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Point of Discussion
Since I know my friends list is almost /entirely/ made up of gamers, I'll ask:
What makes a good RPG system for you?
This isn't a matter of organization, or of artwork, or of cost. What is it, specifically about a game system, that gets your attention and revs your engines?
For me:
Between 5 and 8 descriptive stats that give a good, easily communicated, picture of a character's general competence. Tri-Stat, although I like the flexibility of it, I hardly ever actually /use/. Anything with more than 8 or 9 stats, on the other hand, is too much of a pain in the ass to teach and use. I /like/ D&D stats, although leave off the Comeliness, thanks.
Simple, dice-based, combat resolution. For me, Unknown Armies has just nearly the perfect combat resolution system. It can be damned deadly, but it follows the same simple formula under almost all circumstances, has provisions for a variety of weapons and fighting styles, and best of all, is easy to extrapolate a reasonable solution to any combat situation the rules don't specifically cover. In Nomine, love it though I do, is a good example of frustrating combat.
Abstract health. I don't like hit tables, or having to calcuate crippling chances for each limb, or having to keep track of how much armor is over each body part. Give me some hit points, health points, vital points, or whatever you want to call it, and I can make up the rest as I go along.
Fatigue system for magic/psychic/supernatural abilities. I've actually /yet/ to see one that I really like. I know the system I want to see, but it's not been implemented in any game that I'm familiar with. And that's a darned shame.
So. Those are the ones that immediately spring to my mind. What turns /you/ on?
What makes a good RPG system for you?
This isn't a matter of organization, or of artwork, or of cost. What is it, specifically about a game system, that gets your attention and revs your engines?
For me:
Between 5 and 8 descriptive stats that give a good, easily communicated, picture of a character's general competence. Tri-Stat, although I like the flexibility of it, I hardly ever actually /use/. Anything with more than 8 or 9 stats, on the other hand, is too much of a pain in the ass to teach and use. I /like/ D&D stats, although leave off the Comeliness, thanks.
Simple, dice-based, combat resolution. For me, Unknown Armies has just nearly the perfect combat resolution system. It can be damned deadly, but it follows the same simple formula under almost all circumstances, has provisions for a variety of weapons and fighting styles, and best of all, is easy to extrapolate a reasonable solution to any combat situation the rules don't specifically cover. In Nomine, love it though I do, is a good example of frustrating combat.
Abstract health. I don't like hit tables, or having to calcuate crippling chances for each limb, or having to keep track of how much armor is over each body part. Give me some hit points, health points, vital points, or whatever you want to call it, and I can make up the rest as I go along.
Fatigue system for magic/psychic/supernatural abilities. I've actually /yet/ to see one that I really like. I know the system I want to see, but it's not been implemented in any game that I'm familiar with. And that's a darned shame.
So. Those are the ones that immediately spring to my mind. What turns /you/ on?
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As regards to system. Simplicity and flexibility. I am not a fan of level based systems at all. I am not too terribly hung up on realism.
But what I =really= love is cinematics. Why I love exalted. Stunts rule my world :)
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I don't mind level based, or buy-as-you-go, or whatever form of progression, as long as it fits the setting. Level-based for CoC is dumb (*shakes fist at D20*). Level-based for heroic fantasy or superheroes, not so dumb.
I like cinematics to some degree. Although I like them more as climatic, at least somewhat unusual events. Drama Points in Buffy, or spending Essence in IN, as opposed to Stunts in Exalted, say. :D
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In a similar vein, I like a sense of control. While dice do fall where they may, I like feeling like my character's actions and results are not entirely controlled by the initial stats. Being allowed to try to resist your disadvantages, having ways of "trying really hard" to increase your chances on a roll (whether it's a matter of Buffy's luck dice, or spending fatigue points, or describing your pose well), and allowing at least some strategy; these things please me. Oddly enough, for strategy I'm just as happy with a very abstract system, where the GM adds modifiers as desired for what's described, as I am with a carefully-detailed system like GURPS. I'm less fond of combat systems where combat options seem constraining (You can do X, Y, or Z) rather than freeing. For some reason d20 combat feels this way to me, while GURPS combat does not; I'd have a hard time pinpointing the rules that make it so.
Following the theme of choices, I like being able to make my character different from others. Again, this can be a matter of tons of little choices like in GURPS, or just very free-form few decisions like Over the Edge. And again, this is one frustration I sometimes have with D&D; at first level, one Fighter Half-Elf looks much like another, and having slightly different feats and differently divided small numbers of skill points... well, they just don't feel important as distinguishing features, to me. It's easy enough to distinguish my character's personality free of the system, but I want my character to be /mechanically/ unique too.
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Another great game is Baron Munchausen, but I'm not very good at it.
I am a big fan of
I don't like anything that requires me to look up a table while I'm playing. If I need to consult a table, the system is too hard and too overbearing. Tables annoy me.
I very much enjoyed Dying Earth, but that was because I could have stats for my clothes. Dying Earth rules. It's a hilarious game. Behold my gigantic codpiece and weep!
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Stats that are easily comprehensible and communicable. White Wolf still has my favorite stab at it, just for the explanations and examples of what each level in a stat or skill could be equated to. D&D is good, GURPS is good. West End's system took a bit more work, but wasn't too bad. The absolute worst remains Pinnacle/Alderac's system with Deadlands, etc. I still have no clue how to differentiate a strength of 2d8 from 3d6 from 1d12 -- what do they MEAN?
Simple, logical dice mechanics. This is, for instance, where AD&D falls down; D&D3+ improved immensely on it. West End's D6 system was amazing at it.
I like, actually, a more realistic health system; I just never seem to end up in games that use one these days. I'd love to play in a grimly realistic world where wounds matter and it's possible to bleed to death and worry about infection and such.
Easy, intuitive character creation. This is where GURPS falls down -- it takes bloody forever to make a character. Original D&D was excellent at this; West End Games & Shadowrun did well with their template systems (which GURPS later implemented in sourcebooks). Hand off a character, do some customizations and GO. A party of Star Wars PCs can be made in under ten minutes.
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And I agree on character creation. I expect to spend an hour or two creating a character the first or second time I play a system. After that? It should get /easier/. I can make a D&D (2nd or 3rd Edition) character in...20-40 minutes, depending on how many optional books I'm using and how long of a background I want to write. In Nomine, about the same.
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Yeah, I'm about there -- In Nomine still takes me longer because I always feel so dang overwhelmed about choosing Songs and such. For some reason my brain can't handle Songs in IN.
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*coughs* Not that I'm bitter or anything. Oddly enough, I usually deal with that same inability to choose Songs by making characters who have none, or have only a single Song that goes exceptionally well with their style (Healing for Flowers/Children types, Thunder for Wind, Affinity for, well, any Lilim... And so forth). Which is perhaps a cop-out.
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Speaking of flexibility, I wish Songs in IN were more flexible than they are. You can make them a little moreso if your character is a Virtuoso, but that's a very difficult mastery to attain.
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I've found burning starting points on skills is a better buy in the long run than songs.
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And, yeah, I can see the LCant making Song-choices a touch overwhelming.
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