Why not go ask around somewhere else? I'm sure if you spent 30 minutes on /tg/ you'd find the system you wanted if it exists.

I am, actually. I was asked for my opinion and I gave it.

Leave us to our terrible and uneducated opinions on games we enjoy, oh master of game design.

Don't be a ****.

Why not go ask around somewhere else? I'm sure if you spent 30 minutes on /tg/ you'd find the system you wanted if it exists.

I am, actually. I was asked for my opinion and I gave it.

Leave us to our terrible and uneducated opinions on games we enjoy, oh master of game design.

Don't be a ****.

What, only you are allowed to?

I'm sticking around out of a combination of habit, a vain hope someone will link to a game that does Dark Heresy better than Dark Heresy does, and for the mind-boggling posts for just how wrong/dumb some people's opinions about games can be.

Leave us to our terrible and uneducated opinions on games we enjoy, oh master of game design.

Don't be a ****.

Pretty much the definition of "The pot calling the kettle black."

When I talk about modern design elements I'm talking about things that closely involve the players in the game's narrative, let all players contribute equally (so no wizard supremacy), have tight, easily understood conflict resolution mechanics, and generally do not punish players for their character. Sadly, DH2 fails to some degree on each of these.

So, at a quick glance at my shelf you want something like..

Call of Cthulhu

Cyberpunk 2020 (debatable)

Earthdawn

GURPS (basic combat only)

Pendragon

or Storyteller (again, debatable)?

... all of which were published before 2000.

Or ofcourse Ars Magica, which gives wizard supremacy a whole new meaning and still manages to keep everyone contributing?

I'd name more, but those are just the titles I can see from here. And what exactly are "tight, easily understood conflict resolution mechanics"? Shadowrun takes a little getting used to, but works like a charm after a few sessions. Some people even like Rolemaster, with its book of extra tables.

My definition of modern has less to do with the date published and more to do with how much they tried to ape D&D. WHFRP1e (the game DH1 is based on) is guilty of this and it's carried through to today. Back when D&D was the only game in town, games looked to it and its past versions to make their D&D-killer and the result was a lot of games saddled with the calves of the sacred cows birthed in the 70s and 80s. Shockingly, porting tabletop war games to a game focused on 3-5 characters doesn't work super great. A modern game will use the fact that the game focuses on the players playing a role (their character) as its starting point.

I'll definitely look closer at each of those but from that list: isn't Call of Cthulhu about to get a new edition? And I've heard that Pendragon is really only good at doing Arthurian knight stuff (which if done right can be awesome). GURPS from what I've heard might be too crunchy for me. The rest I haven't head of at all, so thanks for the suggestions.

What I mean by tight mechanics is that the system for figuring out what happens in-game has minimal corner cases and is designed in a coherent way. D100 doesn't do this well because it's so swingy and gets weird when the numbers get really high or really low.

As for easily understood, d100, on the face at least, is pretty good about this. Your odds are fairly straightforward and it's easy to grok your chances of success before you roll. As implemented in DH it gets weirder, but "roll under X" is pretty easy comprehend. d20 is a little more opaque - roll + X vs Y is harder to get the actual chances out of during play. FATE/Fudge is even simpler - the average is zero and you add your skill bonus and compare it to the other guy's.

side note: here's my favorite CoC story . Hopefully this will forgive this derail.

Edge of the Empire and GUMSHOE might also interest you, while we're throwing out good systems. Savage Worlds isn't too heavy on dragging the player into the narrative, but it's a really well done, simple system that adapts well to basically any setting. It's my go-to for one shots.

My definition of modern has less to do with the date published and more to do with how much they tried to ape D&D. WHFRP1e (the game DH1 is based on) is guilty of this and it's carried through to today. Back when D&D was the only game in town, games looked to it and its past versions to make their D&D-killer and the result was a lot of games saddled with the calves of the sacred cows birthed in the 70s and 80s. Shockingly, porting tabletop war games to a game focused on 3-5 characters doesn't work super great. A modern game will use the fact that the game focuses on the players playing a role (their character) as its starting point.

I'll definitely look closer at each of those but from that list: isn't Call of Cthulhu about to get a new edition? And I've heard that Pendragon is really only good at doing Arthurian knight stuff (which if done right can be awesome). GURPS from what I've heard might be too crunchy for me. The rest I haven't head of at all, so thanks for the suggestions.

Pendragon is married to its setting. It does not port well, but isn't intended to be ported.

CP2020 is to be honest not a very good system, but it did (more or less) live up to your requirements as I recall. Main selling points was that it certainly lived by its own rules of Style over Substance and Attitude is Everything. Very nice looking books for the time.

I like Earthdawn, though it had breaking points. However it integrated its magic system deeply into the setting, and everyone should be weaving threads, even if they don't sling spells.

GURPS Light isn't too crunchy and I think the pdf is still free.

...and if I write my honest opinion about Ars Magica, I'll be called a shill and advertiser

I really like Ars Magica, though it can be a bit crunchy at times.

If you can get hold of eg. the 3rd edition, it's much less crunch though.

What I mean by tight mechanics is that the system for figuring out what happens in-game has minimal corner cases and is designed in a coherent way. D100 doesn't do this well because it's so swingy and gets weird when the numbers get really high or really low.

As for easily understood, d100, on the face at least, is pretty good about this. Your odds are fairly straightforward and it's easy to grok your chances of success before you roll. As implemented in DH it gets weirder, but "roll under X" is pretty easy comprehend. d20 is a little more opaque - roll + X vs Y is harder to get the actual chances out of during play. FATE/Fudge is even simpler - the average is zero and you add your skill bonus and compare it to the other guy's.

The d100 is a terrible thing to base a system on, as bad as the d20 if not worse.

It's my go-to for one shots.

CoC's rules set has hardly changed at all in over 30 years (it's a simpler form of Runequest!).

It's very clunky for things like combat, but this is a side issue in CoC, which is not a rules-driven game and not combat oriented at all.

Look into Savage Worlds, cps. I've written two posts about it now that have both been lost to technology. It focuses on combat heavily, but has decent subsystems for most of Dark Heresy's rules. Your biggest struggle would be in porting over the gear and talents. Savage Worlds to me sticks with the trappings of a tabletop system being primarily focused on combat simulation, but it also adds a bunch of no-nonsense rules for outside combat action, and makes **** sure that the combat is fast, furious, and fun (their catchphrase). It's not really got any great new ideas like Gumshoe or Dungeon World or FATE, but if you want to have the feel of a crunchy system where you drink a beer and roll them bones, then give Savage Worlds a try.

Paranoia, HoL (Human occupied Landfill), WHFRP 1st edition/2nd Edition, Strontium Dog, Traveller (you can die in Chargen), Hackmaster.

Enjoy

How about Cyberpunk 2020? The chargen tables wouldn't exactly kill you, but could hurt you pretty badly IIRC.

I'm not familiar with all of these, but the ones I have heard of are pretty old (Traveler, Paranoia, Hackmaster is a retroclone(?)). I was looking for a game without the cruft of old D&Disms. Modern design. Do any of these have that?

I have heard great things about Paranoia but everything I have heard leads me to believe it is impossible to do anything except a comedy player-backstabbing romp. I may try to do a one-shot of it, but I feel like it'd be hard to do anything serious with it.

That's actually a very common misconception. Because most people play it that way it becomes a bit of a self -fulfilling prophecy (paranoia is played this way, so we won't try to play it any other way). It actually has a very haunting dystopian vibe that if played straight by a GM can be very reminiscent of films like Terry Gilliam's Brazil. You just need a GM who is willing to try running it that way.

In terms of your list of D&Disms, as D&D is a game I hate with a passion you can be assured that nothing I will recommend to you will be in that vein. None of them have derived stats (a game mechanic I think deserves a special place in hell) with the exception of Traveller's calculating HP and WFRP deriving encumbrance from the characters Toughness score. In terms of combat resolution they're all fine (though for traveller I would recommend the 'snapshot' supplement from the 80's) except for HoL, which isn't designed to be easily playable (if you read it you'll understand), from memory Strontium Dog uses GURPS as its base.

I completely disagree that WHFRP 1e apes D&D. Mechanically the two are very dissimilar, the only comparison is that some of the published adventures are direct conversions from D&D, like the Doomstones campaign.

CoC's rules set has hardly changed at all in over 30 years (it's a simpler form of Runequest!).

It's very clunky for things like combat, but this is a side issue in CoC, which is not a rules-driven game and not combat oriented at all.

I believe it it generally accepted that in CoC, you buy a gun because that's what PCs do, but you really only need a single bullet.

Strictly speaking, I should be pulling Earthdawn off the list I suppose as it does have derived attributes.

Of the games I mentioned, it owes the greatest debt to D&D, though personally I find it rather better written, more interesting and much more self-consistent.

Back on topic:

The new DoS/DoF calculation is just weird and wrong ;D

Why not go ask around somewhere else? I'm sure if you spent 30 minutes on /tg/ you'd find the system you wanted if it exists.

I am, actually. I was asked for my opinion and I gave it.

Leave us to our terrible and uneducated opinions on games we enjoy, oh master of game design.

Don't be a ****.

What, only you are allowed to?

*hehehe*

I'm sticking around out of a combination of habit, a vain hope someone will link to a game that does Dark Heresy better than Dark Heresy does, and for the mind-boggling posts for just how wrong/dumb some people's opinions about games can be.

Leave us to our terrible and uneducated opinions on games we enjoy, oh master of game design.

Don't be a ****.

Pretty much the definition of "The pot calling the kettle black."

*hohoho*

I insist -- INSIST! -- that the Tunnels and Trolls rules system be adapted for 40K.

We could use Car Wars for vehicle combat.

We could use Car Wars for vehicle combat.

Dark Future surely? We can just whip out the board whenever a chase starts...

Guys - behave!

You've mentioned Fate several times, cps, so I assume you approve of it?

This is a fairly interesting homebrew project: https://fate40k.obsidianportal.com/wikis/main-page#onlycrunch

A little too much crunch for my taste, but Fate does seem to lend itself well to customization. I've yet to play my first Fate game (soon, though!), so can't say much to back that up.

You've mentioned Fate several times, cps, so I assume you approve of it?

This is a fairly interesting homebrew project: https://fate40k.obsidianportal.com/wikis/main-page#onlycrunch

A little too much crunch for my taste, but Fate does seem to lend itself well to customization. I've yet to play my first Fate game (soon, though!), so can't say much to back that up.

Regrettably my group is resistant to change, so I've yet to play a FATE game IRL, despite owning the Legends of Anglerre book and several PDFs. It does a lot of things I approve of, though, and this 40k ruleset might work for us. Thanks.

We just wrapped up The Black Sepulchre in DH1 and I pushed to try something new. We're going to play either Microscope or Fiasco (neither of which I've played before) tonight as a one-shot, then probably switch to Edge of Empire next week. Turns out one of my players is a closeted Star Wars meganerd. If I play my cards right he'll want to GM and I can finally take a break from running games.

Good find! Very interesting indeed. I've seen another attempt to model DH with Strands of Fate previously, as well as a Fate Accelerated take on a Space Marine game, but this seems worth a look.

I'd probably go for a less crunchy variant myself, but still.