Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I actually like D&D and much prefer it to every other family of games I’ve tried (WoD, GURPS, PbtA, etc). What i dont like is the current iteration of D&D, which is why my recommendations are:
Swords & Wizardry Complete: it’s OD&D with some of the rough edges sanded off and all the optional material added. Tons of classes, lots of tools for procedural world building, and very easily hackable. It’s simpler to teach to a new player, and its more flexible than 5e for experienced players. The tick-tock of the dungeon turn structure makes it easier to keep pace as a GM, and when in doubt, rolling x-in-6 always holds up. If you want a classic dungeon crawler, this is it.
Whitehack: Still D&D but more narrative. Skills are replaced with groups that can give advantages to tasks directly influenced by membership in that group. Magic is super flexible and everyone has access to some form of it, but the “magic user” class gets to just make up their own spells and pay some HP depending on effect size. Great rules for base building, good GM advice for making adventures that aren’t dungeon or wilderness crawls (but are structured like those things). The core mechanic minimizes table math so even your players who struggle with addition can play fast. Less deadly than actual old D&D but keeping the same vibe. It’s my favorite for those who prefer narrative to mechanics. In a lot of ways, it’s D&D rewritten for the way a lot of people actuslly play 5e.
Basic Role-Playing (BRP), which is the system Call of Cthulhu is based on, is a great alternative to D&D as a roleplaying system. It is much easier to learn and understand, everything is based on percentages, and the system can be as mechanically crunchy or open as the DM prefers.
Runequest
No character classes: everyone can fight, everyone gets magic, everyone worships a god (with a few exceptions), and your character gets better at stuff they do or stuff they get training in. The closest there is to a character class is the choice of god your character worships (which dictates which Rune spells your character might have) but there is plenty of leeway to play very different worshippers of the same god.
No levels: your character gets better at stuff they do or stuff they get training in. As they progress in their god’s cult they also get access to more Rune spells.
Intuitive percentile ‘roll under’ system: an absolute newbie who’s never played any RPG before can look at their character sheet and understand how good their character is at their skills: “I only have 15% in Sneak, but a 90% Sword skill - reckon I’m going in swinging!'”
Hit locations: fights are very deadly and wounds matter, “Oh dear, my left leg’s come off!”
Passions and Runes: these help guide characterisation,and can also boost relevant skill rolls in a role-playing driven way, e.g invoking your Love Family passion to try and augment your shield skill while defending your mother from a marauding broo.
Meaningful religions: your character’s choice of deity and cult provides direction, flavour, and appropriate magic. Especially cool when characters get beefy enough to start engaging in heroquesting - part ceremonial ritual, part literal recreation of some story from the god time.
No alignment: your character’s behaviour can be modified by their passions, eg “Love family” or “Hate trolls”, and possibly by the requirements of whatever god you worship, but otherwise is yours to play as you see fit in the moment without wondering if you’re being sufficiently chaotic neutral.
Characters are embedded in their family, their culture, and the cult of the god they worship: the game encourages connections to home, kith, kin, and cult making them more meaningful in game and, in the process, giving additional background elements to take the edge off murder hoboism (though if that’s what the group really wants then that’s a path they can go down (see MGF, next)).
YGMV & MGF: Greg Stafford, who created Glorantha, the world in which Runequest is set, was fond of two sayings. The first is “Your Glorantha May Vary”. It is a fundamental expectation, upheld by Chaosium, that while they publish the ‘canonical’ version of Glorantha any and every GM has the right to mess with it for the games they run. Find the existence of feathered humanoids with the heads, bills, and webbed feet of ducks to be too ridiculous for your game table? Then excise them from the game with Greg’s blessing! The second is the only rule that trumps YGMV, and that is that the GM should always strive for “Maximum Game Fun”.
While we’re on the subject of Glorantha, the world of Glorantha! It’s large and complex and very well developed in some areas (notably Dragon Pass and Prax) but with plenty of space for a GM to insert their own creations. It is, without doubt, one of the contenders for best RPG setting of all time.
To continue on the subject of Glorantha, there is insanely deep and satisfying lore if you want to go full nerdgasm on it. But you can play and enjoy the game with a sliver-thin veneer of knowledge: “I’m playing a warrior who worships Humakt, the uncompromising god of honour and Death.” The RQ starter set contains everything you need to get a real taste for the game (ie minimal lore) and is great value for money since it’s what Chaosium hope will draw people in.
Ducks: ducks are cool and not to be under-estimated.
Ducks: ducks are cool and not to be under-estimated.
I think part of the problem is that 5e is so pervasive and baked into the “people who play TTRPGs” population that you need to sell them on why 5e isn’t good before you can get them to consider why your alternative is good.
Frankly, I’m a White Wolf die-hard. I love Exalted. I love Werewolf. I love Mage. I tolerate Vampire. But as soon as I show someone a set of d10s and try to talk them out of the idea of “Leveling” they get scared and run back to the system they’re familiar with. I also have a special place in my heart for Rollmaster/Hackmaster/Palladium and the endless reams of % charts for every conceivable thing. And then there’s Mechwarrior… who doesn’t love DMing a game where each model on the board has to track it’s heat exhaust per round? But by god! The setting is so fucking cool! (Yes, I know about Lancer).
I will freely admit that these systems aren’t necessarily “better” than 5e (or the d20 super-system generally speaking). But they all have their own charms. The trick is that selling some fresh new face on that glorious story climax in which three different Traditions of Magi harmonize their foci and thereby metaphorically harmonize fundamental concepts of society is hard to do on its face. By contrast, complaining about the generic grind of a dice-rolling dungeon crawl is pretty straightforward and easy.
try to talk them out of the idea of “Leveling” they get scared and run back to the system they’re familiar with.
I still think about the time in college I tried to get a D&D friend to consider Mage. I was telling him about how you can just do magic, and the real limitation is paradox and hubris. Like, it’s often not about ‘can you?’ but rather “should you?”
He couldn’t get over “you can just cast whatever you want? Fireballs every turn?”
“Yes, but that’s probably going to make a lot of paradox, and probably isn’t the best way to solve your problem”
“Sounds broken,” he said, and lost interest.
👅 Thank goodness for D&D, a game where character optimization and mechanical balance has never been an issue.
The thing about Mage is that you probably can engineer a way to fling fireballs every round if you’re reasonably clever. It’s a modern setting, hand grenades and incendiary bombs and flame throwers exist, and shoving a rag (covered in arcana) into a beer bottle would probably be enough to cause any witnesses to accept what they were seeing at face value.
But the game isn’t D&D. Who do you think you’re throwing that fireball at? As often as not, the primary antagonists are The Cops, the Corporate Executives, the Pharmaceutical Industry, and Silicon Valley. You can’t beat a Pentex sponsored Facebook smear campaign or an FBI/Palantir partnered surveillance state by spamming it with Fire damage.
sigh
Easy enough to hash out between folks who have seriously played the game. Much harder to explain this to someone who only ever knows how to roll for initiative.
It’s hard to extoll the virtues of my chosen system (Pathfinder2e) without comparing it to the issues of where I find 5e lacking.
That said, what I love about 2e is the great encounter balance, almost every single “build” for a class is viable, and when you say “I’m playing a rogue” there are like 4 major types of rogues that all feel like they play differently instead of just some tacked on homebrew class. Adding free archetype rules (supported by the system creators themselves in their books) adds even more customizability.
One of my favorite things is that PF2e makes it feel like it makes encounter design fun again; martials actually have more options than just walk up and attack repeatedly, spacing matters, defenses matter. Most classes have some sort of gimmick that makes them play differently. Been working with my girlfriend to make a swashbuckler for the game I am DMing, and the panache/bravado/finisher mechanics really excite us from a roleplay and gameplay standpoint.
The three action system is way more flexible than the action/bonus action system. You can spend all 3 actions on a huge spell and burn your entire turn. You can move away from enemies to force them to burn an action or flank them to gain bonuses to attack for yourself and allies. You can apply debuffs using your main stats with actions like Demoralize, and still attack or move on your turn.
You constantly gain feats, and they are what defines your character so much. No longer do you get a “choice” of an ASI or feat. You get ones every level. There are ancestry tests from your race, class feats, skill feats, archetype feats. They don’t just make you stronger, they instead give you more possible actions, give you unique traits, like being able to fight while climbing or use deception to detect when someone is lying instead of perception.
Also, you can find every rule for free online @ Archives of Nethys. No more being gated by purchases outside of adventure paths.
I could keep going, and I really want to extoll how awesome Golarion is, and the pantheon of gods, and everything. But I will stop here. Would happily answer anyone’s questions about the system, I love it. It gave me true passion for tabletop RPGs while DnD5e made me feel really mildly about it.
Okay but as long as we are complaining about shit we see on RPG forums
“I wish I could do
$thingin DnD”“
$otherSystemhas a very cool subsystem for$thing”“Omg how dare you”
Had this conversation enough times to make it a pet peeve of mine
Anyway the only thing about 5e that does suck is Wizards of the Coast. Otherwise it’s fine. It’s just fine. You can have fun with it.
I’m more of a Pathfinder 2e guy tho.
(And pf2 is basically a more advanced take on what 5e was doing so…)
Anyway the only thing about 5e that does suck is Wizards of the Coast.
The race/class system, the leveling mechanics, the Vancian Magic mechanics, and the general need to get into conflicts in order to progress the story / advance your characters has been a thorn in the side of the entire d20 universe from day one.
5e stripped out a lot of the math (which is good for bringing in new players but bad because actually having lots of gritty math in a game can be part of the fun of designing and playing) and smoothed the edges off 3.5e. But 4e also did this arguably too aggressively, giving us a game that was so bland and so generic that people flocked to alternatives for a good five years.
WotC is a mixed bag of old school TTRPG nerds and corporate suits that have somehow managed to keep the game cheap and fun while heavily investing in promotion. As enshittification goes, it could have been a lot worse. They’re a meaningful improvement over TSR, which is a low fucking bar. Lots to dislike, but nothing I can point to that I wouldn’t find in another system easily enough.
I’m more of a Pathfinder 2e guy tho.
IMHO, the math on PF2e is bad. They stripped out a lot of the more interesting abilities and features of 1e to make the game simpler. But, as a result, writing encounters is a balancing act between “trivially easy” and “functionally impossible”. Like, why even use the d20 if you’re going to build a game this way? Just make it an entirely points-based resource management game, with High Fantasy color.
I’d rather run up against the Big Red Dragon and have my DM say “You swing with all your might, but the beast barely notices” than to get handed a d20 while the DM laughs up his sleeve.
5e needs a better way to balance encounters than Challenge Rating. It also has important rules for players in the DM book. Both of which are problems you can work around.
Yeah, it’s basically fine. It got a lot of new people interested in RPGs (and Critical Role certainly helped, too). If they’re all now looking for other systems to play, that’s fine, too.
Nope. You play what you want. I, however, will not play any game from a company that demonstrably dislikes its customers. So far, wizards of the Coast and games workshop are on my list. In the electronic space, EA, Microsoft, and Sony.
No D20 games is the rule I have lived by for decades now.
Hexxen is pretty amazing. The rules are extremely simple, but maintain enough complexity to still be fun and it knows what it wants to be and focuses on its core goals. Investigation is fun and engaging, combat is fast and dangerous, but not necessarily deadly and there are numerous interesting character classes that you can combine to build exactly the witch hunter you want.
Other than that, I’m working on my own system with a combat experience similar to DnD, but the social complexity and character customisability of The Dark Eye.
I’ll add that every games does not suit to everyone. So, games that might please D&D players that I like (and that nobody already talked about in this thread):
- Cryptomancer: It’s D&D for nerds, with a simpler system (or a sort of inverted Shadowrun). Like, imagine D&D but magic works like infosec. Yeap, that’s it.
- Monster of the Week: A PbtA game to emulate supernatural horror TV shows and it’s really easy to make it work in a fantasy setting. It might feel more like a Witcher game than a D&D game, tho (you investigate after a supernatural monster, track them to get them down). In any case, the PbtA family is rich and if players are curious of other systems, it’s probably one of the easiest PbtA to try when you come from D&D : it’s really easy to setup (30min to make a party at the beginning of the session, session 0 included), it’s one-shot oriented and it has (I think) the more D&D-esques combat mechanics if all PbtAs.
- Outgunned: It’s a very cool game with gambling mechanics which want to emulate action movies. It’s easy to do Heroic Fantasy with it as “classes” are just “roles” and “tropes” and there is already some actions flicks (flavor-oriented optional rules) to play wuxia, swashbuckling and sword & sorcery. Also, it has the best mechanics for chases I ever seen and you may want to borrow that in you D&D sessions. Even for one session, it’s worth playing (and there is two free kickstart sets with rules, premade characters and a scenario to try it !)
Dungeon crawl classic, start with 3-5 level 0 chars each and hope the best rolled character survives the initial onslaught. Using magic is dangerous, a miscast spell could leave you disfigured or worse. Thick boy rule book.
It’s also fun that critical success and critical fail has the player (or enemy) rolling for a random result from a table.
It was also pretty funny when one of my players cast color spray from the back line, but they cast it to well, so it actually did damage and almost killed a player
You can easily convert them to 5e
And lose the entire fun in the process…
Spike trap? I have spider climb/fly speed! Enemies sneaking about in the dark? I have darkvision! Resources running low and no safe place to take a rest? I cast Tiny Hut!
DnD takes the entire fun out of dungeon crawling just so that a single person can win the d*ck measuring contest of “I’m the greatest” at any given moment
No no no … 5e 2024 sucks.
No, 5e sucks. And it’s most obvious when you play on level 1. DnD is a superhero sim with paper cutouts for humans. When you leave out the super powers, then the characters can’t really do anything. Like… at all.
Combat is DnD’s only fleshed out system. Everything else is just “roll a D20” and sometimes add your proficiency modifier depending almost entirely on your class. Give me 20 different bards and I bet 18 of them will have a 90% overlap in the proficiencies they choose.
During combat, the wizard throws fireballs, the cleric casts spiritual weapon and the barbarian rages. That’s cool, interesting and diverse. During investigations the wizard rolls an investigation check, the cleric rolls an investigation check and the barbarian does nothing because they dumped wisdom. That’s boring.
That’s why DnD sucks!
During investigations the wizard rolls an investigation check, the cleric rolls an investigation check and the barbarian does nothing because they dumped wisdom
You might be playing it wrong.
During investigations Wizard checks the books in the library, references his own notes, chats up local researcher community. Creates and sends Arcane Eye, spreads his familiars, tries Clairvoyance.
Cleric visits a local church, talks to the priests and churchgoers, prays to the Divine, maybe convinces the town to join her in the crusade against the target and lits the town on fire, while villages attack the nobleman mansion looking for the culprit and plunder.
Barbarian goes to the local tavern to drink with the local guards. Helps local elder find his kitten. Maybe talks to a local hunter and they bond over a bear hunt they just finished, maybe about the beauty of wilderness… One thing leads to another, a secret touch, a hidden look, a moment of courage, a stolen kiss… What I was talking about?
Yes, that’s called roleplaying. And there’s nothing, not a single line in any book that supports any of this! Just imagine if DnD combat only consisted of one melee attack skill and one ranged attack skill. You could still roleplay that your ranged attack is a fireball, but it would still get boring real fast!
Everything about this scenario works pretty much exactly the same if the Barbarian goes to the library and references his notes, the wizard visits the local church and convinces the town to to join their crusade and the cleric goes to the tavern, sves the kitten, drinks with the guards, etc. Every character does everything exactly the same.
Let me give you a counter example in a system that actually does this well. In The Dark Eye, the wizard goes to the local library because they have several talents and skills that help them find and organize information in books, the cleric talks to the local clergy who respect him du to his “social standing” value and “clergical vow” skill. The barbarian actually put some points into “carousing” which makes them a solid drinker and their “local contact” skill may give them a pointer towards the old lady with the cat problem.
I see what you’re saying, but… To me that’s okay? I don’t need to follow the book for all that shiet? You don’t need to overspecialize on your character sheet.
In DnD/Pathfinder you grab the Lore/Knowledge/etc skill for a wide range of actions. The nobility will respect your cleric because it’s a cleric, has a symbol of the order, ecclesiastic rank from the roleplaying, but if she can’t persuade for shiet, she’ll loose that initial respect quickly.
Have you ever played Shadowrun? I think I left that system the moment my DM decided to reference table for jumping out of a riding car by / brand / speed / manoeuvre / skill level to determine my damage.
The Dark Eye is that German thingy, right? I never liked it as a system, it felt constraining. On the other hand, my favourite system is Fudge, so we might just like different things.
Agreed, Shadowrun overdoes it with its thousands of rules and The Dark Eye also has its problems. Especially when it comes to combat. But DnD is on the other side of that spectrum. It’s just severely lacking any kind of character depth.
That’s why I’m working on my own system trying to balance the complex, but meaningful character creatuon choices of system like Shadowrun and The Dark Eye with the combat of DnD.
And yes, it seems like we do have different preferences here. The only thing I always wonder is: Why do people who obviously prefer a rules light set of rules play something as rigid and overcomplicated as DnD. Wouldn’t you find far more enjoyment in systems lile fate or savage worlds?
Why do people who obviously prefer a rules light set of rules play something as rigid and overcomplicated as DnD.
Because the entry barrier is low, a lot of groups playing DnD/Pathfinder, tons of content, it’s mainstream, celebrities play it so the rules are shallowly known to a lot of people.
At least that’s my take.
Wouldn’t you find far more enjoyment in systems lile fate or savage worlds?
Fate is Fudge, and as I mentioned I prefer it over DnD
Dunno. In my 5e game the Sentinel, Guardian, and Consular get force powers.
In another 5e game the group piloted techs and fought giant monsters (Pacific Rim).
In a few months we will be running Return of the Living Dead 5e.
You just sound burnt out on the fantasy trope, not 5e.
So, what you’re telling me is 5e works well for combat. Which is exactly what I wrote.
But combat isn’t the only aspect of a tabletop roleplaying game. Far from it. Sure, if all you want to do is play out your superhero fantasy of killing ever bigger foes, then DnD works well enough I guess. But for me, that gets boring real fast. I want drama, mystery, social encounters, wilderness survival, interesting travelling etc. DnD does none of this.
5e is fantastic. It presents the standard combat-centric D&D rules, and provides a lot of freedom for players and DMs to fill in whatever rules they find most enjoyable.
Levels 1-3 are designed for the express purpose of onboarding new players, so complaining that it doesn’t fully represent D&D, is pretty silly - it’s supposed to be simplified.
I will agree with the facts behind your comments on the skill system, if not the exaggerations. I would prefer a looser system, akin to those from Fate, Cypher or Daggerheart, to allow for more creative freedom.
D&D doesn’t suck - it’s a combat centric system, as it always has been.
Everything you just said is opinion and subjective.
The only thing that sucks here is you for believing that your opinion is a universal truth and the arrogance of believing that everyone else is wrong.
The only thing subjective here is the very first sentence. Everything else is either fact and enforced by the way DnD is designed or an example to illustrate said fact.
What exactly is subjective about the fact that DnD doesn’t have any depth or variety when it comes to anything besides combat?
Oh, and before you answer. Homebrew and cinematic encounters are not part of DnD as a system and using them in your argument will only strengthen my point.
4e already sucked. 3 Series were the last good ones.
All you’ve done is permanently write off any opinion you have on a replacement. It’s insanely arrogant to push your own opinion as fact but even more so when the thing you’re shitting on is something people actively enjoy and then expecting anyone will pay attention to a thing you say.
Oh I can do both. Though it’s not necessarily that I think 5e sucks, (maybe 5.5e does though I don’t know it well), but rather that Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro sucks and I refuse to continue to support them.
Although I do have to thank them since I very likely would not have explored other systems so vigorously had they not so visibly shown how greedy they’ve become.
I was introduced to flyweight RPGs a few years back and I absolutely love what they can do in the hands of a creative group.
Roll for Shoes is about as minimal as it gets. You will need one D6, and something to track player inventory. The game world is best started by the GM in the abstract, letting the players fill in the world’s details through creative use of questions that prompt die rolls. This is fantastic for players that want to stretch their improv skills.
Lasers & Feelings has a tad more structure. Everyone has exactly one stat that sits on a spectrum of “lasers” to “feelings”. The difficulty of challenges in the game sit on the same spectrum. Depending on the nature of the challenge and what the player’s stat is, a single D6 roll decides the outcome. Everything else is role-playing in what is encouraged to be a Trek-like setting.
In my experience, Roll for Shoes usually turns into a cartoon-esque “let’s see what else is in my backpack” affair, that usually ends with everything on fire (because of course it does). Lasers & Feelings typically devolves into Lower Decks. All of these are positives in my book - I’d play again in a heartbeat.
You might also like TWERP.
I love Pathfinder 2E! I’m a pretty new player, but it’s captured my heart. The three-action economy is great and offers so much freedom. The characters are INSANELY customizable, and I love how multiclassing works. And to top it all off, everything you need to play is free! Only the lore and campaigns have to be purchased. Plus, iirc, Paizo has vowed never to use generative AI in their works!
Pathfinder - for people that think D&D doesn’t have enough rules!
If anything, I feel like Pf2e is more streamlined than DnD5e overall. At the very least, everything is in just one book.
The way critical success/fail works is better, too. Rolling a nat 20 doesn’t automatically make an unskilled character super good at something, and rolling a nat 1 doesn’t make a super skilled character fumble it completely.
I literally can’t believe it took us 50 years of ttrgs existing in basically their modern form for us to find the 3 action system. Its so intuitive and liberating compared to every other game system I’ve experienced.
Out of curiosity, what is the 3 action system?
I know FATE has 4 actions (overcome, attack, defend, create an advantage) so did PF merge attack and defend? Or is it a different choice?
Other guy gave an okey explanation, but to try my hand at explaining:
On a typical round of combat, you get three actions. You can spend them in a variety of ways. An attack is one action, movement (“stride” action) is one action, most offensive spells are 2 actions, etc.
A lot of classes get ways to “discount” actions. For example an early feat fighters and barbarians can take is “Sudden Charge” which let’s them stride twice and attack an adjacent creature and costs 2 actions.
The whole thing lends so much freedom and takes a lot of burden off the DM for needing to homebrew / make up things on the fly. The whole system is very crunchy though (very detailed and particular on its rules) and so doesn’t fit everyone’s vibes.
You have three actions that you can spend freely on attacking, moving around, etc. If you want to attack more than once, you get a penalty on the roll. Some things and spells cost two actions.
At least fading suns had something similar in the 90’s with one action for free, 2actions with a - 4 and 3 actions a - 6(if my memory is right). The interesting part is that dodging would count as an action and you had to declare your intention at the start of the round.
I’m a fan of old-school Shadowrun (2nd ed.); it didn’t matter how bad-ass your character was, you could get killed by a lucky shot from a punk with a zipgun. It kept the grime of Cyperpunk, and added fantastical elements to it. IMO, it required more role-playing than is strictly necessary in a lot of D&D games, because going in guns blazing all the time was almost certain to lead to death; properly played (IMO), the GM should be brutal in how they handle stupid players.
The downside was so many six sided dice.
The downside was so many six sided dice.
While indeed it can get pretty extreme, it’s also so fun to roll handful of dices. This is one of the reason I find dice-pool fun (and not just better statistically speaking)
It’s sister setting, Earthdawn, also had a lot going for it on top of the typical D&D formula. Weaving, instead of casting magic, was a much more involved process for the player/character which did a lot to ground such awesome power. At the same time, fighters of all stripes were also more or less magic users, which unified the whole rule system in a nice way. The setting itself was a fantasy post-apocalypse, troubled by evil horrors that dominated the landscape in the centuries before. In fact, much of the lore was intertwined with how people survived those times.
And like Shadowrun, there were lots of dice thanks to the “step table” system. It could be a huge PITA to sum all the rolls on high steps, but then when else do you get to roll entire fists full of dice all at once?
I never had a chance to try Earthdawn, but it looked like a lot of fun.
