RPGMemes

I'm not seeing any mention of it, but I think a lot of people might be interested in Break! - it's specifically aiming to make a game that has the vibes of an "adventure of the week" system, where you learn of an ancient ruin, gear up, venture through the wilderness, explore a crumbling tomb for loot, then get back in time for dinner and an ale. - Basically I'm saying that the game is specifically designed to try and tell the kind of stories that DnD is designed for.

Where break differs from DnD is in it's approach to mechanics. Downtime, journeying, exploring an adventure site, and fighting are all their own small, light subsystems of rules, so there's clear guidelines for how to run each of them, and they're largely aimed at highlighting the cruical and interesting moments for each of those activities, while quickly glossing past the faff and monotony of what lies between.

I've lost track of the number of DnD campaigns I've played where the DM didn't really have a clear framework for what to do on a long journey, and resorted to just tossing a couple of random encounter fights in because it "felt necessary", but they never felt like they advanced the story or contributed anything interesting to the game.

It's also a game you can recruit random NPCs and the like to join you and follow you around, and when they run out of HP you check to see if you remembered to give them a name. The world knows that characters who have their own names are important to the story, and characters who are just "that random bandit mook who surrendered and we brought them along" are not. If the character doesn't have a name when they hit 0hp, they die on the spot.

Oh, and fights take 10 minutes, rather than 2 hours - so you can have one in the middle of a session without it becoming the whole session. Yum.

I personally prefer Warhammer Fantasy (either 2e or 4e), I think it contrasts to DnD like Dark Souls to Diablo. Armor is damage reduction instead of damage avoidance, everyone has access to a number of combat maneuvers, magic is limited and dangerous, every combat is dangerous and healing is limited.

Stop replacing TTRPG by DnD and I would be fine 😜

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I actually like D&D and much prefer it to every other family of games I've tried (WoD, GURPS, PbtA, etc). What i dont like is the current iteration of D&D, which is why my recommendations are:

Swords & Wizardry Complete: it's OD&D with some of the rough edges sanded off and all the optional material added. Tons of classes, lots of tools for procedural world building, and very easily hackable. It's simpler to teach to a new player, and its more flexible than 5e for experienced players. The tick-tock of the dungeon turn structure makes it easier to keep pace as a GM, and when in doubt, rolling x-in-6 always holds up. If you want a classic dungeon crawler, this is it.

Whitehack: Still D&D but more narrative. Skills are replaced with groups that can give advantages to tasks directly influenced by membership in that group. Magic is super flexible and everyone has access to some form of it, but the "magic user" class gets to just make up their own spells and pay some HP depending on effect size. Great rules for base building, good GM advice for making adventures that aren't dungeon or wilderness crawls (but are structured like those things). The core mechanic minimizes table math so even your players who struggle with addition can play fast. Less deadly than actual old D&D but keeping the same vibe. It's my favorite for those who prefer narrative to mechanics. In a lot of ways, it's D&D rewritten for the way a lot of people actuslly play 5e.

It's hard to extoll the virtues of my chosen system (Pathfinder2e) without comparing it to the issues of where I find 5e lacking.

That said, what I love about 2e is the great encounter balance, almost every single "build" for a class is viable, and when you say "I'm playing a rogue" there are like 4 major types of rogues that all feel like they play differently instead of just some tacked on homebrew class. Adding free archetype rules (supported by the system creators themselves in their books) adds even more customizability.

One of my favorite things is that PF2e makes it feel like it makes encounter design fun again; martials actually have more options than just walk up and attack repeatedly, spacing matters, defenses matter. Most classes have some sort of gimmick that makes them play differently. Been working with my girlfriend to make a swashbuckler for the game I am DMing, and the panache/bravado/finisher mechanics really excite us from a roleplay and gameplay standpoint.

The three action system is way more flexible than the action/bonus action system. You can spend all 3 actions on a huge spell and burn your entire turn. You can move away from enemies to force them to burn an action or flank them to gain bonuses to attack for yourself and allies. You can apply debuffs using your main stats with actions like Demoralize, and still attack or move on your turn.

You constantly gain feats, and they are what defines your character so much. No longer do you get a "choice" of an ASI or feat. You get ones every level. There are ancestry tests from your race, class feats, skill feats, archetype feats. They don't just make you stronger, they instead give you more possible actions, give you unique traits, like being able to fight while climbing or use deception to detect when someone is lying instead of perception.

Also, you can find every rule for free online @ Archives of Nethys. No more being gated by purchases outside of adventure paths.

I could keep going, and I really want to extoll how awesome Golarion is, and the pantheon of gods, and everything. But I will stop here. Would happily answer anyone's questions about the system, I love it. It gave me true passion for tabletop RPGs while DnD5e made me feel really mildly about it.

Okay but as long as we are complaining about shit we see on RPG forums

"I wish I could do $thing in DnD"

"$otherSystem has a very cool subsystem for $thing"

"Omg how dare you"

Had this conversation enough times to make it a pet peeve of mine

Anyway the only thing about 5e that does suck is Wizards of the Coast. Otherwise it's fine. It's just fine. You can have fun with it.

I'm more of a Pathfinder 2e guy tho.

(And pf2 is basically a more advanced take on what 5e was doing so....)

Basic Role-Playing (BRP), which is the system Call of Cthulhu is based on, is a great alternative to D&D as a roleplaying system. It is much easier to learn and understand, everything is based on percentages, and the system can be as mechanically crunchy or open as the DM prefers.

Runequest

No character classes: everyone can fight, everyone gets magic, everyone worships a god (with a few exceptions), and your character gets better at stuff they do or stuff they get training in. The closest there is to a character class is the choice of god your character worships (which dictates which Rune spells your character might have) but there is plenty of leeway to play very different worshippers of the same god.

No levels: your character gets better at stuff they do or stuff they get training in. As they progress in their god's cult they also get access to more Rune spells.

Intuitive percentile 'roll under' system: an absolute newbie who's never played any RPG before can look at their character sheet and understand how good their character is at their skills: "I only have 15% in Sneak, but a 90% Sword skill - reckon I'm going in swinging!'"

Hit locations: fights are very deadly and wounds matter, "Oh dear, my left leg's come off!"

Passions and Runes: these help guide characterisation,and can also boost relevant skill rolls in a role-playing driven way, e.g invoking your Love Family passion to try and augment your shield skill while defending your mother from a marauding broo.

Meaningful religions: your character's choice of deity and cult provides direction, flavour, and appropriate magic. Especially cool when characters get beefy enough to start engaging in heroquesting - part ceremonial ritual, part literal recreation of some story from the god time.

No alignment: your character's behaviour can be modified by their passions, eg "Love family" or "Hate trolls", and possibly by the requirements of whatever god you worship, but otherwise is yours to play as you see fit in the moment without wondering if you're being sufficiently chaotic neutral.

Characters are embedded in their family, their culture, and the cult of the god they worship: the game encourages connections to home, kith, kin, and cult making them more meaningful in game and, in the process, giving additional background elements to take the edge off murder hoboism (though if that's what the group really wants then that's a path they can go down (see MGF, next)).

YGMV & MGF: Greg Stafford, who created Glorantha, the world in which Runequest is set, was fond of two sayings. The first is "Your Glorantha May Vary". It is a fundamental expectation, upheld by Chaosium, that while they publish the 'canonical' version of Glorantha any and every GM has the right to mess with it for the games they run. Find the existence of feathered humanoids with the heads, bills, and webbed feet of ducks to be too ridiculous for your game table? Then excise them from the game with Greg's blessing! The second is the only rule that trumps YGMV, and that is that the GM should always strive for "Maximum Game Fun".

While we're on the subject of Glorantha, the world of Glorantha! It's large and complex and very well developed in some areas (notably Dragon Pass and Prax) but with plenty of space for a GM to insert their own creations. It is, without doubt, one of the contenders for best RPG setting of all time.

To continue on the subject of Glorantha, there is insanely deep and satisfying lore if you want to go full nerdgasm on it. But you can play and enjoy the game with a sliver-thin veneer of knowledge: "I'm playing a warrior who worships Humakt, the uncompromising god of honour and Death." The RQ starter set contains everything you need to get a real taste for the game (ie minimal lore) and is great value for money since it's what Chaosium hope will draw people in.

Ducks: ducks are cool and not to be under-estimated.

Nope. You play what you want. I, however, will not play any game from a company that demonstrably dislikes its customers. So far, wizards of the Coast and games workshop are on my list. In the electronic space, EA, Microsoft, and Sony.

When it come to more traditional RPGs, I really like Pathfinder 2E for the following reasons:

• It scales very well from level 1-20. The math just works
• Encounter design and balancing is easy for the busy GM
• All of the classes are good, there aren't any trap classes
• Teamwork is highly encouraged through class and ability design
• Degrees of success/failure
• Easy, free access to the rules
• The ORC license
• https://pathbuilder2e.com/
• Pathfinder Society Organized play is very well done and well supported by Paizo
• Women wear reasonable armor
• The rune system for magic weapons/armor
• And so many more

I think part of the problem is that 5e is so pervasive and baked into the "people who play TTRPGs" population that you need to sell them on why 5e isn't good before you can get them to consider why your alternative is good.

Frankly, I'm a White Wolf die-hard. I love Exalted. I love Werewolf. I love Mage. I tolerate Vampire. But as soon as I show someone a set of d10s and try to talk them out of the idea of "Leveling" they get scared and run back to the system they're familiar with. I also have a special place in my heart for Rollmaster/Hackmaster/Palladium and the endless reams of % charts for every conceivable thing. And then there's Mechwarrior... who doesn't love DMing a game where each model on the board has to track it's heat exhaust per round? But by god! The setting is so fucking cool! (Yes, I know about Lancer).

I will freely admit that these systems aren't necessarily "better" than 5e (or the d20 super-system generally speaking). But they all have their own charms. The trick is that selling some fresh new face on that glorious story climax in which three different Traditions of Magi harmonize their foci and thereby metaphorically harmonize fundamental concepts of society is hard to do on its face. By contrast, complaining about the generic grind of a dice-rolling dungeon crawl is pretty straightforward and easy.