neddietrix:

fuckyeahdnd:

dragons-bookshelf:

fuckyeahdnd:

probablygoodrpgideas:

Make sure the system you use matches the kind of players you have, for an optimal experience

Admin Note: This is part of the ongoing series called “D&D isn’t the only TTRPG if you don’t want fantasy play another goddamn game!”

I already reblogged this once but this is important:

Like I run a D&D blog. I understand that D&D is the most well-known and popular RPG in the world. But a lot of the time I see people going like “Hey I want to run a D&D campaign and throw out all the D&Disms and here’s all the notes I have for running a campaign about courtly romance and chivalry in a historical setting” and I’m just like STOP YOU DON’T NEED TO RUN THIS USING D&D

There’s a sort of a mistaken assumption that because D&D is the biggest game on the market and that it’s fantasy that it should be the go-to fantasy game but look it’s not D&D isn’t a generic fantasy game it’s a very specific kind of fantasy all of its own, one that steals liberally from swords & sorcery and high fantasy and adds fucking extradimensional cube robots for good measure

So next time you’re thinking about a fantasy campaign in a decidedly non-D&Dish setting consider instead of jamming the square peg that is D&D into a round hole trying to find a system that actually supports what you’re trying to do

And this is not to say that you shouldn’t play D&D: D&D is hella fun. But there’s a lot of genres and styles that D&D does a piss-poor job of doing, and because of that it’s so good we’ve got other games

*cracks knuckles*

All right then. I’ve been meaning to dust off my own D&D sideblog for a while, so here we go with providing some examples. I’m limiting this specifically to other types of fantasy outside of the standard high fantasy and sword & sorcery millieu.

Courtly Romance and Chivalry

There are a number of options for this, and they range from standard secondary world fantasy to more historical and mythological settings. My list here shouldn’t be treated as fully extensive.

Blue Rose - based on the romantic fantasy subgenre, specifically as seen in the works of Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey. A lot of courtly drama and intrigue and swashbuckling, based in a fictional world.

Pendragon - naturally based off of Arthurian mythology, and having a lot of stuff given over to the court of Camelot and the chivalric adventures of the various knights. The same company also has a kickstarter for a spin-off called Paladin: Warriors of Charlemagne that might be worth checking out.

Historical Fantasy

This one’s a bit more prominent as historical settings serve as an inspiration for a variety of fantasy worlds and games, and this of course invariably extends to settings that actually use historical settings with a degree of fantasy elements thrown in. Note that I’m going to emphasise Europe here simply due to greater familiarity with games in that millieu, and as a European myself I’m ill-equipped to judge how accurate or respectful games using other settings actually are.

Because of this, feel free to add other examples in reblogs

Chivalry & Sorcery - one of the early tabletop games inspired by D&D, taking a more pseudo-historical approach. It’s based on 12th century France and strives for a degree of historical accuracy and medieval politics.

World of Darkness, Dark Ages (including Vampire and Mage) - while the World of Darkness has earned some negative attention lately (and for good reason), the dark ages RPGs are still an old favourite of mine. Also worth checking out is Mage: The Sorcerer’s Crusade, set during the Renaissance. The Mage stuff has a really cool open-ended magic system worth checking out.

Ars Magica - this exists along very similar lines to the dark age material above, based around mages and magic-users in a ‘Mythic Europe’ setting. It also has a really cool open-ended magic system, and one of my personal favourites.

Awwww shit heck yes I might want to add to this list but this is a really good starting point

ALWAYS MAKE SURE TO FIND THE SYSTEM FOR YOU

13th Age RPG

A Song of Ice and Fire RPG

AEG (A Legend of the Five Rings)

Anima; Beyond Fantasy 

Apocalypse World 

Basic Fantasy System

Blades in the Dark

Burn Bryte

Burning Wheel  

Call of Cthulhu

Castles & Crusaders 

Chroniques Oubliées

City of Mist

Cortex 

Cyberpunk 2020

Cypher System

D&D (All Editions)

Das Schwarze Auge

Dragon Age RPG 

Dungeon Crawl Classics 

Dungeon World 

Exalted

FATE System

Fallout

Fantasy AGE 

Fiasco 

GUMSHOE

GURPS 

Gamma World

Hero Games (Champions) 

Hackmaster 

Hârn

Iron Kingdoms 

King Arthur Pendragon

Labyrinth Lord 

Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk

Maid RPG 

Marvel Heroic RPG

Mouse Guard RPG

Munchkin

Mutants and Masterminds

Open Legend

Palladium Games 

Paranoia 

Pathfinder

Pokemon Tabletop

Rolemaster

Runequest

Savage Worlds

Shadowrun 

Star Trek Adventures 

Star Wars 

Starfinder 

Stars Without Number

Swords and Wizardry 

Tavern Tales

The One Ring

The Quiet Year

Tormenta

Traveller RPG

Unisystem

Warhammer

World of Darkness

COMPLETE TABLETOP RPG ARCHIVE