What is to like about RPG’s?

What’s to like about RPG’s?

It occurs to me that all of my entry’s to date have been rather negative. That does not represent how I feel about d20. I like the D20 system! I am merely highlighting the problems I encounter when training new players. So today’s post is different. I am going to highlight the qualities of various systems that I believe work really well.

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 / D20

The depth of the game is vast and it is hard for me single out a few specific things but none the less I will.

Armor Class 3.5/D20

The implementation of Armor is class is nothing less then excellent, well thought out and easy to calculate.

Opposed Skill Check 3.5/D20

This is a little complicated to understand but it is completely logical once you digest the rules. It can be a bit tricky to calculate on the spot, but it is so completely fair I can not judge it harshly.

Depth of Detail 3.5/D20

3.5/D20 has no shortage of depth of detail. Just looking at the long lists of weapons, armor, equipments, skills, spells and feats can be exhausting, but clearly this depth adds to realness of the game and helps players customize their character to the n^th degree!

Gurps

If you have never heard of it, GURPS is a universal RPG similar to D20, but based on 3d6 instead of a twenty sided die. It pre-dates D20 by at least 15 years and has modules for every environment you can imagine. D20 over took it as the universal RPG system of choice because D&D is the most popular and D20 is a free system that encourages player contribution to the community. I do still play in a Gurps campaign but I am at a best a newbie with regard to the rules.

The Gap in Gurps

Gurps makes heavy use of concept called “the Gap”. Effectively how well or how poorly you make a skill check impacts the result. It took a little getting used to for me, but it is more efficient and takes less time in play. A very cool concept indeed!

Top Secret by TSR

For those who don’t know, Top Secret was an early 80’s D20-ish, James Bond RPG published by TSR. It was not a great game, vague rules and overly complicated hand to hand melee. I played it a few years and then abandoned it.

Fame & Fortune Points in Top Secret

In a world with out “Cure Light Wounds” and weapons like machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. Damage to players was frequently lethal. The game had the concept of “Fame & Fortune” points. These points, of which you had very few, let the player who had just been killed, think of a fluky way to not be dead. There was something like a 10 second rule to avoid long pondering delays. But the rule worked, presuming the player was creative enough to think of something. The GM would sometimes say “No, that’s too absurd, try again.” Still the rule worked mainly because it was so easy to get killed in the game.

Top Secret S.I. by TSR

Top Secret S.I. (Special Investigation) came out in the late 1980’s and was a complete replacement for the original game. All in all it was good game, well balanced rules fast combat and sufficient depth to be a commando, spy, thief, cop or whatever in the modern day. For a more detailed review: RPG Top Secret S.I Review

Damage by Zone in Top Secret S.I.

The makers abandoned the traditional concept of hit points. They replaced it with a zone chart of ten areas covering: Head, Left Chest, Right Chest, Abdomen, Right Arm, Left Arm, Right Hand, Left Hand, Right Leg and Left Leg. Furthermore they had two types of damage: wound or bruise. I won’t go into all the details, but they effectively solved the problem from the original game “being too easy to die”. Body Armor, cover and good common sense would sustain a character a good long time in heavy combat. Furthermore the chart was cool, superimposed over a silhouette of man.

Skills and Classes

There are no classes in this system, but they had a large list of skills. Some skills had pre-requisite skill(s) and each skill had a cost to it. This worked really well with their experience system, as players were rewarded with skill points and could improve their abilities or get new ones. The skills were easy to understand resulting in a nice neat uncomplicated system for skills.

Attributes

TPSI diverged from the D20 model here by doing everything on percentile basis. Sometimes the math would get dodgy it made your attributes very easy to understand. Most people have no problem understanding that 10% chance is not as good as 80% chance. In that sense the system had an intuitive quality that’s hard to beat.

In Conclusion:

That sums it up for me, naturally I could have said more about each system. Those elements I highlighted are IMO the great concepts in those games.