Blades in the Dark (BitD) is a fiction first system. 

This means that what you can do depends on the situation you're in within the game. There is no set skill list.  Your imagination is what runs the game.

It does take a bit of thinking on one's feet, so the GM should be ready to improvise quite a bit.

If it has a downside, it's that its not particularly campaign friendly, but better for short adventures, say 10 sessions or fewer. The character progression is not tuned for long campaigns.

But if you want a fun time in between adventures in other systems (e.g, D&D, Pathfinder), you can't go wrong with BitD.

Savage Worlds is a grand-daddy of rules lite systems.

It has a long history as a system powering all sorts of genres.

Like most rules light systems, it doesn't lend itself to long campaign arcs, but it's good for an adventure over a few dozen sessions.

Its leveling dice progression mechanic and cards for initiative are pretty unique, though the cards can seem a bit gimmicky at times.

It's easy to pick up and quick to run. It's good for a night where not all the players show, or when you want a pallet cleanser from more crunchy systems.

Call of Cthulhu (CoC) is the original horror genre TTRPG. 

Based on Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying Engine (though it wasn't called that until later), it allows players to descend into madness as they save the world from the cosmic abyss.

It's also the original investigation oriented game. Prior RPGs focused mostly on getting stuff. CoC focuses on solving mysteries.

Characters either die or go insane rather quickly, but depending on the GM, a long campaign is possible.

Frankly, the system doesn't support the investigation aspect as well as it could. It's too easy for the adventure to stall because a character failed a roll, and an inventive GM has to find a way to get the information to the players without using the system as written. (Derivatives such as Trail of Cthulhu and Night's Black Agents, both Gumshoe system games, work better for investigations.)

Besides the rules, CoC has some of the best adventures ever written. Masks of Nyarlathotep and Horror on the Orient Express are set piece adventures that show what the genre is truly capable of.

Cypher System is Monte Cook's dream system. When he created Monte Cook Games, he designed the system he always wanted to play.

The result is a not quite rules-light or crunchy system that finds a good middle ground.

Where the game truly shines is in the settings though. Before marketing it as a generic system with "genre slices", the settings for Numenera and The Strange were the vehicles to play the system.  They are the true gems of the Cypher System.

The x3 mechanic for difficulty can feel a little tacked on, as it seems it would just be easier to assign a flat number rather than 1-10 and then x3 to get the difficulty, but it works well enough in practice.

Cyphers, the namesake of the system, are really cool. They take the idea of consumables found in most other games and give them a greater purpose.

Perhaps my favorite products that support this system are the "Instant Adventures". They are a format of adventures that take almost no prep time. Others have replicated the format for other systems to varying degrees, but these are truly wonderful for the "just add dice" and play situations.

The only detraction in my opinion is not of the system, but the retirement of The Strange. It was an innovative world-hopping game that was the best multi-genre game I've ever played. (Think Sliders if you remember that show.) Due mostly to the simplicity of the Cypher system, it worked well and was lots of fun to play.

What can I say about D&D 5e? It's the latest edition of the original, the seminal, the measure against which all other current systems are compared. Any explanation for a TTRPG usually start with "Like D&D, but <insert differences here>.

The 2014 version is almost the perfect blend of the previous versions that came before it, with several new mechanics that have influenced systems since.

2024 brings a fresh new look, though not without controversy.

You could probably not play all the adventures for 5e in a single lifetime. Both versions are largely compatible with previous editions, as well as having lots of new material to use.

Even if you don't play D&D, owning the books is probably good just to know what others are comparing against when they play your game.

Go play some D&D.  You'll more likely than not love it.  And if you don't, it will give you a good baseline for playing the other games available.

icosahedron

My preferences

Reviews I've given (15)