GURPS

[Sigfried Hunin]

So, I finally got around to getting 4th Ed and reading it. It's pretty awesome! It's a system that really does offer a lot for people who want to make a more wide-scope lens of RP options. Like, a bear with a sniper rifle or something.

I was actually thinking about how cool it would be if all of the Chubbs characters were translated into GURPS or Mutants and Masterminds or some shit. Be fun.

[Rafael]

OP.

I used to work with a guy who was huge into GURPS. I kept wanting to play, but every time I drafted anything he brought out a whole new section of the rules that ruined everything

[Anzekay]

GURPS' biggest strength is also its biggest flaw though. I can be horribly complicated sometimes.

[Blue]

Another Tabletop which works well for building anything you want is BESM.

[Sigfried Hunin]

And Mutants and Masterminds!!

[Ashe]

World of Darkness is surprisingly open ended. I like that you can just instantly die out of nowhere. Happened just the other day.

[Sigfried Hunin]

World of Darkness is surprisingly open ended. I like that you can just instantly die out of nowhere. Happened just the other day.

Yeah, but rolling massive fistfuls of dice all the time and just... Ugh. I love the setting and the flavor of the characters, but the system is just TERRIBLE in my eyes.

[Anzekay]

To this date my favorite game systems have to be Pathfinder and a slightly adjusted Harn ruleset.

[Sigfried Hunin]

Pathfinder is better than 4th Ed D&D but I still get pretty bored/irritated with it pretty quickly. It's less a flaw of the system and more the fact that I spent like, almost the entirety of my highschool and college careers playing some version of d20 system... So sick of it.

QUE ES HARN?

[Anzekay]

Harn is medieval fantasy setting that combines d100 with a ruleset that is brutally realistic and a setting that is very very feudal and exceptionally unforgiving.

[Ashe]

Yeah, but rolling massive fistfuls of dice all the time and just... Ugh. I love the setting and the flavor of the characters, but the system is just TERRIBLE in my eyes.

Out of those dice, only 8, 9, or 10 tends to count as a "success". Roll a 10 and you reroll that die for an additional success attempt. If you get 5 successes, its an overwhelming success. So the extra dice rolling actually works out well to me. There's also being able to spend permanent damage to some stats to increase your odds on specific rolls if they really are needed, which adds some kind of risky bargaining into it.

I think, to me, it ends up feeling much more streamlined and less "computational" than the d20 system.

[Sigfried Hunin]

Out of those dice, only 8, 9, or 10 tends to count as a "success". Roll a 10 and you reroll that die for an additional success attempt. If you get 5 successes, its an overwhelming success. So the extra dice rolling actually works out well to me. There's also being able to spend permanent damage to some stats to increase your odds on specific rolls if they really are needed, which adds some kind of risky bargaining into it.

I think, to me, it ends up feeling much more streamlined and less "computational" than the d20 system.

I've played a few campaigns in it and I just... I just hate it. I like d20 more, but only marginally. Like I said, love the setting, love the fluff, hate the living shit out of the system.

[Anzekay]

Harn is glorious

[Sigfried Hunin]

Harn is glorious

I will look into this.

[Anzekay]

There's a few small issues with it, like really high power characters can be nigh untouchable unless the GM sets stuff up really specifically, and that can be tedious, but my Dad (who GMs the Harn game I play atm) just made some houserules to adjust for that.

The base idea of Harn is that your character's condition is what matters the most when using skills. If you're skilled at something, but tired or injured, you get penalties to your rolls. This has an interesting snowball effect where as you get more tired or injured in a battle, you get worse and thus get tired quicker or are more easily injured. The amount of stuff you are wearing/carrying will affect this as well; you can't fight as easily while wearing full plate compared to just a leather vest.

The reverse, however, is also true. If you have high skills and are at 100%, you can be extremely difficult to hit or damage, and this can lead to some balance issues. So we just run with some option rules like being outnumbered gives you penalties, and adjusted some other things to put a cap on how high your max effective skill can be so you can never be totally untouchable.

It's a very realistic ruleset, and things will get pear shaped VERY fast. Combat is very deadly, and you will go down very fast if you start getting hurt- like real battle. Likewise, spellcasting is extrememly potent, but it drains your fatigue levels so the more you use it the weaker you are for your next spell. Cast too much, and you become too weak to do anything. You can also lose eyes and limbs and shit, as all attacks are also rolled against a chart for body location, so when you swing your sword at someone you actually have a certain location that each hit lands, and the locations all will have different armour values depending on what you are wearing. It sounds kinda complicated, but the actual process of rolling and assigning hits is extremely streamlined and there is some great charts that are very simple to work stuff out on the fly. I find it quicker than d20 combat at times.

That can lead to some pretty hilarious situations, like where my previous character used a really high level spell while badly wounded and trying to ride a panicked horse. I rolled a critical success for the spell, used up double the normal fatigue levels, burnt out my spell focus and used up this little thing I stored energy in, and was left with 1 fatigue point. Managed to roll a miracle and pass my riding test though, so I was able to get away from the mess the spell created.

There's also a story about a jar of goat piss I'll have to tell sometime.