Given my current circumstances, the only type of game I can realistically run is a West Marches type of deal. Now, my main issue is that I cannot find a suitable system to create the experience I want. Ideally, players should value artifacts and magical discoveries enough to risk life and limb, however, this is not really compatible with systems with complex and intricate character building, which my players seem to favor. I would also prefer avoiding PbtA and derivatives, mostly because I feel my players enjoy tactical combat and more traditional mechanics. Other than that, I am not ruling out anything, it's just difficult to have complexity of builds and importance of magical items coexist.
Pathfinder 2e could fit the bill. Runes for weapons and armor are needed as you level and the combat can be tactical and there are lots of building options.
pf2e is a solid choice, hopefully by the time I start the full remaster is out and I can deal with one system instead of two halves of one.
3.5 is my favorite version of dnd but I know all too well that I cannot handle it.
OSR games are known for quick character creation, not to mention the fact that there are no "builds" which for you guys is a point of honor. I hope you felt satisfied coming here and showing us how much better you are than everyone else; in the future however I suggest learning how to read (most children, as you call them, have this mastered by the age of 10).
I will take a look but I have only heard bad things about it.
>OSR games are known for quick character creation, not to mention the fact that there are no "builds" which for you guys is a point of honor.
İ specifically said OSR because there is so much variance. Run ACKS and tell me there is no character building lmao
Maybe I'm moronic but what is "West Marches?" I've seen it mentioned again and again over the years but I've never figured out what it is.
Story gay ripping off old school d&d then being ripped off by dndtards.
>The original West Marches campaign was played with 3.5
lmao
Ah, you got me. It was 3.0
3.5e can work just fine.
What's important is to make the campaign gold-for-XP by linking the wealth by level table to PC advancement.
That way they seek treasure and not just killing monsters.
Gold for XP wouldn't be necessary in 3.5 because you can just buy power in the form of magic items, the players already have an incentive to seek it out.
A style of campaign where the players are located in a base near the wilderness, explore some of it then go back to the fort. Basically made to make dropping in adventures and rotate players or DMs easier.
Gotcha, thank you anon.
4e
Pathfinder 2e
Gurps Dungeon Fantasy
The original West Marches campaign was played with 3.5
Run any OSR game and read the 1e DMG like your life depends on it. İt's the Bible for sandbox play. Or as children call it today, west marches.
try the ICON ttrpg
https://massif-press.itch.io/icon
This is the laziest, most transparent shilling I've seen since Lancercucks
I'm not shilling I'm just stating it exists lol.
What about your current circumstances makes this the only game you can run?
I have a busy and irregular schedule, and so do most of my players. Creating a situation in which people can drop in and out easily allows for everyone to pick up where they left off. I tried a "lite" version of this, having a normal campaign where PCs are off doing their own thing if the players cannot come to game night, but it is just not working out as I hoped it would for me.
Consider the Demon Lord engine, meaning Shadow of the Demon Lord and Shadow of the Weird Wizard
>inb4 peepee poopoo
character creation is quicker no doubt, but building is pretty customizable. from the core book alone, there are 4 novice paths, 16 expert paths, and 64 master paths alongside 6 races, most combinations of which are decently compatible. That's 24576 combinations without splatbooks, and without going into how to build spellcasters.
you could tier adventures by novice expert and master tiers.
otherwise pf2e is cool i guess. you can use the pathfinder 2e society rules for parties of mixed levels.
I have actually run a full campaign with SotDL and loved it. No pee pee poo poo memes here, genuinely one of the systems I love the most. But my understanding is that the system wants your players to level up each session basically, and since there's only 10 levels, jumping from level 1 to level 2 (or hell, level 0 to level 1) is a massive spike. Is weird wizard even out at this point?
Also, I have only read Stars without Numbers. How is worlds without numbers? I assume it has very solid rules for faction play like its sci-fi counterpart, but does it support deep character creation?
>But my understanding is that the system wants your players to level up each session basically, and since there's only 10 levels, jumping from level 1 to level 2 (or hell, level 0 to level 1) is a massive spike.
thats just cause they want people to play with their toys. You can make it so they level up whenever they complete an adventure or fully explore an area. Or if you want to commit to the one level per session, just let them have multiple characters. its easy enough to do
Not an hang-up, just worried about not playing the system in the intended way. But I will give it some consideration.
I don't think my players would be interested in settlement management anyway, so thank you for the recommendation.
Yeah the level thing seems odd to get hung up on. If you want things to stay a certain level, you can just keep them at a certain level.
Worlds Without Number's big thing is all the half-classes players can append to their characters. I've seen death knights, wandering preachers, shapeshifting abominations, psychic brawlers, artificer mages, and bog-standard warriors in the games I've run. So far, I've only seen one person complain about the lack of character building options. The warriors end up the deadliest in combat and characters tend to be sturdier compared to other OSR games. There's also a renown system that lets players focus on projects in between expeditions as well as a few twists to combat that make it a bit more tactical, such as being able to actively defend allies or utilizing swarm attacks to overwhelm heavily armored foes.
>Worlds Without Number's big thing is all the half-classes players can append to their characters.
My understanding is that you select classes exactly once, at character creation basically. Are there any official classes not in the manuals? And how does WWN interact with SWN, if I want to -say- port some equipment from SWN over to WWN as a super rare treasure?
>My understanding is that you select classes exactly once, at character creation basically.
Yeah, you have that correct. I just had a brain fart.
>Are there any official classes not in the manuals?
Crawford did upload a few drafts for classes that didn't make it into the games onto the subreddit, but otherwise the Atlas and Deluxe classes are in the SRD.
>WWN/SWN compatibility
Never tried it myself, from what I hear you shouldn't mix SWN's Codex magic classes with WWN's mage classes, WWN Warriors specifically get a damage buff because sci-fi weapons do more damage, and magic items in WWN interact with the system strain mechanic more often to power them. If you're just porting over equipment, it shouldn't be too difficult to just drop it in.
Shadow of the Demon Lord
Shadow of the Weird Wizard
Worlds Without Number
Dungeon Crawl Classics
13th Age
I cautiously recommend Forbidden Lands. I really like it a lot, but it doesn't fit your preference quite rightly; it's character building isn't a massive plunge, but could still be too in depth for your liking, and as for combat, it isn't all that tactical and it isn't as combat heavy as other viable West Marches systems either (though combat is still a focus).
It nails hexcrawl and survival, though. Also, there are rules for making your own fort out there. It could be useable, but a good deal of the game is designed with the expectation of there being npc explorers out there, too, something West Marches shouldn't have.
Give it a look, but I think a more typical combat fantasy game or Hell OSR would be better for what you want.
Unofficial Elder Scrolls 2E was pretty stellar in my experience for a hex-crawl game.
With any experience with the FFG Warhammer line of RPGs its a breeze to run, though it also has elements of other systems I can't be arsed to seek at the moment.
For a game with players who want tactical and in my view best fantasy combat I'd look no further.
Building magical items takes some time if one is mathematically challenged like me, but I felt I'd got a good enough grasp of the game balance for handwavium and more exotic artifacts as they're not purely within the rules.
The action point economy is top tier mechanic in my experience, while there is a core to how you generate AP, you can fairly easily buy talents to shift its governing characteristics to new stats when the XP rolls in.
The injuries and crits are as devastating as Dark Heresy, honestly probably a bit more so as instead of them coming at 0 Wounds, they come in when damage exceeds the characters Wound Threshold, if one has experience with Pendragon, this is familiar. A swordsman leaves gore behind, hammerers ruined bones.
Weaknesses of 2E in my view: The economy, the prices are out of whack and should be increased across the board unless your players delight in haggling for EVERY(!) item.
Crafting rules, spells are perhaps a bit too easy to purchase new and very efficient ones.
I'd stick by the rules for special paper is needed for scrolls. I suggested that clay tablets would be an interesting replacement in the game, and that made them far to available and easy. It may also strengthen the potions a bit?
Very easy to put in a different setting than Elder Scrolls.
A bit challenging in my experience to make it a settle management system on top of it.
I'd steer off from the player options book or limit some of the sword powers. Progression at ~200 XP a session.
Can't speak for the 1st edition but I can say that the 3rd edition in my experience of running it doesn't hold a candle to 2E.
Run an OSR game. "Builds" are for moronic people and are just an illusion.
"L-Look! I want my character to be good at fighting, so I choose the Good At Fighting Feat! and then I put levels in Mongolian Basket Weaving to be quirky!"
Shut up Black person
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>players should value artifacts and magical discoveries enough to risk life and limb, however, this is not really compatible with systems with complex and intricate character building
It's not compatible because death carries the extra penalty of having to build another character, or because you can build a character that's good without items and magic?
Mostly the latter. I am thinking of systems like DnD 3.0 onwards in which what your character can do is mostly mediated by its abilities, but also stuff like Fabula Ultima to the best of my memory.
If you want D&D or some derivative, cut monster exp to 1/10th and give 1 exp for 1 gp brought back to civilization. It makes treasure worth looking for. Also, at least Vancian casters could be limited to their initial spells and ones they can find on scrolls. No spells learned just by leveling up. Both ideas are from the original D&D.
If you're open to systems that give you more freedom in designing the campaign, GURPS for example, those are a simple solution. Just limit PC power and make cool magic items.
>PbtA
>tactical combat
Nani?
Anyway play ACKS because autism or 4e for actual tactical combat.
Icon is probably good too because chances are you don’t have time to deal with resources that run out, one or two fights per sesdion
Just don't do what Neckbardia did in his game where he made himself the protagonist. Then flashed his genotitals at kids in the announcement channel
Errant might actually be a great choice.
My WM game is played in OSE and revolves around two different game types: adventuring and domain. Adventure portion is basic, but the real fun for us is the domain play. I get why the old school guys made one map and played with it for 40+ years. My players love the fact their domains have a chance to become a city state and feel like they're making a difference.
Feels good