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I know a good chunk of us roleplay in some form or another, so I'm getting opinions on what systems people enjoy or believe to be their personal favorites. I've played my fair share of systems. Vampire, Exalted, Shadow Run, Gurps, MiB, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and pretty much every D&D edition since 2nd edition.

Of them all I think I'll remain a D&D 4th edition fan for some time. It has a simpllicity to it that I think opens up a good degree of roleplaying possibilities that don't have to be hindered down by too many rules. I currently play in two 4th edition games and DM another. I tend to wear out my imagination and improv skills while I DM, but playing gives me a chance to only have to worry about one character and I find that I've gotten a better grasp of the rules now that I've gotten a chance to experience the game away from the DM screen. Some people worry that 4th doesn't give enough RP and game options as other editions, but I feel that the game is constantly growing and adding new options, but at the same time keeping a constant set of rules that don't need major revisioning every time a new book comes out. (Like when 3.5 suddenly introduced different types of actions you could take along with your regular actions, but only catered to the classes that came after that addition).

I think my second choice would be the Exalted system, which I feel gives even more RP incentive as it's actually part of the rules to offer additional chances of sucess if you describe your actions in as dramatic a way as possible.

We play Pathfinder when our group can get together. I dig it.

Loved the Earthdawn system and I always enjoyed the simplicity of the Palladium stuff.

I love the Palladium worlds but their system is deeply lacking in healing abilities. Even a minor fight will often have your characters laid up for days or weeks - or painfully low on equipment, in Mega-Damage environs.

Shadowrun, character creation leaned heavily towards "great at one thing, kind of crappy at everything else".

I'm enjoying the hell out of Pathfinder. All the flexibility of 3.5, but clarified and upgraded.

Ah. Palladium. I never got along too well with that system. It's one of those worlds that suffers too much from great ideas that just don't work well with the rules available. I remember playing a card mage in a game once. It was a class that was available in one of the Rifters publications. I found myself to be absolutely useless. Plus I never much liked the campaign world or their depictions of creatures. I remember thinking a kobold would be a great race to play, and then I saw the picture and changed my mind.

Well there's the pizza delivery guy and the sorority girl, the barmaid and the slightly inebriated stable boy, the...

...


oh. :blush:

My friends got really into indie games a while ago, and while most of them drove me nuts with the high emphasis on role playing. One system that I really enjoyed though, was a game called Mountain Witch. What really drew me to it was that it had an almost perfect compromise of Role play and Game which a lot of systems can't seem to get.

The setting (which could be adapted to a number of things) was basically that you and your friends were all Ronin, so for some reason or another you have already been disgraced, and you were seeking redemption (or money or whatever you wanted) by climbing to the top of Mt. Fuji to face the Mountain Witch who was terrorizing the people below.

The game had a GM who would describe a challenge for you, and then present dice that represented aspects of that challenge. As a player you had the option to talk some of those dice away if you could come up with a good enough reason for them to not matter. So for example, let's say that you come across a gap, and there is an old log that is acting as a bridge between the two sides. The GM would then declare the intent of this challenge, which is to have you fall down the gap. You say that your intent is to reach the other side unharmed. Then the GM produces dice to represent things such as 1 dice because the log is old and rotten, 1 dice because it's windy outside, and 1 because it's somewhat narrow. At this point you might be able to say that because of your years of swordplay practice, your sense of balance is enough that it being particularly narrow wouldn't bother you. It might work, it might not though.

So then you roll a d6 and the GM rolls a D6 for each aspect and selects the highest. When you roll, your other Ronin may choose to use a trust point to either aid or betray you. If they aid you, then they also roll a D6 and add their score to yours. If they decide to betray you, then they add a D6 to the GM which is rolled like an aspect dice. It's essentially harder to betray than to help, but sometimes you just need to.

Now this is the part that I really like though. You don't roll just to see if you do something or not, you're rolling to win narration rights to this segment of the story. So if I win the roll by X I get a major victory, which means that not only can I narrate me getting what I want, but I can add a little bonus or something. If I roll a victory, but only by a little than I might get a minor victory or a mixed victory. This means that I either only reach my objective and nothing more, or I reach my objective but at a cost. This might take the form of a wound which subtracts from my next rolls or something else. If we roll a tie (I think, don't remember exactly) then either of us narrates a situation where we kind of end up in a tie. This might mean, for the log scenario above, that the log breaks while I'm on it, and I fall a bit but I land on an edge just shy of the top of the ridge meaning I have to do a new roll to see if I can climb up from here.

Another great aspect of the game is that you can spend a trust point to steal narration right from whoever won it. One of the coolest ways this ever happened in a game we played was when one of us talked to some demon birds and convinced them to not sound the alarm to our presence. At this point someone else stole the narration and said that the same thing happened, only the guy who did all the talking did so in a demon language that none of us understood. So all that our CHARACTERS knew is that our so called friend talked in an ancient demonic language and commanded several demon crows to fly away. We don't know what he said to them or what they flew away to do.

Anyway, there's more to it than that of course but it was just one of the best systems I ever played. It was so much fun!

4e is really the only one I'm familiar with, so...that one?

Vampire the Masquerade, i loved that system.

It's probably a Toss-up of Deadlands Classis, D&D 3.5, and Savage Worlds. Leaning towards Deadlands Classic though.

Cajungal said:

Well there's the pizza delivery guy and the sorority girl, the barmaid and the slightly inebriated stable boy, the...

...


oh. :blush:

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No, please continue.

pretty please you pretty gal.

Just started getting into Pathfinder, and I really like it so far. I've even gone so far as to download the playtest for the 6 new classes, and they're all really interesting and well thought out.

I've also played 3.5 D&D, Gurps, Rolemaster, and 4th edition.

Fatal. Enough said.

I pretty much only played the sci-fi/horror Palladium games, Macross, Robotech, TMNT, Beyond the Supernatural, Nightbane etc. What was great about the system is that you had a nice little easy base system everyone knew and you could go anywhere with it. I never really got into Rifts much or anything else from them.

And really? No earthdawn fans here? Lame.

Ironwood

Barring that, I have Pathfinder and Warhammer FRPG but haven't been able to play either one. Pathfinder because I can't find a group. Warhammer because I don't understand it.

I know a couple people who play WHFRP, and I do know some PF groups but you'd probably not want to play with them.

Deschain said:

I know a couple people who play WHFRP, and I do know some PF groups but you'd probably not want to play with them.

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The NEW Warhammer? With the funky dice?

Dave said:

Ironwood

Barring that, I have Pathfinder and Warhammer FRPG but haven't been able to play either one. Pathfinder because I can't find a group. Warhammer because I don't understand it.

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I'd love to play pathfinder sometime. I've never actually played a tabletop RPG, but I'm interested in trying it out.

Like 3.5e, haven't had a chance to play 4e yet. Love WoD 2.0 and its offshoot derivatives like ORE (and ORE's other parent, Undead Armies).

3.5
Maid
Mutants and Masterminds

AD&D first edition after Unearthed Arcana.

Twilight 2000 - Merc 2000 both part of a modern warfare game, just different settings.

Champions System - from the late 80's early 90's. Generic RolePlaying system. Built for superhero gaming, but great for fantasy gaming too. It was a little too close to giving birth. You would literally spend your free time for a week making a character. If he ever died you were so frakkiing heart-broken.

They do it on-line though. As for ADnD *gun to head*.

Pathfinder and the Westend D6 DC Universe game.

Pathfinder is an essential purchase for anyone that plays DnD3.5.

the Westend D6 is a fun, simple, and flexible Heroes system that doesn't require a phd to play and still offers tons of options.

I just wanted to call the D6 of Westend Games as my favorite for it's fast, simple style of play.
It just fitted into our Star Wars games back then (when the rulebook came with a printed-on silver medal "Star Wars - the first ten years").

I haven't played much else and haven't played for ages, so I really can't comment on any others.

SLA for the setting

Dark Herasy and WFRPS for the warhammeryness of it all

D&D 3-3.5 have hosted some of the best campaigns I ever played in

But the favorites gotta be rolemaster,

Brutal brutal system.

There was this one time with a cosplayer who was playing Tifa and I was Cloud. We had this thing going. She was pretty hot. Almost look like Tifa in the video game and.... wait...

Oh RPG game.... umm Paranoia!! yea fun times.

coolbeans said:

SLA for the setting

Dark Herasy and WFRPS for the warhammeryness of it all

D&D 3-3.5 have hosted some of the best campaigns I ever played in

But the favorites gotta be rolemaster,

Brutal brutal system.

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I've been trying to get an online Dark Heresy game going for a long time, but no one wants to be DM. You know anybody that might be interested?

I'd do it, but I'm midway through buying a house, and being shafterood by work, so free times at an all time low

If your still looking in a month or so, I'll do it.

Never run an online game though so that'll be a new experience

For all the Pathfinder people, go to the Paizo.com messageboard and look under Gamer Connection - there's always people looking for groups or players, for online or local games.

And if I may humbly recommend the 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming line of Pathfinder supplements, we just released Luven Lightfinger's Gear & Treasure Shop, a 106 page equipment and gear book that's received fantastic reviews, as well as a PDF supplement on dogs, providing stats for over 30 different breeds. Also, our Paths of Power book, which features 12 classes (3 NPC, 3 PrC, 5 Base, and 1 Class Variant). Also, I wrote large parts of LLG&TS and PoP. So...