Greetings,
A friend of mine is willing to start a campaign with his group.
He is an experienced game master, but to put the priority on storytelling and roleplaying he wants a light rules system.
He is thinking about D6 Fantasy, from West End Games, but I am not sure that's really what he needs.
I know a few others, like Castles and Crusades, which goes back to the roots of OD&D, or even the more recent Dragon Age which might reach the limit of the rules he is looking for.
Legend might already be too complex, and Pathfinder is certainly out of consideration for him.
Do you folks have any suggestions for fantasy light rules systems?
Thanks in advance.
bump
Swords and Wizardry is my favorite. It's basically a reorganised interpretation of 0E. I find it easy to add bits and pieces from other OSRIC games which grab me.
You need to have a decent GM-player relationship to make those kinds of games work though. Ultimately, there are a bunch of times the DM just has to make something up and keep going, which isnt everyone's cup of tea. It needs both trust and an indifference to what's going on 'behind the curtain' on the players' part (and an ability to quickly make decisions on the DM's part).
The Swords and Wizardry 'core' rules are available here for free. They include just the basic classes.
Swords and Wizardry Complete is available here on Paizo. Which has a few more bells and whistles, mainly in the form of some additional classes.
Thanks, Steve.
Swords and Wizardry is filling well the nostalgia from the good old times (like Castles & Crusades), but I am not sure all the players would want that flashback.
Any other suggestions?
What about True20? As a lighter version of D20, that could work. I never actually tried it. How does it run?
Or Dragon Age? It's quite elegant as a system. I only tested it once.
Also, is there any other game with an OGL, which would make it easy access for the players (meaning free)?
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For my money the lightest system of choice for a D&D style game is Dungeon World. The book is an excellent read, but during actual play, you almost never have to reference it (it's good to print out a couple useful pages, 6 or 8 at most).
In the dozen sessions I've played in, we've never had to ask a question that required us to break out the book, for example: player abilities are all printed on the character sheet, there's nothing to look up.
It's not free, but if you want a more boiled down system that's OGL based, 13th Age is a lot of fun. It's less complex than PF, not sure on S&W, but I'm guessing a little more complex. It's actually my favorite fantasy system these days. The big thing it discards is the grid map, you don't count squares any more, which is a big reduction in complexity as far as combat. For people familiar with 3.X or 4E, it's a very accessible system and easy to understand.
Oh, and here's a shotgun to the face worth of free rpg's. Most of those I've never heard of and have no clue about, but it is a giant list of free rpg's.
I would say . . .
- 13th Age
- Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2 Edition
Both are light, easy and fast to play.
No battle map / mat / grid in either game. Helps speed things up.
I'm running a 13th Age group now and it's very good.
13th Age looks interesting, I need to check it out.
Thanks, guys.
GURPS
For my money the lightest system of choice for a D&D style game is Dungeon World. The book is an excellent read, but during actual play, you almost never have to reference it (it's good to print out a couple useful pages, 6 or 8 at most).
Definitely check out Dungeon World. It's a fantastic rules-light, storytelling-heavy game.
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I'm a quarter of the way through reading my new copy of Monte Cooke's Numenera; it's absolutely brilliant, and simple too!
If you check out the thread 'Bruce Cordell's left WOTC', someone asked what he's doing now, and the answer was that he's joined up with Monte! They provided a link, I clicked it and found out all about this new game.
Check it out! SKR even helped to design it!
Nothing to me feels more 'rules light' than warhammer 1e
Greetings,
Do you folks have any suggestions for fantasy light rules systems?
Numenera looks amazing (although campaign specific) and 13th Age sounds promising (looks simple but I'm not sure it would qualify as "lite"), but I agree with those who suggested Dungeon World.
Form what I've seen, it's the most "complete" of the rule lite games. It doesn't let out details and yet the system holds on your character sheet. It strikes me as the best "lightness" for game value IMHO.
'findel
Not a fantasy game, and more of a general recommendation:
For those of you who like Dungeon World and also have fond memories of Shadowrun, I present to you: Sixth World.
I tried an impromptu session about 2 weeks ago and I loved it.
All right, so I need to check 13th Age and Dungeon World.
Thanks, guys.
Oh, don't know if I made it clear. One nice thing about DW, you don't need more than one book. So the players don't have to buy a copy if they don't want to. All information that is needed during play is on the character sheet. Even a Wizard doesn't have to crack open the book to look up spells, they're all on the character sheet.
They could try Mini-6. It is a stripped down version of D6.
