RPGS that you want to like but....

Sure! I like the flat math, for one. My highest skill is rank 2, everything else is 0 or untrained. My highest ability modifier is +1. I love the method for rolling hp where higher rolls replace your hp, not add to it. Even though I had terrible luck and only gained 1 hp per level until I finally rolled really well and got 18 hp at level 6. This keeps fights very deadly but I can at least take 2 or 3 hits. Combats never drag on too long because how low the hp is. I like the retainer system (I'm aware other games have this but I've never played those or the GM never used them so it was my first experience). I love the magic system. You have very limited castings but spells are very powerful, so picking to prepare the right spells and knowing when to use them is very satisfying. (I really dislike systems like 5e and Pathfinder where you have spells like Bless where you get like +1 to one roll or something. Makes magic feel very cheap. Give me 2 or 3 spells but I can fly for hours or do 10d8 to constructs or something lol.) I like cantrips have a separate magic system called Arts. The spell names are very flavorful and fun. I like that attacks are 1d20 but skills are 2d6. That's all I can think of right now.

Didn't help that my real life group has 5-6 players, so at any time there were a lot of successes between them. I've heard the system runs a lot better with a lower player count, but I'm not about to disinvite friends so the system runs better.

Damnit, now I've got that in my head.

I think you nailed it for me, too, Nezz. :)

I also love the open sandbox feel, which maybe Harrigan is mistaking for cat litter. ;) Just kidding!

🤣😁😂

Nice -- sounds quite cool. I should give the damned thing a read. I just struggle mightily with Crawford's writing style...

BTW, that style of hit point increase is my very favorite in all the OSR. Really good stuff...

You're welcome!

I haven't read the whole things because it's quite massive, but the character creation and rules are only the first 60 pages, 93 pages if you include the magic system too. It was pretty easy to read although it is wordier than it needs to be. I agree about the HP, it's very slick.

That method dates all the way back to OD&D and people arguing it should be done that way, rather than just adding a new die every level... because the rules were vague. It's also present in a ton of White Box-based games.

Nobilis seemed to have an awesome premise, and was intriguing due to being diceless. But each time I try to read it, I give up very soon because it's not easily approachable. So I am bouncing off this one even before playing.

Universalis. A game system meant for a lot of flexibility and universality, with people 'voting' with their coins for what each one of them considers important in a scene or worldbuilding. In practice, the worldbuilding phase felt like everyone was incentivised to add a gotcha twist to a previous setting fact by flying just narrowly around it and adding something subversive. Another player made a comment along the lines of 'the ruleset of Universalis is getting in the way of the playstyle of Universalis'. The bidding mechanics for resolution of disputes (IC and meta) seemed like a cool idea, but felt clunky in practice and mathematically suspect (though by now I forgot the details).

LANCER. This only applies to the setting, not the mechanics (I love the mechanics). In a medium where everyone publishes yet another grimdark / dystopia / post-apoc, I was cheerful to find a game that brands itself optimistic. However, upon closer examination, it became hard for me to take all the eutopian claims at face value, as the description of the Union (the designated big good faction) came out as either self-contradictory/inconsistent (branded as post-scarcity and with reduced private ownership, and yet megacorps seem to play a huge role in the Union, and there's a lot of artificial scarcity through licensing), hegemonic, expansionist, and self-righteous. This makes it hard to take the proclaimed eutopianism and goodness as written, which clashes strongly with the authorial stance that none of the descriptions are propaganda/satire/overhyped.

Mindjammer. A vaguely posthumanistic setting in the vein of Culture for FATE? Count me i . . . wait a minute. The alleged big good is memetically genocidal towards any creeds except government-approved ones to a dogmatic level, the techology seems to be spread in an oddly top-down manner, and the former two points combine to undermine posthuman stuff in an oddly WH40k-reminiscent manner. And there's a designated villainous faction that looks like a parody of WH40k. And then the system, which seems to have a stovepipe design antipattern: lots of minor subsystems for all sorts of activities that are based on overarching principles, each repeating many of the same words, but often with small differences, so it's difficult to memorise and inconvenient to look up, and hard to consider when deciding what kind of character you want.

Continuum/Narcissist/Seedless Bloom/Splintered Rose. Cool ideas about time travel. Extremely unhelpful manner of explaining the timeline cosmology/physics (a lot of the basics only become clear only after you read advanced supplemental material).

FATE. I can't explain why, but I've tried a few time and just kept bouncing off it.

Apocalypse World. Dungeon World was my intro to PbtA and I love it. So naturally I want to try AW. Reading the material, I felt like I could get into it. But, the few times I tried to play, nah. Could've just been the wrong GM or group. Dunno.

Ironsworn. Chargen and then nothing. I can never get an actual game started. It's not for lack of effort. Or maybe it is. Heh.

Grimwild. I love the rules in the abstract. I mean they really look great to me! But when I've played the game it's been kind of meh.

FATE: Feels a bit too vague to me and in my experience, players tend to go for super loose concepts, then bend the narrative to a forced interpretation that lets them activate them. Might just be what I've seen of it, but I can't help feeling the system's design encourages, or at least greatly facilitates such a "game the system" approach.

Degenesys: I liked the premise and the flashy art style drew me in. Played a pre-made adventure and many things felt... off. Then I read more about the world and the writer's... let's say slightly problematic ideas and it all made sense.

Mork Borg: Let's be honest, it's a graphic design showcase book. The books look great and exciting, but the layout makes them hard to use in practice and the actual gameplay is... I'll say "underwhelming". That's even more the case for Cy_Borg and Pirate Borg, whose premise excites me much more than MB's death metal medieval fantasy one.

Vampire: Pretty much all the White Wolf games, but I'm saying Vampire because that's the one I've mostly read and played. I know most people tend to complain about its loose writing of how powers and disciplines work, but it's never really been an issue for me. Neither is the "very open to PvP and opposing agendas" vibe. What throws me off is how rich the metaplot is and how most Vampire fans seem to be very adherent to it. Some even take the idea that various WW games are "compatible" and "in the same universe" so you get people hellbent on various metaplots from various games combined into one big mega-plot, which in turn informs the way they run their games (as GMs) or their expectations from the story and other people (as players or GMs).

/end_rant

Fate, in my experience, really requires the right group. It’s very hard to get right, but when you do — oh baby. But that’s rare enough that I’ve basically stopped running and teaching it.

Interested in hearing about what makes Grimwild meh, and the Borg games are another case of needing the right crew, mood, etc. They certainly aren’t for everything and everyone and definitely have a vibe some folks don’t like, but I think they pack a ton of fun into a very skinny set of rules. I’ve been thinking about running some CY_BORG or Blackpowder & Brimstone. Or maybe even the original!

You should try "Chronicles of Darkness" then.

Same flavor, a bit lighter mechanics/even more vaguery, but dispenses with the burdensome meta plot.

SPICY TAKE:
Blades in the Dark. I actually like to PLAY BitD, so I only half-don't like it, but I really don't like running it... In my experience it is SO demanding of the GM. After a Blades session, I just feel mentally exhausted. You're just constantly on your toes, adjudicating Position and Effect and coming up with Devil's Bargains and world building and running the gameplay, not to mention just the basic communications of the plot.

Every time I look at the book on my shelf, I get anxiety.

This is probably less applicable to pbp actually... as one has much more time to do those things.

But still...

The One Ring. Mainly, the bad math was a turn-off. TN16 - you have a ~10% chance of success with a 1d6 stat.


Risus. I was so intrigued by the system and had a great first impression: clichés are super-fun to RP situationally. It does suffer from 1d6 stats being next-to-useless, but not as badly-mathly as TOR. However, the math is omnipresent. Encounters are less about what your character would do and more about gaming your stats. The most detestable tactic is the Inappropriate Cliché: do something that makes no sense and get rewarded by inflicting triple damage, which is a one-hit KO against any cliché with less than 4d6 (the max amount a cliché can have).

The intent is to reward player creativity. But that’s actually what makes it problematic. My Improv Poetry cliché, no matter how well I RP its use against a sentai squad of ninja zombies, should not grant me three times the potency of a teammate who put just as much heart and soul into their post when using a cliché called Sword.

—and I say this as someone who, in real life, de-escalated a situation between a double-decker bus full of high school kids and gun-toting Neo Nazis by saying the F-word in front of two nuns.

It’s honestly not what I would call a bad design (which is why I *want* to like it)… it’s an ingenious system! Just not for me. I think I prefer dice to be a simple randomizer.

I think you buried the lede there.

So many questions, were both the Neo-Nazis and HS kids in the bus or was it just the HS kids? Were the nuns with the kids or the Nazis or a separate entity? How did the nun's respond?

I feel like this could make for a fun TTRPG encounter

Neo-nazi youth-nuns with guns. I think I saw that movie...

*To the Tune of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*
Teenage Neo-Nazi's with Guns, Nuns with a Hallow Point. Catholic Power