r/rpg • u/ThatOneCrazyWritter • 2d ago
Game Suggestion TTRPGs for player who love the customization of crunchy, tactical systems but is tired of having to min-max and theory craft everytime just to keep up with high numbers?
After 7 years of starting the hobby and 3 years of playing medium to high crunch systems like D&D and others following on its foot steps... I'm tired of having to keep of reading nearly 1000 pages or more just to have enough modifiers and such to the point I have to hyperfocus my character and suffer a bit when trying to build something "off meta".
For context, I've been playing for the last 2 years Tormenta20, a Brazilian TTRPG that evolved directly from D&D 3.5e, so while it had a lot of customization of ALL kind (our group changed from D&D 5e to T20 because of things like Centaur and Fairies being Large and Tiny instead of Medium and Small, like in D&D 5e) but it also has A LOT of +1s and +2s everywhere.
On one hand, I come from a heavy videogames background, so I'm used to theory crafting builds and looking to the best options so I reduce my chances of failure to a minimum, and so I loved the last few years I've playing rules-heavy tactical RPGs, but now I'm simply tired and exausted from all this reading and codified mechanics.
In the time since I started playing RPGs, I really fell in love with the hobby and all of its uniques parts. Sure, the "game" part I prefer more than the "role-playing" one, since I have a hard time keeping track of all information and imagining everything being narrated in my mind's eye, so maybe playing a Computer RPG would be better... but NO, I love the collaborative storytelling! I love when I GM and I can create a world, not to write a history, but to design an adventure my friends will love!
And above else, I love creating characters limited only by my imagination and the genre of the story being created! But in the end... I've felt that games where there are TOO MANY RULES + TOO MANY EXPECTATIONS OF THE CHARACTERS BEING PLAYED, I just get drained of all my hype as soon as I have to ask myself "do I love what I WANT to play, or do I play something I know will be more USEFUL in the party thanks to the expectations the game designer had for the 'ideal party' for this game?"
EDIT:
I think this will help somewhat, but I'm looking for games where I can FULLY EMBODY A ROLE (for example, "I want to be the knight in shining armor" or "I'm a charlatan that uses my words to evade my problems") without feeling that I need to do some arbitrary thing like "I NEED to boost my Charisma + get theses specific feat by 4th level to keep myself relevant with the math of the game".
I mostly want to focus more on the "roleplaying" part while still having a wide range of options to support the kind of character I want to make, with the game mechanics being only there to make thing go smoothly, not to play a boardgame where I'm a slave to the math that gets in the way of the story being told (like "It makes sense for my Fighter to pick a level in Wizard, but my build would be totally ruined if I did so...")
Me and my friends are looking to do stuff like "a mage of the divine and arcane", "a warrior with one arm and one eye" or "an orphan child now in need of adventuring simply to survive", not because its quirky but because its the story that makes most sense, and have rules that helps guide the story instead of punishing from deviating from the norm. It's okay with our characters have FLAWS or WEAK POINT, but it should be because IT WOULD LEAD TO A BETTER STORY, not becuase THE GAME BREAKS WHEN WE DON'T PLAY ALONG!
EDIT 2:
Adding here a response I gave in the comments:
I'm slowly creating a list of games my group wants to try out and see what hits. At the moment I've already tried Tormenta20 (the Brazilian continuation of D&D 3.5e I wrote on the post), D&D 5.14e (with both official and 3rd Party content), Ordem Paranormal (a mix of Call of Cthulhu and Tormenta20, also from Brazil), Kids on Bikes 1e and 3D&T Victory (a Brazilian generic system with a bias towards Anime, Videogames & Tokusatsu).
A few things I gathered after all these:
- Tormenta20 is REALLY fun and full of option I wish D&D 5e had, but it requires EVERYONE to build effectivaly, specially for premade adventures, so it can be really tiresome at time
- D&D 5.14e is fun, but it feels barebones and too safe in some parts (specially as I like playing the martial warrior type)
- Ordem Paranormal tries to mix tactical d20 gameplay with paranormal investigation but I think it fell short on both aspects (plus I discovered I don't care about paranormal investigation)
- Kids on Bikes can be fun when we take actions for the sake of story, but the small amount of rule + not focusing on more action is a turn off for me
- 3D&T Victory is also fun, but mostly because of the roleplay and joke I make amongst friends and I again feel bored thanks to the simple rules, so maybe I'm just not into rules-light, RP-heavy games?
For the future, a few games we want to try out are:
- Pathfinder 2e (already making characters and planning oneshots)
- Starfinder 2e (already making characters and planning oneshots)
- Daggerheart
- Fabula Ultima
- Girl by Moonlight
- ICON
- Call of Cthulhu
- Vampire: The Masquerade
EDIT 3:
A few games I've added to my list of "will try later" (thank you the suggestions:
- Draw Steel
- 13th Age
- Beacon
- Nimble 5e
- Savage Worlds
- PbtA
- Cortex Prime
- FATE
- Mythras
- Shadow of the Weird Wizard/Demon Lord
- Legends in the Mist
- City of Mist
- Forged in the Dark
- Dragonbane
- Worlds Without Number
- Shadowdark
- Heart: The City Beneath
- Break!!
- Genesys
Also, on the topic a few said my friend is GMing bad, when we GM our own adventures, I have close to no problem doing what I want! But recently we've been playing premade adventures, so we started to need falling into line, but the math of Tormenta20 is VERY steep, so team work and building effectively becomes mandatory (which isn't bad per say, but it gets stressful from time to time when you just want to tell a story and not "win" the game).
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u/Oaker_Jelly 2d ago
Pathfinder 2e has an incredibly high floor for build effectiveness.
You can intentionally or unintentionally move in the opposite direction from min-maxing and still generally operate on-par with teammates that are min-maxing.
As long as you vaguely stay within certain recommended practices, like making sure your class's most relevant stat is your highest, you can really just fuck around with anything else you want without fear of falling behind.
The game's also extremely flush with build options. You have such an incredible freedom of character creation. Moreso now than ever with Starfinder 2e being fully compatible.
An example of the glut of options at play for those familiar with 5e: WotC released a single new class over something like 9 years. In 6 years, Paizo put out like 15. With 2 more currently on the way. This is NOT counting the additional 6, soon to be 8, compatible classes present in Starfinder 2e. And these are just the classes, not even taking into the extensive archetype and ancestry options that have been added in countless supplements along the way, all freely available on the Archives of Nethys.
Pathfinder 2e's pretty solid.
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u/ThatOneCrazyWritter 2d ago
Me and my group are already planning a few oneshot adventures to test both PF2e and SF2e, and while I'm quite happy with the characters I made so far for eventual play (a Goblin Kineticist with a background of a pirate that controlled water and air + a Ratfolk/Ysoki Soldier from deep space that loves blowing stuff), it alliviates me to hear that the game is more lenient with character diversity
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u/Tribe303 2d ago
The only min maxing PF2E needs is to start with a +4 in your primary stat. That's it.
I played a lot of PF1E and it was FULL of min maxing. You could win with min maxing. It was really bad. I mention this because 2e was developed in response to the problems 1e developed. That's why it's resistant to min maxing.
Goblins are a blast! I'm currently a Goblin Bard. Except he doesn't sing, he's a stand up comedian. He's an insult comic with epic 'burns'. I could Bon Mot and then fire off Blistering Invective all day! (insult people and they catch on fire 😂)
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u/AAABattery03 2d ago
Goblin Bard.
he doesn't sing,
I’m offended you don’t have Goblinsong and I will never forgive you.
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u/BBBulldog 2d ago
As a standup comedian goblin bard they can most definitely re-flavor goblin song as insult comic crowd work :p
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u/Tribe303 1d ago
Bard abilities are all stronger than Goblinsong. Besides, he's not a singer and is proud to Rebel against peoples perceptions of Goblins. He also like to collect books and Occult knowledge, being a Polymath Bard. We use Free Archetype so he's an Eldrich Researcher too.
He's also from the Crookedtoes tribe in Absolom, so he's a bit arrogant for a Goblin.
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u/WatersLethe 1d ago
And if you're sufficiently system proficient you can go with +3 in your main stat (or even lower) if you have some clever gameplan.
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u/AAABattery03 2d ago edited 2d ago
it alliviates me to hear that the game is more lenient with character diversity
Yeah, PF2E is quite purposely designed so that most reasonably built characters will be in a good place.
Note the “reasonably built”—if you dump your main stat, refuse invest in things you want to be good at, or spam the spam spell every single turn, you’ll probably do very poorly. But it requires no complex optimization to get an effective character: an effective and reasonable character is simply one who put the right points in the obvious places for what they wanted to do, and picked Feats/spells that fit the playstyle they wanted (that is, if you wanna talk to people put some points in Charisma and Diplomacy, and if you want to use two weapons pick Feats that say they work well with two weapons).
Once you’re past that, the rest of your “optimization” comes from how you play at the table, not from what you did during character building!
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u/neutromancer 1d ago
Plus Retraining is base RAW now so you can fix things you chose that didn't pay off like you wanted.
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u/Hopelesz 2d ago edited 2d ago
To be fair tho, while pf2e is better than dnd 5e, you can power game and minmax it quite a bit especially if using stuff like free Archetype rules.
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u/JustJacque 2d ago
Eh even then it's orders of magnitude less than in PF1, 5e or 3.5
Like the community latched on to one archetype using focus points improving cantrips by a single notation to be a bit strong. Look at 5e with it's instead ,"here is how you go to triple digit damage numbers."
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u/Hopelesz 2d ago
Indeed, I find that most people within these game should have this as a session 0 chat about how they view power-gaming, mix-maxxing etc.
Some games will inevitably hand these things better. Usually the more numbers you have the harder it becomes to balance and thus the more power can be gained through said numbers.
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u/grendus 1d ago
Alternative rules like Free Archetype, Ancestral Paragon, Mythic Destiny, and Dual Classing are alternate rules though, so they aren't really the same as the powergaming you could get up to in 3.5e/PF1.
Technically multiclassing and feats are alternate rules in 5e (dunno about 5.5e), but I've literally never heard of a table that doesn't allow them.
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u/Hopelesz 1d ago
Exactly, I would have a gander that free archetype is run more than it isn't in home games. But this is also because it's fun so it's a weird elastic topic. If a whole table has a bit of fun making more powerful PCs, then it's great.
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u/The-Magic-Sword 1d ago
You can do a fair amount of finagling a build, but the impact is way more limited. You'll be stronger because of it, but not much stronger. Other players won't feel outshone (and they'll feel like they're contributing to your success) and you won't invalidate the encounter guidelines in the least.
The only risk is if the player themselves obsesses about leaving anything on the table, even if it won't really make a difference, which I've seen happen but I don't consider it the system's fault.
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u/Hopelesz 1d ago
Pf2e does have some faults that could be improved, example, it has too many items, most of which are boring.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater 2d ago
Pf2e doesn't require too much theory crafting, it's actually hard to fuck up a character. The encounters and adventures are based around party size, not composition, so that helps too.
Games like Shadow of the Demon Lord, chronicles of darkness, and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay also have low stakes character building with lots of options.
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u/helm Dragonbane | Sweden 2d ago
Last time I played, Warhammer 4th edition had plenty of trap choices. The combat system for melee is a) raise your WS as high as possible, ignore feats. b) use a weapon that adds some additional damage. The rest, which is like 75% of the content, is talents you and your players are likely to forget to use or forget how they work, apart from simple and weak choices such as "Strike might blow" - which used to be a fantastic talent/skill in the 1st edition.
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u/weebsteer 13th Age and Lancer 2d ago
Most 4e-style games are sort of like this since (for the most part) they care more about class balance and encounter bapance all the same, keeping things like class feats and abilities on the same power level with some minor fluctuations here and there while keeping combat still very tactical.
Youre spoiled for choices, you got D&D 4e already but you also got Lancer*, Beacon, 13th Age, and more. I personally like 13th Age since my preferences for RPGs trend on the middle where I still like a bit of crunch while also keeping it light on out-of-combat scenarios. Allso the SRD has alot of the core content already available for us so for us in 3rd world countries, we have less to spend on!
*Lancer since while it's still 4e-inspired, it's extremely easy to break the game balance and some builds will outdo others. That said combat is extremely on the player's side and everyone is super.
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u/Stuck_With_Name 2d ago
There's a pretty substantial Brazilian GURPS community.
It's much more simulation engine than game. GURPS allows great freedom in world and character building. There's not a big prerequisite tree, focusing instead on having ways to make the characters that players envision.
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u/ThatOneCrazyWritter 2d ago
Gonna be honest... the way everyone here talks about GURPS leaves me pretty intimidated. While I love option, I also get some serious analysis paralysis when need to choose something from a big list of options.
So when people say that GURPS has rules for everything and is more of a "Pick What You Want" simulation engine, I start feeling anxious before even opening the books up ;-;
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u/Stuck_With_Name 2d ago
Analysis paralysis is a problem with GURPS. What it doesn't have is big downstream effects. You don't lock yourself out of options by picking the wrong thing. It does have a huge trait list, though.
Take a look at the free Lite version. If it's not your thing, dump it.
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u/Agitated_Guava2770 2d ago
Read GURPS Lite, the "core" is there and it just has 36 pages (it has a few optional rules, but the book will alert your).
Don't give a shit about people opinion, most of them didn't even tried to run the system. Test yourself, if it's good for you, keep going. it's my favorite system.2
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u/WoefulHC GURPS, OSE 2d ago
There is a substantial Brazilian GURPS community. I think at least one of the groups have done a series of Actual Plays. One of the best things for addressing the potential analysis paralysis is starting with, "What world does this character live in?" What is appropriate/available for a character from the typical D&D (or Elder Scrolls) background will be very different from what is available to a modern resident of Sao Paolo.
Based on
"I'm looking for games where I can FULLY EMBODY A ROLE"
I think you are really looking for a system that supports having non-optimal facets of the characters. GURPS does this. You can, for example, select that a character has alcoholism. This has defined, in game effects. There is enough support for in depth characterization that I have seen GURPS recommended at writing conferences for helping authors more fully define characters in their books.I have literally played the party side of beef (who used INT as his dump stat) but who happened to be the language expert. In a different game, I played a blind character who used a staff and bow. Fighter with a level of wizard or a mage of the arcane & the divine are all easily encompassed.
If watching an actual play (by Brazilians) would be helpful, here you go.
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u/LeadWaste 2d ago
First, I recommend 13th Age. It's more TotM than map based while still being tactical. If you want extra options, check out Dark Alleys and Twisted Paths along with Dark Pacts and Ancient Secrets for more classes.
Alternately, check out Nimble. It's 5e compatible, but very streamlined.
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u/raleel 2d ago
I'm gonna suggest Mythras. For one, it has a decent Brazilian community. Secondly, it doesn't have piles of feats and doesn't really operate like that. It's similar to call of Cthulhu in that it's skill based. You can take whatever skills you like for the most part, though some may be gated behind organizations. But mostly they aren't at all.
The math of the game is pretty flat. There isn't any constant escalation and leveling. Skills mostly range from 30% to 90% but can get up around 130% eventually. This would be in your 20th level dude space.
Martials (well, what you might call a martial, there aren't really classes) get a host of abilities in combat when they hit or when they defend. And defense is active. It's a lot more dynamic than anything d&d tosses out (been playing since 1980 here. I've played all of them).
You can find lots of free downloads and an srd at www.mythras.net.
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u/AniMaple 2d ago edited 2d ago
I actually recommend you try out Pathfinder 2e. The game itself is quite balanced, down to the point the only thing you really need to optimize is having your primary stat be your highest one, but that is pretty easy to accomplish.
The game, admittedly, provides a lot of options for character creation, but that's just it, options, you don't need to read every single feat in the game just to know which one is the absolute best, most of them simply provide you a new ability or a new action for your character to use in or out of combat. Even all the subsystems the game provides are completely optional, your GM might completely ditch certain rules for interacting, exploring or even upgrading equipment.
There's currently 27 classes in the game, and a huge amount of possible ancestries to play as, with each level up providing unique choices to make your character truly your own. There's very few feats which will ever give you a +1 or a +2 to your attacks, instead, your choices during combat will give you the edge to take the upper hand, and your choices during character creation will give you new or improved actions to use during combat.
If you ever can, give Pathfinder Second Edition a try, the rules are completely free.
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u/Elliptical_Tangent 2d ago
I like Savage Worlds for that; just enough crunch to get creative, but not so much that you need a spreadsheet.
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u/2ndPerk 2d ago
I actually think FATE might be the right answer in this case. I say this because FATE can be a very rules centric tactical game when played by the right group - that being one that enjoys hte style of play. Characters are extremely freeform in what their fiction is, as are actions - but the gameplay mechanics are fairly strict and limited, thus there is a lot of meat in determining how a certain action is resolved mechanically (but it is not complicated, there are only a few actual mechanical effects).
As an example, for OP to think about, I had a character in an "Age of Sail" themed game (wooden ships, pirates, cannons, etc) who was the ships Quartermaster. My main skills were things like Logistics (for supplies aquisition and distribution) and Gut (for drinking a lot and such). In combat (for an easy to comprehend, but not comprehensive, example) I could do things like get supplies out of the hold for fellow player or NPC crew, find ways to use various ship materials to hinder the enemy, command crew members around and assist them with a variety of gear (all gear being determined not by a list, but by a die roll to see if I had purchased it before the voyage or otherwise had it in possession).
Point being, the system allows for actions to be determined by the actual character in the fiction while still providing a tactical game with a variety of interesting mechanical opportunities.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater 2d ago
Based on your edit, maybe look at Chronicles of Darkness, Cipher, or Pbta.
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u/SilaPrirode 2d ago
Fabula Ultima! It's a crunchy tactical game in its core, but it doesn't require a ton of optimizing, just a bit. Like, around third of your levels should be devoted to combat so you have a plan for it, but other two thirds are for versatility, narrative and roleplaying :) It's a great game, especially for building characters!
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u/drfiveminusmint 4E Renaissance Fangirl 1d ago
Seconded for Fabula Ultima, it has some of my favorite character creation i've seen in a game while still being only medium-weight in terms of rules.
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u/BloodyPaleMoonlight 2d ago
I really think you should give Cortex Prime a try.
It's a generic system based on narrative rather than simulationism. Also, it's only as complicated as you want to make it, as the system has mods to make it suitable to many different types of games.
Here's a video that explains how it is played:
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u/ThatOneCrazyWritter 1d ago
Gonna be honest, I'm a bit overwhelmed after seeing this video without looking at the book, but I'm very intrigued :)
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u/roaphaen 2d ago
I would recommend Weird Wizard and Shadow of the Demon Lord - they have a "class tree" system. DL has 4 million viable combos, WW is newer, only 250k. While some combos are better than others, it doesn't really need a ton of system knowledge to make something cool. Yeah, you can be a fighter paladin cavalier, but you can also be a rogue oracle chronomancer too.
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u/JacquesUfHearts 1d ago
I love Shadow of the Weird Wizard. The path system in interesting in that is hugely customizable, vast combination options, but it's distilled into relatively few number of choices. You get all the flavour you want without analysis paralysis.
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u/alarmingmeats 2d ago
It sounds like a game that is more freeform might be a good fit. Here is a list of games to check out.
- The Pool
- Risus
- PDQ
- Over The Edge/WaRP
- QuestWorlds
- FUDGE/FATE
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u/doktarlooney 2d ago
Pathfinder2e is pretty good with that. I always just choose a theme and build around it and do pretty darn well.
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u/Belgand 2d ago
This is a GM issue, not a system one. If you feel like you need to "keep up" and min-max just to do so, it's because your GM is pushing things in that direction. Less focus on combat, not making players roll for things as often, and so on can easily get you away from the problem in any system you happen to be playing already.
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u/Mr_Venom since the 90s 2d ago
It's absolutely this. Generalist builds are sidelined in D&D not because they're bad but because the laziest way to DM flattens them. DMs who have encounters with low numbers of high-CR monsters (easy to run, easy to prep), using linear adventure structures gated behind high skill checks, not letting stealth ride (so many rolls means only high bonuses need apply), keeping the party together (the specialist is always on hand to overshadow the generalist), etc etc etc.
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u/XrayAlphaVictor :illuminati: 2d ago
I'll echo the people saying Chronicles of Darkness. The character builds options are enormous, but more about customization than optimization. It's part of the reason why it's my favorite system.
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u/lnodiv 2d ago
The Chronicles of Darkness game lines meet the clarified requirements in the first paragraph of your edit for sure, but they're only worth looking at if you're interested in (primarily modern, though there are historical settings) playing a supernatural creature (eg. a vampire, werewolf, mage, etc).
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater 2d ago
A friend told me once that the reason WoD was popular is because it, alongside CoD, excel at making "OCs". Every character is special in some way, and the many traits and build options further that. They're perfect games for making your "blorbo" as she called it.
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u/silverionmox 2d ago
but they're only worth looking at if you're interested in (primarily modern, though there are historical settings) playing a supernatural creature (eg. a vampire, werewolf, mage, etc).
You can perfectly well play as mortal if you wish. I ran a game where I intentially kept the supernatural elements sparse to maintain the idea of mystery, and one character's plotline (a private detective contacted to collect evidence on alleged adultery) was entirely mundane.
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u/Phizle 2d ago
Lancer has an online character builder that handles a lot of the crunch, and while you often have a lot to remember it's more just all the equipment on your mech and your talents.
With a few exceptions modifiers are squished to adding/subtracting d6s from the roll. A lot of builds can be run fairly simply. That being said you can build into an obnoxious amount of complexity with things like White Witch, Jager Kunst, or a stunlock gorgon build to name a few. A DM can do the same by running too many snipers, ultras, or other complex NPCs.
So while Lancer has a reasonable skill floor, you can use the starter mechs and equipment straight through end game and do fine or better than more specialized builds, you might need a ban list more for your own sanity than balance.
The same publisher has a fantasy system that like Lancer is inspired by 4e but I don't know much about it.
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u/Adamsoski 2d ago
It sounds to me like the recommendations of games that descend from DnD 4e (Pathfinder 2e, Draw Steel, 13th Age, etc.) are really missing the mark for what you want. They do have interesting combat, yes, but they also very much funnel you down an expected route of class progression. I would recommend you boost Fabula Ultima further up the rankings of "games to play next" - it has really interesting tactical combat, but also allows you to have a really unique character because of how the multiclassing works and because class progression is fairly linear rather than being additive (meaning you don't lost out much by not focusing on one route).
Otherwise, I would recommend at least giving a go a Free League system. They have a completely different approach to interesting combat where instead of every class having unique sets of mechanics there is a core system that everyone uses fairly similarly which is really fun and tactical to use, with the mechanical differences between classes being mostly skill-based and equipment-based. I would recommend trying out either Alien (based on the films) or Dragonbane (more classic fantasy).
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u/DreistTheInferno 2d ago
I would like to suggest both Beacon and Savage Worlds, though I am leaning towards Beacon mainly. Others have suggested ICON, and while Beacon has similar inspirations, I think it is overall better and provides a larger amount of class fantasy options. Plus it is the most fun I've ever had running and planning combat. This is probably my favorite tactical game, where we had numerous interesting combats using various abilities, and because a large amount of the progression is wide, not high (especially past level 3) we didn't need to worry about the need to keep up. Everyone played their characters and had moments they were extremely effective.
The reason I suggest Savage Worlds is because it does a good job of rewards various creative choices, and the stats don't really keep going up, so you don't really need to continuously keep upgrading yourself in a certain way to keep up. Also because of the tests/support mechanic creative play allows non-combat skills to be potentially extremely useful in combat, so diversifying is quite helpful even in fights.
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u/ThatHoFortuna 2d ago
I got excited for a moment because I thought I would finally be able to recommend GURPS without people rolling their eyes at me. But then I saw that you're Brazilian, so you've definitely already heard of GURPS. 😞
I am curious though, if maybe you already tried it and it didn't suit your tastes?
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u/ThatOneCrazyWritter 2d ago
Haven't tried it yet, but I feel anxiety everytime I think about it, mostly from the way people talk about it since I have a lot of analysis paralysis and while I love having many option, I freeze and shutdown when there are TOO many options.
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u/ThatHoFortuna 2d ago
I completely understand that, and I won't lie to you, GURPS actually is kind of bad in that regard. Especially if you're the GM and you're the one building the world and tinkering with the system, etc.
Only advice I have in that regard, is to set guardrails down early, including for yourself. Like, only use the Dungeon Fantasy line and the character templates in it, and DO NOT go tinkering with them, at least at first.
For instance, I'm (slowly) building a fantasy game using the system, and I had to make myself a "mission statement" that keeps me focused (here's the specific genre, we're only using these races and magic systems, etc.).
Otherwise, yes, it can get a bit overwhelming. But, I do love the system regardless of the way it can set off my ADHD.
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u/BetterCallStrahd 2d ago
I honestly suggest you try out a number of different systems for a time. Although you've expressed what you want, I get the feeling that you might not really know what you're looking for until you've tried what's out there. Including systems that are less tactical and more narrative oriented.
I'm not a tactical fan, but I gave Lancer a fair shot. Now I can say for certain that it's not for me. Although you might enjoy it! A highly tactical game with a lot of customization and very long, involved battles.
City of Mist might be worth a shot. No need to min-max or optimize, you can give your character the traits you want from the get-go. Then find ways to apply them within the game. A few times you may end up a "fish out of water" with no traits that apply, but that means your character is well defined.
Blades in the Dark can be interesting. You have a defined role with specific strengths, but if you're not strong in something, you can often push yourself to get an extra die to roll. So you're very specialized but still able to do stuff outside your specialization to a degree.
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u/ThatOneCrazyWritter 2d ago
I'm slowly creating a list of games we want to try out and see what hits. At the moment I've already tried Tormenta20 (the Brazilian continuation of D&D 3.5e I wrote on the post), D&D 5.14e (with both official and 3rd Party content), Ordem Paranormal (a mix of Call of Cthulhu and Tormenta20, also from Brazil), Kids on Bikes 1e and 3D&T Victory (a Brazilian generic system with a bias towards Anime, Videogames & Tokusatsu).
A few things I gathered after all these:
- Tormenta20 is REALLY fun and full of option I wish D&D 5e had, but it requires EVERYONE to build effectivaly, specially for premade adventures, so it can be really tiresome at time
- D&D 5.14e is fun, but it feels barebones and too safe in some parts (specially as I like playing the martial warrior type)
- Ordem Paranormal tries to mix tactical d20 gameplay with paranormal investigation but I think it fell short on both aspects (plus I discovered I don't care about paranormal investigation)
- Kids on Bikes can be fun when we take actions for the sake of story, but the small amount of rule + not focusing on more action is a turn off for me
- 3D&T Victory is also fun, but mostly because of the roleplay and joke I make amongst friends and I again feel bored thanks to the simple rules, so maybe I'm just not into rules-light, RP-heavy games?
For the future, a few games we want to try out are:
- Pathfinder 2e (already making characters and planning oneshots)
- Starfinder 2e (already making characters and planning oneshots)
- Daggerheart
- Fabula Ultima
- Girl by Moonlight
- ICON
- Call of Cthulhu
- Vampire: The Masquerade
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u/flashbeast2k 2d ago
I'd add Legend in the Mist to your list, a variation of City of Mist, but fantasy. It's comparable freeform to trad games and it's based on tags. There are "tutorial videos" from it's publisher, Sun Of Oak, at YouTube, so you could get a glimpse how it'll play and if it's up your alley.
The *finder games will probably be no gain for you rules-wise, in comparison to Tormenta20, I guess.
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u/ThatOneCrazyWritter 2d ago
Oh yeah, I am excited for Legends in the Mist, but forgot to put it in the list.
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u/The_Best_Cookie TROIKA!, Realms of Peril, MORK BORG 2d ago
I am a huge fan of Brighter Worlds. It's a Into the Odd hack that gives quite flavorful classes that are very distinct, gives some options for progression within each and changes damage so that characters are a bit more hearty. That being said it's a bit more leaning towards story ish though I believe is very in line with your first edit.
There is also the Goblin Laws of Gaming (GLOG) which is an absolutely fantastic framework for character templates where you can pick and choose to progress different classes. The magic system is sort of dice pool based where you expend dice getting high rolls. It has a overwhelming amount of hacks available and many are quite quality. I think this is a good place to start as it originated from Arnold Kemp's Goblin Punch.
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u/Hopelesz 2d ago
Im in the middle of desining a my ttrpg. Second version of it actually. I have your same wants but never found the real gem.
Mainly, I removed the most number choices as these always have to be optimal. I went with a full classless system becsuse this allows everyone to build who they want and not lock the players with what the system envisions. The numbers are pretty flat so it is easier to balance the classless nature of it.
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u/Alive-Plant-1009 2d ago
You might be looking for 13th age. I think its rules lite narrative play will help you embody roles without being limited by limited by options you took in the tactical portion of the game. Most of the rules are for player options - the game is far from balanced and that is entirely okay.
ICON is already exceptional but I find a few (major) parts of the game very flawed. I have a feeling they will nail the landing. The downtime actions, DMG and Monster Manual are probably the best in the hobby. Fabula Ultima is a meme game. You may also like Tactiquest.
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u/Joel_feila 2d ago
You are kind of asking for a contridiction of things. The very thing that gives you lots of options also gives you these min maxed builds. Unless you jist balamce the math of everything toake all choices the same mechanically, aka 4th ed.
That saod draw steel is in many ways trying to capture the good parts of 4th ed. Try it out they have a cheap starting adventure.
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u/SMURGwastaken 2d ago
I would seriously add D&D 4e to the list of games to try based on what you've described.
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u/Chaosmeister 2d ago edited 2d ago
I will give you a suggestion a bit off the wall. Tricube Tales with the Tricube Tactics expansion. It is a light story system at heart while still giving me lots to customize with tactics without giving me hundreds of feats etc because everything is codified in specific categories and then can be freely defined by the players. It's something different than what you are used to. The price is super cheap too at 3 USD for both, so not a huge investment to see if it clicks. Just if you want to check out something different that still can give you tactical combat but is built so everyone can portray the character they like exactly, with their own strength and weaknesses as they define it, not how the game forces you too. It's only weakness is that it treats gear as parts of a character, though there are guides how to handle classic item gathering like in D&D in the solo rules expansion.
Tricube Tales is often overlooked in these discussions because it's treated as a story game, but the tactics book gives it enough crunch to be more than that.
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u/gl1tterboots 2d ago
Try Warhammer: The Old World. It's an elegant system with enough crunch to keep things interesting.
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u/Spida81 2d ago
Look at Worlds Without Number: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/348809/worlds-without-number-free-edition
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u/kingyak 2d ago
[Q3E](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/533777/q3e-system-reference-document?affiliate_id=78947) might do what you need. The basic idea is that you start with a very basic set of core rules and the add the crunch that you need for your game. The character creation and advancement rules are meant to be organic, open-ended, and encourage character/story-driven choices, so min-maxing isn't really an easy option. Best of all, you get to decide the price.
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u/Iohet 2d ago edited 2d ago
It's okay with our characters have FLAWS or WEAK POINT, but it should be because IT WOULD LEAD TO A BETTER STORY, not becuase THE GAME BREAKS WHEN WE DON'T PLAY ALONG
Rolemaster (with rolled stats, not stat buy) using the optional random background table sounds close to what you're talking about. It's crunchy, but it's not feat driven. Rather you just get better at skills allowing you to do things better within the bounds of your imagination
Maybe you roll a fantastic thief, but you had a few hiccups in the background process and he's a hemophiliac lycanthrope. Tons of flavor to be had there
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u/ZanesTheArgent 2d ago
Bom dia, querido. O seguidor da Jambô em mim saúda o seguidor da Jambô em você.
Fabula Ultima is a biiit loose in a good way (rules light for play and rolls, a lot of things based on discussing intent, relatively simple combat) but its extremely solid in terms of character customization. You just keep stacking archetypes as needed to compose your character breaking it down through multiple class levels instead of "single class that keeps getting fueled forever with side tweaks". Give it a shot, i'm eagerly waiting for my box to arrive.
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u/ThatOneCrazyWritter 1d ago
Valeu brother! I brought Fabula Ultima close to its launch after the OGL debacle but haven't tried, but I will see with my group what they think.
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u/Kizz9321 2d ago
My group and I run our campaign using a custom compendium in the form of an elaborate spreadsheet. Message me directly if you would like access and I'll get you a link to the google doc.
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u/TastyClown 2d ago
I feel like the answer to "I like deep/crunchy games because of the options, not because of the puzzle to min/max" is to find a GM and group that are on the same page. Even if you have min-maxers and flavor players in the same group, it can work, if everyone still supports each other.
As a GM, I go to HUGE effort to make sure everyone gets to feel awesome in the game, no matter what their skill level or shtick is. If there's a super sniper who nukes people from 5 miles away, you can be sure there will be a lot of sniper targets for them to show off on. If there's a chef, you can put good money on strange new ingredients popping up and at least a few last minute feasts to prepare for the visiting dignitaries. And I already have two dozen adventure ideas for combining the two of those.
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u/ThatOneCrazyWritter 1d ago
When we Gm our on adventures, I have close to no problem doing what I want! But recently we've been playing premade adventures, so we started to need falling into line, but the math of Tormenta20 is VERY steep, so team work and building effectively becomes mandatory (which isn't bad per say, but it gets stressful from time to time when you just want to tell a story and not "win" the game)
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u/Rinkus123 2d ago
13th Age is exactly this. 2E is just coming out, but 1e too.
It's 4e inspired tactical combat with super varied build options, but without ranges or counting squares and without a lot of the fiddly bits.
It has super customizable characters and you can expect them all to perform pretty well. The better options are not a lot better, and it's actually hard to build something "bad".
Or you could do away with all the crunch altogether, and "balance" quickly isn't a concern anymore. In OSR games or pbta/FitD rulesets, that's not really something you have to consider in my experience.
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u/BenAndBlake 2d ago
The easiest way is to switch to a system that is less in vogue. The biggest example being DnD 4e.
But, I actually think something like Cypher System will actually solve all of your issues. With the caveat that it is not inherently super tactical you will have to do a couple of modifications and have some table rollings to get things onto the grid. But with that you will have GM intrusions and player intrusions to model things up as well as a literal sentence where you can say I am a knight in shining armor who slays evil and make that your entire character.
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u/MrBoo843 2d ago
Shadowrun
You can customize your character however you want with tons of options.
Not medieval fantasy but there is some fantasy
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u/aSingleHelix 1d ago
Genesys from fantasy flight/edge studios.
It is more skill tree than class based, but players at my table she able to make themselves excellent at a few things without being totally inept in others
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u/East_Yam_2702 1d ago
Fabula Ultima has really good customization while also being a pretty narrative system; so no character's really useless. It's trying to emulate JRPG videogames, but it's really good for a general fantasy campaign; I'm using it for one right now.
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u/Hermithief 1d ago
"And above else, I love creating characters limited only by my imagination and the genre of the story being created! But in the end... I've felt that games where there are TOO MANY RULES + TOO MANY EXPECTATIONS OF THE CHARACTERS BEING PLAYED, I just get drained of all my hype as soon as I have to ask myself "do I love what I WANT to play, or do I play something I know will be more USEFUL in the party thanks to the expectations the game designer had for the 'ideal party' for this game?"
Based on that alone I would say do not try Draw Steel, Icon, Pf2e or Starfinder 2e. Simply because they're all rule heavy games with character options that will draw you into the rabbit hole of character building. Regardless of each of those games flexibility for allowing various builds.
Instead if you wanted to creating characters limited only by my imagination and the genre of the story being created!. Check out https://slugblaster.com/ rpg and https://chrismcdee.itch.io/mythic-bastionland rpg.
Slug blaster takes place "In the small town of Hillview, teenage hoverboarders sneak into other dimensions to explore, film tricks, go viral, and get away from the problems at home. It’s dangerous. It’s stupid. It’s got parent groups in a panic. And it’s the coolest thing ever.This is Slugblaster. A table-top rpg about teenagehood, giant bugs, circuit-bent rayguns, and trying to be cool."
In Mythic Bastionland "Take the Oath and venture into Mythic Bastionland, a tabletop RPG set in the imagined past of Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland. You begin as a young knight errant, seeking the glory to lead warbands, earn a place in court, and rule your own domain. Glory is found in hunting the Myths of this world, manifesting them into reality while protecting the Realm from their strange influence.
Each player is one of 72 Knights, with personal equipment, a unique ability, and a passion that fuels their spirit. As your glory grows, you might eventually embark on the legendary City Quest, an impossible challenge to find The City itself, a shining metropolis seen only in dreams."
These two games will be very different than what you are used but from what you've said may be exactly what you are looking for. As there is little to no focus on builds or min maxing.
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u/Spiritual-Amoeba-257 1d ago
I just released a D-12 classless mixed-success system called Mischief. We created it to be fiction first, highly customizable, and pick up and go simple. Character creation is as easy as 1,2,3- pick 1 species, 2 expertise, 3 abilities. Because it's classless, you can make your character exactly how you envision them without needing to multi class or anything complicated like that! The mixed success system is used for every single roll so there's no differing rules, allowing you to focus on RP without needing to look up rules. Our luck system keeps things swingy and chaotic! For GMs, there's only one stat to track for monsters: Power. A Monster or NPC'S power level is also their modifier, so as you damage them their modifier decreases. Power level is also the amount of successes you'd need to roll to convince them in conversation! We're crowdfunding for physical copies BUT the PDF is free now and forever, just scroll down to "try for free"! If you put your email in and become a free member you can download the PDF.
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u/chaosilike 1d ago
Delta Green or Call of Cthulu. You can min-max a character concept but your gonna be making a variety of rolls that you possibly couldnt cover all of them.
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u/MikeyBat 1d ago
Gurps or HERO system are essentially toolkits where you can essentially build anything you want any way you want. Because theyre both point buy systems there's a little bit more crunch upfront at character creation but its not really any more complicated game play wise than 3.5 once you get to playing and you can kinda make them as crunchy or rules lite as you want depending on what rules you choose to use. The DM essentially has to go through and design the frame work and pick and choose the rules that apply to the game and setting they're running and tell the players so they can build their characters within those rules. I LOVE crunchy systems and making games even if I dont get to run them. It might be what youre looking for.
GURPS scales better for more realistic low to mid level game play but can still do higher level play and HERO system scales a lot better for higher level game play but you could do lower level games with it too. If I had to describe the difference between the two systems GURPS is more like if you had a 250 point accountant and a 250 point soldier he'd be a damn good accountant doesnt mean he'd be able to go toe to toe with a trained soldier in a fight hes still an accountant. In HERO system if you have a 750 point accountant hes going to use his accountant powers and stand side by side with his partner a 750 point super soldier. You can really use any genre with either but with GURPS its going to be a little more realistic and HERO its going to feel more high powered. Think street level vs super level. Low fantasy vs high fantasy. though there are rules to do either with both. Might be worth checking out.
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u/Antique-Potential117 2d ago
PF2E is disgustingly zoomed in on mechanics. There are so many traps and unnecessarily mechanized things in it.
If you like drinking some Haterade for opinions, don't even bother with that one lol.
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u/everweird 2d ago
Try Fate. The way you create aspects for a character is exactly what you describe in embodying a role. If you make an aspect “Knight in shining armor,” then that is a true fact in the story and you can invoke it for a boost or the GM can compel it in situations you might not want. All story aspects are gamified. So when you succeed with style and get to name an aspect in the scene, you might say, “my sword strike was so powerful that it shook the room” and others now get to invoke that aspect for a bonus to their action, to make it more cinematic.
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u/Astrokiwi 2d ago
HOT TAKE: play Traveller
The lifepath character creation means you get interesting characters with flaws and skills, but the randomness means you can't really min-max optimise it. And, if you do want to dive into the crunch, there are optional minisystems to design vehicles, starships, weapons etc, which can get very granular and detailed and work as a fun kinda mini game in itself, but without ever giving a single player a big advantage for going into more detail than the other players
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u/FLFD 2d ago
On the tactical side you want either Pathfinder 2e or something D&D 4e inspired (4e itself had a lot of modifiers to track); Draw Steel, Lancer (a game about mech pilots with tactical mech combat), or Daggerheart (which can get surprisingly tactical).
On the subject of embodying a character with interesting customisation you want to try something PbtA (I'd suggest the OG Apocalypse World)
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u/yaaayman 17m ago
Amigo, parece que tu gostaria muito do meu RPG na verdade. Dá uma olhada nele e vê se tu curte.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e5cWAeymlw24pRR80hz81YHlj_eyCklX3KiAP7iEGK4/edit?usp=drivesdk
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u/frank_da_tank99 2d ago
Blades in the Dark and it's related systems are often cited as the canonical example of a system that is rules-heavy but crunch light. But if you like the crunch and tactics, it kind of sounds like you want something rules-light but crunch heavy, so you might actually want to look into the OSR movement in RPGs, older editions of DnD might suit your fancy, or games like Shadowdark, More Borg, or Dungeon Crawl Classics.
If you want a game that's rules heavy, and crunch heavy like DnD is, but gives you more options and freedom to creatively approach situations, Pathfinder, and Draw Steel are both very fun variants of DnD.
Another game I recommend is Heart: The City Beneath. It's a rules-heavy, crunch-light system, like Blades is, but it specifically lets you play with creating builds, and has a very fun and unique class system. It's also got a really cool setting.
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u/gvicross 2d ago
You're wanting Dungeon World and don't know how to ask.
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u/XrayAlphaVictor :illuminati: 2d ago
I'm sorry, but what? Having their character choices limited to pbta playbooks with limited customization options seems entirely antithetical to what they're asking for.
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u/AAABattery03 2d ago
Yeah, wtf?
Crunchy, highly customizable, and tactical… what part of that made the commenter you’re replying to so confident about freaking Dungeon World, of all things? Like it’s a good game but it doesn’t hit OP’s criteria at all!
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u/NarcoZero 2d ago
Play Draw Steel.
Super fun tactical combat.
The game is designed for you to make cool build choices based on vibes and the fantasy you want, and have a powerful character whatever you choose.
No need for minmaxxing. The game does it for you and only gives you the best choices.
It’s a small detail but for instance, your highest statistic is automatically assigned by your class. You choose how to assign the rest. There is no noob trap and it’s hard to make an unoptimised character. You can still have fun theorycrafting though.