Help me think about a game system for a West Marches inspired campaign

[ffilz]

I backed Izirion's Enchiridion of the West Marches by Sam Sorensen for which PDF was just delivered. I've long been considering setting up a West Marches inspired campaign. I say inspired because I'm NOT in a position to do the "players schedule sessions with a rotating cast of players" because I have a fixed 2 hour time slot every other week, the full on rotating cast would result in much too infrequent play for characters. Also, 2 hour sessions don't remotely allow for an expedition to set out from town, accomplish something and return.

Now, the big thing is what game system to use.

I'd love to use Cold Iron (college friend's homebrew I've talked about before and have some discussion and links here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nyOzdxP8VZV2oSyKnxnS160WBRpC1Cd9fNfn2Va9VAI/edit?usp=sharing ) but finding players interested in playing a game they've never heard of and no one else has ever heard of either seems a long shot. Plus I'd need to add all the exploration procedural mechanics because it comes from the era where RPGs mostly focused on combat and magic mechanics, with maybe some idea of a skill system, but no real procedures to use those skill mechanics. But I had a lot of fun running this back in college, and West Marches with the "leveled" regions would overcome the biggest issue I had back then, of figuring out how to balance encounters. While West Marches suggests lots of signalling of encounter difficulty, I don't think it has to be perfect as long as I make some attempt (besides 3E and later CR calculations aren't perfect either). The key is to have each region feature a small number of different denizens and try and keep the encounter sizes from varying too widely. The players will just have to make exploratory missions into new regions, prepared to bail out if a combat starts going bad. I think it could be a lot of fun and encourage a lot of player agency.

The other options are some form of D&D. I'd be inclined to try out Old School Essentials or Rob Conley's Majestic Fantasy. I'm not too interested in getting into D&D 5.0 and while I have 3.5 (and Arcana Evolved) which might sell well, I'm just not into that. OD&D, BX, BECM, or AD&D 1e would all be possibilities also.

It would be an interesting thing to do with Empire of the Petal Throne or Talislanta, though one would want to create a "new" world since you don't want to have the players expect things to be anywhere near the same as the published setting. I suppose one could do RuneQuest also (or other BRP/D100 games), on the other hand, I'm running an RQ1/Glorantha campaign I quite enjoy, so part of this would be to run something different.

And I'm mostly assuming I'm going to have to recruit new players. The RQ players have by and large indicated every other week is the most they can do a late night game (we run 8:30 PM to 10:30 PM Pacific Time which is really late for anyone East of me) and the current off week is Traveller (which I'm not sure how long I'm going to run, I am starting to get burned out on Traveller).

Frank

 

[ReluctantGM]

OSE or Majestic Fantasy would be great options. With a 2-hour window for play you want to have a simple, robust system that stays out of your way during play.

 

[ReluctantGM]

If you're on the BRP train I might suggest Open Quest as a nice, light system that runs real fast in play. The new rules set for the upcoming 3rd Edition is tickling all the right bits for my gaming table.

 

[Fenris-77]

My preference in OSR games is for something with a few more modcons than some of the more faithful retroclones. The Black Hack is great, as is 5 Torches
Deep, as is Vagabonds of Dyfed. Into the Wryd and Wild has some great exploration and resource mechanics as well. Thats pretty much the rules package I'm running on the Pub right now., well, starting to run.

 

[zarion]

Mythras!!!

 

[Raleel]

I would say a d100 system for the skills allowing a lot of interaction points, and because, if I remember correctly, you are well familiar with it already. Of course, I like mythras, but other options present good choices as well (though clearly not as good as our lord and savior Mythras)

 

[ffilz]

In general, I'm not looking to get into a new game system...

The D100 options are a slim possibility. I grant that they would be interesting to run in a West Marches inspired setting, however, as I mentioned, my alternate weeks is a well established, don't plan to end anytime soon, RQ1 campaign in Glorantha. So running basically the same system the other week is less interesting to me. And to be honest, I'd want to run RQ. And when I run RQ I like Glorantha, so... The most likely scenario there would be to run in the deep wastes or something, or I suppose Dorastor could be run West Marches style.

So outside of the long shot of getting folks interested in Cold Iron, I'm probably looking at OD&D, AD&D 1e, BX, BECM, or a retro-clone of which I already have Old School Essentials and am in the Majestic Fantasy Kickstarter. I probably have a few other OSR games that were free kicking around, but I'm not clear that any of them have anything really to say for themselves.

Talislanta and EPT might be interesting, but they would be odd to run outside their associated settings. And I've never run either system, though EPT is on the face of it, just another version of D&D.

 

[ffilz]

Oh, I and I was reminded, I'm in the Worlds Without Number Kickstarter...

 

[Fenris-77]

The Black Hack is $6 Canadian on Drivethru. Not a huge barrier to entry. That said, any retroclone will get the job done. I'd still recommend one that has a better encumbrance and resource mechanics than the original.

 

[Brock Savage]

I recently fell in love OSE's masterful B/X reboot. Man, it is a tight little system, easy to run and maybe most importantly easy on newcomers to the hobby. I ran a game just last week and it was a huge success, everyone had a lot of fun.

 

[Fenris-77]

The more OSR I play the further 5E falls into my rearview mirror. And I'm saying that as somone who quite likes 5E.

 

[Raleel]

which one of these ones do i run if I just want to do Keep on the borderlands with my group? the original?

 

[Fenris-77]

Which OSR system?

 

[Raleel]

Which OSR system?

yea. we've occasionally talked about it, and i'm always a couple campaigns ahead.

 

[Brock Savage]

The more OSR I play the further 5E falls into my rearview mirror. And I'm saying that as somone who quite likes 5E.

I know, right? I enjoyed running 5e for a good solid couple of years but it started to feel too video gamey and not lethal enough for my next project. I still think it's a great system

 

[Fenris-77]

I know, right? I enjoyed running 5e for a good solid couple of years but it started to feel too video gamey and not lethal enough for my next project. I still think it's a great system

Me too, but there are just too many moving parts that don't seem to add anything to the play experience. I get a better game out of less rules with other systems.

 

[Brock Savage]

which one of these ones do i run if I just want to do Keep on the borderlands with my group? the original?

Bro I am running Keep on the Borderlands uising OSE. I just did it last week! I sexed up B2 for Carcosa. Check it out.

 

[Fenris-77]

Bro I am running Keep on the Borderlands uising OSE. I just did it last week! I sexed up B2 for Carcosa. Check it out.

I could run Keep with no rules. I've played that module more than any other, and even after many, many, years, I still have a bunch of it memorized. It's the only module ive done as a speed run. Slightly less than 40 minutes real time. Wheee!

 

[AsenRG]

I'd recommend using Talislanta. Especially the latest version has lots to recommend it for just such a campaign.

I could run Keep with no rules. I've played that module more than any other, and even after many, many, years, I still have a bunch of it memorized. It's the only module ive done as a speed run. Slightly less than 40 minutes real time. Wheee!

I've only done a speed run of a "module" the wife did for Open RPG Day (urban fantasy investigation - kinda like Witchcraft, but she used some other, heavily houseruled system). She was disappointed that the players didn't manage to overcome it (due to nor listening, in my sincere opinion).
Then she said it's probably her fault as a Referee. I reiterated my opinion as vehemently as I do on forums. She still had her doubts.
I challenged her that I can pass it for time. So I made a character, who wasn't Shang Tsung because I filed the serial numbers really well, and challenged her to go harder on me and give me less info.
I finished in barely over am hour what they'd failed in four.
Best part of it, I made sure to tell the players in question!

 

[ReluctantGM]

Oh, I and I was reminded, I'm in the Worlds Without Number Kickstarter...

I am absolutely giddy about Worlds Without Number. I have been following the PDF updates for months and I love what I'm seeing. Once it releases I'm going to do a series of one shots with my group and see if it's a system they want to dive into.

In revisiting your original question I think if you're looking at D&D-esque systems I'd be torn between Majestic Wilderlands and Worlds Without Number. I am getting tired of the games that rehash 0E, B/X, etc... Wilderlands and Worlds both add new and interesting bits to chew on. OSE is beautiful and all but it isn't really anything new.

 

[The Butcher]

It’s got to be a system that appeals to you on some level, be it in rational or even sentimental terms.

I’m a fan of ACKS because it strikes both notes for me. It evokes BECMI/RC D&D but also cleans up the engine and introduces clever new mechanics.

I’m not in the WWN KS because I don’t do crowdfunding, but if Mr. Crawford’s track record is anything to go by, it might displace ACKS as my go-to TSR/OSR engine.

I usually reach for Mythras or Savage Worlds if I think D&D can’t do it right out of the box.

 

[arjunstc]

I am currently running a campaign with the same circumstances as yours: a fixed time slot on a fixed day of the week, with a stable of players.

I am using Five Torches Deep, which is a cut down version of 5E with some mechanisms for keeping track of expendable items, and some abstracted rules for when the game has to end and you need to decide whether the heroes get back to base safely or not.

There are a few detailed reviews of the rules on youtube.

I am running Barrowmaze, with the party heading out for a "day trip" each session, so they will start the session equipping and planning where to explore (this bit can be done "offline" if you only have 2 hours per session), and then they starting delving until the time is roughly 5pm and they have to make it back to town before it gets dark.

I've got five players, and I have four seats at my table each session. Each player has two characters, and they can decide which one to play for a given session.

 

[ffilz]

It’s got to be a system that appeals to you on some level, be it in rational or even sentimental terms.

Sentiment and rationality are at cross purposes a bit here...

Sentimentally wise, I've long wanted to get Cold Iron gaming going again, but rationality says the number of folks who would be interested in checking the system out (who are OK with the late evening time frame of my session slot) is unlikely to be very big. It's not like I'm recruiting for some new OSR game where recruiting could go OK even without having a big name behind it. It's an entirely different system, and one that has some scary math to boot (it's actually not that scary, but people see hints of the math and get scared).

One of the things I REALLY like about Cold Iron (which I also happen to like about RuneQuest) is that the system provides a sensible sink for all the treasure the PCs will find in a D&D-like fantasy setup. RQ makes skill training a big thing. In Cold Iron, it's purchasable magic items that don't break the system (unless you have gobs and gobs of cash, almost all of the magic item expenditure will go to items with a finite lifetime). The nature of this also adds a strategic element that I feel will mesh well with the West Marches idea of scout things out and if they're too hard to take on now, plan for how you will take them on.

Traditional D&D would have the problem that the gold coming back doesn't do much for the PC until they have enough to buy a castle. But setting up a castle is sort of contrary to the West Marches idea...

My only experience with any D&D newer than AD&D 1.0 is D&D 3.x in the form of Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, where I took heart to the strict magic item economy, which is at least theoretically important to keeping the CR/EL system working. Here is one advantage of actually going back to old school. Don't try and evaluate the CR/EL of the regions, just make an attempt to have easier ones closer in, and do your best to telegraph what's there, try and make it hard to accidentally wander into a TPK (though with old school D&D those aren't the end of the campaign). Then the players are responsible for judging risk and planning. Meanwhile I'm absolved fro having to be perfect at determining if such and such is a level 1 encounter or a level 5 encounter...

Oh, another factor that I think works well for Cold Iron here, at least the way we ran it, it was not uncommon to have big fights that drained the PCs resources until they had some time to rest. That works well with a more wilderness encounter focus where you're not going to have multiple encounters per day. It speaks for smaller dungeons, but that's fine. I think smaller dungeons work well with West Marches, and there's nothing wrong with the PCs having to retreat and come back another day. Various forms of D&D may be a bit more challenging to balance well if the players can count on a rest between each encounter (and it certainly messes with the D&D 3.x CR/EL system).

On the practical side, running OSE will make the game accessible to lots of players. If my Traveller campaign peters out such that I can be ready to start in the new year, Majestic Fantasy or Worlds Without Number will be the new shiny thing which will boost their appeal while still being very accessible systems. They would also have an advantage of coming with a lot of the procedures that will be necessary for a good West Marches game. Now Cold Iron doesn't have those procedures, on the other hand, they could easily be stolen from any OSR game with some simple effort to determine how many skill points to hand out, and possibly add a feat system.

Frank

 

[Spartan]

I'm running (by times) a West Marches inspired GURPS Dungeon Fantasy campaign which I lurve, but GURPS DF is likely way too heavy for a 2 hour session. I also ran Keep on the Borderlands using MERP, which I really enjoyed doing. If you go down that road, Level 1 MERP characters are really whiffy, better to start at level 2.

Going out on a limb, how about Shadow of the Demon Lord? It basically runs itself, which is useful during a quick session. It also supports darker style play if you want a Heart of Darkness vibe to your campaign, but you can run it just straight up fantasy too. The Bane and Boon mechanic really encourages creativity as players search for reasons to be awarded a Boon (a d6 you add to your d20 roll). Chargen and levelling are pretty quick, and every level you get something interesting. It's specifically designed for folks with not a lot of time.

Going even further afield, there's Wayfarers. It's a gritty point-buy AD&D 1e feeling game. Grossly underrated. A little crunchy but not too bad. I'd call it "OSR-adjacent". It's one of my "from my cold, dead hands" games.

If you want something lighter, there's Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e. What a wonderful little game. Simple yet elegant. Neat little armour system, but only uses three stats. Don't be fooled though, it can certainly support a long term campaign.

How's that?

 

[AsenRG]

Sentiment and rationality are at cross purposes a bit here...

Sentimentally wise, I've long wanted to get Cold Iron gaming going again, but rationality says the number of folks who would be interested in checking the system out (who are OK with the late evening time frame of my session slot) is unlikely to be very big. It's not like I'm recruiting for some new OSR game where recruiting could go OK even without having a big name behind it. It's an entirely different system, and one that has some scary math to boot (it's actually not that scary, but people see hints of the math and get scared).

Take the hipsters to help you get off the ground.
Announce it as " Cold Iron: the unmentioned part of the OSR (you don't need the rules, the GM is willing to explain them if you don't want to read them)".

Yes, I am being serious.

 

[ffilz]

I'm running (by times) a West Marches inspired GURPS Dungeon Fantasy campaign which I lurve, but GURPS DF is likely way too heavy for a 2 hour session. I also ran Keep on the Borderlands using MERP, which I really enjoyed doing. If you go down that road, Level 1 MERP characters are really whiffy, better to start at level 2.

Going out on a limb, how about Shadow of the Demon Lord? It basically runs itself, which is useful during a quick session. It also supports darker style play if you want a Heart of Darkness vibe to your campaign, but you can run it just straight up fantasy too. The Bane and Boon mechanic really encourages creativity as players search for reasons to be awarded a Boon (a d6 you add to your d20 roll). Chargen and levelling are pretty quick, and every level you get something interesting. It's specifically designed for folks with not a lot of time.

Going even further afield, there's Wayfarers. It's a gritty point-buy AD&D 1e feeling game. Grossly underrated. A little crunchy but not too bad. I'd call it "OSR-adjacent". It's one of my "from my cold, dead hands" games.

If you want something lighter, there's Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e. What a wonderful little game. Simple yet elegant. Neat little armour system, but only uses three stats. Don't be fooled though, it can certainly support a long term campaign.

How's that?

Thanks for the offerings, but I'm mostly not looking for new games. I mean if someone looked through the pictures I've posted of my office and saw "hey, Frank, system XYZ that you have on shelf 5 would be perfect West Marches" that would be useful. Or if someone said, OSE is great, but have a look at this system that's almost the same as OSE but has some extra cool tools, or OSE is great, get this supplement for it.

 

[ffilz]

Take the hipsters to help you get off the ground.
Announce it as " Cold Iron: the unmentioned part of the OSR (you don't need the rules, the GM is willing to explain them if you don't want to read them)".

Yes, I am being serious.

That actually is a good point. I'd have to work on my sell for it, but picking on the (wider) OSR idea that the games of the 70s and 80s are good games and still worth playing is a good angle. Cold Iron was a good enough home brew to entice at least 6 other GMs (including myself) to pick up the game, and most of the steady games club members were in at least one Cold Iron game, with many in two or three. Now I know part of the appeal is the underlying math (mostly you don't need to deal with the complex math in play) that appealed to engineering college students. But hey, there's engineering college students and grads still playing RPGs... It's also easier to sell when you can see others playing, on the other hand MOST of MY players weren't part of the steady games club members, so they were attracted based on my sell of the game, or a friend saying: "Hey I know this GM Frank who runs a cool game, you should join!"

Sometimes I feel like I'm only a mediocre GM, but then I consider the number of players over the years that have committed to my games. Us gamers may not be the most socially adept folks in the world, but we're not so dumb as to keep playing a game we don't like...

And the West Marches definitely could sell...

Now Cold Iron is of comparable heaviness to RQ when running combats (for the most part), but my RQ game has shown that folks aren't turned off by a combat taking two game sessions (the combat that lasted 3 or 4 did get old...). I do have to pay attention to the dynamics that created an 8 hour combat, but I think the one I'm thinking of would have been much less likely to happen in a proper West Marches setup. That combat was a night encounter with a heavy force of undead. West Marches characters aren't going to camp in that kind of undead territory without being prepared. In the college campaign, I didn't have good tools for evaluating or signalling encounter difficulty so I was constantly over shooting my attempts to present "fair" encounters. And that's where the appeal of West Marches is for me. I no longer have to work so hard at the evaluation of encounter difficulty, and a lot of signalling is incorporated into the idea of the regions.

Frank

 

[Spartan]

Thanks for the offerings, but I'm mostly not looking for new games. I mean if someone looked through the pictures I've posted of my office and saw "hey, Frank, system XYZ that you have on shelf 5 would be perfect West Marches" that would be useful. Or if someone said, OSE is great, but have a look at this system that's almost the same as OSE but has some extra cool tools, or OSE is great, get this supplement for it.

OK. In that case, pretty much any ol' OSR thingy will do. It's a matter of which one brings you the most joy when you run it, because that will be mimicked (ha!) by your players.

 

[AsenRG]

That actually is a good point. I'd have to work on my sell for it, but picking on the (wider) OSR idea that the games of the 70s and 80s are good games and still worth playing is a good angle. Cold Iron was a good enough home brew to entice at least 6 other GMs (including myself) to pick up the game, and most of the steady games club members were in at least one Cold Iron game, with many in two or three. Now I know part of the appeal is the underlying math (mostly you don't need to deal with the complex math in play) that appealed to engineering college students. But hey, there's engineering college students and grads still playing RPGs... It's also easier to sell when you can see others playing, on the other hand MOST of MY players weren't part of the steady games club members, so they were attracted based on my sell of the game, or a friend saying: "Hey I know this GM Frank who runs a cool game, you should join!"

Sometimes I feel like I'm only a mediocre GM, but then I consider the number of players over the years that have committed to my games. Us gamers may not be the most socially adept folks in the world, but we're not so dumb as to keep playing a game we don't like...

And the West Marches definitely could sell...

Now Cold Iron is of comparable heaviness to RQ when running combats (for the most part), but my RQ game has shown that folks aren't turned off by a combat taking two game sessions (the combat that lasted 3 or 4 did get old...). I do have to pay attention to the dynamics that created an 8 hour combat, but I think the one I'm thinking of would have been much less likely to happen in a proper West Marches setup. That combat was a night encounter with a heavy force of undead. West Marches characters aren't going to camp in that kind of undead territory without being prepared. In the college campaign, I didn't have good tools for evaluating or signalling encounter difficulty so I was constantly over shooting my attempts to present "fair" encounters. And that's where the appeal of West Marches is for me. I no longer have to work so hard at the evaluation of encounter difficulty, and a lot of signalling is incorporated into the idea of the regions.

Frank

Exactly! Especially if you lighten up the learning curve for your system, you can really use the trend.
So you should totally do that, IMO!

 

[ffilz]

Exactly! Especially if you lighten up the learning curve for your system, you can really use the trend.
So you should totally do that, IMO!

Learning curve really isn't that hard, as long as one comes at it from an old school mindset and players realize there's a lot of system mastery to be learned through play. Up front, you roll some dice to create a character, decide on class, skills, memorize some spells if you are a caster, purchase equipment. Maybe a bit more complex than D&D 5.0 but less complex than D&D 3.x and in either case WAY less class choices: Do you want to be a spell caster? If so, mage, or cleric? If cleric, which cult? Pick your combat skills. Pick some non-combat skills. Oh, and maybe you have to choose your balance of starting XP between fighter and caster (because everyone's a fighter, some characters are also casters).

 

[ffilz]

BTW, not sure everyone has seen my post in the design sub-forum...

And it seems like there's a Kickstarter for a game called Cold Iron that is going to mess me up... I guess I'm going to have to change the name of my friend's game...

 

[ffilz]

Sort of revisiting this...

I still really want to run the Cold West Iron Marches (how's that to reduce confusion with the other "Cold Iron"...). But I don't want to put hours and hours of development into the idea and then come up flat for players, especially being that my game time is restricted to 8:30 PM to 10:30 PM Pacific Time which is a hard sell for MOST of the gaming audience. I was trying to figure out a way to poll for interest. I don't have a fixed gaming group that I can put some proposals in front of and see if they bite. And the game will be an eventual replacement for my Traveller game (which I'm guessing I will eventually burn out on). If I could afford some additional game times I could advertise some one shots and see what kind of response they get, but that wouldn't necessarily translate into interest in a long term campaign.

All of this means that probably when I'm ready to hit go, I'll end up offering something safe (i.e. D&D) or a non-West Marches something that doesn't need so much up front investment that might not pay off if the idea doesn't gain traction.

 

[ffilz]

Help me try this on for size, please let me know if there's more you would like to know about the system in a short blurb, or bits that seem too much:

A Recruitment Blurb
The following is a work in progress blurb for announcing Cold Iron games. Note that with the possible confusion with other games named Cold Iron and it’s association with faeries, and considering my interest is in running a West Marches inspired game, I’m trying out the following:

Cold West Iron Marches
This campaign will use a game system from my college years referred to as Cold Iron. It was developed by a friend, Mark Christiansen. It is an old school game of the 1980s, very combat focused, very tactical, and rather deadly. It harkens back to the days when many GMs modified D&D to their own tastes, in fact, we originally called it Christiansen D&D, and it clearly grew from Mark’s home D&D campaign, but he added on ideas clearly taken from RuneQuest and The Fantasy Trip. This is one of my favorite RPG systems.

A major feature of the game is a unified resolution mechanism that is a clever way to use the standard normal distribution, an open ended bell curve. If that sounds rather mathematical, the truth is that in play the math disappears since what is used in play is a simple look up table, but for those math geeks, know that the table is based on cool math. The open ended resolution means that in theory, the lowly dog can kill the best warrior in the land or conversely the best warrior in the land can embarrass himself and fall flat on his face. These outlier events are extremely rare due to the use of the bell curve. More likely is that occasionally someone will make a really good roll and take out a feared enemy in a single blow.

Character development is handled with a simple class and level system with a simple skill system. Of interest is attribute improvement as part of the character development. Character creation is thus relatively quick, a good feature for a game with a deadly combat system.

The combat system is a simple system but rich with a logical set of options and modifiers and is reasonably tactical though not completely board game like. This is combined with a combat focused magic system.

The magic system is unified between casters and magic items, with magic items all being based on spells from the spell list. Casters memorize a good number of spells and use mana points to cast them and they can usually fire off a reasonable number of spells in a combat though there are some spells that use a lot of mana. The mana system also allows some spells to be maintained for long times, possibly even indefinitely. The most common magic items are non-permanent, either potions (the one magic item commonly seen where the user of the item need not supply the mana) and “charged” items that allow a user to trigger a spell (with the user supplying the mana) with some chance of failure that increases as the item is used to the point where eventually the item is almost useless. There are some readily available permanent magic items in the form of weapons and armor. Permanent magic items and items that supply mana points do exist. Magic items are readily available for purchase which enables a nice flow from treasure with strategic and tactical choices of picking the “right” magic item for the upcoming adventure. Clerics use most of the same spells that magic users get, but each religion or cult gets a subset of the spells based on a set of associations, and usually gets a few spells earlier than magic users and other spells later. Clerics with the White association have the best healing magic and get it at low level (otherwise healing magic is pretty high level).

Cold Iron is a very nice fit for the “leveled regions” aspect of West Marches campaigns. With a dangerous, tactical, combat system, giving the players the ability to manage their risk tolerance is very exciting. No longer is the GM responsible for “balancing” encounters. The GM need only make each region have some degree of consistency. Early on, one would expect a modest to high number of PC casualties but as players start to master the system they will be better able to judge risk. Also, with a combat heavy system (with magic useful for reconnaissance), the West Marches idea of “adventure out there in the wilds” is a good fit for a system that doesn’t have a complex social conflict system (we have a Charisma attribute and that’s about it).

 

[ffilz]

Hmm, put up a Roll20 one shot for Cold West Iron Marches and so far no bites... We'll see if I get any in the next week or so.

If that doesn't seem to gain any interest, I suppose I'll have to run something more popular...

 

[Fenris-77]

I looked at it, and was intrigued, but I don't do roll20. My internet barely supports Skype video chat.

 

[ffilz]

I looked at it, and was intrigued, but I don't do roll20. My internet barely supports Skype video chat.

For Cold Iron I definitely need a VTT. About the only game I could do without VTT would be theater of the mind D&D.

For most games I like my grid and tokens...

 

[Fenris-77]

For Cold Iron I definitely need a VTT. About the only game I could do without VTT would be theater of the mind D&D.

For most games I like my grid and tokens...

I've been playing Blades in the Dark TotM online and that's gone fine, but I think it wouldn't go so well for every game, no.

 

[Hortum]

I was extremely impressed with the Forbidden Lands from Free League, it's a nice and gritty system with excellent rules for hex crawling and base building. It has good tables to make adventure sites and the monsters have some really interesting algorithms, I'm looking forward to giving it a try at some point in the future (I quite like Mutant Year Zero and it reads like it's the same experience).

 

[SirFrog]

Worlds Without Number was built to run a sandbox/West Marches style campaign.

 

[ffilz]

Worlds Without Number was built to run a sandbox/West Marches style campaign.

That is definitely on the list.

Majestic Fantasy or Old School Essentials are also at the top of the list.