A podcast I listen to mentioned that a certain RPG is everyone's second favorite RPG. I think the commenters meant it metaphorically but it made me wonder.
Is there a consensus on what the best alternative is? When you can't play your favorite, what do you reach for instead?
I'm also broadening my horizons and wanted to hear some ideas of RPGs that are good but not necessarily the most awesome.
So, what's your second favorite RPG?
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Pathfinder. :P
Champions is great but my group isn't playing it. We're playing Pathfinder. We recently played 5E and that's great too, so "second best". hmmmmmm
I suppose second best would be Role Master.
The group I played with back in the 90's used several versions of the game and took good features from those different versions. I got to play in one campaign and loved it. I tried to run a game with the books that I bought but found it difficult. I knew I liked the book and if I had the time I could have figured it all out and got a game going. My favorite part was the critical fumble tables. Several of the answers were quite funny.
Top Secret/S.I. is my favorite, D&D is my second
Mutants and Masterminds. Though I may actually like it more than Pathfinder at this point. Solid system, that.
I think I'd like Shadowrun but I dunno if my group would want to play it.
Pathfinder for 2nd for me. HERO system for 1st.
My experience of other RPGs beyond Pathfinder and AD&D 2.0 is limited, but of what I have played - Dark Conspiracy, hands down.
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Mutants & Mastermind (I prefer 2nd edition)
Vampire the Masquerade
One of those two. M&M is a better system, I think, and I prefer playing a superhero to playing a vampire, but it's not easy to find superhero RPG groups, it seems, and I've played a heck of a lot more Vampire and had some great times with that game.
If there was a great pulp-style game (that anyone played, which rules out fun stuff like Adventure!), it might be my number one, and Pathfinder would get bumped to my second favorite!
System Administrator
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I prefer 2nd as well. Just personal preference. Crystal prefers 3rd by a small margin. I find it hard to navigate and rulesy and it was my favorite somewhat rules light system(more of halfway point between pathfinder and say savage worlds or dread). That said, dread is pretty amazing.
I've only played six RPGs to date, but Dungeon World is my second favorite.
Teenage mutant ninja turtles, after the bomb, or Rifts Mexico or Australia :-)
3.0/3.5/PF is the only system I've played for longer than a session. We did a Mutants & Masterminds game once, it never went anywhere; I played in a Vampire/Mage game once that lasted one session; and I've read over a couple of different Final Fantasy-based PnP rulesets but have never played any of them.
I love the Shadowrun setting and have played a couple games in its world, but they didn't use its ruleset, they were free-form, rule-less roleplays on forums. I didn't even know Shadowrun was a game system at the time, I just thought it was what the forumer decided to call his roleplay thread/world because it was all about urban espionage, black market shadiness, and general dirty dealings in a modernesque urban fantasy. I didn't learn what Shadowrun actually was until years later.
So I don't really have a second-favorite. Just PF at first and empty slots beyond.
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Now I want to get Shadowrun purely for the setting and run it using pathfinder rules.
I always wanted to try D20 Star Wars.
2nd fav RPG would have to be FFG 's StarWars to include all lines Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny.
Pathfinders/3.5e/d20 is my second favorite.
My favorite is RTalsorian's Cyberpunk/Mekton (modified by me of course)
Shadowrun, with some Dark Conspiracy flair tossed in. HERO System / Champions. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. D&D/Pathfinder comes fourth.
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1980s Mayfair Games DC Heroes. Had so much fun playing that.
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Call of Cthulhu. Some of my fondest memories involve my players shouting out "Noooooooooooooo......"
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Pathfinder is kind always been my third favorite. There are at least two others that I'd play if I got the chance.
Neither are D20 based.
Is there a reason you don't name them?
1980s Mayfair Games DC Heroes. Had so much fun playing that.
Yeah, same here. Once I got past the learning curve of D&D 3.0, I regarded 3.X as the tabletop RPG for fantasy for me, and although I switched to PFRPG, I recognize it as the same basic game. And I regarded DC Heroes as the tabletop RPG for supers for me, and although I switched to Blood of Heroes, I recognize it as the same basic game.
I'm in the same boat as Orthos where I've never really had the opportunity to game for longer than a session or two in any other system (well besides 3.5, but that's similar enough to Pathfinder that I won't bother counting that as a separate system). Having said that though, I did really enjoy a Mythenders one shot that I played and Pokemon Tabletop United seems like it would be a really solid, albeit setting agnostic in the system (being mechanically similar to 4e is actually a point in its favor since it's supposed to have a video game-y feel to it).
I've also played Mutants and Masterminds 2.0, I liked it, but probably not enough to call it my number 2. It struck this weird cord with me where it was both too codified and not codified enough at the same time. Did really like being introduced to degrees of failure/success though.
I got the impression that "any but the burps edition" meant to imply that T20 is good too.
EDIT: ...and I just looked it up, and found out something I never knew before: there was a "Traveller Hero" too.
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I was never fond of the BURPS edition. Too many gas giants.
hrm. This would mean I'd have to find a favorite RPG as well.
Are we talking settings and fluff or mechanics? Do different editions with significantly different mechanics (e.g. D&D) count as one or more?
I'd say setting and fluff can definitely be a part of your decision, but mechanics are probably more important since fluff is generally mutable. If there's enough of a gap in mechanics between editions for you to see them as different systems, I think that's plenty. For example, I see 3.X+PF as one system but 4E as a distinctly different system that just happens to share the same brand name.
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Rifts. Their something to be said about a system where game balance is thrown out the windows. As well some of the starting to mid sourcebooks were a great read.
Earthdawn one of the few fantasy RPGs that had non standard races. As well as opposition in the form of Horrors who could destroy or injure even a experienced party badly.
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The one thing I really hated about the Traveller system was dying during character creation. I could never really get into it after having to reroll 5 times before the game even started.This sounds like shenanigans. Yes you can die during character creation, but 5x in row? Unlikely.
That was in the old Dos MegaTraveller video game, but it happened. In pnp it was twice. :p
Are we talking settings and fluff or mechanics? Do different editions with significantly different mechanics (e.g. D&D) count as one or more?
I suppose I mostly meant mechanics. But obviously for some systems it's nigh impossible to separate them.
For example, I just played a couple of sessions of Lady Blackbird. The setting is pretty baked in to the system, as far as I could tell, right down to the pregen characters and starting scenario.
Pathfinder is probably my second favorite, with D&D 3e beating it out by a narrow margin. Savage Worlds is probably third.
Paranoia is my favorite. (A)D&D/Pathfinder and similar would be my second. Third and fourth would be a tough call between Shadowrun and d6 Star Wars.
I certainly play Pathfinder more than any other game right now. (And I will say that Golarion is my favorite published campaign world, barring none!)
My other favorite game systems are FATE, Call of Cthulhu, and GURPS. Hard to say which of those rates higher. I haven't played it, but I am really pining for the Old School feel of a retro-clone system like Swords & Wizardry.
Honestly, I'm getting a bit bogged down with the complexity and fiddliness of the PFRPG rule set. When my current campaign ends, I'll probably run the next one using FATE. If I'm still in a fantasy mood, though, I'll set it in Golarion!