New answers tagged system-recommendation
1
Let's deconstruct the problem first
You want a chance of really bad outcome to:
scale with a skill level
be conditions dependent: weapon type, visibility, whatnot
be a flat percentile
Rob made a great Rolemaster overview, so I'll concentrate on Unknown Armies. Game satisfies all three conditions and is quite easy to explain.
Unknown Armies
Uses a ...
2
Spycraft 2.0 has error ranges.
To sum up, generally rolling a 1 (and failing, thus if your skill is high enough it may be avoided) results in an Error. An opponent may then spend an action die to convert it to a critical failure. But feats and talents can modify the error range both ways so you can end up having 0 chance of error as easily as 15%. You still ...
2
In "Drakar & Demoner" (in the Gigant expansion, definitely), using a D20, there's a risk of fumble on rolling a natural 20. To actually fumble, roll for skill again and fail. This means that at skill 1 (approximately "worse than untrained"), you have very close to 5% of fumble, but at skill 15 (approximately "master and beyond"), you only have 1.25% ...
5
Rolemaster (Standard and Classic) uses a variable fumble chance for every weapon.
Critical Miss Chance
Rolemaster uses a cascading d% system (01-05 roll down 96-00 roll up) but unmodified rolls within the weapon fumble range automatically cause a fumble (and a roll on the appropriate weapon fumble table)
Varying by weapons
Sample weapon fumble ranges:
...
3
There was an old system called Rolemaster that did this sort of thing. It was published by a company called 'Iron Crown Enterprises'. I'm not sure if it's still in print, but you could probably find copies of it on ebay. This had quite an elaborate system for dealing with weapon fumbles and critical hits.
Try searching for 'Character Law', 'Arms Law', ...
2
In Legend and RuneQuest 6, your critical chance is 1/10 of your combat skill, rounded up. As RuneQuest 6/Legend is a percentile system, it's quite easy to calculate the percentage - if you have a combat skill of 50%, your chance of a critical is 5% (roll below 5 on a d100).
Fumbles is only 2% - on a roll of 99 and 100. However, RuneQuest 6 has an ...
0
Rolemaster has some ritual group-casting rules in Rolemaster Companion II, but I don't know if this carried onto the RMSS.
This is a way of casting spells above your level or that you may not even know; it's a one roll resolution (RMC2 adds a success table for this, and what's Rolemaster without a table?)
Difficulty is modified by Ritual skill, spell level ...
2
I see two ways you can go here
Rigid system with pre-defined effects and math to combine them. You can find a lot of element spells in GURPS Magic and adopt something akin to GURPS advantages(and mods) math to represent spell combinations.
Or more streamlined game where system is abstract enough to ignore everything beyond casting difficulty. PDQ# or Lady ...
5
Pendragon 4th Edition has rules for group casting. (but it's the only edition with magic rules.)
Burning Wheel has some in Magic Burner.
GURPS Magic for 3E had some; GURPS Fantasy for 1st ed did, too.
The Fantasy Trip has them in Advanced Wizard. GURPS Fantasy 1E was pretty much the same magic system...
5
Wizard's Communion in Ars Magica is the only way to pull of some of the obscenely high rituals promised by the system.
The rules for Wizard's Communion (A Rego Vim general spell) allow a number of casters to reduce the difficulty of a ritual according to a set number of guidelines. The spell is difficult, and can get very expensive, but allows commensurate ...
3
Call of Cthulhu is the one I've played that does this best. You get a chance to improve any skill that you crit on during a story. Some groups have played that as crit success or failure, some as only crit success. The catch is that you have a chance to improve, it's not automatic, so "grinding" will only get you so far (the chance decreases as the skill ...
4
I'm also curious in how these systems prevent grinding. What's to prevent the characters from rolling climb rope 20 times a day until they get the skill where they want? In Mouse Guard (and possibly Burning Wheel) the actual skill checks are a finite resource and you only get so many per day. How else can the game reward skill use without becoming a boot ...
5
Mouse Guard has a really simple and effective system for use-based skill improvement. Every skill (ranks ranging from 2 to 6) has space besides it for marking passes and fails in that skill. (For an extended conflict, like an important fight or discussion, you mark every skill used only once.) When you have accumulated skill rank passes and skill rank – 1 ...
3
The Basic Roleplaying System used in most of Chaosium's games is the one that immediately springs to mind. It has systems for developing skills through use and through training and practice. It may not be perfect for you as the experience development is a bit speedy for some people's tastes but it's certainly worth looking at given how long it's been ...
1
REIGN
You could use the Company rules from Reign. They are specifically designed to abstractly model the states and activities of groups. A Company is any group, from a gang to a government.
You can use the rest of the reign rules for your PCs or not - that's up to you. The Reign Enchirodon has all the Reign rules and mechanics and none of Greg's setting ...
9
You might want to read the Houses of the Blooded rpg. It is designed to be a game of political backstabbing and power play.
It is well written, coupled with a fantasy setting (and quite interesting one) and is grim and romantic by design. You will need to prepare an awful lot of custom setting material. But game includes actual rules for:
Vassal-lord ...
5
Savage Worlds
First, I would check out Darwin's World. It is a setting in itself, but also provides a comprehensive toolkit for post-apocalypse (or post-collapse if you prefer) gaming. It includes:
Varying technology levels and penalties for using items of a higher
level than you are used to
Different languages in the waste lands
Rules for creating ...
1
One campaign I'm involved in uses a system of boons granted by high-level NPCs. One of the boons is that they will grant a resurrection, but the race of the character may change (yes, that violates your "no change to the character" rule, but it's worth it).
When someone dies, the other players each choose a race for the new form (you may or may not allow ...
14
The One Ring
Published by Cubicle 7, The One Ring: Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild is, afaik, the most recent and most modern rpg adaptation of Tolkien's immense world. It's a relatively simple and modern game systems-wise (and you can always decide to leave off some rules to help yourself and your players ease into them later), with both the beautiful ...
11
Mouse Guard has a modification for this: Realm Guard
Mouse Guard ($20 pdf purchase link, review) is a game about patrolling the borders between a safe haven for noncombatants and the dangers of the outside world. In the original game you're mice, but Realm Guard is a free Fourth Age LotR setting modification.
MG is moderately crunchy as RPGs go, so it has ...
7
Middle Earth Roleplaying by I.C.E. is what I would recommend.
The little brother of the more-complicated Rolemaster this is the RPG I started on when I was in my early teens, it's not that complicated to pick up and everything you need is in one book. However it is out of print but I've seen it on ebay for £10 in the UK. Let's see how it covers your points:
...
4
There is a True20 treatment of the Mythos entitled Shadows of Cthulhu
Dennis Detwiller adapted the One-Roll Engine to the Mythos in Nemesis
Delta Green will have its own system at some point, as well.
14
Yes, The system you're looking for is 4th edition with the house rule of "level up every session".
This is actually a remarkably popular house rule and it doesn't impact 4e adversely at all. I would, personally, recommend every other session just to allow people to be used to a level (when I levelled every session, the changes (especially in epic) were... ...
10
Call of Cthulhu is being given its first real overhaul in decades. The system is d100, and the emphasis is on immersion in the game world. The default setting is the 1920s, but there are expansion materials available for other eras. Chaosium has created an extensive body of well-regarded CoC adventures over many years. Here's co-creator Sandy Peterson ...
2
It sounds as if you have a solid grasp of the atmosphere and background, so a generic system that supports horror well could be appropriate.
I strongly suggest you try Dread, which is a generic horror game and has very little crunch. The game uses a Jenga tower for resolving actions: if you want to do something or avoid something being done to you you make ...
1
There is a free Mythic Ireland setting PDF by John Briquelet (direct link) that contains a lot of useful flavour and cultural detail, assuming you want some mythical and magic touches to your pre-Roman Celts. Even if not, the feeling of the culture – especially the details of honour, the political organisation of the Celts, the role of Druids and the law – ...
0
Realms of Cthulhu is a highly flexible system designed to allow you to play a range of games in the Lovecraftian mythos - from CoC investigation to high-tech monster-hunters etc. The underlying crunch is Savage Worlds.
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