Welcome to the RPG Roundup, here we have collected and reviewed man of the the indestrys most popular and prolific Roll Playing Game systems oor easy refference. If you've never played in an RPG before or if you haev any general questions there is a primer located on the glossary page for your convienance.
The goal of this review is to give an unbiased comparison of the games. We realize that there are many RPG's out there, and in our endevor we have played many of them. In fact only games that we have played are included. If you have any sugestions or comments feel free to contact us and now without further preamble, the games:
A name that conjures up the entire genra, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) has been around since the early 1970's. Despite some contravacy about the game in the late 80's and early 90's it has made a comeback in recent years and gained some main streem acceptance. D&D is a game of high fantasy inspired by the writings of J. R. R. Tolken among others, and tends to revolve thiems of good vs. evil, epic quests, magic and socrery and heroic triumph. Mechanicly speaking the modern iteration of D&D defined the D20 system, this realitively simple game mechanic has allowed for many other styles and settings to be adapted to it. The publisher, Wizards of the COast, collectivly understood this and marketed it as the "open gaming lisence", basicly they invited people with good ideas to publish them under the D20 umbrella, expanding there fan base and allowing folks without start up money to get there ideas published.
Not suprisingly D20 uses as its basic die a d20 for most situations. Players try to roll higher then a target number, 10 being quite easy and 20 being very hard. As characters becoem more powerfull they add mofifyers to there rolls, with diferent characters specalizing in diferent areas. This basic mechanic is quick to teach and east to learn but lacks higher end complexity, using a single die means that any dumber outcome has the same statistic probability (a 5% chance for any given number), and at later levels players will be adding numbers in the hight teens to twenties. The only way to keep things workign is to simply raise the target numbers. Id doing so however you efectivly negate the bonuses that players have worked so hard for which can lead to frustration. The game was built around a heroic sword and sorcery sort of feel, but it is inherent to the setting, some minor actions are difacult and deadly, while slogign through hords of monsters with a mighty sword is simple and harmless.
All in all its hard to give a bad review to the defining member of a genera, and while the statistic probability leave much to be desired, D&D is still a solid game system
White Wolf became famous for their World of Darkness (WoD) setting in the mid 80's. They present a "modern day" world where vampires and warewolves live umong us in secracy. Those who enjoy a the dark cynamatic style of movies like "The Crow" or "Constantine" should realy apreciate the story heavy styling white wolf has become famous for. The newest edition of of the rules presented by White Wolf are compiles in a single WoD book unlike the earlier setting specific source books. On the surface this may seem like a money saving feature, only one book to buy would be nice, however; this core book sugests you by the setting specific books for what ever game you'd like to play, the Vampire book for vampire games for example.
The mechanics of the WoD games are very aprochable, characters are defined by "dots", or ranks, in several statistics, skills, and abilities. The character record sheets have a pleasing look and lack the lists of numbers often seen on some games. The mechanic is based on a d10, and while there are some geometric arguments about the shape of this die the statistics are sound. The higher a rating in an atribute or skill, the more dice you roll when atempting to preform. A target number is asigned to any task, (the defult is 7) and the dice are rolled, for each die that shows the target number or above the player has scored a sucess and some particularly difacult actions might require multiple sucesses. Multiple dice systems offer a curved or "bell curve" affect on the probability of a roll atempt. This multiple d10 style works well for the low to middle range, giving a nice linear increase to sucess rates as the characters grom in compatance, but it breaks down at higher levels and can leave players rolling dozens of dice for everything they want to do. This is compounded by the need to make the imposable posable for the imposable creatures that populate these games. Fantastic creatures should be able to do fantastic things, and to make this proportional from low to high powered characters means requiring multiple sucesses against high target numbers, requiring lost of fiddeling and rice rolling.
WoD games work well inspite of these mechanical failings because of the focus on story telling and roll playing. The setting puts a lot of weight on interaction, description, and story telling over dice rolling and number manipulation. A skilled story teller will keep a WoD game an arms length from the mechanics, espicaly any gaps that crop up, an un skilles storry teller, or player, can fall into these gaps and become too lost in mathmatical shlep to enjoy them selves.
Haec disserens qua de re agatur et in quo causa consistat non videt. Non enim si alii ad alia propensiores sunt propter causasnaturales et antecedentes, idciro etiam nostrarum voluntatum atque appetitionum sunt causae naturales at antecedentes; nam nihil esset in nostra potestate si res ita se haberet. Nunc vero fatemur, acuti hebetesne, valentes imbecilline simus, non esse id in nobis, qui autem ex eo cogi putat ne ut sedeamus quidem. Si veteres ita miratur laudatque poetas, ut nihil anteferat, nihil illis comparet, errat. Si quaedam nimis antique, si peraque dure dicere credit eos, ignave multa fatetur, et sapit et mecum facit et Iova iudicat aequo. Non equidem insector delendave carmina Livi esse reor, memini quae plagosum mihi parvo Orbilium dictare; sed emendata videri pulchraque et exactis minimum distantia miror.
Non enim si alii ad alia propensiores sunt propter causas naturales et antecedentes, idciro etiam nostrarum voluntatum atque appetitionum sunt causae naturales at antecedentes; nam nihil esset in nostra potestate si res ita se haberet. Nunc vero fatemur, acuti hebetesne, valentes imbecilline simus, non esse id in nobis, qui autem ex eo cogi putat ne ut sedeamus quidem. Idciro etiam nostrarum voluntatum atque appetitionum sunt causae naturales at Interdum volgus videt, est ubi peccat. Si veteres ita miratur laudatque poetas, ut nihil nteferat, nihil illis comparet, errat. Si quaedam nimis antique, si peraque dure dicere credit eos, ignave multa fatetur, et sapit et mecum facit et Iova iudicat aequo. Non equidem insector delendave carmina Livi esse reor, memini quae plagosum mihi parvo Orbilium dictare; sed emendata videri pulchraque et exactis minimum distantia miror. Inter quae verbum emicuit si forte decorum, et si versus paulo concinnior unus et alter, iniuste totum ducit venditque poema.
Haec disserens qua de re agatur et in quo causa consistat non videt. Non enim si alii ad alia propensiores sunt propter causasnaturales et antecedentes, idciro etiam nostrarum voluntatum atque appetitionum sunt causae naturales at antecedentes; nam nihil esset in nostra potestate si res ita se haberet. Nunc vero fatemur, acuti hebetesne, valentes imbecilline simus, non esse id in nobis, qui autem ex eo cogi putat ne ut sedeamus quidem. Si veteres ita miratur laudatque poetas, ut nihil anteferat, nihil illis comparet, errat. Si quaedam nimis antique, si peraque dure dicere credit eos, ignave multa fatetur, et sapit et mecum facit et Iova iudicat aequo. Non equidem insector delendave carmina Livi esse reor, memini quae plagosum mihi parvo Orbilium dictare; sed emendata videri pulchraque et exactis minimum distantia miror.
Haec disserens qua de re agatur et in quo causa consistat non videt. Non enim si alii ad alia propensiores sunt propter causasnaturales et antecedentes, idciro etiam nostrarum voluntatum atque appetitionum sunt causae naturales at antecedentes; nam nihil esset in nostra potestate si res ita se haberet. Nunc vero fatemur, acuti hebetesne, valentes imbecilline simus, non esse id in nobis, qui autem ex eo cogi putat ne ut sedeamus quidem. Si veteres ita miratur laudatque poetas, ut nihil anteferat, nihil illis comparet, errat. Si quaedam nimis antique, si peraque dure dicere credit eos, ignave multa fatetur, et sapit et mecum facit et Iova iudicat aequo. Non equidem insector delendave carmina Livi esse reor, memini quae plagosum mihi parvo Orbilium dictare; sed emendata videri pulchraque et exactis minimum distantia miror.
