I think I need a new TTRPG, sell me something

[Anonymouswizard]

I love these threads. I don't even know what this laundry thing is but someone is excited that there is an role-playing game made out of it and that makes me happy.

The Laundry Files is a Lovecraft Mythos Spy Fiction book series revolving around the British anti-mythos government department known as The Laundry. Because it's old headquarters were above a Chinese Laundry.

It actually manages to be a relatively funny and well written series, while also being an interesting take on the Mythos (humanity is less doomed than in some stories, but is still insignificant, and at primitive compared to the Deep Ones).

Note that old bat wings squid head seems not to exist in this continuity (or at least not in the primary universe of the series), and the series stereotypes Americans. Not in a great way either, the American counterpart to The Laundry is highly unethical.

Wait, wait.

Catering?

Part of character creation (pretty much the least mechanical step) is selecting what department you work for and receiving training. Your supposed to pick something useful for fieldwork, like the plumbers (field sorcerers), computational demonology, or armoury. However, the game gives a full organisational chart of the Laundry as well as the training packages for reach department, which means of you want you can play somebody from Residual Human Resources or the Department of Audits. But Catering is generally the funny one in my Redbridge, because it doesn't even make sense as a specialist for the mission.

[noob]

That universe looks quite cool.

[EldritchWeaver]

I don't want, narrowly, "basically pathfinder". I want something with the slew of options and content that pathfinder has and can support. It could be a classless card-draw based system with no magic items and highly abstracted combat and still fit the criteria. A fixed PF 2e sort of thing would work, but is not the only solution.

Because no one has mentioned it before: There are attempts to deal with PF's heritage problems, which means that you don't need to write your own RPG. PF Unchained is Paizo's limited version (dealing with 3 legacy classes). More holistic approaches require replacing the existing options wholecloth. Spheres of Power grants better balanced magic. Path of War and Spheres of Might deal with sucky martials. For skills there is no holistic replacement at this point, but there should be still something like Spheres of Skills being owed from the SoM Kickstarter, IIRC. So more of a matter of time. I'm not aware of anything which changes the way stats and equipment work, though. So maybe those alternatives are good enough for you.

Edit: I checked and I missed that Spheres of Skills is incompatible to base PF assumptions, so it isn't going to be written at all.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Because no one has mentioned it before: There are attempts to deal with PF's heritage problems, which means that you don't need to write your own RPG. PF Unchained is Paizo's limited version (dealing with 3 legacy classes). More holistic approaches require replacing the existing options wholecloth. Spheres of Power grants better balanced magic. Path of War and Spheres of Might deal with sucky martials. For skills there is no holistic replacement at this point, but there should be still something like Spheres of Skills being owed from the SoM Kickstarter, IIRC. So more of a matter of time. I'm not aware of anything which changes the way stats and equipment work, though. So maybe those alternatives are good enough for you.

You could probably stitch together something by picking and choosing your favorite homebrew overhauls.

[ngilop]

GURPS there is literally a sourcebook for anything you can think of, Revolutionary russia.. Yep that exists.

Champions super heroes and according to a lot of people you need to use an entire computer program to create a character..

I must have played in some weird twilight zone becuase I just had a sheet of paper and a pencil...

those two would be the top on my list for crunch and takes more than 5 minutes to make a character.

[Arbane]

GURPS there is literally a sourcebook for anything you can think of, Revolutionary russia.. Yep that exists.

Champions super heroes and according to a lot of people you need to use an entire computer program to create a character..

Only if you're REALLY bad at math.

[2D8HP]

GURPS there is literally a sourcebook for anything you can think of, Revolutionary russia.. Yep that exists.

Champions super heroes and according to a lot of people you need to use an entire computer program to create a character..

I must have played in some weird twilight zone becuase I just had a sheet of paper and a pencil...

those two would be the top on my list for crunch and takes more than 5 minutes to make a character.

.
I've made PC's for both of those systems. It was a lot like making a "custom car" in Car Wars.

Tedious now, but I once found those sorts of "mini-games" fun, but I had more free time and mental agility back then.

Only if you're REALLY bad at math.

.
That would be me these days.

[Knaight]

Only if you're REALLY bad at math.

Or you just don't want to deal with spending that much time on one character - although it's less an entire computer program and more one excel spreadsheet.

[ngilop]

Or you just don't want to deal with spending that much time on one character - although it's less an entire computer program and more one excel spreadsheet.

again, I just want to point out that

1. I played this as a pre-teen
2. I used an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of ruled paper and a pencil
3. I did not know what computers were, let alone what excel was at the time
4. It did not take me, nor anyone I played with any longer to create a character than say.. AD&D 2nd ed or Shadowrun

The first time I have ever seen or read about anybody saying how 'involved' the character creation process was, was on these forums.. like 3-ish years ago?


I can understand if you are one of those complete-ists who need to do 'the everythings' and that's why it takes so long for one to create a character, but I think most would not experience such.

[Knaight]

again, I just want to point out that

1. I played this as a pre-teen
2. I used an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of ruled paper and a pencil
3. I did not know what computers were, let alone what excel was at the time
4. It did not take me, nor anyone I played with any longer to create a character than say.. AD&D 2nd ed or Shadowrun

The finickiness is at least partially opt-in, but AD&D 2nd ed and Shadowrun can both have characters made in half an hour. HERO tends towards longer than that.

[BWR]

and the series stereotypes Americans. Not in a great way either, the American counterpart to The Laundry is highly unethical.

There are some English stereotypes in there as well, and when you think about it, the Laundry isn't particularly nice or ethical either. Stross himself has made it clear that Bob is an unreliable narrator and you have to kind of read between the lines and look at what happens from outside his perspective to see that things might not be quite how Bob says they are.

Part of character creation (pretty much the least mechanical step) is selecting what department you work for and receiving training. Your supposed to pick something useful for fieldwork, like the plumbers (field sorcerers), computational demonology, or armoury. However, the game gives a full organisational chart of the Laundry as well as the training packages for reach department, which means of you want you can play somebody from Residual Human Resources or the Department of Audits. But Catering is generally the funny one in my Redbridge, because it doesn't even make sense as a specialist for the mission.

I just love the little descriptions they give of each department. As for making sense, the Laundry is terminally short-staffed, especially with CNG approaching. You make do with what you have, even if it means sending the cook to investigate the reports of swarms of cats are eating people in some remote town. Think back to the Atrocity Archives - Bob wasn't plucked as a field agent when he started his career with the Laundry, he applied for field work and was accepted when they needed an extra hand- the same thing could be possible for someone in Catering, and if they don't mess up/bring shame on the organization/let the world get eaten, they might be transferred to another department after a few missions. It actually makes less sense for the Auditors to work in the field than Catering.

[BWR]

Wait, wait.

Catering?

From the Laundry RPG

The unsung heroes of the war against cosmic horrors, the Laundry's catering corps provides nigh-endless cups of tea and nigh-inedible sandwiches to the staff. Catering is also responsible for the dietary needs of various 'biological assets' and specialist staff. The long-running dispute about who is responsible for procuring souls has finally been resolved in Catering's favor (you cannot stick a fork in a soul so it is not their problem).

[Anonymouswizard]

From the Laundry RPG

My favourite is still the description of Predictive Branch, which notes that it's essentially in a superposition where it was founded early on and has been active continuously, except in those cases where it would cause the Laundry to suffer disaster, in which case they never existed. Nobody outside of predictive branch has determined how it works.

[Scripten]

There are some English stereotypes in there as well, and when you think about it, the Laundry isn't particularly nice or ethical either. Stross himself has made it clear that Bob is an unreliable narrator and you have to kind of read between the lines and look at what happens from outside his perspective to see that things might not be quite how Bob says they are.

This. The American characters (who are not villains) in the series are portrayed just as sympathetically as the British ones, I'd argue. Certain elements of their government are definitely a problem, but that's more for want of giving The Laundry (as Bob sees it) an evil foil.

[The Glyphstone]

Spoiler: Spoiler for Laundry Files series

Show

Plus, by the end of the The Delirium Brief, the Laundry and Britain have jumped right off the same moral event horizon that the Black Chamber did, so the gap between them has shrunken even further.

[Leewei]

Feng Shui: Action-Movie roleplaying. Can do Fantasy from the main book if you like Mythic China, could do Western Fantasy with a bit of hacking.

A rule book may be hard to find for this, but I give it a big thumbs-up. This is a game where you can have characters based on Jack Burton, John Wick, Wing Chun, and Ludo (from Labyrinth) rubbing shoulders - and not only is it hella fun, it makes sense.

[exelsisxax]

Because no one has mentioned it before: There are attempts to deal with PF's heritage problems, which means that you don't need to write your own RPG. PF Unchained is Paizo's limited version (dealing with 3 legacy classes). More holistic approaches require replacing the existing options wholecloth. Spheres of Power grants better balanced magic. Path of War and Spheres of Might deal with sucky martials. For skills there is no holistic replacement at this point, but there should be still something like Spheres of Skills being owed from the SoM Kickstarter, IIRC. So more of a matter of time. I'm not aware of anything which changes the way stats and equipment work, though. So maybe those alternatives are good enough for you.

Edit: I checked and I missed that Spheres of Skills is incompatible to base PF assumptions, so it isn't going to be written at all.

The bold is basically the issue. PoW and SoP are great and i'll never run or play a game without them, but they can't fix PFs underlying problems. Unchained has fixes for surface-level imbalance and playability, it doesn't fix the game itself. Truly addressing the issues with the default D&D mechanics it has inherited can't be done without making a new game. I feel like the 13th age authors basically did that on accident - homebrewed and houserules until it didn't count as PF anymore, despite still cleaving so close to tradition.

Lots of people have come up with great systems over the years, but the most thorough tend to not actually work in pathfinder because of the base mechanics and assumptions. I know paizo isn't, but is anyone else actually trying to make anything like a new edition or "D&D but we learned something since 3.5 came out" sort of thing?

[noob]

Dnd 4e did learn that giving powers that does too much out of battle to only some people and not the others was a bad idea.

[exelsisxax]

Dnd 4e did learn that giving powers that does too much out of battle to only some people and not the others was a bad idea.

Did they? Or was it more of an accident because of the huge emphasis they put on tactical grid combat to the exclusion of many non-combat mechanics?

[kitanas]

@exelsisxax: I don't think you have ever fully articulated what you see as the fundamental problems of DND. If you did that, we might be able to point you in a better direction.

[exelsisxax]

@exelsisxax: I don't think you have ever fully articulated what you see as the fundamental problems of DND. If you did that, we might be able to point you in a better direction.

Basing character progression mostly on steep linear numerical increase, the resulting number-chase that eventually makes dice rolls meaningless compared to bonuses, and the accompanying headache of trying to make encounters in such a knife-edged system. The resource and rocket tag style that means you're fighting at 100% until, suddenly, you die and probably get TPKd. System and setting breaking caster supremacy. Skills being variously too broad, narrow, ubiquitous, superfluous, pointless to adventurers, basic requirements, weak, and quickly invalidated by spells. The pattern of detailed and useful rules for things explicitly locked behind prereqs even if you chose the right class(magic item crafting) despite NOT being locked up setting-wise, compared to cumbersome and hard to use rules for doing something so damn common that D&D was actually invented to supplement(kingdom building).

If the wizard wants to walk out his front door, build a wall, and teleport to a different city all in 6 seconds there's rules for exactly those things. If someone wants to be a baronet, you get nothing. If you want to rule a kingdom, get some reading glasses and a bunch of graph paper because those rules don't play nice. The whole game is like that, with a heaping of pointless numerical increase that adds nothing but more math because obstacles are created to directly counteract those increases.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Basing character progression mostly on steep linear numerical increase, the resulting number-chase that eventually makes dice rolls meaningless compared to bonuses, and the accompanying headache of trying to make encounters in such a knife-edged system. The resource and rocket tag style that means you're fighting at 100% until, suddenly, you die and probably get TPKd. System and setting breaking caster supremacy. Skills being variously too broad, narrow, ubiquitous, superfluous, pointless to adventurers, basic requirements, weak, and quickly invalidated by spells. The pattern of detailed and useful rules for things explicitly locked behind prereqs even if you chose the right class(magic item crafting) despite NOT being locked up setting-wise, compared to cumbersome and hard to use rules for doing something so damn common that D&D was actually invented to supplement(kingdom building).

If the wizard wants to walk out his front door, build a wall, and teleport to a different city all in 6 seconds there's rules for exactly those things. If someone wants to be a baronet, you get nothing. If you want to rule a kingdom, get some reading glasses and a bunch of graph paper because those rules don't play nice. The whole game is like that, with a heaping of pointless numerical increase that adds nothing but more math because obstacles are created to directly counteract those increases.

So, my take-away of this is that you want a game which is:

• Rules heavy, with a strong simulationist approach that handles non-standard elements with unique subsystems (rather than using the same basic mechanics in slightly different ways)
• Expansive, with lots and lots of content to play with.
• Well-balanced, with a controlled progression that doesn't create number inflation or lead one type of character to dominate everything.

Of the things that have been mentioned, and the ones which have been rejected, I think Knaight's suggestion of REIGN is probably your best bet? At least for the way they made it sound; I can't speak for it personally, it having been on my list of "games to learn" for some time now.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yes, I think everybody agrees that you can take d20 and make a good game out of it, but you have to abandon some of the assumptions of D&D.

Six ability scores, skills, feats, classes, the core mechanic, it all works. The problems are in the details.

Spoiler: Random thoughts

Show

So, I have vague ideas for a more intrigue focused variant of d20, which I'll outline below. I'm still assuming a fairly traditional fantasy setting.

I'm changing the stats a bit, to Brawns, Grace, Wit, Charm, and Resolve. Originally it was Beauty/Brains/Brawn, but I decided Septuagint being graceful from being charming and willpower from intelligence would be more useful. It's essentially three six stats with Strength and Constitution put into one stat. Modifiers only, to make it simpler.

Skills are being reduced, not sure of the exact ones I'll use but I'm planning on around 20 (with everybody receiving 4+int skill points per level). No class skills.

The classes are the Courtier, the Duelist, the Minstrel, the Scholar, and the Spy. They reach have a similar progression of abilities, increasing in potency with levels (although multiclassing is encouraged for versatility).

Feats work as normal, and ate the only way to learn spells. Spells cost HP to cast, but HP is explicitly narrative importance/fate, and restored whenever characters can catch their breath (in exchange for only being equal to 10+level*brawn).

Combat us radically changed in some respects. Anybody can take a feat to learn a weapon style (and duelists get one for free), which gives an initiative bonus, attack bonus, and damage bonus. Damage dice on a successful attack are a number of d6 based on your level (so more powerful characters ate more likely to get a character in a position where they can be seriously hurt). PCs and major NPCs who run out of HP ate still in the fight, but start taking injuries and other Setbacks unless they surrender. I'm considering making it more complicated, making you need to gain advantage before attacking someone, but I'm unsure how to implement it outside of duels.

The idea is that PCs well spend the entire adventure in one city or on a country estate, so there's little in there for dungeon delving. It's also relatively low magic, so characters won't have many 'push button' solutions. An alternative would be to go fill Exalted.

[Rhedyn]

My group plays pathfinder. After a minor bout of existential depression triggered by trying to fix PF's problems and seeing the true unfathomable madness that underlies 3.PF game design, I decided that I need something different - hopefully with coherent design principles.

I don't want rules-lite, and I loathe narrative games, so any post that recommends FATE or similar will be ignored. Medium to high crunch? I enjoy the character creation minigame, so making a character in 5 minutes is certainly not an advantage, while not necessarily a drawback. What I would really like is an efficient system that actually diverges from the standard pitfalls of D&D and similar systems, while maintaining the expandability and versatility of something like pathfinder. Fantasy-themed, if possible.

So basically, who has a unicorn? Can you share?

I'm like you, except I still like Pathfinder. But I'm more of a rules heavy kind of guy.

In comes Savage Worlds.
The "bad":
1. The skill system has a ±2 subjective GM difficulty mod to skill rolls. I tossed that out. I prefer my players knowing what they need to roll. So far it hasn't been a problem, the game works just fine without inserting "rules light" 'GM makes up rules' stuff.

2. Lack of crafting rules. 3pp and 1st party settings tend to add these rules back. But 'making stuff' is not really in the core book.

3. Utility magic. Aside from the "No power point variant rule", your ability to break the world is very limited. Things like invisibility is measured in rounds.

I recommend taking the core rules, the fantasy companion and running either Hellfrost, Shaintar, or 'Beast and Barbarians' settings to flesh out the rules.

If the kind of fantasy you want is Pathfinder levels of power, try Shaintar and get deep into legendary rank.

If you want more low-tier D&D that stays there, go Hellfrost. (I'm mean low tier in grittyness not "ability to do things)

If you want Conan the Barbarian, go Beast and Barbarians.

Savage Worlds is far less complex than Pathfinder, but the mechanics are there and it can satisfy a crunch heavy player like myself, but requires reading less pages. Character builds are hard to optimise, as in I'm still figuring out. Traditional min/maxing gets you killed, but you will want flaws to have strengths. I like building out characters, but you have to go deep into "epic" levels for the build to actually get complicated. The good thing about this game is that you can keep leveling forever and the game doesn't really break down. (I'm running a Starfinder setting and am letting players enchant mechs and mass drivers while having hundreds of magic items on top of leveling them every session. I'm trying to break the game and am not really having trouble making appropriate encounters)

[Bohandas]

Has anybody suggested Paranoia yet?

It's not fantasy but it's crunchy

[MrStabby]

Not saying it is right for you, but a couple of aspects of d&d 5th edition might be worth covering.

5th was content light. Very light. The thing is that you shouldn't base the amount of content on the comments of people who played it at release and not since. With four expansion books (even ignoring unearthed arcana) there is now substantially more content than when the edition began.

Another feature of 5th is it is pretty well balanced. Depending on your definition of content depth, this might help. Does something with 100 options of which 5 are viable have more depth than a system with 15 options, 10 of which are viable?

The structure of the game/classes also makes it really easy to homebrew in the gaps so with the right DM content isn't an issue.

Crunch - in terms of rules complexity is low. No real getting arround that. Spells can have complex effects but rules for casting are pretty simple (most of the time). This may mean it isn't for you as a system, but depending on how strong each of your desires are for a system it might be less bad than you think.