I love so many of the mechanics I've seen in games it's impossible to list them all, but... Warhammer FRP's career system and the advances each one has to complete it are brilliant imo. The Polymorph system (as seen in Mazes), using 4 dice to represent each of 4 separate tasks with different results required for success, is another brilliant idea. Traveller's Connections between pc's is also a great idea. And a lot of Blades in the Dark's rules are fantastic and imminently steal-worthy. Now, here's the tldr part: We played I6 in the 80's like a dungeon crawl. It took us months, we split our somewhat large party in half, divide and conquer style, and the DM expanded the crypts and loaded them with Black Dragon guardians. And we ultimately defeated Strahd, losing only our one npc overall. And the one session I missed (iirc I showed up late unavoidably) was the Fortunes part, but it truly defined the experience for us uniquely. Never re-played it, but I always had hopes of running it for some newer players someday. (Also, to this day, spelling Traveller with two l's catches me every time.)
1. I like 100 roll under systems. If you have a 65% chance to succeed guess what you have to roll under for success. 2 I love spending experience to build skills, as opposed to just rigidly leveling up. 3.I like hit points being the average or total of the character's health and strength scores as opposed to arbitrary improving each level. 4. Magic is a skill that you can fail, fumble and have critical success. 5. Armour has to absorb damage yet makes you a little easeier to hit because it is encumbering. 6. Rules that inhibit min-maxing. Yup. those are my favourites. None of those rules are in Dungeons and dragons.
Late to the party...yes, Curse of Strahd uses a modified version of the Fortunes of Ravenloft--3 cards for the 3 fated items, 1 card for the fated ally, and 1 card to determine which castle location is the final location for Count Strahd. That being said, for CoS, there are definitely certain locations for the fated items and certain allies that are far better than others. The card reading session was one of the highlights for my in-person group.
Curse of Strahd does indeed have the Tarrokka readings to determine the plot. They even published a set of actual Tarrokka cards that you can get for about $10. I couldn't resist the novelty. =)
I love stress mechanisms, like in the Alien RPG, it was not the first system with such a mechanism, but I feel they done it really well, since it also has a push your luck element to it. The main reason I like such mechanisms is that I am very much into thriller and horror focused games and a stress mechanism can enhance that playstyle immensly.
Yeah stress mechanics are really great, especially for one-shots or campaigns that take place within a single, long-form encounter…just like Alien. The push-your-luck aspect is a perfect marriage of theme and mechanics too.
I prefer to think of "wild magic" more as "imperfect magic". All skill checks have a chance of success or failure (plus in my opinion a chance of great success or major failure) and magic casting is no different.
I think thats a good observation. The name “wild magic” I think evokes more of what I like about these systems - the craziness that occurs when magic goes wrong.
Hi, if you really like the Wild Magic rule, you should take a look at the Paradox rule of the World of Darkness game Mage: The Ascension. You accumulate Paradox whenever you bend reality (cast spells), the more "unnatural" to the surrounding or nature of effected target and the more apperant the effect is, the more Paradox points you get. Every now and then you have to check vs. that Paradox points and when failing it discharges with very weird effects on you or your immediate suroundings, like turning the mage to stone for an hour, changing the weather ( nothing worse then ending in a blizzard in the middle of a desert town in midsummer ) or every other effect, the Storyteller (DM ) comes up with
I love corrupting magic, makes it hard to get complacent with it. I love the Traveller character mini-game. But I found the vow system in Ironsworn a bit annoying. Making vows was important to ancient cultures, which fits well. But in IS it's tied to experience points--no vow, no XP. I rolled many failures that led me on long, drawn out side quests (some longer than than the original vow!) but no xp. So you end up having to dramatically vow to "kill the rats in the barn" or gain no xp on what could turn into a major affair. I'm waiting for my Starforged books, too. Vows seem very out of place to me in that type of setting. But I like them both.
Great point about the vow and XP in Ironsworn - I hadn’t experienced that (my dice know to how to behave) but I could see that being a problem. I also agree that vow seems a bit out of place in Starforged, but I am wondering if I can retheme it as taking a job or something like that.
Starforged has polished the original Ironsworn rules, thankfully making the system less "hardcore". I haven't given them a thorough read but XP should be easier to make and not depend only on strong hits on finishing a vow.
Sorry for late comment, but I wanted to mention the Humanity mechanic in Vampire: The Masquerade. I love it when the mechanics are deeply linked to the narrative.
No need to apologize, I love the discussion! I will have to go back and read about the Humanity mechanic - its been a while since I read Vampire. Thanks for sharing!
Powered by the Apocalypse uses a universal mechanic for everything you do called: Moves. Combat, Social Interaction, Searching, etc. It’s a very basic, mechanical way to open up a narrative description for everything you do, and allows more player input into the results of those actions.
I'm a huge fan of the genesys narrative dice system it promotes great story telling plus when soloing the dice acr as a sort of gm by prompting negative and positive events during a scene.
theres a new open world sandbox card/board game coming out next year called 'vantage' from stonemaier games that sounds like the rogue experience system youre describing
Dude Ghost of Lion Castle is awesome. I actually have a collection of all the solo B/X modules the only ones I'm missing is a physical copy of Blizzard pass and either a digital or physical copy of Thunderdelve mountain. Also by far my favorite mechanic is wandering monster tables. I just like anything that adds chaos to the adventure it adds its own replay ability to all old modules.
I was just brought into a Mekton Zeta (Plus) campaign and I have to agree on character creation. The most robust system I've read yet. I assumed it existed similarly in other Talsorian games, but this seems to confirm. Thanks!
They can be, but not all the time. CYOA books rely on one mechanic - narrative choice. Many Solo RPGs (but not all) rely on the mechanics of the RPG to determine the outcome of different scenes.
Just a suggestion - Add an image of the cover for the game you mention, leave it for a bit and then show the book if you have it. Off to one side or the other. Think weather man style. I'm a visual learner and remember the art rather than the words
Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it! You’re not the first person to suggest this, and I’ve started implementing this in my newer videos. It’s still not perfect, so if you have any additional feedback, please let me know! Thank you!
@@paperdicegames6585 You have to roll for elements of your background. That means you might not get the background you want and it's a character creation method that is too complicated for my taste.
Letting the dice decide and "discovering" your character as opposed to building your character. One is more role playing while the other has a optimized mindset
@@parttimed.m.1111 Disagree. I may decide I want my character to come from a moisture farm, and I left on an adventure because imperial soldiers killed by family and burned my home, rather than rolling random for, and less personally interesting events and outcomes.
Huh. Haven't gotten very far into the video, but mist comment right away, lol. I teach violin (and fiddle) etc. And I played trombone in band in high school. Just had to say. Now on with the video
Traveler's character creation is a great little mechanic but I can see those who only know 5e and its "build your unbeatable superhero character sheet" approach would be massively put-off by it.
Yeah, it is such a different process. I always preempt my players with what character creation is in Traveller so they go in at least understanding what they are going to be doing.
One of my favorite mechanics is Dread's tower. It brings so much tension to the game, with the suspense rising with every move. The mechanics you listed are fascinating, as are some listed in comments. Look forward to checking them out.
One of my favourites is from Chris McDowalls Electric Bastionland - shared debt. The players share a debt of £10,000 which explains why they are banding together to find treasure. Such a neat way to circumvent the whole "why are we adventuring together"-discussion.
Yeah I think its great, but since making this video I have heard it hits a bit too close to home for some people. It is a great way to band players together, and get the players focused on game economy though if that is the goal of the game
I love so many of the mechanics I've seen in games it's impossible to list them all, but... Warhammer FRP's career system and the advances each one has to complete it are brilliant imo. The Polymorph system (as seen in Mazes), using 4 dice to represent each of 4 separate tasks with different results required for success, is another brilliant idea. Traveller's Connections between pc's is also a great idea. And a lot of Blades in the Dark's rules are fantastic and imminently steal-worthy. Now, here's the tldr part: We played I6 in the 80's like a dungeon crawl. It took us months, we split our somewhat large party in half, divide and conquer style, and the DM expanded the crypts and loaded them with Black Dragon guardians. And we ultimately defeated Strahd, losing only our one npc overall. And the one session I missed (iirc I showed up late unavoidably) was the Fortunes part, but it truly defined the experience for us uniquely. Never re-played it, but I always had hopes of running it for some newer players someday. (Also, to this day, spelling Traveller with two l's catches me every time.)
Loved reading this comment! Thanks for sharing !
1. I like 100 roll under systems. If you have a 65% chance to succeed guess what you have to roll under for success.
2 I love spending experience to build skills, as opposed to just rigidly leveling up.
3.I like hit points being the average or total of the character's health and strength scores as opposed to arbitrary improving each level.
4. Magic is a skill that you can fail, fumble and have critical success.
5. Armour has to absorb damage yet makes you a little easeier to hit because it is encumbering.
6. Rules that inhibit min-maxing.
Yup. those are my favourites.
None of those rules are in Dungeons and dragons.
Good list! Thanks for sharing!
I love my dnd. But I also love my call of Cthulhu and runequest
I'm immediately stealing all of these for my computer RPG ;) Agree 110% on all of them!
I do absolutely love the traveler character creation system. I've always wanted to build my own version of that for my games.
Same! Its a great RPG mini game!
Me too!
I died in prison in traveler character creation.
Fun! Character death can be annoying, but it is necessary for the push your luck style of creation method in Traveller.
Haha!
Late to the party...yes, Curse of Strahd uses a modified version of the Fortunes of Ravenloft--3 cards for the 3 fated items, 1 card for the fated ally, and 1 card to determine which castle location is the final location for Count Strahd. That being said, for CoS, there are definitely certain locations for the fated items and certain allies that are far better than others. The card reading session was one of the highlights for my in-person group.
Yeah its a cool part of an epic campaign
Curse of Strahd does indeed have the Tarrokka readings to determine the plot. They even published a set of actual Tarrokka cards that you can get for about $10. I couldn't resist the novelty. =)
Oh thats so cool! My current open table group is close to completing the current campaign…and I need another 5e campaign. This is one option!
I love stress mechanisms, like in the Alien RPG, it was not the first system with such a mechanism, but I feel they done it really well, since it also has a push your luck element to it. The main reason I like such mechanisms is that I am very much into thriller and horror focused games and a stress mechanism can enhance that playstyle immensly.
Yeah stress mechanics are really great, especially for one-shots or campaigns that take place within a single, long-form encounter…just like Alien. The push-your-luck aspect is a perfect marriage of theme and mechanics too.
I prefer to think of "wild magic" more as "imperfect magic". All skill checks have a chance of success or failure (plus in my opinion a chance of great success or major failure) and magic casting is no different.
I think thats a good observation. The name “wild magic” I think evokes more of what I like about these systems - the craziness that occurs when magic goes wrong.
Hi, if you really like the Wild Magic rule, you should take a look at the Paradox rule of the World of Darkness game Mage: The Ascension.
You accumulate Paradox whenever you bend reality (cast spells), the more "unnatural" to the surrounding or nature of effected target and the more apperant the effect is, the more Paradox points you get. Every now and then you have to check vs. that Paradox points and when failing it discharges with very weird effects on you or your immediate suroundings, like turning the mage to stone for an hour, changing the weather ( nothing worse then ending in a blizzard in the middle of a desert town in midsummer ) or every other effect, the Storyteller (DM ) comes up with
Oh thats cool - some additional mechanics around the wild magic idea! Will check it out!
I love corrupting magic, makes it hard to get complacent with it. I love the Traveller character mini-game.
But I found the vow system in Ironsworn a bit annoying. Making vows was important to ancient cultures, which fits well. But in IS it's tied to experience points--no vow, no XP. I rolled many failures that led me on long, drawn out side quests (some longer than than the original vow!) but no xp. So you end up having to dramatically vow to "kill the rats in the barn" or gain no xp on what could turn into a major affair.
I'm waiting for my Starforged books, too. Vows seem very out of place to me in that type of setting. But I like them both.
Great point about the vow and XP in Ironsworn - I hadn’t experienced that (my dice know to how to behave) but I could see that being a problem.
I also agree that vow seems a bit out of place in Starforged, but I am wondering if I can retheme it as taking a job or something like that.
Starforged has polished the original Ironsworn rules, thankfully making the system less "hardcore". I haven't given them a thorough read but XP should be easier to make and not depend only on strong hits on finishing a vow.
Sorry for late comment, but I wanted to mention the Humanity mechanic in Vampire: The Masquerade. I love it when the mechanics are deeply linked to the narrative.
No need to apologize, I love the discussion!
I will have to go back and read about the Humanity mechanic - its been a while since I read Vampire. Thanks for sharing!
Powered by the Apocalypse uses a universal mechanic for everything you do called: Moves. Combat, Social Interaction, Searching, etc. It’s a very basic, mechanical way to open up a narrative description for everything you do, and allows more player input into the results of those actions.
I love playing PbtA games!
I'm a huge fan of the genesys narrative dice system it promotes great story telling plus when soloing the dice acr as a sort of gm by prompting negative and positive events during a scene.
Yeah I have used similar things before. I like more specific random generators to my games - but I can absolutely see the appeal!
Hi just discovered your channel, love the musical instruments on the wall too.
Thank you for the kind words! In my recent videos I shifted my camera, and have a new background now.
theres a new open world sandbox card/board game coming out next year called 'vantage' from stonemaier games that sounds like the rogue experience system youre describing
I will have to check it out - thanks for the rec!
Mighty Deeds!! I absolutely love DCC!
Yes, super fun blend of mechanics and flavor!
Dude Ghost of Lion Castle is awesome. I actually have a collection of all the solo B/X modules the only ones I'm missing is a physical copy of Blizzard pass and either a digital or physical copy of Thunderdelve mountain.
Also by far my favorite mechanic is wandering monster tables. I just like anything that adds chaos to the adventure it adds its own replay ability to all old modules.
Cool! I am building my own little collection. I still have a way to go though.
I really want to make my own tyrpg that mixes starfinder combat with travler characters
That would be cool! Traveller character creation is so fun
Traveller, Mekton, Cyberpunk, and The Witcher are all known for their fantastic lifepath character creatiin systems.
I haven’t read The Witcher, or even heard of Mekton - I will have to check them out. Thanks!
I was just brought into a Mekton Zeta (Plus) campaign and I have to agree on character creation. The most robust system I've read yet. I assumed it existed similarly in other Talsorian games, but this seems to confirm. Thanks!
I love the stress and panic system in The Alien RPG
Yeah a good stress mechanic is fun
Solo RPGs seem to be choose your own adventure book.
They can be, but not all the time. CYOA books rely on one mechanic - narrative choice. Many Solo RPGs (but not all) rely on the mechanics of the RPG to determine the outcome of different scenes.
For real wild magic? Dungeon Crawl Classics.
DCC is the best!
Crimson Escalation!
I will check it out!
Just a suggestion - Add an image of the cover for the game you mention, leave it for a bit and then show the book if you have it. Off to one side or the other. Think weather man style. I'm a visual learner and remember the art rather than the words
Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it!
You’re not the first person to suggest this, and I’ve started implementing this in my newer videos. It’s still not perfect, so if you have any additional feedback, please let me know! Thank you!
@paperdicegames6585 my fault, read that at as 1m not 1y. Glad to see it worked out
5/5 List
Thank you for checking it out!
The traveler character creation method is the biggest thing stopping me from playing.
Curious - why is that?
@@paperdicegames6585 You have to roll for elements of your background. That means you might not get the background you want and it's a character creation method that is too complicated for my taste.
Ah yes - its not for everyone. More of a mini game (simulation?) than a storytelling activity.
Letting the dice decide and "discovering" your character as opposed to building your character. One is more role playing while the other has a optimized mindset
@@parttimed.m.1111 Disagree. I may decide I want my character to come from a moisture farm, and I left on an adventure because imperial soldiers killed by family and burned my home, rather than rolling random for, and less personally interesting events and outcomes.
Huh. Haven't gotten very far into the video, but mist comment right away, lol. I teach violin (and fiddle) etc. And I played trombone in band in high school. Just had to say. Now on with the video
Lol - I played trombone back in the day, my partner played violin!
Traveler's character creation is a great little mechanic but I can see those who only know 5e and its "build your unbeatable superhero character sheet" approach would be massively put-off by it.
Yeah, it is such a different process. I always preempt my players with what character creation is in Traveller so they go in at least understanding what they are going to be doing.
One of my favorite mechanics is Dread's tower. It brings so much tension to the game, with the suspense rising with every move.
The mechanics you listed are fascinating, as are some listed in comments. Look forward to checking them out.
I’m not sure I know what Dread’s tower is - I will have to look it up!
One of my favourites is from Chris McDowalls Electric Bastionland - shared debt. The players share a debt of £10,000 which explains why they are banding together to find treasure. Such a neat way to circumvent the whole "why are we adventuring together"-discussion.
Yeah I think its great, but since making this video I have heard it hits a bit too close to home for some people.
It is a great way to band players together, and get the players focused on game economy though if that is the goal of the game