What's the best RPG game of all time?

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Yes and no. The problem with AD&D (and Rolemaster to a lesser extent) is characters gain experience by killing. A player is not rewarded to be a good roleplayer by the book, a player is rewarded to be a combat monster. This flaw cannot be fixed unless the GM heavily modifies the rules. Compare this with DragonQuest or Champions where you get rewarded for being a good rp'er.

This is, I think, untrue. While it is true much of the experience is based around challenge ratings, challenge ratings can be assigned to non-combat situations as I have often done, and the DMG does support story awards and such. I don't find it in any way difficult to use CRs and story awards to convey any amount of experience I deem necessary for any challenge, combat or not. It requires no rule modification to use story awards, and a very small one to make plots have CRs.

A lesser problem that could be contained is the prevalence of magical items - many of those items are very powerful. This can be avoided by limiting the number and power of magical items.

Again, that is something that can be easily done. The randomization tables are meant to help the DM, as the books say, not to mandate a certain treasure hoard at all times. I use them to give me ideas and to roll some treasures, but I always customize and remove items that I deem too powerful. That's not a modification of the rules, that's the clear job of the DM.

When all the Orcs are evil, your character is free to kill them, right?

No. There are a few problems with this behavior.

First, orcs are not outsiders, so (unlike demons or slaadi,etc) are not defined as always evil. I believe the monstrous manual either says "usually evil" or "often evil," I don't remember.

Second, even if the orc is evil, most of the good players I have played with base more on actions than nebulous alignment. There are many ways to play any alighnment, so it must be assumed that orcs play many variations of the evil alignment. Not all evil creatures fit into the "grrr, I'm evil, so I hate all life" category.

Third, even orcs are other beings and even if you don't respect that morally it's generally a very bad choice to go all jihad on their ass whenever you see one, for the sake of not being a wanton butcher and for the sake of the plotline. They might know something, or have something that is needed.

My experience is otherwise. As I pointed out before, there are virtually no noncombat skills in AD&D before, while the list of skills in 3rd edition is sill very incomplete, with some skills too generic and some others too restrictive.

I find that I can do considerable things with the craft and profession skills, and the rest I can adjucate as I see fit with little difficulty. I view the system as very flexible, and thus I like it as it works equally well for many types of campaigns. The other advantage is that, as probably the biggest pnp game ever in terms of people, there are considerable resources available from both WotC and especially from other players for my gaming use.

[Jon Miller]

in ADnD games I have played combat has usually been the smallest source of XP

Jon Miller

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Crono Trigger, Crono Trigger, a thousand times Crono Trigger!

Duh.

[Straybow]

Nay, thou errest

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
"In Greek myth heroes were favored by the gods with subtle protection. Fantasy RPGs are designed to model heroic characters in mythical worlds."

Not quite. The only RPG system I know of in which characters are supposedly very powerful is Elric, based on the novels. Not Warhammer, Runequest, Fantasy Hero, or MERP. Not even AD&D. The whole problem with seeing AD&D in that light is it was not designed that way, it was an improvement on D&D, which came from Chainmail, a set of rules for miniature figures.

For the vast majority of creatures hit dice are determined almost entirely by size. Only for supernatural creatures is this not so… and for rare humanoid characters who possess hit dice multiple times their "level 0" species norm.

Gods themselves are defined barely a decimal order of magnitude more powerful than high-level characters—and these are to be considered mortals unaided by the supernatural? Monks can somehow cause their fleshly hands and feet to damage magical creatures immune to non-magical weapons do so by attending Positive Mental Attitude seminars?

I guffaw at your absurd position.

[Straybow]

Gives me chills

Originally posted by MikeH
I've just remembered the critical hits tables in Warhammer.

It was great reading about the terrible flesh rending wounds you'd inflicted. Ooooooh.

There was another RPG (can't recall the name) contemporary with original D&D and AD&D 1st that had a really nasty set of critical hit/critical fumble descriptions.

I recall one was something like, "Your opponent's sword tip breaks off in your elbow. Your arm is paralyzed. You are writhing on the ground in pain, completely defenseless."

Edit: I think that was Empire of the Petal Throne (should've noticed Stuie's post).

[Straybow]

It takes some doing…

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I don't like D&D for the stereotypical characters. It's hard to create your own.
That's why I like Rolemaster a lot. You can have a fighting mage. Of course he will be inept at fighting, but he can do stuff which a magic user is not expected to, and the critical tables are fun.

Can be done easily enough in AD&D: class switching is allowed with hit points retained as long as the character has a 15 in the requisite stat(s) for the new class. Once you achieve a higher level in your new class than in the previous class you can freely mix the skills.

If you want a fighting mage start as a fighter (no minimum stats apply), and switch at a low level so that you will quickly gain full access to your weapons and armor.

Your roleplaying backstory: Apprenticed to a mage but after father died you could not continue studies. You returned to the farm until younger siblings could handle things, intending to resume apprenticeship later. While there, the local lord levied you to fight the band of orcs that had invaded the territory. You survived and became handy with the sword despite your bookish inclinations.

My favourite game was actually a little known fame called 'Malefices', in which our GM hid so many of the rules that it was all down to roleplaying. When you roll the dice and have no idea what the effect will be, it can be really fun.

That can be done with almost any game, by various means. Simplest: player and GM roll, with GM comparing his (hidden) roll to yours as a modifier of some sort. You know "high is better," for example but you don't know the exact value anymore.

Second method: GM has each character roll and record results ahead of time. GM can use the prerecorded value to invoke results of events the character should not be forewarned of by a request for a savings throw etc.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Jac de Molay
Star Frontiers and Traveler.

Star Frontiers!!! One of my all time favorites! There is not sucha thing as an uber character in that game.

You could be good but never unbeatable.

The ship based combat set that came out was fun to play also.

ACK!

[Odin]

Final Fantasy VI!

14 playable characters

100's of items, weapons, and armor

AWESOME storyline

Funny characters (Locke: Don't call me a treasure hunter or I'll rip your throat out! )

Great music, some of the best in a video game, EVER!

TONS of secrets

[Straybow]

Star Frontiers… can't recall if that was the one I'd played. What are some of the stock races and other jargon?

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Straybow
Star Frontiers… can't recall if that was the one I'd played. What are some of the stock races and other jargon?

Humans of course.
Dralasites- anthtopomorphic jelly lieke creatures
Vrusk- look like praying mantis
Yazirian- monkeylike
Sathar-NPC "bad Guy" race.

ACK!

[MOBIUS]

Let's see...

These really boil down into the system as far as I am concerned, as you can mix and match genres and GMs

I usually prefer fairly realistic systems where engaging in combat is a fairly dicey affair (no - that is not how many dice you use for your damage roll!) and good old fashioned role-play is needed to get by...

So systems:

All-time favourite game: Aftermath! by FGU - same basic rules mechanics as Bushido which was also a kicking game/genre!

Next was ICE's Rolemaster: Another great system, but I will cherish this game because it was using this system that I had my greatest ever campaign as a player!

Another biggie for me was Runequest III: I & II were cool with Chaosium but I thought Avalon Hill and GW overhauled it pretty well - as long as you owned all the old Glorantha stuff!

Genres/GM: As well as the above, Paranoia and Cthulhu were brilliant - but I think you needed to have the right kind of psychotic/loopy GM and my best friend ran both of these!

Other great games: Pendragon - in fact pretty much anything by FGU or Chaosium (Privateers & Gentlemen anyone?) Torg was another cool game and so is Shadowrun, which happens to have been designed by the same people as Aftermath! and Bushido but with simpler rules...

Of course, the best game ever was my hybrid system which cherrypicked what were in my mind the best bits of Aftermath!, Rolemaster and Runequest...

[MOBIUS]

Star Frontiers - my first game as a GM!

One of TSR's forays into outer space!

Knight Hawks was the space ship component, because the original boxed set curiously for a space based game only used spaceships as a prop for getting you from A to B...

[ajbera]

Re: Gives me chills

Originally posted by Straybow
There was another RPG (can't recall the name) contemporary with original D&D and AD&D 1st that had a really nasty set of critical hit/critical fumble descriptions.

I recall one was something like, "Your opponent's sword tip breaks off in your elbow. Your arm is paralyzed. You are writhing on the ground in pain, completely defenseless."

Edit: I think that was Empire of the Petal Throne (should've noticed Stuie's post).

Could've been the Rolemaster series of products... they had extensive critical hit tables for all sorts of damage - piercing, slashing, crushing, cold, fire, lightning, etc. Very graphic and very fun. Too bad the Rolemaster series in general is disgustingly elaborate and complex.

Best pen and paper RPGs would have to be the White Wolf series (World of Darkness, consisting of Vampire, Werewof, Mage (), Wraith, and Changeling, and the Trinity series, consisting of Adventure! (1920s-era stuff), Aberrant (superheroes! ), and Trinity (future)) or Chaosium's products, particularly Call of Cthulhu.

The White Wolf games have the best settings and backgrounds, bar none (particularly World of Darkness). In fact, I'm trying to get a group together to play either Aberrant or Dark Ages Vampire/Mage. But the Chaosium games had the best game system - straightforward, percentile-based, and easily lethal. No hundreds of hit points here; make certain your parry and dodge skills are up to snuff if you want to survive battle. Superb, and still the best PnP game system I've seen.

PC RPGs? Hmmm... Planescape: Torment is brilliant (even if I didn't finish it). My favorite, however, is Morrowind. Bethesda did an absolutely fantastic job of fashioning a huge world with an immensely rich background, and making it 1st -person boosts the immersiveness (for me, anyway). Can't wait to see the 4th game in the series.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Star Frontiers - my first game as a GM!

One of TSR's forays into outer space!

Knight Hawks was the space ship component, because the original boxed set curiously for a space based game only used spaceships as a prop for getting you from A to B...

Yes, Kight Hawks. Being able to go from ropleplaying to wargamming was great!

ACK!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Boshko
But I get the point. If players know the system to well you get way too much fiction-breaking as in "ooooh they're orcs, so they'll have 1d8 HPs each and shouldn't be much of a problem."

Yeah, ain't that the truth.

That's when you start making things up like orc warriors and orc chieftains.