LuciusT said:

Exactly. None of the NPC profiles in any of the three games mentions anything about rank and rare refenrences to careers.

I like how the IHB helped make the rank system more tolerable, but a more revised and seemless system would be activated.

Oh yes....I shoot the 15th level Arbitrator with a Rocket Launcher, 25hp damage...Arbitrator laughs and keeps on going...

Luddite said:

Off Topic: Would you believe I still actually have a copy of that game?

Space Monkey said:

Me too. Was hoping to convert some stuff from it.

d20 is pretty flawed, although I still enjoy it at times. It has a certain charm, and I'm a fan of the Pathfinder books.

At its heart though, its basically unsuitable for something like DH without some serious re-working. You could still keep the d20 for task resolution, but all the remaining rules would need to be reworked. Anytime you give players a level-based system, it can be very difficult to evoke a brooding, moody atmosphere the way DH encourages. Its still possible, but not easy. No matter what situation the players are in, they can still count on their hit points, their to-hit bonuses, etc etc. d20 is fine for heroic fantasy I guess, but not so much for anything else.

That said, I don't think the DH system baseline is completely without merit. It reminds me a lot of an old game called Rune Quest, and that was the first game to introduce hit locations and extensively battle damage to me. I think I was like fifteen at the time, and the first time one of my players lopped off an enemy's arm rather then just dealing 1d8+3 pts of HP damage was a real eye opener for me.

With that said, I view the Career Path much more as a guidance tool for my players (all of whom are new to the game and setting, and several of whom have only played rarely). Because I wanted them to start at a pretty reasonable level, and not be completely inept (because being inept Servants of the Emperor's All Mighty Inquisition is almost as mood breaking as being a lvl 3 Ranger of the Inquisition), I was pretty generous with their starting stats. I've also removed most of the Elite Advance extra costs, since if they get access to the advance its because of something in game...which is effort enough in my opinion. I've also been very generous with the optional career paths, treating them more as additional skill lines they can pick from then forcing them to choose between their career rank and the optional.

When the players start hitting Ascension, I'm pretty sure I will port them over to Rogue Trader and do some house ruling of that just like I did with DH. Things like Unnatural Attributes or the more ridiculous Talents will most likely be harder to obtain or removed altogether, but the players will have a lot more freedom in developing their skills. To me, what makes a Senseschal is that this is his chosen role in the group and (hopefully but not necessarily) the skills on his sheet will back that up...his chosen "career path" should really be secondary to the player's desire to play that role, and his willingness to spend his XP appropriately.

So yeah, I can see the flaws in the DH system but I've yet to encounter a system that didn't require a certain amount of modification to "fit just right".

Also, I agree that games with dice pools make me tired. Granted, I haven't played the latest revisions of the WoD series, but both Shadowrun and the old WoD systems could really have monstrous dicepools and a hell of a lot of rolling to resolve even minor actions. I think I would prefer to roll less dice, but put more meaning on the rolls myself.

Overall, I'm fairly pleased with DH and the system, but I'm fully cognizant that RT and DW may cause me problems down the line.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I haven't played the new revised WoD rules.

But the ruleset I played with still displayed White Wolf's attitude that they wanted combat mechanics especially to be so slow and painful that players would want to avoid it (and focus on RPing)...which of course failed completely. I still remember rolling to hit, possibly getting the enemy to dodge, then rolling for damage, then rolling for soak. All of this with dicepools of 5-12 d10s and all of this to resolve one attack.

Did I play it? Did I love it? Yes and yes.

Was it a superior system? Hell no.

I am assuming that the new WoD system is a lot more streamlined then the earlier editions?

Nihilius said:

Nihilius said:

Well thats a tough call. I really think system greatness depends on setting feeling. For example, is the classic West End Games D6 system the best system? Not at all. Is it good for some of the games it was used in? Sure, it was fine for Ghostbusters and Hercules & Zena the RPG. Was it a bad system? Definately, DC Universe RPG using the D6 legends variant was horrid. Was it a great system? Definately. Star Wars D6 was one of the best ruleset, book lines and setting fitting games ever. In fact, D6 as a whole is a great system for pulp and sci-fi games. But not so much for fantasy, super hero or even horror settings.

BRP has its strengths and weaknesses. First, it works well for low powered normal folk in fantasy games and classic horror (Rune Quest and Cthulhu) but it breaks down at the super heroic and epic fantasy levels (Elric/Storm Bringer and Super World). It has many sourcebooks/supplements and very little edition to edition errors to make books of different eras/editions incompatible with later/other editions. The current weakness of BRP is its art, layout and dependence on the monographs (which, Ironically, I wrote one of the earlier new edition of BRP Monographs).

I think in the right hands the Cyberpunk system (old days, not that horrid 3rd or 4th edition) was effective and fit the setting perfectly.

I have a weakness for MERP and Rolemaster, mainly a nostalgic love for the games, despite them not being all that great.

Same goes for early Palladium, before the 50+ Rifts books. I enjoyed Palladium Fantasy and Palladium Fantasy Book II: The Old Ones is still one of my favorite RPG books. Same goes for TMNT and Other Strangeness, Ninjas and Superspies and the whole After the Bomb series (actually, just After the Bomb, Road Hogs and Mutants Down Under). However, never really had any empathy for Heroes Unlimited. In the end, Palladium games suffers from a lot of errors, bad rules, conflicting styles and huge mega game unbalance. But it was a childhood decoy and the first Non TSR products I ever played.

Speaking of which, I will always say good things about TSR (or T$R) and its earlier games. D&D (original, AD&D and AD&D 2E) all did what the can to make RPGs what they are and if you cant find time to give credit where it is due, then you might not be playing in the games you are today. Star Frontiers and Gamma World and Buck Rogers and the XXVc will always be setting favorites of mine, if not system favorites. In fact, most of those games can be played as is with little adjustment just using the GORE (or BRP) system rules in place of the old school TSR D&D clones they were.

As for the GW RPGs, I think overall the systems work and work well. They are character based (meaning your character skills are not based on a inherit "skill" rule, such as in Palladium or D&D thief skills where the skills had their own independent rank or chance of success solely based on the skill and the possessors level and only modified by extreme stats), simple percentile sytems. Characters can elevate above thier skills by taking talents, extra skill slots and so forth to become exceptional at a skill (up to an additonal +30) and time, effort, equipment and circumstance affect the outcome of skills. Much as I may only have the basic Drive skill and an Agility of 25, but with modifiers for driving on paved roads (+20), following suggested speed and other laws (+10), driving a decent car (+10) and making a simple ordinary test (+10) gives me a 75% chance of keeping my car on the road, when I must roll which is only in certain circumstances (to avoid a car coming head on at me in the wrong lane). It may get bulky at times, but it is effective and easy once everyone knows the rules.

The only issue I have with the40K RPG systems is career and rank, but that has been discussed alot. By me alone.

But my overall favorite system of all time is DC Heroes from Mayfair. And later Blood of Heroes by Pulsar Games, which was essentiall the 4th and 5th editions of DC Heroes. As a system the game scaled well for characters from Robin and lower to Superman and beyond. Character generation, while at time cumbersome,was balanced and fair when a good GM was moderating. Advancement and Hero Points worked well and the game covered everything from investigation, interaction, combat, travel, powers, skills, and so forth. It was well supported and while 1st Edition was very different from later editions, all the versions of the game could easily be mixed and matched.

So in the end, I recommend D6 Space (or Star Wars D6), BRP, DC Heroes (Not DC UNIVERSE), Blood of Heroes and of course Dark Heresy and WFRP 2E.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Not just by you =P.

I agree that the Rank system is not in keeping with a modern/sci-fi setting. A level and class based heroic fantasy setting...possibly. But I also do think that it can be just fine as a guideline, or even for generating advanced NPCs within those roles...up to an extent. A high ranking, career arbitrator might very well have a broad selection of skills and talents within that career path...but a PC who is breaking away from that stereotype should not be forced into those same choices.

For PCs...especially ones like Acolytes of the Inquisition, it doesn't really fit. It makes very little sense that an Arbitrator cannot take Charm or other social skills, if he decides that's what's needed to further his investigations. And yet, the artificial constraints of rank and level make this a problem. Creating a smooth-talking assassin who lulls his targets into complacency as he works himself closer is also impossible until the extremely high levels. The ranks and careers are a bit too much of a strait jacket, although its not fatal to the game (imo).

I also agree that the artificial "leveling" of weapon proficiences (Chain/Bolt weapons circa rank 4, Power/Plasma circa rank 7) is pretty nonsensical. What should determine a player's ability to take these proficiency talents should be their ability to procure the weapons (and especially a supply of ammo) in game. The weapon training itself should be secondary to this roleplaying aspect.

LOL....I trained my calcules skills playing rolemaster and merp...roll d100, add 1 hand Edged, substract defense bonus...look up damage and critical and damage on table X, rolls critical (d100 again) add or subtract critical bonus, look up critical effect on table Y....LOL

Santiago said:

I mastered Algebra playing Champions.

[OCV (Dex/3)+11+(Skill Levels)]-[DCV (Target's DEX/3) + (Target's Skill Levels)] > 3(D6)

I never played a system that was perfect. I never will play a system that is perfect.

That said, I have played a lot of systems that were suitable for the style of play they were designed for. D20 is nice, when you play a high fantasy game. WFRP is grand when you play a low fantasy rpg, Pendragon is grand for portraying Knights, Doctor Who does a great Job when you play the Doctor and his Companions, Deadlands was doing a nice job playing Spagetti Westerns with meat, Amber si another good example of an interesting game system that fits the setting.

A lot of these games would fall flat on their face when you try to use another system for it. Even the earlier mentioned Judge Dredd system did a better job with the GW version then with the D20 variety. I don't think that a system where you become mighty DnD heroes would fit the DH setting. In the end you are just a mortal.

I tend to prefer level-less systems (Shadowrun, SLA Industries etc) and if you wanted to, you could probably make the D100 system work to that effect by giving people a 'career' as such that was descriptive enough to give them an idea of the types of skills and talents they should have. Same said skills and talents would be bought for say, 200xp each and some of them leading onto higher talents, psy rating or +10, 20 skills with a pre-requisites to them. Stat advances you could use along the 250+ each line of advancement and you'd sort of have something which would hold together over time. A lot of character background and starting skills could just come from that character background or homeworld.

Its a lot of work though and I've already got a full time job so I'm not really keen to invest the effort into it, a lot of the reason I buy the books is to save myself a lot of work as a GM! The rest, well we prop it up with some house rules and for me at least, Dark Heresy holds up ok under its basic rules with a little bit of leniency when a PC gets frustrated they cant build a character concept they'd like to play. Most of them for what its worth, when I offered to make it level-less, where quite happy to plug along with the rules as-is so I've got even less incentive.

I'm sort of glad though I'm not running RT or DW... it gets really whacky with them somewhere around the mid-ranks with RT and DW is just all kinds of mess from the get-go.

Bladehate said:

Agreed. Though this isn't a problem with the system as a whole, just specific advance schemes. Ascension, RT and DW all do away with this issue.

Bladehate said:

As someone who played 3rd ed V:tM, I have found I dislike the new edition so strongly, that I have even gone to the extent of taking my new WoD books back to the game store and getting store credit for them. The new WoD reminds me strongly of 3ed D&D... in the Greyhawk setting. It's all vanilla to me and boring.

But unlike 3ed D&D, where you can go into different world settings,there is only one, unless you want to create your own, which is very time consuming.

The main change in the new WoD is ALL difficulties are now 7, with only dice pools changing. While this may work to balance characters, it can be vey annoying, as new vampires can seriously challenge elders in the new setting, which to me is stupid.

The new WOD rules are indeed more streamlined, but they are still AWFUL for combat resolution. It handles skill tests pretty well and character creation/development works pretty well. Retarded-zombie-hamster level combat rules work ok for portraying an emo vampire's brood sesions, but is a fatal flaw for "in the dark future, there is only war."

The WEG D6 (Star Wars & Etc.) system is overall one of my favourites for simplicity and character flexibility, not to mention long term game play. Plus the core of the game system is mathematical averages applied to multiple D6 with a "higher wins" theme. Weapons and armour remain consistent as characters grow, but the skill behind them makes the difference. The only real clunky part is when really high powered characters "pull out the stops"... The sheer number of dice rolled when a Jedi Master or top-shelf bounty hunter spends a Force Point on their turn can get pretty... well... epic.

Palladium: I simply HATE this system. Period. SDC/MDC and the Über-munchkin one-upsmanship completely kill any scraps of fun that might be had in the settings.

D20/Pathfinder: Vaguely ok for high fantasy games where your half-naked barbarian plows through literal hordes of mooks, suffering just enough scratches as to look more macho in the Franzetta artwork that will doubtless grace the cover of that fan-fiction you are writing about the game... For gritty dark sci-fi horror it just plain fails: "Keep it up lads! Just 496 more hit points and that Plague Marine is going down! Oh, and make a reflex save or suck some frag missile..." This is before I even get into the whole BAB and Armour Class thing... Roll a 20 and your trusty lasgun blasts a (admitedly small) hole in that pesky Reaver Titan... WOOT! (Not!). "Save versus Exterminatus" is NEVER going to be something I utter in my game!

Cyberpunk/Fuzion: Ok, these DO have a warm fuzzy place in my heart still, but the game system itself is DEEPLY flawed. The basic mechanic was adding a stat (2-10 unless "augmented") to a skill (0-10), modifying for circumstances (+/- whatever) and then adding a D10 to the total to resolve checks. The problem is, no matter what your total is, a roll of 1 on the die (10% chance!) is an AUTO-FAIL and the roll of a 10 (likewise 10% chance) keeps the 10 and "explodes" until you fail to roll another 10. This means that a full 20% of all dice rolls in the game result in something spectacular happening. Body armour is surprisingly effective in this game system, but a lack of armour leads to a very quick and messy death, the natural result is that EVERYONE is packing massive weapons and armour, even to go grocery shopping. Fuzion replaced the 1D10 roll with 3D6 instead, which helped with the crit/fail flood but also served to render raw dumb luck a much larger factor than skill or raw talent, since an "average" stat became 2 and a "good" stat became a 4 and "crazy Anime main character" at around a 7. Great overall style and setting, but the game mechanics are simply a mess mathematically-speaking.

GURPS: 3rd Ed had it's place for cool if overly-complex games. It worked great for space-opera and pulp style games. It was pretty horrible for supers, cyberpunk, fantasy and similar genres. Low points value characters were pretty much useless and high points characters got really silly in a hurry (hours of dodging and parrying until someone finally failed a roll, then hope they don't have something that grants a re-roll). 4th Ed just flat out sucks. Sure, they made a few nice changes (like fatigue being calculated off of your health instead of strength... No more Conan the Wizard!) but they also completely broke the points-balance in a game that is built entirely off of a points buy... FAIL!

BI/FFG: Honestly, I think that we have a pretty solid set of game mechanics for the current DH game line. Sure, it could use a few little tweaks and polish here and there, but once you get used to it the game really flows through just about any type of scene you present to your players and adapts well to creative on the fly player-character hyjinks. The Only real flaw I see (other than rank 1 DH characters being a bit pothetic) is the previously mentioned career rank system. I am not saying I dislike the idea of career paths in the game (quite the contrary, I feel they are essential to preserving the 40K setting ... The whole "you are what you are" thing.). What I (and I think many other players and GMs) am saying is that the current career path structures are a little too narrow. Judicious use of Elite Advances and the occasional Elite Package go a long way to help here, and the alternate career ranks first presented in IH are beautiful things. It appears the current staff at FFG agree, considering some of the teasers hinted at in the recent designer diaries. The full reworking of the Adepta Sororitas into four stand-alone careers based around the traditional Orders has me very excited with the direction our beloved game seems to be going. If anything needs a full reworking I would point to initial character generation (make background more significant and come with a bit more in the starting skills/talents/traits department) and Ascention. Psykers could also be a bit more "random"... The real trick there would be keeping them as fun and viable character choices (Sanctioned Psykers and Ascendant Astropaths are indeed "something special" compared to the average wytch, but...) The core game mechanics however are quite sound and flow well with all the action I have been able to throw at it so far. It is still entirely possible to "break the mold" with DH characters, it just tends to cost a few more XP to do so.

As to how D20 ruins other IP settings. Not only look at Star Wars but check out Farscape D20.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Or Trinity D20! *shudders*

Jack of Tears said:

This!

I like D&D but I have jet to see a good D20 Game conversion.

All other D20 games (other than D&D) I played kind of sucked.

What could work much better would be using the D10 Rules (World of Darkness) for DH or DW.

I recently played Starwars D10 and it was cool.

I like d20 (3.5 and 4th), and I like WoD (old and new.) I think they're good systems in general.

I don't think either of them would work well for 40k, however. D20 has reasonably smooth combat and the fact that there's a whole product line of 40k miniatures out there helps to ensure the whole "it needs minis to run best" isn't a huge deal. But I have yet to see a d20 game that does guns well. The abstracted hit point system simply does not handle guns the way they should be handled.

WoD is much better at modeling guns and all the other assorted gear a futuristic setting would entail. It's magic system is simple but probably good enough to handle Chaos sorcery and other similar metaphysics. Unfortunately, WoD puts too much emphasis on social and mental endeavors. I'm not saying 40k is a dungeon crawl, but there's definitely a high expectation of violence, and physical conflict in WoD gets deadly VERY fast. There's also the whole morality thing. I think WoD does morality better than any other RPG I've played (which is not say it's perfect, just that it's the least broken I've seen), however, 40k is highly amoral. If characters in the 40k universe had to worry about going stark raving mad after comitting a few atrocities, everyone would be rolling up new characters every other session.

It's not that the systems are bad, it's just that the setting demands more than either can reasonably provide. There may be other systems out there that could handle 40k, but I guess they aren't popular enough to warrant being paid for. BI/FFG decided instead to go with their own system. And after all, why not? If you make your own system, you can design it to provide exactly what you need it to do.

As far as jumping off cliffs and all the other stupid things you can do in a given system; every system can be bent in some ways. Like someone else said, the system is only as gamist as the players are willing to make it. If a level 20 elf paladin decides to wade into an army of 10,000 level 1 orcs in my game, he dies. No matter how cool you are, that many orcs can pin you down and saw off your head. The Golden Rule exists for a reason, folks. I tend to consider such nonsense a failing of the GM, not of the system. Any given system can only emulate reality (or verisimilitude, for something like 40k) to a certain point, the rest is up to you and your players.

As much as I enjoy D&D and Pathfinder, I hated the era of "everything must be rebuilt using d20". Different rules for different games are part of their charm. Earthdawn, Talislanta, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, and Warhammer are all games I enjoy for their unique settings and rules to match.

There are a few things I may not like about the way FFG implemented things, but I am very happy that they continued the traditions of the Warhammer FRP 1E/2E. I will admit I still have mixed feelings about 3E, but I will not pass complete judgement until I get a chance to play it. Which at this rate may be never, but that's a discussion for another time.

I've never actually seen so much hate for other systems, but then again I guess this thread was destined to be spite filled.

As others have said, the system is only what you make of it. If you think D20 is easier to break than BL/FFG's than you've not played with my group. They're all 100% breakable, and they get more and more broken the more authors and people they have working on it. Perhaps those of you that have played crap D20 games played crap games because they were either written by crap authors (not the fault of the underlying system) or run by crap GMs? D20 future was horribly broken (3/3.5 system, not 4) but D20 Modern wasn't nearly as broken. Because it was in the future, or because the authors weren't as careful or thoughtful?

And anyone that trashes WoD's combat system hasn't ever gotten bogged down in a DH/RT/DW combat encounter. Combat is the slowest part of any game I've ever played. It takes more time for a guy with an autogun to roll out all of his hits and damages than it does for a WoD character to shoot a vampire in the face. I've personally found nothing terribly broken with it either, it uses a base dice pool that fluctuates in size based on a variety of modifers, providing the attacker with a modified percentage of hitting (as essentially all dice based games are a variety of a D100 system).

The problem it seems that many people here have with a given system is that they don't like the way the theme of it interacts. D20 is often high heroics (high AC/hit points make you take massive damage- though you've never played with a good DM if you've not been in fear of dying). WoD is fast, brutal, and super deadly. FFG is, seemingly, trying to be a hybrid of high heroics but brutal explosive deaths.

As for FFG breaking down in RT and DW because it's higher levels, I don't totally agree here- I agree a bit with the ranks feeling wonky at times, and character advancement feeling a little forced, but it's not all bad. Each of the 3 games they have fit a particular theme, and if you don't like the theme, no big deal, but again it doesn't mean the system itself is flawed.

I like how it you dont like a system its because you dont play it right and dont understand how to use it.

Truth is, I like old school AD&D and AD&D 2E. I didnt like Video Game Papermill D&D 3E. I didnt like feats. I didnt like class swapping. I didnt like the reduced class restrictions. I didnt like the return of the Barbarian, Monk and other lame duck Classes and so forth.

I do agree that D20 modern was an excellent version of the D20 rules and helped alot, and I have been able to adapt to some degree of acceptance of the D20 rules and levels with D20 modern, but overall still do not like level/class systems.

In old school AD&D 2E you could more freely spend you Proficiencies and build, to a degree, the character you wanted at level 1. You didnt have to wait to gain 5 feats by 3rd level to be ambidextrous and wielding two weapons for example, and there was no limit on how many "proficiencies" you coul dplace in one "skill" at level 1.

In the end I do agree with Charmander that a system is what you make of it (example, Palladium Megaversal System works great for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and After the Bomb, but is horrenduous in Heroes Unlimited) but I disagree that my dislike of D20 is becasue me or my mates are bad players.

I'm not trying to accuse you or your friends of being bad players- apologies that it came across that way.

There is simply a lot of vitriol on this thread towards a system that is reasonably solid without a lot of reason behind it. My expereince with any and all systems is that you can break the snot out of them if you sit down with a scratch pad and calculator, but the core mechanics of character building, skill interaction, combat, experience and encounter building, etc. A lot of the games built off the 3E D20 system feel rushed to me though, and their abilities, skill trees, and weapons are more easily broken than the base core. I think this was due to Deinol's point of a time when developers were rebuilding EVERYTHING into D20, for good or ill and from my experience it was mostly ill. I think people wanted to do it because the system was so much more straight forward than a lot of other systems in existence, and was more flexible.

That all said, if you don't like feats, class restrictions, or your 'lame duck classes' then I can totally see your point. Though I think FFGs D100 system essentially has 'feats' as talents, and skill ranks as skill bonuses. Instead of having a number you can buy based on your level you have a point buy system. On the D&D front in particular though, I disagree, and found AD&D to be totally arbitrary (you can't dual wield unless you're a ranger, and then if you commit an evil act you lose your ability to dual wield??), and 3E to be a much more solid and logical system. I enjoy level/class systems within their own world, and I like how it essentially forces people to start out as 'the new guy.' I've not found that you can replicate that feeling of level gain in level-less systems without a lot of house ruled character starting rules- someone always wants to start with some combat proficiency through the roof, or be a master of social interaction, and typically the RAW let you do that. Whereas in the level based systems, almost everyone starts out as a chump.

My point, that I was trying to get across, probably poorly, is really that I feel each system has it's own place in the world. Each style bring it's own baggage and pushes it's own bits and pieces into the game world. Each one has a certain way of influencing the world and the game, and if it doesn't fit what you're trying to accomplish with the game things will break down quickly. Like taking D20 into DH/RT/DW would end up with the lascannon to the chest issue and wouldn't 'feel right' with the established fluff of the universe. WoD wouldn't fit it well either, as characters would be even more dead than they arleady are, but fits the world much better than say D20. Putting the D100 system into D&D wouldn't work that well either, as you'd end up with a totally different flavor than the high adventure and warrior and dragon bit than the edition currently provides (though I do take issue with 4th Ed). The D100 system, for the most part, fits what I *think* the developers were going for. Palladium...well...if there was ever a system I have problems with it's that one and Shadowrun's