RPGs, new games and originality

[AbdulAlhazred]

Honestly, there's little point in arguing about tastes in game design beyond saying what we like and why. Different games do different stuff. Setting, genre, tone, lots of factors exist. So I only mentioned a certain category of game because it seemed like the OP hadn't touched on it. Obviously we each talk about what we know. Asking me about OSR games would be useless for example.

 

[Faolyn]

Look at Uncommon World game, it's basically a compendium of all the 100s of Dungeon World hacks edited down so it all works together and applies a bit of polish to the DW rules. Ironsworn will make you rethink your ideas about RPGs. Thousand Year Old Vampire, you are now unsure if you can even say what is or is not an RPG.

Uncommon World is a cool resource; thanks for bringing to it my attention. I'm not playing or running a DW game, but some of the monsters it links to look like they could be cool in my MotW game.

As for Thousand Year Old Vampire... if solitaire can be a card game, then I guess a solo journaling experience where you write as a vampire can be an RPG as well.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Maybe you should divert the effort you put into telling everyone what you don't like, into talking about what you do like?

I literally replied above to @AbdulAlhazred listing all the non-D&D games I've played or have an interest in. Maybe you should divert the effort you put into admonishing me into reading that? Or we could talk about one of those games. I'm good either way.

 

[Aldarc]

Anyone else feeling like this? Or feeling like I'm missing something? Did you felt the same way but changed your perspective?

I get that feeling. There is a lot of creativity out there.

One reason why a lot of OSR/NuSR tend to be fairly conservative stems from a desire to remain mutually compatible among the wider B/X & OSR ecosystem of games, particularly modules and adventures.

If you like (5e) D&D style games but want to expand your tastes out a bit, there are some decent systems to try.

• Fantasy AGE (Green Ronin): It's a 3d6 game with a unique stunt point mechanic. Four classes. Talents. Specializations. Thematic spell groupings using spell points and checks. It's fairly familiar stuff. Second Edition just came out a month or so ago.
• Shadow of the Demon Lord (Rob Schwalb): It's like if D&D 5e and Warhammer Fantasy RP had a lovechild. It feels like Diablo as a tabletop game. Schwalb worked on the 5e design team, and he put some of his ideas that didn't win out into SotDL (e.g., Banes/Boons instead of Advantage). It's pretty dark fantasy with some gruesome and mature spells. There is a more Greyhawk-inspired fantasy version - Shadow of the Weird Wizard - but the Kickstarter for that has been delayed to fall of this year. But it's pretty easy to take the grimdark options out of it. It uses a milestone level progression that amounts to "you gain a level when you complete the adventure/module."
• Forbidden Lands (Free League): It uses Free League's in-house dice pool Year Zero Engine system. But it has an OSR feel with a flatter progression that leads to old school stronghold-building.
• Worlds Without Number (Kevin Crawford): It calls itself OSR, but its use of skills and talents make it unusual. It's really more of a mix of D&D B/X and Traveller, as it uses 2d6 + Stats + Skill Level for most skill resolution, though it still uses d20 + Stats + Skill Level for Combat. It has small set of classes - Warrior, Expert, Mage - that can be taken as single classes or mixed as half-classes and with specializations (e.g., necromancer, bard, healer, high mage, shapeshifter, etc.). The base game is free. There are more specializations in the paid version and in the Atlas of the Latter Earth book. Great advice for running sandbox games and world creation.
• Index Card RPG (Runehammer Games): It's a stripped down version of D&D that implements house rules and mods from YouTuber game designer Hankerin Ferinale. First Edition is classless and uses loot-based progression, including spells. Second Edition moves back to classes with some vertical progression mechanics.
• Cypher System (Monte Cook Games): a fairly traditional game with some narrativist elements. The GM side of things basically amounts to picking a number from 1 to 10 for a difficulty, multiply by three for the Target Number for players to beat. Player side amounts to skills, effort, and abilities to lower the difficulty before the roll. Players also create characters by picking a Descriptor, Type, and a Focus to create a mini character description: e.g., "I'm a Clever Warrior who Focuses Mind Over Matter."
• Fabula Ultima TTJRPG (Emanuele Galleto): an Italian TTRPG inspired by JRPGs built on the basic resolution system from the Japanese TTRPG called Ryuutama. It takes some cues from games like Fate, Cortex, Blades in the Dark, and Apocalypse World. But it's still a pretty traditional game underneath. Multiclassing is pretty much required as you are building your character from job ability packages.

I literally replied above to @AbdulAlhazred listing all the non-D&D games I've played or have an interest in. Maybe you should divert the effort you put into admonishing me into reading that? Or we could talk about one of those games. I'm good either way.

I hate to be pedantic, but you literally replied to me with the list and not AbdulAlhazred.

Also, as (hopefully) a brief aside: You call yourself an OSR enthusiast in your description. I don't doubt that, but I am curious about what OSR games you like.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Uncommon World is a cool resource; thanks for bringing to it my attention. I'm not playing or running a DW game, but some of the monsters it links to look like they could be cool in my MotW game.

As for Thousand Year Old Vampire... if solitaire can be a card game, then I guess a solo journaling experience where you write as a vampire can be an RPG as well.

I certainly would not be critical of someone who takes the position that TYoV etc al are not even games, frankly, but they're at least RPG adjacent.

UW is very welcome, yes. I only learned about it recently myself. Handy for a lot of fantasy PbtAs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I get that feeling. There is a lot of creativity out there.

One reason why a lot of OSR/NuSR tend to be fairly conservative stems from a desire to remain mutually compatible among the wider B/X & OSR ecosystem of games, particularly modules and adventures.

If you like (5e) D&D style games but want to expand your tastes out a bit, there are some decent systems to try.

• Fantasy AGE (Green Ronin): It's a 3d6 game with a unique stunt point mechanic. Four classes. Talents. Specializations. Thematic spell groupings using spell points and checks. It's fairly familiar stuff. Second Edition just came out a month or so ago.
• Shadow of the Demon Lord (Rob Schwalb): It's like if D&D 5e and Warhammer Fantasy RP had a lovechild. It feels like Diablo as a tabletop game. Schwalb worked on the 5e design team, and he put some of his ideas that didn't win out into SotDL (e.g., Banes/Boons instead of Advantage). It's pretty dark fantasy with some gruesome and mature spells. There is a more Greyhawk-inspired fantasy version - Shadow of the Weird Wizard - but the Kickstarter for that has been delayed to fall of this year. But it's pretty easy to take the grimdark options out of it. It uses a milestone level progression that amounts to "you gain a level when you complete the adventure/module."
• Forbidden Lands (Free League): It uses Free League's in-house dice pool Year Zero Engine system. But it has an OSR feel with a flatter progression that leads to old school stronghold-building.
• Worlds Without Number (Kevin Crawford): It calls itself OSR, but its use of skills and talents make it unusual. It's really more of a mix of D&D B/X and Traveller, as it uses 2d6 + Stats + Skill Level for most skill resolution, though it still uses d20 + Stats + Skill Level for Combat. It has small set of classes - Warrior, Expert, Mage - that can be taken as single classes or mixed as half-classes and with specializations (e.g., necromancer, bard, healer, high mage, shapeshifter, etc.). The base game is free. There are more specializations in the paid version and in the Atlas of the Latter Earth book. Great advice for running sandbox games and world creation.
• Index Card RPG (Runehammer Games): It's a stripped down version of D&D that implements house rules and mods from YouTuber game designer Hankerin Ferinale. First Edition is classless and uses loot-based progression, including spells. Second Edition moves back to classes with some vertical progression mechanics.
• Cypher System (Monte Cook Games): a fairly traditional game with some narrativist elements. The GM side of things basically amounts to picking a number from 1 to 10 for a difficulty, multiply by three for the Target Number for players to beat. Player side amounts to skills, effort, and abilities to lower the difficulty before the roll. Players also create characters by picking a Descriptor, Type, and a Focus to create a mini character description: e.g., "I'm a Clever Warrior who Focuses Mind Over Matter."
• Fabula Ultima TTJRPG (Emanuele Galleto): an Italian TTRPG inspired by JRPGs built on the basic resolution system from the Japanese TTRPG called Ryuutama. It takes some cues from games like Fate, Cortex, Blades in the Dark, and Apocalypse World. But it's still a pretty traditional game underneath. Multiclassing is pretty much required as you are building your character from job ability packages.

I hate to be pedantic, but you literally replied to me with the list and not AbdulAlhazred.

Also, as (hopefully) a brief aside: You call yourself an OSR enthusiast in your description. I don't doubt that, but I am curious about what OSR games you like.

You're right of course. Sorry about that.

I'm fond of DCC and ACKS (just starting an ACKS campaign actually). I am also very interested in Worlds Without Number (and its science fiction older brother), and Old School Essentials as well, but haven't had a chance to do much with them yet.

 

[pemerton]

As it turns out? A lot more than there are narrative games or anything approaching story now.

Traveller.

Just for fun, I thought I'd mention that in my view Classic Traveller plays best as a sort of proto-PbtA.

I thought this was my insight, but I was recently reviewing an older thread and saw this post:

I find it interesting how close this is - both in spirit and in mechanics - to the Apocalypse World Engine.

For example, a player may say "I want to dash across the courtyard to get to the dune buggy" and the MC says "With all the gun-fire that's a defy danger... you sure? It's gonna hurt if that goes wrong." And the player can look at the defy danger move and see the roll (+cool) and the specific outcomes, and you can freely discuss the stakes. So you go from fiction into transparent conflict resolution and back into fiction.

And Traveller is often doing the same thing; eg. Administration - a throw of 7+ will successfully resolve normal interactions without further problems; Leader - Leader 3 or better will allow soldiers to obey orders without hesitation; Vacc Suit - A 10+ to avoid dangerous situations applies whenever a non-ordinary maneouvre is attempted. All conflict resolution, all completely transparent!

What this doesn't do is give guidance on failure

<snip>

Traveller's resolution system - and the very clear attempts at transparency with the players - always appealed to me. I'm picking my way around why.

So it's a RPG that remains original despite being over 40 years old!

 

[Aldarc]

I'm fond of DCC and ACKS (just starting an ACKS campaign actually). I am also very interested in Worlds Without Number (and its science fiction older brother), and Old School Essentials as well, but haven't had a chance to do much with them yet.

DCC is a great quality game, though it's not really my thing. I've never heard of ACKS, but I will check it out.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

DCC is a great quality game, though it's not really my thing. I've never heard of ACKS, but I will check it out.

ACKS aims at the whole classic domain and conquest game.

 

[innerdude]

The question for the OP is, what kind of innovation are you looking for?

Every system that operates under discrete task process resolution ultimately is an abstraction of inherent character trait plus training/skill. Whether that's flat d20 roll over (D&D), flat d100 roll under (BRP / Mythras / CoC), 3d6 roll under (GURPS or HERO), multi-d6 add+ roll over (d6 Fantasy, WEG Star Wars, W.O.I.N.).

So when you're talking about innovation that isn't focused on narrative driven concerns, the things that drive innovation mechanically are things that change the abstraction modeling in some way. Either the abstraction is more clear or more robust, is easier to resolve without requiring additional mental overhead, or better represents fidelity to your imagined set of rules-as-physics, or creates more enjoyable skilled play synergies in the moments of play.

One of the most innovative systems I've ever seen that focuses on task level resolution is Spellbound Kingdoms. It has the most unique combat engine you'll ever see. It's unfortunately tied to an assumed game world that I have no interest in emulating. But if someone was willing to hack it to their purposes, it will absolutely produce a different gameplay experience from anything else in the "trad" space, while firmly remaining a "trad", task resolution based system.