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Poll: What was the first non-D&D system you ever GM'd?
- Thread starter JohnnFour
- Start date
JochenL
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Adamantium WoA
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I am considering getting the book printed. I see Cepheus and Cepheus Light and several other (genre?) books.
@ExileInParadise, what is the difference? Or what to start with?
Samardan / Jason Kemp adapted the Mongoose SRD into Cepheus Engine - and that is what I would start with for greatest compatibility with Classic Traveller, Mongoose v1, and to a degree T5.
Cepheus Light, FTL, Quantum, Atom, etc are all streamline and adaptations etc that are each aimed to a particular type of sci-fi gaming.
GURPS
If you don't count the D&D itself and our very own hacks of D&D, it was GURPS
But D&D itself was far from D&D in my case. Because we were a bunch of big kids without enough English and without rulebooks! We've got some excerpts and bits in ENglish and some article _about_ D&D in Russian. For example, we had listings and tables for items, but no descriptions or explanations
We've contacted both our English teachers at school with long, long list of words we didn't know. The worse one rejected us and said she just doesn't know those words. The better and younger one said she doesn't know the words also, but will research. She found us two days later. Her eyes were huge and her image bewildered like some lovecraftian protag's. She said'sthese ain't English words. At least some of them. Welsh, Old French and so on. 'Bec de corbin', anyone?
Yep, it was pre-internet era in Ukraine. Not tottaly preinternet, we've got our bits from fido, but ... but.
Of course, the setbacks and lack of rules didn't prevent us from playing ... d&d ...as we got it ;-)
PS also Pool Of Radiance helped a lot (but we found it a year later)
If you don't count the D&D itself and our very own hacks of D&D, it was GURPS
But D&D itself was far from D&D in my case. Because we were a bunch of big kids without enough English and without rulebooks! We've got some excerpts and bits in ENglish and some article _about_ D&D in Russian. For example, we had listings and tables for items, but no descriptions or explanations
We've contacted both our English teachers at school with long, long list of words we didn't know. The worse one rejected us and said she just doesn't know those words. The better and younger one said she doesn't know the words also, but will research. She found us two days later. Her eyes were huge and her image bewildered like some lovecraftian protag's. She said'sthese ain't English words. At least some of them. Welsh, Old French and so on. 'Bec de corbin', anyone?
Yep, it was pre-internet era in Ukraine. Not tottaly preinternet, we've got our bits from fido, but ... but.
Of course, the setbacks and lack of rules didn't prevent us from playing ... d&d ...as we got it ;-)
PS also Pool Of Radiance helped a lot (but we found it a year later)
I think it was Star Frontiers that I GMd after D&D, but there were a few. Traveller comes to mind, in the little black box set, and Gamma World, too.
Stephan Hornick
Community Goblin
Staff member
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
How is Gamma World like? I always wondered. Is it similar to the anime or completely different?
If I recall, it was post apocalyptic, but it's been a reaaaaaaaaaally long time since I played it.
I voted Shadowrun but it's been so long that I'm only 75% sure of that. It might have been Rolemaster 2nd Edition.
Stephan Hornick
Community Goblin
Staff member
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
It's actually not about favorite system, but about the system which was your introduction to roleplaying games, i.e. a counting of possible gateway systems.
For favorite system we should clearly make another thread and specifically differentiate between system, setting and story.
E.g. I love the starwars system, but I'm not quite fond of playing in the star wars universe (probably because I only had not so great one shots and I don't want to spoil my impression of the setting). On the other hand, I love the shadowrun setting, but I find the system to be crappy and unnecessarily complicated. Likewise, I .... no, I better stop here. This is for another thread. If you like the idea of talking about merits and flaws of different systems or settings and polling for favorite systems / settings, then please start another thread for this.
For favorite system we should clearly make another thread and specifically differentiate between system, setting and story.
E.g. I love the starwars system, but I'm not quite fond of playing in the star wars universe (probably because I only had not so great one shots and I don't want to spoil my impression of the setting). On the other hand, I love the shadowrun setting, but I find the system to be crappy and unnecessarily complicated. Likewise, I .... no, I better stop here. This is for another thread. If you like the idea of talking about merits and flaws of different systems or settings and polling for favorite systems / settings, then please start another thread for this.
Touché. Still I find it surprising that WoD which is a very elegant system* in my opinion didn't come up more.
*: making it pretty approachable for new gms or new players.
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Same here.
It's also a huge setting with lots of different possible PC types. If I'd tried starting with WoD with my current group I'd have people clamoring to be werewolfves, vampires, ghosts, hunters, and more. That's a lot of different subsystems to learn for someone who is bad at saying no.
Than you're not making it easy on yourself for sure.Same here.
It's also a huge setting with lots of different possible PC types. If I'd tried starting with WoD with my current group I'd have people clamoring to be werewolfves, vampires, ghosts, hunters, and more. That's a lot of different subsystems to learn for someone who is bad at saying no.
Definitely. Hence the "bad at saying no" part.
I don't know why, but it's harder for me with my current group. Back when I ran Exalted it was easy to tell the PCs to stick to Solars.
I don't know why, but it's harder for me with my current group. Back when I ran Exalted it was easy to tell the PCs to stick to Solars.
I'm going a bit off topic here. But I think I know what you mean.Definitely. Hence the "bad at saying no" part.
I don't know why, but it's harder for me with my current group. Back when I ran Exalted it was easy to tell the PCs to stick to Solars.
In the past (précovid) I had the same 'problem'. I had a hard time saying no to my players (most of them are my closest friends including my wife). I thought by putting boundaries I would limit their join.
During the pandemic I learned a lot about myself (with the help of a therapist) and it really helped me with setting boundaries to my players and others in my life.
My players didn't mind those boundaries one bit. It helped the campaign a lot by enhancing the theme and mood.
It took a long time for me to realize that, too. A disjointed party often ends up in a disjointed campaign. A focused group tends to also focus their sights on one or two goals.
Stephan Hornick
Community Goblin
Staff member
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Great idea. Please post a list of systems you would like to add.