RPG query

[craobhruadh]

(hopefully this will be in a different vein from yesterday's post

Comments

[doublefeh]

Mouse Guard is easy to run, fun to play, and hard to get wrong. Shockingly enough, the book does a very good job of telling you how to run it and how to play it, in fairly plain language. It has much of the fun of Burning Wheel, but in a much more manageable package. (It also just won the Origins award for best RPG of the year, so I'm not the only one who thinks so)

[craobhruadh]

Thanks, I had just heard about Mouse Guard yesterday when the Origins were announced, but don't know much about it. I was thinking while writing the above post that Burning Wheel would be a great answer to my second question, except that the rules can get a bit complex.

[kalliplokime]

Setting-wise, my top two are very definitely Changeling: the Dreaming (which everyone is shocked by, I'm sure) and Shadowrun. But Changeling's system is highly idiosyncratic and Shadowrun's is very, very complicated... Polaris is great both in system and setting but only if you have a group of very dedicated hard core narrativists capable of appreciating it and not exploiting the enormous freedom they are given. For less esoteric aesthetes, Weapons of the Gods is a very fun setting (Wuxia China) with a very flexible but easily understood system. I highly enjoyed the one-shot I played, even if it was a genre that I'm not very familiar with.

As far as accessible systems go... that's hard. I have played so very few systems that I even liked, let alone would recommend to a newcomer. nWoD isn't terrible for neonates, though, all things considered.

[craobhruadh]

This is completely OT but I've meant to ask you what you thought of Changeling the Lost? I finally got around to browsing it and while there are obvious similarities (fairy society being an alternate hidden world that still structures itself around courts), the tone seems to have taken a complete 180°, and is no longer about "preserving the happiness, joy, and wonder of the world" and is more about "survivors of trauma trying to deal with it and find their place in the world."

More on topic, Polaris seems like one of those games that everybody raves about, but I (still) haven't gotten a chance to play it...

[kalliplokime]

I didn't like C:tL so much, because of the vast difference of the tone, as well as the limitedness of range of it. C:tD could be played anywhere from bright, shiny, childlike wonder to brutal violence and oppression to pensive, inevitable tragedy. C:tL pretty much just seems to do paranoia and madness, with political intrigue on the side. That said, it was a very interesting read, and I'm certainly open to the possibility that, if I played in a properly run game of it, I might like it more. Still, it'll never unseat its predecessor in my heart - but then, nothing will, really.

Like I said, Polaris is great, and if you can find three poetic-minded people who can enjoy tragedy and won't power-trip, you should corral them as soon as you can for a game of it. I played with Aaron, Peter, and Brendan, which was just amazing. Our final session ran all night, such that as the last of us was corrupted by the demons, the sun was rising and banishing the stars. It was epically symbolic and heart-wrenchingly beautiful.

[zero_the_fool]

I'm going to take setting pretty loosely here, to also encompass tone etc

Compulsive over-editing strikes again

[craobhruadh]

Yeah, I was thinking about D&D too. While its system is far from perfect, it is a very classic game, which embodies (or has created) many of the modern fantasy tropes. My main concern about it is actually that it's too similar to computer RPGs, which are far more popular, so I'm worried that people used to computer RPGs will approach it with the "kill stuff, get loot" mentality. It doesn't help that the game actively encourages this behavior. More experienced roleplayers don't seem to have this problem, though.

I have a post written up somewhere in the back of my mind about how to get new players to play their character, but it was probably to a large degree influenced by a D&D one shot I ran for a bunch of new players in which the above was a problem.

[jencallisto]

Honestly, in terms of introducing new people, I think D&D and White Wolf are the way to go, especially if you can strip down some of the more complicated bits and streamline some -- and I think both of them are pretty good for that. They're also really good in terms of tabletop history; if they understand one or the other (or even better, both), they'll have an good basis for knowledge. Admittedly, I'm probably biased because that's where I started (D&D and WW in quick succession when I was in high school), but when I think of the other game systems I've played (Shadowrun, Rolemaster, Gurps, Wild Talents, Earthdawn, Rifts, Feng Shui), they strike me as in general more complicated for the novice player in not-entertaining ways (like calculating dice rolls and such

[kalliplokime]

A few of the WoD games can be played in a capacity that's far more Urban Fantasy than Horror, however. Old Changeling lends itself very well to non-Horror games, as do both variants of Mage.

...admittedly these may be the exceptions that prove the rule, come to think on it...