem with the high CP values. That's not much of a problem; everyone just starts at high CP, and it's a high-powered game. Normal casters use Ritual/Path or Book, channelers use Realm. You could also use Modular Abilities but honestly that's even more of a pain in the neck on the fly than Realm. Here's a treatment that wasn't finished but may give you some ideas, though it's based on 3rd edition. Here's a thread based on fixing problems in the previous link. Finally, if you really just want WoT-in-a-box, there was an RPG based on it that didn't last very long, if you can find it. It wasn't all that well-liked , however.

I own the old Wheel of Time rpg and didn't like it for two main reasons - Vancian magic and strict class structures. I've spent the past few weeks trying to rationalize a way of making GURPS work for my setting and it all comes down to having to change TOO many things that are inherent to GURPS. Now - like I said - I really like GURPS for its gritty feel and could see myself running a campaign in a different, low-magic, setting (old west/sci-fi - think post-apocalyptic mutant-magic mayhem). My big fear with GMing a GURPS campaign is the inevitable Rules Lawyers out there. There is one in every campaign for every RPG I've ever played in. And they rarely bring fun to the table. A GURPS Rules Lawyer could be hell for a new GURPS GM (like me). Worse, in my opinion, than a D&D rules lawyer. All that said - I'm leaning toward Mongoose's Legend for my setting. Big thanks to Dave D. from above for pointing it out. Simple. Flexible. Robust enough with 1 book to run. Was really impressed with it from the get go. RuneQuest/Legend isn't even in the "Looking for A Group" list so I take it to mean the system isn't widely adopted/supported - but I'll see if I can't drum up some interest once I'm done massaging my (Wheel of Time) magic system to the ruleset.

Paul S. said: My big fear with GMing a GURPS campaign is the inevitable Rules Lawyers out there. There is one in every campaign for every RPG I've ever played in. And they rarely bring fun to the table. A GURPS Rules Lawyer could be hell for a new GURPS GM (like me). Worse, in my opinion, than a D&D rules lawyer. If you do run it at some point, rules lawyers are less of a problem in GURPS than in complete systems in my experience because as the GM you're determining what rules to use anyway. "According to GURPS Munchkinism, page 32, I can..." "No, because I'm not using that in this campaign. Get out." I actually like rules lawyers in my game, since if they say, I'm using technique X and I'm not totally familiar with it, I can ask them to read it to me so I can be lazy, then decide whether or not it applies. You get through most of that crap in character creation anyway, not during play. (I recommend this podcast on rules lawyering.) Technically you can do that in any system but in a complete ruleset it's easier to say that the game company published this thingy, so it should be allowed. The upside of an overly-supplemented system is that I say, "I'm starting with these simple rules because people aren't comfy with all the crazy crunch. Later on I might add more of them if they make sense." Haven't had a problem yet. If your actual fear is that you don't know the basic rules well enough to run a campaign competently, that's just part of running any system. I'd contend that you need to know more rules to run a published complete system like Pathfinder to be good at it than a basic GURPS campaign. Of course, you need to know fewer rules to run FATE or FUDGE, but you still have to know them. You should ideally only ever be opening a book to look up some minor point of contention or an annoying table once in a great while, and most of the time that's what a reference screen is for.

Paul S. said: My big fear with GMing a GURPS campaign is the inevitable Rules Lawyers out there. There is one in every campaign for every RPG I've ever played in. And they rarely bring fun to the table. A GURPS Rules Lawyer could be hell for a new GURPS GM (like me). Worse, in my opinion, than a D&D rules lawyer. All that said - I'm leaning toward Mongoose's Legend for my setting. Big thanks to Dave D. from above for pointing it out. Simple. Flexible. Robust enough with 1 book to run. Was really impressed with it from the get go. RuneQuest/Legend isn't even in the "Looking for A Group" list so I take it to mean the system isn't widely adopted/supported - but I'll see if I can't drum up some interest once I'm done massaging my (Wheel of Time) magic system to the ruleset. Couple of points to raise real quick: I wouldn't say a rules lawyer is inevitable. I've run a GURPS campaign on Roll20 and played in another one, without having to deal with a rules lawyer in either case. If you talk to prospective players and discuss what their motivations and reasons for playing, the people who are going to be trouble reveal themselves pretty quick. Everyone had to learn somewhere and the core of GURPS is pretty simple and resilient to bolting stuff on as needed. There's also supplements for Legend that are available for a buck on RPGNow.com published by both Mongoose and The Design Mechanism. Pretty much anything for BRP/CoC/RuneQuest and some HeroQuest works can be used with extremely minimal tweaking. Just because a game isn't listed in the drop down menu of Roll20 doesn't mean there isn't a thriving community for it online, it just isn't here yet. To piggyback off of that, don't be worried to run a game that's a little off the radar. I've yet to find an insufficient number of players to run a game. You might have to do a little work and advertising, but the players are out there and are typically pretty good.

Not sure why you don't play the shadowrun you used to play if you liked it before. It is still the same game and there are still people that play versions 3 and back which are pretty compatible. And you seem to like the idea of exploding dice for the potential to kill a powerful character. I looked at 4th ed. and didn't care too much for it, but now there is a fifth edition; who knows, you might like the recent versions and they are new and shiny. :) If you don't care for the newer versions, run the one you already have the books for, since you won't have to dish out any more money and you already know the rules. As for rules lawyers ruining your game if you go with a system you barely know... that is a possibility. But it sounds like you are defining rules lawyers as anyone that knows the rules better than the GM, which to me is kind of silly. My suggestion for you then is to play a game until you learn it, then GM it. If you have no idea what you are doing, and you have experienced players that do know what they are doing, it sounds like from what you are saying, you won't have fun. That is a shame. When I am learning a game, I tend to lean on the people that know it more than me, not call them rules lawyers and hate on them. Maybe I misunderstood, but I would say if people know the rules and you do not, ask them to explain or point you to a FAQ or whatever. I ask my players to whisper book and page to me if they disagree with my rulings, sometimes I learn something new from them, sometimes they realize the book doesn't say what they thought, and sometimes we just disagree on the interpretation, and then GM decides. It's just a game, not life and death or cancer, so if you can just relax and let yourself be wrong sometimes, even if the person who is correct is a "rules lawyer" to you, you will probably have more fun. Best of luck coming up with a game,

Meh, not knowing a system isn't a big deal. You can still have a ton of fun. In my first ever D&D 3.0 attempt at DMing (our normal DM wanted to play a PC instead) I created an undead dungeon for them to go through. I didn't have a firm grasp of the CR system so I figured that since we had four 4th level PCs (CR 4) that an even level fight for them would be an 8th level vampire monk that level drained with flurry of blows (CR 12). Anyone familiar with that system can imagine how that played out (I ended up having to fudge it so they could actually hit the stupid thing, then pretty much quartered its damage, and had it run away). Did I get laughed at? Sure. But it's a great story, and we had fun with it. Also, you pretty much never have to worry about getting players regardless of system at Roll20. There's a much larger number of players than GMs out there. It's like being the tank in a World of Warcraft queue...expect 20 second queue times, as opposed to the 1-3 hours a damage player waits, simply due to supply and demand. The drop downs on Roll20 LFG are based purely on numbers. The most popular systems are what shows up there. It has nothing (to my knowledge) to do with support for the system as Roll20 is designed to be system agnostic. I wouldn't let that stop you. Good luck.

Daniel B. said: Not sure why you don't play the shadowrun you used to play if you liked it before. It is still the same game and there are still people that play versions 3 and back which are pretty compatible. And you seem to like the idea of exploding dice for the potential to kill a powerful character. I looked at 4th ed. and didn't care too much for it, but now there is a fifth edition; who knows, you might like the recent versions and they are new and shiny. :) If you don't care for the newer versions, run the one you already have the books for, since you won't have to dish out any more money and you already know the rules. As for rules lawyers ruining your game if you go with a system you barely know... that is a possibility. But it sounds like you are defining rules lawyers as anyone that knows the rules better than the GM, which to me is kind of silly. My suggestion for you then is to play a game until you learn it, then GM it. If you have no idea what you are doing, and you have experienced players that do know what they are doing, it sounds like from what you are saying, you won't have fun. That is a shame. When I am learning a game, I tend to lean on the people that know it more than me, not call them rules lawyers and hate on them. Maybe I misunderstood, but I would say if people know the rules and you do not, ask them to explain or point you to a FAQ or whatever. I ask my players to whisper book and page to me if they disagree with my rulings, sometimes I learn something new from them, sometimes they realize the book doesn't say what they thought, and sometimes we just disagree on the interpretation, and then GM decides. It's just a game, not life and death or cancer, so if you can just relax and let yourself be wrong sometimes, even if the person who is correct is a "rules lawyer" to you, you will probably have more fun. Best of luck coming up with a game, No to all assumptions here. I didn't define rules lawyer and I won't as t is tangential.

Howard C. said: Paul S. said: My big fear with GMing a GURPS campaign is the inevitable Rules Lawyers out there. There is one in every campaign for every RPG I've ever played in. And they rarely bring fun to the table. A GURPS Rules Lawyer could be hell for a new GURPS GM (like me). Worse, in my opinion, than a D&D rules lawyer. If you do run it at some point, rules lawyers are less of a problem in GURPS than in complete systems in my experience because as the GM you're determining what rules to use anyway. "According to GURPS Munchkinism, page 32, I can..." "No, because I'm not using that in this campaign. Get out." I actually like rules lawyers in my game, since if they say, I'm using technique X and I'm not totally familiar with it, I can ask them to read it to me so I can be lazy, then decide whether or not it applies. You get through most of that crap in character creation anyway, not during play. (I recommend this podcast on rules lawyering.) Technically you can do that in any system but in a complete ruleset it's easier to say that the game company published this thingy, so it should be allowed. The upside of an overly-supplemented system is that I say, "I'm starting with these simple rules because people aren't comfy with all the crazy crunch. Later on I might add more of them if they make sense." Haven't had a problem yet. If your actual fear is that you don't know the basic rules well enough to run a campaign competently, that's just part of running any system. I'd contend that you need to know more rules to run a published complete system like Pathfinder to be good at it than a basic GURPS campaign. Of course, you need to know fewer rules to run FATE or FUDGE, but you still have to know them. You should ideally only ever be opening a book to look up some minor point of contention or an annoying table once in a great while, and most of the time that's what a reference screen is for. Hadn't thought about it from that angle. But I see your point. I keep looking at GURPS as a complete system which, as I now see, is limiting my view of it. This is what is drawing me to Legend currently. It states clearly one page one that the system can be modified to suit. Like the inherent flexibility. Anyone know of a weakness to Legend? (RuneQuest II)

Howard C. said: Basically I could break GURPS to fit my needs ... Not really breaking it. GURPS is a manual for building your game. It provides a framework with a logical baseline so when you decide which bits to include in your game, everything still makes sense. I really REALLY wanted GURPS to work because I really like its gritty nature. But in a setting with high-powered magic GURPS just falls flat (even after reading Thaumatology). And GURPS has those crazy modifiers that just add to complexity more than realism. That stuff doesn't even matter most of the time; it's just there in case you decide you need it someday. Mostly it's roll 3d6 and get a result. I've restarted my old GURPS campaign on Roll20 (on and off for like 17 years) and I use goofy complex rules about once per session if I can't avoid it. It's actually been playing super fast. Your campaign concept sounds like you won't be referring to rules on a defensive gripped spear performing a retreating parry all that much anyway; the headaches will come from trying to referee someone using Wheel of Time magic in the first place. GURPS can be broken at high power levels, but that's true of any game system. 1e AD&D IMHO is a lot less fun to play after about level 8. But it can be done without too many problems; like any system, you can just GM fiat away abusive numbercrunches and let people know up front if something becomes unfun, you'll change it. In any game, a party consisting of a street thief, an apprentice hedge-wizard, a town guard out of work, and a dude who's gamed the system so he can do everyone else's job 4 times better than they can is no fun. Based on your previous post you have a problem with the high CP values. That's not much of a problem; everyone just starts at high CP, and it's a high-powered game. Normal casters use Ritual/Path or Book, channelers use Realm. You could also use Modular Abilities but honestly that's even more of a pain in the neck on the fly than Realm. Here's a treatment that wasn't finished but may give you some ideas, though it's based on 3rd edition. Here's a thread based on fixing problems in the previous link. Finally, if you really just want WoT-in-a-box, there was an RPG based on it Preview hidden Show Hide preview The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game is a role-playing game based on The Wheel of Time , an epic fantasy series by American author Robert Jordan . The game consists of two publications by Wizards of the Coast , a core rulebook published in October 2001 and an expansion, The Prophecies of the Dragon , which followed in April 2002. Shortly after the release of Prophecies of the Dragon , Wizards of the Coast confirmed that they would not be proceeding with any further expansions for the game. The roleplaying game rights have since reverted to the estate of Robert Jordan. Wikipedia <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time_Rol" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time_Rol</a> that didn't last very long, if you can find it. It wasn't all that well-liked , however. Speaking of old AD&D (2e in this case) ... My friends and I played a sandbox campaign that lasted about a year and had level 30 characters. That was just wanton destruction of untold proportions. We were all basically gods at the end.