Sophie chooses her son Jan and condemns her daughter Eva to the gas chamber. Gosh.

Reach out if you want a GM for Mutants and Masterminds. It's a great toolkit, but it takes agreement between players and GM on the concept. You can build anything, but it's more fun when you don't.

Spectaculars

I think your description of rules light vs heavy is kinda wrong. I don't think crunch means less creativity. I think it often allows for a great deal of possibilities, because the designers have accounted for those possibilities, you just need to pay attention to the rules in order to do that, rather than rolling the same checks with the same broad skills. The possibility exists to do something incredible within the rules and the rules are your framework for how to accomplish that, it can be especially rewarding long-term. I say this as someone who prefers rules light games.

I have good experiences with all three (ish) In dnd if you are making a role in combat it makes sense that a fail is a fail, and on stealth vs perception you wouldn’t want a partial success because you either snuck in or got caught (or the dm allowed another roll before the fail). And it’s pretty forgiving if you don’t have a roll covered, like party face or investigator. Pathfinders degrees of success made suck or save spells and effects a lot more forgiving (or less powerful depending on side), and it had some interesting effects on the RP side but it introduced a lot of complexity which made on the spot checks harder to run then dnd but pre planned checks flow smoothly. In lancer combat is suck or save, but out of combat there are degrees: below 10 fail, above 10 successes, below 5 loose something, above 15 succeed and more 20+ great success. And that’s baseline rolls, the dm can say it’s an easy check (lol said no dm ever), a hard check which bump the check up so you need a 15 to succeed without costs, or a heroic check where you need a 20+ just to succeed. And at the dm/players decision various penalties and consequences if you want to succeed and pay or just take the failure and move on, usually even on a heroic check a 10+ will still get you some form of success, but by that point there’s enough negatives to let you know you put your foot in it. Also lancer is the most fickle of the 3, it’s best mod is 6+1d6 (12), meaning as an average player has a 50% chance of success and an expert has a 75% chance (before the dm allows the 1d6 for invoking backstory). However this encourages players to branch out in their skill selection since after 3 levels you’re as good as it gets in a field I’ve never tried a fail forward system, honestly I don’t like the sound of it, but most DMs already run a version of it where they go “well y’all goofed up and you’ll either die or the story can’t progress” and cobble something together like a prison escape or a careless guard or something. Your doom counter was a fun idea though Some downsides In dnd as you said the mods are small (27 max lv 20 expertise), so you do get weird moments where the wizard rolls a 1 and the barbarian rolls a 20. There are some checks where no matter what you roll a character can’t succeed (harvesting poisons is a dc 20 nature check and my -2 int fighter can’t succeed), but in general on an average party anyone could do the check, leasing to a solve-by-comity approach to any check they can. At higher levels of pathfinder it’s not worth it to even attempt a check you aren’t invested in, so you better hope your party has all its bases covered. And with degrees of success/failure and degrees of training it starts to get complex. Should I invest in occultism at the cost of investigation? Is it even worth having a trained skill when you could have an expert skill ready and specialized? Lancer’s system works well for down time actions because in the books it’s explained what the degrees of success are and what the trades are to success at a cost. It gets dicey when you’re doing something off the books. My dm is really good about having stuff play out and giving us 1-3 options on success and failure-success, but I could see a lot of dms and players less well read of the core book and not as quick on the uptake struggling with it.

Great video. Happy to be a new subscriber. Tales from Elsewhere is INSPIRING

A few thoughts on succeed with a cost: I do not know if the reminder is blades in the dark, but it is in a|state: you can just advance a clock. So, if you try to steal some evidence from the police, there can be a security counter - if it reaches 4, the station goes on lockdown. The other tjing to consider is: while success at a cost is the most common outcome, you probably won't usually get it 5 times in a row. So, rising the stakes is a valid way to play this. As the stakes rise, players may want to abort mission while they still can. This brings me to character death. I vonsider it bad form to just kill a character if the player fails a roll. In my opinion, death should occur whej a character pushes their luck. Not aborting the mission when the stakes rise qualifies - it is epic if the character pull through and if they don't, it still is fair if thr character dies.

Rules heavy games: All the answers are on your character sheet. Rules light games: None of the answers are on your character sheet.

PbtA gets in my idea of theme because you have to study mechanics (moves) to play things that should be organic, OR the GM is pushing you to decide on a limited list of options like a video game. It kills the immersion for me.

Sent here by Peter!

Peter was great in Midnight Mass.

Was so fun chatting with Frank on this episode!

You too with the "Wouldn't _of_"?

Champions and Marvel Superheroes RPG from TSR is missing from this list. Savage Worlds also has a couple of Superhero games. As for Mutants and Masterminds, the default is Level 10.

No discussion of superhero role-playing games is complete without talking about the first and best one superworld

What I've been liking [and I've been working on porting into 5e] is a modified version of Mothership's system. Mothership is a 'success at a cost' system, but with lower-end and critical failure turning into 'failure but things get much worse'. It's kind of the only reason the system works, d100 roll under checks with an average DC of 30-40 [i.e., flat 30 to 40% success rate if it was a pass/fail] is tough. I've added 'failing forward' and pure failure to that system and I've been liking it. As an example, on a skill check with a target of 40, I Warden/Referee/GM results like this: [For players] 00, 11, 22, 33 - critical success 01-40 - success [I make matching a success unless it's a contested check, at which point it's a success at a cost for both] 41-50 - success at a resource cost [time, ammo, etc.] 51-60 - success with a disadvantage [trip, weapon jams temporarily, etc.] 61-70 - success with injury [counter attack from attack target, ricochet, mess up hand while prying a door, etc.] 71-80 - fail forward [miss the creature but make it hesitate, can't pick the lock but loosened enough you could force it, etc.] 81-89 - pure failure 90-98 - failure with disadvantage 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99 - failure but things get much worse [For NPCs in combat encounters, again example is target of 40] 00, 11, 22, 33 - critical success 01-40 - success 41-50 - success with a disadvantage 51-60 - fail forward 61-89 - pure failure 90-98 - failure with disadvantage 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99 - failure but things get much worse That method has been pretty nice. It tips the scales in the favor of PCs considerably, but that's necessary if trying to run any module or campaign with significant combat - remember, max hp before getting a wound in Mothership is 20 hp [and is determined randomly at character creation with a range of 11 to 20 with no ability to increase it] and every time a character gets a wound it's something like a 40-50% chance of being useless for the rest of that day [or a month or two, depending on how severe] and every wound carries a flat 5% chance of just dying outright because of how death saves work, no resurrection or healing possible. Edit: That's also a system where you roll maybe a couple dozen times per session outside combat. The way the system changes for fluctuating checks is to add or subtract from the success and pure failure/fail with disadvantage ranges, taking out the pure fails first.

To be honest most of this is basically “how do we handle failure”. In my favourite game ironsworn (pbta-like but different dice probabilities and player facing rolls so you can play GMless if you want) A hit means you succeed narratively, and the moment you acted with a chance to fail is narrated. The type of activity you do advises what rewards you get. Either progress on your goal (milestones), +1 on your next move (advantage- like) , gain momentum (re-roll currency) +1 on weak and + 2 on strong hits. And then recovery of resources like HP/stress etc on recovery moves. Ending each scene you do also has a roll to basically say if there is plot armour to your objective, you can either recommit and it resets your current progress a little, or you can forsake the objective and pay a price for giving up. The game has a random table called oh the price which you can choose from or randomly select and suggests how much of price to pay depending on the moves. Sometimes it say’s introduced a new obstacle to overcome before getting your success bonus. The unique mechanic is “good spot/bad spot” Basically when you fail you lose your player agency u til you get a strong hit. Limiting you to “face danger” and “clash”. This is basically like having a reworded version of disadvantage. And it replaces the GM/foes turn and are basically you are stuck doing reaction rolls until something goes right and then you spring back into control and get full agency again to work towards your objectives as you wish. It’s super unique and allows you to play solo because the world is acting and the game loop never really changes

Love that you guys are excited to talk games. Came to see your Marvel Multiverse convo.. My campaign is DEFINITELY using original characters and most I see are as well. The 616 system wasn't really explained. And there's so much versatility to rank up or down for adventures. The system is great at Homebrew as well. Most streaming campaigns have a lot of homebrew elements. I ... Don't know if you're speaking from experience which kind of makes me question the purpose of this show

Hell yeah

Way to go guys! Keep it going

Congrats! Well deserved!

If Candela Obscura ever got a second edition after all the critiques were considered it could be awesome.

Have you ever looked at spectaculars? I think it's on sale right now, but it's like an all-in-one RPG box and you can customize it however you want to. In terms of death and what not, it's more of a narrative game

I feel like the Pathfinder barrier to entry is largely overstated as it relates to PF2. Absolutely PF1 rewarded system mastery and punished generalist builds, but PF2 has tightened the math to a point where an optimizer and a non optimizer both are nearly as effective. Character creation is not a punishingly lengthy process anymore, I think the old "Mathfinder" perception of PF1 and the size of the Core Rulebook have created this myth of a difficult game to get into.

I'll forever be made fun of by my group for sucking horribly at mental math, yet having passed all my engineering classes in college.

I think Kids on Bikes is great for new players.

I'll throw Marvel Heroic RPG into the mix here.. I understand that the rules presented a level of adjustment for a lot of players, but I still think it mixed narrative nicely with dice mechanics. Great topic, gentlemen!! Thanks!

On the topic of social mechanics, somehow, a lot of the games that do feature a lot of social mechanics seem to be very much "theater kid" games, and not the kind of games my more reserved players tend to enjoy Good talk though

You can solve the problem of deep mechanical depth and beginner friendliness by adding some form of complexity rating to features. This way, beginners stay with easy-to-handle options, but experienced users can go all in for the complex ones. Ishanekon: World Shapers does it. I can highly recommend that system. It is free.

Super cool to see another game developer I follow on here!

HP Lovecraft was a product of his time. I dont fault him for being of the average opinion of the majority of society at the time. This eventually changed in the world and if Lovecraft was long lived enough, who is to say his opinion wouldnt have changed as well. I cant blame the man for being a zebra in a herd of zebras, its the zebras that lack stripes that get singled out. Appreciate his work and just understand it was a different time. No harm, no foul.

I am a forever GM/DM mainly because as a player i'm a terrible min-maxer and the kind of person i would not appreciate in my campaign.

Hero System? Probably the most crunchy system out there. And it's great.

I'm a bit older and cut my teeth on Villains and Vigilante's and currently playing Monkey House Games Mighty Protectors. Also, heavy invested in M&M. I'd like to give SWADE Supers a play, too. Marvel is getting a lot of hype lately and would like to give it a go.

Very informative! Now, how do you write homebrew scenarios for a group where PCs have such capabilities?

ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying is the supers RPG for me. MASKS is too narrative driven and M&M is too mechanical. ICONS is like a toned down version of M&M. ICONS as a base is great. It is true, it is kinda broken, but with a lot of homebrew work it shines.

Okay guys, hear me out. The gm can offer success at a cost anytime a player misses a hit on a DC when it feels appropriate, that way it never feels forced. It doesnt have to be either or.

Have you tried Cypher for Supers? I had a positive experience with it, even though Cypher is a pretty flawed system. Have you ever heard of Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game (MURPG)? No one ever has - it was a wonderful and ambitious TTRPG from like 20 years ago, and it was absolutely terrible. I loved their ambition, as it is a diceless system that attempts to still be crunchy and combat-focused. It did not succeed, but it's worth tracking down a copy and flipping through!

You should talk about Nimble! They just ended their crowdfunding with all goals met. The system streamlines 5e rules and introduces new classes, mechanics, etc., in a way that takes out all of the slog, and maintains compatibility with all 5e modules. One thing I like is that a critical failure is a miss, but anything above that is a guaranteed hit. They also have exploding criticals.

Savage Worlds Super Power Companion ;) Also Savage Worlds for best Character Creations systems. Am I biased? Probably, but I love the system.

0:13 you would definitely get Copyright striked for the song.

neat

I run 5e mostly and this had me thinking, I usually run skill checks as degrees of success without realizing it. While sometimes I ping things higher or lower, the format I have run pretty much goes like this: - Roll a +20: You enthusiasticly succeed and I tell you everything (even out of character) - 18-19: You succeed like you imagined and I give you the information that you asked for - 14-17: You are very very close to succeeding or you bearly succeed. I technically give you all the information that you ask for, but I do not necessarily give any specific context and you as a player will have to figure it out - 2-13: You fail but it is not your fault. Information is esoteric and no one faults you for not knowing - 1: You fail in the most embarrassing and comical way possible. If your character does not know something, it is their fault because they had the opportunity to learn but were not paying attention

It’s awesome that you guys cover less mainstream genres of TTRPGs! We have another Superhero RPG that we hope you’d add to a list in the future, please check out Indominant, we are working to have our version 2.0 Game System Primer out soon on DTRPG! We use a d20 + modifiers, roll high dice system, inspired by City of Heroes and My Hero Academia!

I've found City of Mist great for doing superheroes with a secret identity.

I'm on board for a "best character creation systems" video

It’s nice to have a channel that talk about all types of TTRPG and not just one system. Keep it up guys.

I played Sentinels of the Multiverse with high expectations because there is a lot to like. However, when I actually ran it for my players the minor twists happen all the freakin' time. As a GM I was running out of ideas for them and even when they did happen, the effects were minimal. If I were to run it again, I would homebrew to remove minor twists and only have major twists instead. I don't know if this would work, but that's my 2 cents

I want to hear more about sentinels of the multiverse

I'm @18:41 in. So the creation power creating that force box, I have no doubt, it didn't say that a big strong person couldn't pick it up & shake it around or a telekinetic couldn't toss it in the air causing damage to those inside when they bounced around, or that they couldn't use that box as a barrier that a bad guy could bounce 'normals' off of. They could even toss it into buildings causing damage to the building that the 'normals' would think the heroes caused.