The Eternal Question

[dreadmouse]

Well, one of them anyway.

You're trapped on a desert island with four other gamers, a crate of dice, endless pencils and paper, and one set of game manuals.  What do you want, d20 or Gurps?  Or something else entirely?  Discuss!

(Yes, I know, you make a raft out of the pencils with a paper sail and get off the island.  smart ass)

Comments

[pyrephox]

D20.

Finally, I'd have time to read all the danged sourcebooks, and run that epic, high fantasy campaign that I've been meaning to. And then a Blue Rose game. And then a d20 SF game...

[dreadmouse]

I'm working on a d20 SF setting right now, on and off. I'm not loving their space rules, but they'll do.

What's "Blue Rose?"

[kleenestar]

Romantic fantasy - think Mercedes Lackey in d20.

[pyrephox]

Pretty much.

I'm not /entirely/ enamored of it, although I like some of the things that they've done. I'd want to restructure some things before I really played it, though.

[gamerchick]

That's a really good question.

In the end, I think I'd have to go with all the books from old WoD, honestly. There's a ton of books like d20, but the system encourages roleplaying more than d20 does and I'd rather spend all that time getting in-depth with a character than with a ruleset. Also, it can support just about any kind of game, from sci-fi to personal horror to adventure to mystery to modern fantasy and even high fantasy/past-set games if you include the Dark Ages books.

[dreadmouse]

I've never been exposed to either of the WoD rulesets. Do you absolutely prefer the old to the new?

[kleenestar]

I certainly prefer the old to the new, though I can't speak for gamerchick. I don't have strong feelings about the system changes (the older is clunkier but easier to modify without throwing things out of whack), but I strongly prefer the older setting. The old lends itself more to my style of play, which is oriented toward the external world (politics, intrigue, romance, horror) rather than the internal world (angst, emotional trauma). I could also just be a conservative old wanker. Or would that be wankette?

[gamerchick]

No. The old is very charming to me because it's the system I learned to game in, and there are things about it that are so innovative and cool that I would never want to throw it out entirely. However, the system for the new version is VASTLY better and much less broken, and the setting also repairs certain things about the old that were intensely moronic. (For example, in the old game, every single character type has its own radically different mythology and cosmology which is observable in the real world for that character type, but which completely contradicts things that are real for other character types - so how the hell do you make these beings coexist in the same world without cheating?) The old also has some rhetoric that pisses me the hell off (OMG SCIENCE BAD ALL THE TIME ALWAYS!!!!!1) that seems to have been mostly eliminated from the new.

So I guess my answer is that they both have their strong points, but because the old has more books, that's what I picked. (c:

[kleenestar]

I'd have to go for 7th Sea; Nobilis is ordinarily my first choice but I don't really need the book to run it, and in any case there's only one book so it wouldn't provide me with enough reading material to not go absolutely bonkers. (I read fast. And often.)

On the other hand, since Nobilis is diceless we could replace the dice with a large crate of delicious foodstuffs ... :)

[dreadmouse]

I played 7th Sea once at a con and I found the setting absolutely fascinating. The GM tried to cram too much into the session and I couldn't swallow all the detail, but it looked well thought out and a TON of fun. I'm a huge fan of Dumas and Brust and this system looked like wonderful fun in that vein.

[callunav]

Depends how much I like the other gamers.

d20 for a group I am putting up with but do not trust to actually roleplay their way out of a paper bag. WoD with people who really can roleplay, but need a detailed system to give them ideas. d6 or push-dice (you won't have heard of it) for people who have *lots* of ideas, but need a basic system to unify things.

With an ideal group, I'll take a copy of Baron Munchausen for when we get bored, and otherwise let the gm wing everything.

(For perspective, I was in a great two-shot game conceived of and run by heavenscalyx, with maybe nine players. The first run was awesome. There was a lot of action, a lot of drama. We had pre-generated characters, which she almost never does, just to get things moving faster, and we all had a blast making them our own, exploring our characters' individual talents, strengths, and weaknesses. The second run - a couple weeks later, because of scheduling difficulties - was just as good. About two thirds of the way through, we faced off for a serious conflict, and HC

[pyrephox]

Poor D20. So maligned. So misunderstood.

[dreadmouse]

It is possible to RP with d20, but I have to admit that the social skill system is weak and D&D does attract more than its share of munchkins.

[speedquest]

I would play "paranoia".

I mean, the other players are obviously out to get me/eat me, so I might as well simulate that in a natural, healthy gaming environment.