Alternatives to D&D

[pingaspostal]

i'm hunting for alternatives to Dungeons and Dragons, and so far all i've found is Pathfinder and BRP. if any of you happen to be ttrpg nerds, please let me know what some good alternatives to D&D might be! lots and lots of bonus points if you write down why it's good

[zonk]

I have never played real D&D, but last year I started playing Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition), and I really like it. Its mechanics encourage the GM to design a "cinematic" story, where the action happens in meaningful scenes rather than going through the mechanical motions. There's even a whole section of the book dedicated to chase sequences!

For example, combat is not an attrition game with hitpoints. Instead, you're rolling against a Parry rating to decide if the attack hits, and then rolling damage against a Toughness rating to see if it was hard enough to matter. If the hit was just good enough, then the defender is Shaken, meaning they cannot fight until unshaken (which can be accomplished by another dice roll), and the next time they get hit, they are Wounded. Enough wounds will KO a combatant (which may or may not mean they're dead or permanently injured). These Wounds also have a corresponding penalty to all skill rolls, so the more wounded a character is, the worse they perform at everything, rather than an HP system where 1HP is enough to still be fully functional and 0HP is dead.

Skill levels are very simple. The levels are just which die you roll for them, and the target number to roll for a skill check stays the same (with certain exceptions). There is an "exploding dice" mechanic to allow low skill levels to still roll high numbers: if a die lands on the highest number, you roll it again and add the result (and this process can repeat infinitely).

The simplicity of the system lends itself very well to basically any story setting, unlike D&D which basically pigeon-holes you into medieval fantasy with pre-specified character classes. If you are used to D&D, SWADE might take a little getting used to, but in my opinion it is worth getting over the learning curve if you want your game to be more about creating an exciting story than about crunching numbers.

edit: I forgot to really get into why these mechanics encourage cinematic scenes: the exploding dice and combat mechanics mean that every combat is dangerous (any enemy could take you from 0 to dead with a lucky roll), so the players will try to come up with solutions that don't involve fighting, and so the GM needs to think of lots of solutions for the players to try rather than just setting up a combat encounter. The games I have played in and run really do feel like part of an adventure movie rather than a strategy board game. Even when combat is unavoidable, we are looking for unconventional paths to victory rather than just letting the numbers decide.

Probably the main downside I can think of is that there is not very much supplemental material like adventure modules compared to D&D, but I take that as the chance to do my own worldbuilding or just steal stories from other popular media because it doesn't have to be original to be fun!

[pingaspostal]

I have never played real D&D, but last year I started playing Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition), and I really like it. Its mechanics encourage the GM to design a "cinematic" story, where the action happens in meaningful scenes rather than going through the mechanical motions. There's even a whole section of the book dedicated to chase sequences!

For example, combat is not an attrition game with hitpoints. Instead, you're rolling against a Parry rating to decide if the attack hits, and then rolling damage against a Toughness rating to see if it was hard enough to matter. If the hit was just good enough, then the defender is Shaken, meaning they cannot fight until unshaken (which can be accomplished by another dice roll), and the next time they get hit, they are Wounded. Enough wounds will KO a combatant (which may or may not mean they're dead or permanently injured). These Wounds also have a corresponding penalty to all skill rolls, so the more wounded a character is, the worse they perform at everything, rather than an HP system where 1HP is enough to still be fully functional and 0HP is dead.

Skill levels are very simple. The levels are just which die you roll for them, and the target number to roll for a skill check stays the same (with certain exceptions). There is an "exploding dice" mechanic to allow low skill levels to still roll high numbers: if a die lands on the highest number, you roll it again and add the result (and this process can repeat infinitely).

The simplicity of the system lends itself very well to basically any story setting, unlike D&D which basically pigeon-holes you into medieval fantasy with pre-specified character classes. If you are used to D&D, SWADE might take a little getting used to, but in my opinion it is worth getting over the learning curve if you want your game to be more about creating an exciting story than about crunching numbers.

edit: I forgot to really get into why these mechanics encourage cinematic scenes: the exploding dice and combat mechanics mean that every combat is dangerous (any enemy could take you from 0 to dead with a lucky roll), so the players will try to come up with solutions that don't involve fighting, and so the GM needs to think of lots of solutions for the players to try rather than just setting up a combat encounter. The games I have played in and run really do feel like part of an adventure movie rather than a strategy board game. Even when combat is unavoidable, we are looking for unconventional paths to victory rather than just letting the numbers decide.

Probably the main downside I can think of is that there is not very much supplemental material like adventure modules compared to D&D, but I take that as the chance to do my own worldbuilding or just steal stories from other popular media because it doesn't have to be original to be fun!

and how number-crunchy is it? i prefer less crunchy because if i want something like a unique monster/character, i don't want to spend an hour figuring out what its stats are, which is one of the reasons i'm not satisfied with D&D, pathfinder, or BRP. as a GM, the more i can spitball, the faster i can spitball, and the higher quality of spitballing, the better

[zonk]

and how number-crunchy is it?

Hardly at all. There is a tiny amount of calculation for the derived Parry and Toughness ratings. The rule of thumb is that a d6 skill level should represent the ability of the average adult, so a random NPC will have d6 in whatever random skill you need to check them for, and you can adjust up or down if it makes sense for their character.

The target number for skill rolls is always 4 (the only exceptions being the Parry and Toughness ratings). For easy or hard checks, the GM may apply a bonus or penalty to the skill roll (and there are mechanics and character Edges which affect bonuses/penalties). For example, say you are in a chase sequence and a player wants to jump from their car to the enemy's car. The player will roll the Athletics skill, with a -2 penalty for Unstable Platform (the moving car they're in). The player rolls the die for their character's Athletics skill level, applies the penalty, and if the number is greater than or equal to 4, they succeed. If the number is 4 higher than the target number (so usually 8), this is a Raise which is like a critical success, so the GM might say they not only clear the gap but also manage to bring their foot down on the enemy's gun, or something.

So yeah, the extent of number crunching is calculating the derived stats during character creation, which are easy to calculate anyway, and then during gameplay you just roll the die it says to roll, apply bonuses, and compare it to 4.

If you're playing fantasy, the Fantasy Companion has a pretty decent bestiary you can use for guidance on the strength of a custom monster, but really I think the intent is that you just do whatever you feel like is the most exciting and dramatic. If you want to make a monster with a Strength level of d12+4 (which is likely to kill players in a couple of hits or less), that's fine. Just make sure to give your players a chance for alternate paths to victory, and give them signals that it is unwise to face it head-on.

[11ofcups]

i'm hunting for alternatives to Dungeons and Dragons, and so far all i've found is Pathfinder and BRP. if any of you happen to be ttrpg nerds, please let me know what some good alternatives to D&D might be! lots and lots of bonus points if you write down why it's good

I might have recommendations but I'd be able to help more if I know about what kind of game you're looking to play! (Genre, combat focused, cinematic vs gritty, dungeon crawler, etc).

[pingaspostal]

I might have recommendations but I'd be able to help more if I know about what kind of game you're looking to play! (Genre, combat focused, cinematic vs gritty, dungeon crawler, etc).

preferably something numbers-light and universal, but i'm also interested in sci-fi stuff. less wars and laser guns and power armor and more world-hopping adventures with scrappy spacers

edit: for context, the campaigns that i run are on the more light-hearted and goofy side