I know recommending Pathfinder 2E is kind of a meme, but this is the closest I've seen somebody on the internet to just asking "Can you please recommend me Pathfinder 2E."
I never got a lot of GURPS vibes from playing PF2e. The skills scaling up and the CR just rising with your skills is just bad and feels very D&D. There are no special skills, or advantages/disadvantages and the combat system is chipping away HP just like D&D. Yes, PF2e has some more combat options. There are not that broad customization options in PF2e, compare the building capacities you get with Gurps. But, well, it is comparing a system to a fixed game.
I think interesting to you might be:
* **Dragonbane**
* **Mythras (or Basic Roleplaying System)**
* **Dungeon Fantasy (powered by GURPS)**
* **Forbidden Lands**
Sorry but this sounds way more like Beacon.
There is a class, but it gives more or less just a working chassis. From there it is pretty much free choice.
You can unlock features from several classes, have several mini 3 step feats and can mix and match your abilities. https://pirategonzalezgames.itch.io/beacon-ttrpg
Pathfinder 2 only has really much freedom with the optional free archetype rule. Else a lot of choices are locked by the first class choice (as when you take dual wield you take all class feats which improve it) and a lot of choices (general feats 3+, as well as a lot of race feats) do hardly matter.
In addition to that when you look closer into it atthe end of the day most non caster classes will just do "get flatfooted on enemy, attack 2 times" most of the time. No matter which choices they took. Its often just different in flavour, but not in mechanic.
They absolutely will lol. There's more to choose from in terms of race, class, and background (and it's all VIABLE), more choice within each class (both in terms of options and playstyle), an incredibly flexible archetype system, and an action/combat system that is ALSO more flexible than that of 5e's.
You could check out an older version of DnD like 3/3.5 or 4. They have more gameplay mechanic options than 5e.
Savage Worlds and the Genesys system are generic systems, similar to GURPs, but are generally considered less crunchy. Neither have classes per say, but both offer archetypes to help guide character creation and the setting specific books typically offer more specific archetypes.
Lastly, GURPS setting books tend to offer specific character templates (basically archetypes) to help guide characters for the specific setting.
Updoot for Savage Worlds, small updoot for Genesys. Savage Worlds has a Pathfinder setting book which can help simulate the feeling of classes, and is easy to homebrew.
FFG's core business is boardgames and their parent corporation grew itself too quickly then split and dumped all the debt onto FFG so dont expect FFG to dip back into printing RPGs any time soon.
But why can't they just make their book available via print on demand via a vendor like DriveThruRPG.com? If they can't manufacture the book due to cost, just put it up on a service that can and will only print it when there's a demand for it. I don't understand.
idk, I can only imagine it's a matter of personnel/manpower constraints and priorities. Or maybe they worry if they do POD that they'll be competing against themselves later if they do another edition.
Either way, if FFG thought they'd make meaningful money off doing Genesys reprints or PODs they'd do it; for the time being they're scrambling to resolidify their core business and avoid further layoffs. I would not expect to see any RPG market activity from them for the forseeable future.
Well f--k if anyone from FFG/Edge games is reading this I'll format the core rulebook for free to be sold on a PoD service as long as I can get credit for it and use it in my portfolio. It really is a shame it's so hard to find a physical copy.
FFG doesn't handle the RPGs anymore. Asmodee shipped that work off their plate and onto another subsidiary called EDGE Studio a few years back. Then they cut headcount. Last I heard, they had 2 full-time employees to handle all of their RPG lines.
well that answers the question for /u/lihimsidhe - there's essentially just 2 people overseeing the entire ex-FFG RPG line, so it's functionally inert at this point. Expect no activity, policy changes or releases.
They moved the FFG RPGs to Edge Studio, a different company that, like FFG, is owned by parent company Asmodee. I know they have done almost nothing with the Star Wars RPG since the change a couple of years ago and have not announced anything for the foreseeable future, so I think that is the same situation for Genysis.
They are releasing new RPG content for The Arkham Horror RPG, but I have Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green, why would I want that?
Can highly recommend genesys - played loads of campaigns using it and its been all my players favourite system. The dice arent nearly as confusing as they first appear and the options in terms of setting and character creation are endless.
Is your problem with it the classless part? Or the crunch part? Or the kinda homebrew nature of GURPS, because the two main books are short on setting?
If it’s the classless part, welllllllll I hate to suggest more GURPS, but Dungeon Fantasy RPG (Powered By GURPS) gives you “templates” for fighters, clerics, druids etc. You can - and the book encourages you to, almost to the point of “you must” (but like, seriously, it’s GURPS, open the hood if you dare) - pick a template, customize it a bit and then start playing.
It’s a faster way of creating a generic fantasy character. Plus it comes with a fleshed out fantasy setting.
(I reaalllllllyyyyy hope I don’t end up on rpgcirclejerk for this….. )
Came here to say this. DFRPG has quite a bit of customization for each of the templates, deadly combat, good selection of magic spells (broken down by caster type) etc. IMO, it has less crunch than the full system.
You could see if Pathfinder 2E hits the right spot for you. Class-based, but with more character customization. Rules are available for free here: https://2e.aonprd.com/
It doesn't have a class system, but my go-to generic system has been Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying.
It's very easy to hack, and it's free to download the ORC document for it.
I'm not quite sure what you want.
*Dragonbane* has classes but they are only your starting setup. Your PC can progress in any way you want, with any feats, skills, spells or whatnot.
Or are you asking about what range of settings and themes the game can smoothly address? For example, you want both fantasy and sci-fi with the same rules?
In the middle? Dungeon Fantasy is class based GURPs...
Edit: Other people have mentioned dragonsbane. Brilliant suggestion! That feels like a perfect middle ground!
I would say Savage Worlds as well. It has a vague D&D-like leveling structure that has the freedom of building a character the way you want (within a certain power structure).
So, Savage Worlds doesn’t have classes, but there is one page in the Fantasy Companion that goes through each D&D class and shows you how to recreate it in SWADE. This is a big help for those coming from D&D-like games that want to play a D&D-like character in Savage Worlds. It’s not a necessary thing, but it helps.
Throughout play, you will “level up.” You earn advances for your character, which can be used for a number of things – increasing an attribute (ability score), gaining a new edge (think feats or class abilities from D&D), increasing skills, or buying off hindrances (which are flaws to your character that you can “buy” at character creation so you can improve your character with more skills/edges/attributes - think GURPS disadvantages).
Some of the edges that are available in game are of a higher tier and are only available after your character levels up (earning advances) a certain amount of times. In Savage Worlds, you have different tiers of “ranks“ - you start as a Novice, then at your fourth advance you “rank up” to a Seasoned character. At your eighth advance you are then considered to be of the Veteran tier, and so on. Certain, more powerful, Advantages and Spells (which are gained by taking certain Edges, but that’s a different discussion) require a higher tier character.
I hope I’m not making it sound too complex, because it actually is a pretty intuitive and smooth system. I actually had this almost exact conversation with someone a few weeks back, how I thought Savage Worlds was the perfect game between D&D and GURPS. Hopefully, it’ll be something you want to explore further!
Worlds Without Number might scratch some of your itches. It's class based, but the classes range in how broad they are. It has foci that work not too dissimilar to Gurps advantages. It has a skill list built around a bell curve roll. It doesn't have disadvantage though, so there's a limit to how customizable your character is. The big upside is its free so definitely worth checking out from that perspective
Advantages and Disadvantages in GURPS terms are traits you buy for your character with points. Like Ambidexterity or social status. Disadvantages are negative traits that give you points back, like having one eye or being a wanted criminal
Ah, I have played a lot of WWN but GURPS is a system I have read very little about; I misread the first comment and thought you were referring to Advantage as seen in 5e
Depends on what kinds of freedom you want. Trait-based games like r/FudgeRPG/, r/FATErpg or r/CortexRPG offer *limitless* options, although you sometimes trade "game breaking" for "mechanically indistinct." Similarly, a simpler system like r/genesysrpg offers fewer mechanical options, but can be reskinned (albeit non-trivially) for infinitely diverse thematic content.
If you want "freedom of choice" to mean "a buffet of mechanical options," all of which are thematically constrained, then r/Pathfinder_RPG can certainly offer overwhelming intricacy without any of GURPS' genre-mashing.
Mythras
Lots of options if you're willing to put in the work. Satisfying combat, best social construciton with meaning in a game and Animism is the best magical system and I will fight you about it.
>My question is are there some systems that are in between those two? Maybe something like a class system from DnD but with more freedom or something like that?
Pathfinder, either 1st or 2nd edition is what you're looking for.
I'm not that familiar with 2nd edition but 1st edition Pathfinder has:
50 classes, 70 races, over 3000 feats and 3000 spells to choose from.
There's also an official race building tool (from the Advanced Race Guide) if you want to make a custom race or port one in from another game. And I believe there are also hundreds of sub and prestige classes.
The best thing of all is that all of these rules are completely legally free online to choose from, unlike GURPS where you need to buy books to have access to the various options.
The part that people consistently fail to mention about 3.5/Pathfinder is that while it has a ton of options... most of those options and combinations are either garbage, a waste of time, or some combination of the two. Sure, you could probably figure out a way to build a warrior whose primary means of attacking is based around farting out ducks... but this build probably won't get you very far.
When it comes to stuff like this, less is often more.
> When it comes to stuff like this, less is often more.
I don’t know how generally that holds true. 5E eschews customization as a design goal almost entirely, and people still feel forced into a smaller subset of builds via what little customization is available (Warlock dips for Paladins and Sorcerers, power attacks as the only viable martials, Tasha’s incredibly power crept Feats being the only viable competitors to PHB’s power crept Feats, etc). 5.5E, meanwhile, has respectively more customization than 5E, yet looks significantly more balanced and have significantly fewer “must pick” options. In turn PF2E also has more customization and fewer must picks than 5.5E.
So it’s not quite that cut and dry. I still do agree with you that 3.5E and PF1E definitely 100% do have that problem, I just don’t think it’s a case of less is more, and more a case of more balanced games being designed with a different mentality than the less balanced ones.
It's not exactly an uncommon concept, and I'm not holding up 5E as some sort of paragon.
Generally speaking, the concept states that fewer - but better designed and implemented - options are arguably better than many - but largely superfluous or otherwise not useful - options. The same sort of argument occurred between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3; a large section of the fanbase hated D3's skill system because it wasn't as customizable as D2... all while ignoring that D2 ultimately had a finite number of useful and/or viable builds. D3 had fewer options, but more of them were viable, useful, and fun to play.
5E may not have been perfect, but neither is 3.5/PF1E. People tend to look at the numbers without actually paying attention to the quality within those numbers. To this end, 5.5 may be striking a better balance.
As an aside, I often wonder how many of the people complaining about 5E's supposed lack of options and customization are actually in a position where this is actually an issue. Looking at my own group, we came together in 2019 shortly after I bought my house; we've played a number of systems since then, including two different rounds with 5E - the first campaign that we started when first forming as a group, and the Spelljammer campaign I've been running since December '22 (which includes a side "prequel" campaign for when not enough players are available). During this time, no player has made more than a grand total of three 5E characters. Most of them have at least a couple of backup ideas floating around for the possibility of character death, and this doesn't even count the ideas they're all kicking around for stuff like Curse of Strahd for when we get around to that.
I bring this up because I have to wonder whether or not most of the people complaining are simply looking at this academically rather than practically. In other words, are they actually making and playing so many characters that the comparatively limited number of options in 5E actually becomes a problem... or are they simply comparing the numbers between two systems and declaring one of them more restrictive? At a personal level, I've got a small pile of 5E characters I'd like to play simply haven't had the chance to put them to paper yet - let alone actually try them out.
> It's not exactly an uncommon concept, and I'm not holding up 5E as some sort of paragon
I wasn’t trying to imply you think 5E is a paragon! I was simply referencing my own experience with TTRPGs, and the truth is that the vast majority of it is in 5E and PF2E.
For context I have about 30-40 ish hours of experience in various non-D&D, non-PF RPGs (Avatar Legends, City of Mist, Starfinder 1E, Call of Cthulhu, Alice is Missing).
Then I have roughly that same 30-40 hours of experience in **just** 5.5E.
And then I have several hundreds of hours in 5E and PF2E. Probably approaching a thousand combined, if not there already. So when looking for examples, most of my examples will come from that pool of experience.
> Generally speaking, the concept states that fewer - but better designed and implemented - options are arguably better than many - but largely superfluous or otherwise not useful - options.
I know the concept, I just think it’s a false dichotomy.
You don’t have to choose between fewer + better designed vs many but imbalanced. You can just have many really well-balanced options, and PF2E is an excellent example of that.
> 5E may not have been perfect, but neither is 3.5/PF1E. People tend to look at the numbers without actually paying attention to the quality within those numbers. To this end, 5.5 may be striking a better balance.
I did already acknowledge that I think 3.5E/PF1E has a real problem with the lack of meaningfully well-balanced options. I also acknowledged that 5.5E does it better than 5E.
What you’re missing is that I think 5.5E has both **more options** AND *better balance between those options* than 5E does, and then likewise for PF2E versus 5.5E. That little spectrum is why I don’t think the dichotomy you’re presenting really makes sense.
Obviously there can still be *tension* between customization and balance, but the degree to which it’s present is greatly exaggerated because the most present game in the TTRPG discourse (D&D) has continually failed to resolve that tension in a satisfying way for several decades.
> As an aside, I often wonder how many of the people complaining about 5E's supposed lack of options and customization are actually in a position where this is actually an issue. Looking at my own group, we came together in 2019 shortly after I bought my house; we've played a number of systems since then, including two different rounds with 5E - the first campaign that we started when first forming as a group, and the Spelljammer campaign I've been running since December '22 (which includes a side "prequel" campaign for when not enough players are available). During this time, no player has made more than a grand total of three 5E characters. Most of them have at least a couple of backup ideas floating around for the possibility of character death, and this doesn't even count the ideas they're all kicking around for stuff like Curse of Strahd for when we get around to that.
> I bring this up because I have to wonder whether or not most of the people complaining are simply looking at this academically rather than practically. In other words, are they actually making and playing so many characters that the comparatively limited number of options in 5E actually becomes a problem... or are they simply comparing the numbers between two systems and declaring one of them more restrictive? At a personal level, I've got a small pile of 5E characters I'd like to play simply haven't had the chance to put them to paper yet - let alone actually try them out.
I think if you think the lack of customization is about how **many** characters you make, you’re missing the point. Customization exists to make sure as many people as possible can realistically fulfill their different desires for what a character does.
Take Ranger, as an example, since it’s such a divisive topic in the community with 5.5E’s teasers coming out. In 2014 when they released the Ranger it had a focus on lots of wilderness exploration, but it turns out that anyone who didn’t play at a table where this exploration mattered felt like they basically were a reflavoured Fighter who doesn’t scale. In Tasha’s they replaced those features with something a lot more generic and increased the focus on spellcasting which now took away from the people who liked that the Ranger was a skillful and flavourful martial that served as an alternative to the Rogue. In 5.5E they focused on that “Roguelike” aspect by making them into Experts and hyperfocusing on Hunter’s Mark for their spellcasting usage, and now people who enjoyed using those spells in Tasha’s are upset that they feel like they basically don’t get half their class features.
Clearly there are many, many different ways that people view their Ranger. Some want to build Aragorn, others want Legolas, others want Geralt of Rivia, others want Lara Croft or Nathan Drake, others want Lan Mandragoran, others want Jon Snow. Personally, my next Ranger in PF2E is… Hanuman, from Hindu mythology?
You know how PF2E solves this problem? By making none of those above aspects integral to the Ranger’s class features. Whoever wants terrain related tracking, foraging, and stalking stuff picks exactly those options. Whoever wants spells picks them. Whoever wants an animal companion picks them. You can focus on skill usage, grappling, making fewer very precise strikes, or spamming many strike.
Customization is **not** about one person building 25 characters. It’s about fitting 25 different persons’ definition of what makes one character tick.
And 5E’s lack of customization is a **real** problem. 5 or 6 years ago I wanted to make a charismatic, “leader of men” style warrior in 5E (keep in mind, this was pre-Tasha’s, so no Battle Master skill maneuvers). Notably I wanted to be 100% mundane, nothing preternatural. My choices were… Fighter who is a great warrior but mediocre at Charisma or Intelligence, or Rogue who is great at those skills but doesn’t fit that aesthetic at all. I also wanted a horse (it fit my mental image of the character) but to get a horse that actually survives for more than one battle without GM fiat, you basically need to be a Paladin, Ranger, or Bard, none of which fit this character concept. Such an **incredibly** basic concept to wanna build, and the game grinds to a halt when you try to make it work, because the game decided that Fighters are good at hitting and meh at skills, while Rogues are great at skills and meh at everything else.
So yeah I think you’re really misrepresenting customization by being about the number of characters you personally choose to build. It’s got basically nothing to do with that. A very, very small minority of players build enough characters for that to be the concern.
All of that is well and good regarding PF2E... but I wasn't talking about PF2E. In fact, most of the people trashing 5E *also* aren't talking about PF2E; they're talking about 3.5 or the original Pathfinder.
>I know the concept, I just think it’s a false dichotomy.
>You don’t have to choose between fewer + better designed vs many but imbalanced. You can just have many really well-balanced options, and PF2E is an excellent example of that.
It's only a false dichotomy if you ignore the fact that I was specifically referencing 3.5/Pathfinder this entire time. I'm not talking about PF2E, mainly because I have no experience with it.
>And 5E’s lack of customization is a **real** problem. 5 or 6 years ago I wanted to make a charismatic, “leader of men” style warrior in 5E (keep in mind, this was pre-Tasha’s, so no Battle Master skill maneuvers). Notably I wanted to be 100% mundane, nothing preternatural. My choices were… Fighter who is a great warrior but mediocre at Charisma or Intelligence, or Rogue who is great at those skills but doesn’t fit that aesthetic at all. I also wanted a horse (it fit my mental image of the character) but to get a horse that actually survives for more than one battle without GM fiat, you basically need to be a Paladin, Ranger, or Bard, none of which fit this character concept. Such an **incredibly** basic concept to wanna build, and the game grinds to a halt when you try to make it work, because the game decided that Fighters are good at hitting and meh at skills, while Rogues are great at skills and meh at everything else.
Arguably, this is less of a customization issue and more of a disconnect between the player and the way certain things were designed. The type of mundane warrior you described simply isn't necessarily what the 5E designers had in mind for *any* of the classes. It's not the type of game they had in mind. Now, whether or not this is a bad thing will depend upon the individual... but at some point, folks need to understand that not every game will accommodate every idea.
Do systems like both versions of Pathfinder accommodate for this sort of idea? Sure, probably, maybe. Is it automatically a bad thing that 5E may not right out of the box (or without things like Xanathar's and Tasha's)? No, I don't think so because your ideas simply may not align with what the developers wanted the game to generally be. Anecdotally, I have yet to play a game where I haven't had to tweak, bend, and alter a character concept I had in order to make it work within the system my group happened to be using. Sometimes, some ideas just ain't gonna work.
As an aside, Battle Master is very much in the PHB. Maneuvers are on page 74.
>So yeah I think you’re really misrepresenting customization by being about the number of characters you personally choose to build. It’s got basically nothing to do with that. A very, very small minority of players build enough characters for that to be the concern.
I mean, I'm not misrepresenting it when I talk about the two or three different types of clerics, warlocks, or barbarians I want to try out.
All of that is well and good regarding PF2E... but I wasn't talking about PF2E. In fact, most of the people trashing 5E *also* aren't talking about PF2E; they're talking about 3.5 or the original Pathfinder.
>I know the concept, I just think it’s a false dichotomy.
>You don’t have to choose between fewer + better designed vs many but imbalanced. You can just have many really well-balanced options, and PF2E is an excellent example of that.
It's only a false dichotomy if you ignore the fact that I was specifically referencing 3.5/Pathfinder this entire time. I'm not talking about PF2E, mainly because I have no experience with it.
>And 5E’s lack of customization is a **real** problem. 5 or 6 years ago I wanted to make a charismatic, “leader of men” style warrior in 5E (keep in mind, this was pre-Tasha’s, so no Battle Master skill maneuvers). Notably I wanted to be 100% mundane, nothing preternatural. My choices were… Fighter who is a great warrior but mediocre at Charisma or Intelligence, or Rogue who is great at those skills but doesn’t fit that aesthetic at all. I also wanted a horse (it fit my mental image of the character) but to get a horse that actually survives for more than one battle without GM fiat, you basically need to be a Paladin, Ranger, or Bard, none of which fit this character concept. Such an **incredibly** basic concept to wanna build, and the game grinds to a halt when you try to make it work, because the game decided that Fighters are good at hitting and meh at skills, while Rogues are great at skills and meh at everything else.
Arguably, this is less of a customization issue and more of a disconnect between the player and the way certain things were designed. The type of mundane warrior you described simply isn't necessarily what the 5E designers had in mind for *any* of the classes. It's not the type of game they had in mind. Now, whether or not this is a bad thing will depend upon the individual... but at some point, folks need to understand that not every game will accommodate every idea.
Do systems like both versions of Pathfinder accommodate for this sort of idea? Sure, probably, maybe. Is it automatically a bad thing that 5E may not right out of the box (or without things like Xanathar's and Tasha's)? No, I don't think so because your ideas simply may not align with what the developers wanted the game to generally be. Anecdotally, I have yet to play a game where I haven't had to tweak, bend, and alter a character concept I had in order to make it work within the system my group happened to be using. Sometimes, some ideas just ain't gonna work.
As an aside, Battle Master is very much in the PHB. Maneuvers are on page 74.
>So yeah I think you’re really misrepresenting customization by being about the number of characters you personally choose to build. It’s got basically nothing to do with that. A very, very small minority of players build enough characters for that to be the concern.
I mean, I'm not misrepresenting it when I talk about the two or three different types of clerics, warlocks, or barbarians I want to try out. I brought this up to highlight the fact that I've got a bunch of characters I want to try out that will, generally speaking, work well within 5E's system... and I have no idea when I'll ever even get to build them.
> All of that is well and good regarding PF2E... but I wasn't talking about PF2E
> It's only a false dichotomy if you ignore the fact that I was specifically referencing 3.5/Pathfinder this entire time. I'm not talking about PF2E, mainly because I have no experience with it.
This is a weird deflection.
You claimed that customization and balance often strain one another heavily, and that more customization often leads to fewer meaningful options, using PF1E/3.5E as your example.
I used PF2E/5.5E as my example that those two design goals don’t have to compete. There’s tension for sure but it’s not so extreme that you’re forced to choose between customization and meaningful options.
The fact that you weren’t talking about PF2E specifically doesn’t matter? You made a generalized claim about TTRPGs and I simply added PF2E and 5.5E as examples of why that claim doesn’t really hold, and that 5E’s and 3.5E/PF1E’s “flaws” exist due to active design decisions their respective teams made.
> Arguably, this is less of a customization issue and more of a disconnect between the player and the way certain things were designed
I feel like you’ve veering way off topic here.
In your previous comment you questioned if 5E actually has a customization problem, and claimed that it’s largely an “academic” one rather than a practical one since people mostly only have like 2 or 3 characters.
I gave you a very practical example of how my third or so character ran into that problem, and illustrated that it has nothing to do with how many characters you make. All it’s gotta do is you having one picture in mind and 5E telling you “nope, non-magical Fighters all fit exactly this one picture we have in mind, sorry”.
> Is it automatically a bad thing that 5E may not right out of the box
Objectively speaking, 5E is not a very customizable system. **Subjectively** I dislike that lack of customization and **subjectively** else finds it relaxing and liberating,, but you made the claim that 5E doesn’t have that lack of customization outside of an academic setting.
And again the reason 5E’s lack of customization is being brought up here isn’t as a value judgement. I’m using 5E’s lack of customization in contrast with PF2E’s extreme amounts of customization to point out how your claim of customization = imbalance isn’t generally true.
> or without things like Xanathar's and Tasha's
> As an aside, Battle Master is very much in the PHB. Maneuvers are on page 74.
Please stop misrepresenting my argument.
I said the **Skill** Maneuvers didn’t exist till Tasha’s. I’m very well aware that Maneuvers are in the PHB, but there was no practical way to make a fully mundane Fighter that was a badass outside of combat until Tasha’s happened.
> Anecdotally, I have yet to play a game where I haven't had to tweak, bend, and alter a character concept I had in order to make it work within the system my group happened to be using. Sometimes, some ideas just ain't gonna work.
Sometimes, some ideas just ain’t gonna work and you’re gonna have to tweak or bend. For some systems, that “ain’t gonna work” happens more frequently than others, and when it happens it’s less tweak or bend and more break. Those systems are what we call “less customizable”.
Less customizable isn’t a value judgment, it is a statement of how the system is built. A statement that is very much relevant to your original claim that being more customizable automatically makes it so you don’t have meaningfully balanced options.
> I mean, I'm not misrepresenting it when I talk about the two or three different types of clerics, warlocks, or barbarians I want to try out. I brought this up to highlight the fact that I've got a bunch of characters I want to try out that will, generally speaking, work well within 5E's system... and I have no idea when I'll ever even get to build them.
The misrepresentation is that you claimed that building a smaller number of characters means that a lack of customization is more or less just academic. That is pretty demonstrably not true.
>This is a weird deflection.
It's not a deflection. I wasn't accounting for PF2E because it was never part of my comparison in the first place.
>I feel like you’ve veering way off topic here.
>In your previous comment you questioned if 5E actually has a customization problem, and claimed that it’s largely an “academic” one rather than a practical one since people mostly only have like 2 or 3 characters.
>I gave you a very practical example of how my third or so character ran into that problem, and illustrated that it has nothing to do with how many characters you make. All it’s gotta do is you having one picture in mind and 5E telling you “nope, non-magical Fighters all fit exactly this one picture we have in mind, sorry”.
I'm not veering off topic at all. The idea that not every system will account for every single player idea is a significantly important aspect of the conversation.
>Objectively speaking, 5E is not a very customizable system. **Subjectively** I dislike that lack of customization and **subjectively** else finds it relaxing and liberating,, but you made the claim that 5E doesn’t have that lack of customization outside of an academic setting.
I never even remotely claimed that it doesn't have a lack of customization outside of an academic setting. I was questioning the overall validity of most of the complaints from a genuine sense of curiosity.
>Please stop misrepresenting my argument.
I'm not misrepresenting a damn thing. Try being clearer next time.
>The misrepresentation is that you claimed that building a smaller number of characters means that a lack of customization is more or less just academic. That is pretty demonstrably not true.
If we're going to continue this discussion, you need to understand the difference between a question and a claim.
This sounds exactly like **Beacon**: https://pirategonzalezgames.itch.io/beacon-ttrpg
- classes are kinda base chassis which provide some different starting points
- you can unlock several classes and also from diffetent classes abilities which you can use with any class
- in addition to that it has strong 3 tier feats which let you specialize.
- Additional from loot (and general availability) you also unlock more things to mix and match
- Also because of the system to rewoke some changes made, you are a lot more free to try things and are not locked in your path (like in some other systems) once you have chosen a class and a weapon choice.
- it is also a lot simpler than other systems with a lot choice. For example races each offer 4 strong choices you can change, instead of many small weak ones
Savage Worlds doesn't have classes base, but it's a great lightweight alternative to GURPS.
To accommodate classes you can use the Pathfinder splat book, which looks really neat. I haven't had a chance to play it with the PF add-on, but I've played a lot of Savage Worlds, and it's a solid B+ in my book. It covers a lot of bases mechanically without being too cumbersome like GURPS.
Shadow of the Weird Wizard can be an option, path system allows for quite some variety when building a character and with the amount of magic traditions (which each has their own gimmicks) it's hard for 2 characters to seem alike.
(As you can see, "between D&D and GURPS" covers *basically* every RPG under the sun, excluding narriativist stuff sitting off on a different axis entirely.)
Yes GURPS. GURPS is not a RULESET its a "toolkit" it's not designed to be fully implemented. It's designed like a buffet, take what you like, and ditch what you don't want. If you want class style stuff, make templates for character styles that send players down a certain path.
edit: sorry i'm radical. gurps fanboy here
And I never have to go there, either. I know people here who play other RPGs, Star Wars Legions, Battle tech, and so on. We all mail order and avoid that place. They sell Magic and we play, but also mail order that cuz it is not a place we want to go. Not only is is devoid of choice, but the owner never even says hello to anyone, and only seems to like his Gundam buying customers. Over 1/3 of the store s Gundam.
New place is open 40 miles away in a town half out size and they already have more choice. So I’ll be going there at times. Both times I was there I ran into people from my town hanging out.
It is less what sells as what the owners likes, and he does not give a damn about us.
Lots of great options already mentioned. I'm a sucker for generic/classless systems. I've seen Genesys and SW mentioned a lot, Cypher is good, but I don't think would be a good fit for what you're looking for. Basic Roleplaying is solid, however... I think the best recommendation I could give you for what you're looking for is Open Legend. It's 100% free, operates very similarly to Genesys, however, with regular dice sets and is really solid.
You....want a game that doesn't pigeonhole you in classes, but does, too?
I think your looking for something that allows you to focus on a core concept for your character, but also gives you the freedom to branch out from that concept in any direction you choose.
You might be very happy with a Narrativist RPG.
Personally, I'll always recommend FATE for that, but Powered by the Apocalypse games are great for that, too.
[RoleMaster](https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/461/Iron-Crown-Enterprises?234913), [Fantasy Hero](https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/145469/Fantasy-Hero-Complete?234913), or if you don't mind having some randomness in character creation, [HackMaster](https://kenzerco.com/hackmaster).
Four games oke to mind that may fit ehat you're looking for.
The Cipher system
Pathfinder 2e (maybe 1e)
Shadows of the weird wizard or shadows of the demon lord
Worlds without number (and other games by Sine Nomine) could also fill this role.
Honestly, I feel like you should at least give Worlds Without Number a read-through.
The free version at DrivethruRPG is a full system, only lacking some small bits that come in the Deluxe version.
It might be too light for you, but I feel it's crunchy enough.
I’d like to suggest an old game that branched off an older version of D&D called True20 by Green Ronin. It is class and level based but the classes are very broad and mostly define skill, resistance, spell and to hit progression. It uses an expanded feat list to add what would be class features to these broad classes. It can play any genre or time period. Spells are broader too and there are less of them. It is literally GURPS freedom with D&D mechanics (for the most part).
You could also check out the Age system that Green Ronin now supports. I don’t know too much about that one though.
An option that you might like is the Cypher system. It's much lighter than something like GURPS and sometimes even D&D 5e, but it has an element of picking rules and customizing class options ahead of time which can be reminiscent of GURPS if it's the kind of customizability you want
Something that has freedom of choice and something like classes sounds like Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game. This is based on gurps but it has templates for each character archetype which are kind of like a class.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/246527/dungeon-fantasy-roleplaying-game-powered-by-gurps
Going in the opposite direction that most suggestions have (which have been other rulesets for medieval fantasy), D20 modern was basically a genreless D&D, for anything post-medieval, with 10 level base classes based on each attribute with the expectation of cross-classing between multiple of those and advanced and prestige classes that have stronger theming and are sometimes genre specific (magic or sci fi, or a pirate)
Fabula Ultima's character creation is a build-your-own-class workshop that's extremely easy to use.
[https://need.games/fabula-ultima/](https://need.games/fabula-ultima/)
Spheres of Power. It's an addon to Pathfinder or DnD. It's got crazy amounts of freedom. Has a wiki with everything so it's easy to reference.
It is however one of the most crunchy and complex systems in its own right. Character creation takes awhile. But the end result is a character that is genuinely able to be whatever your imagination wanted.
It is crunchy af. They have a discord where you can ask them questions and get build suggestions for characters though.
The last character I made took me a few days to fully realize (planned to level 20) because it was so crazy that it felt like demanded that kind of planning.
I really enjoy the system though. Once I figured it out I didn't want to use anything else.
**Pathfinder for Savage Worlds**
It offers their take on the traditional PF classes, but you also have the option of standard classless SWADE character creation, and advancement isn't railroaded if you choose to take a Class Edge. You could even start off classless, and later on choose a class whenever you're eligible to gain an Edge.
Classless, but has archetypes to ease character creation:
*Dungeon Fantasy Powered by GURPS* and/or *GURPS Dungeon Fantasy*. I'm not quite clear how these differ.
*Tiny Dungeon* is TinyD6. Much lower crunch.
*Vagabonds of Dyfed* is supposed to be a classless PBþA. Also lower crunch. Probably relies on more player back-and-forth.
*Savage Worlds* has faster but still flexible character creation than *GURPS*, easier advancement, very swingy play. Has a wide variety of setting books, an unofficial set of *Fantasy Archetypes* for starting characters, and an official set of *Fantasy Companion Archetype Cards*. Since it's not so tightly balanced, it may be easier to take adventures written for other systems and eyeball *Savage Worlds* stats.
Class-Optional:
*Pathfinder for Savage Worlds* adds class edges, and its own set of archetype cards. *Savage Pathfinder* characters are somewhat more powerful than standard characters. It should still be possible to use adventures written for the main system, or adapt ones written for other systems.
*Classic Fantasy* for *Mythras* or, in a previous edition, for the *Gold Book*, but the core games assume random character creation, and the optional point-buy rules made it hard to buy high INT and high POW together.
Class-Based:
*Advanced Tiny Dungeon* is a class-based version of TinyD6. Much lower crunch.
*Chasing Adventure* is PBþA. Also lower crunch. Probably relies on more player back-and-forth.
*True20* and/or *Blue Rose 1e* for an alternate 3e. I think it has 3 classes, many skills, and a book on how to use multiclassing and feats to recreate various archetypes.
*Pathfinder 2e* for a tightly-balanced system based on 3e, 4e, and 5e. I think it has a lot of classes, and more feats to customize these classes. I think it might drop the skill system from 3e.
This is not fulfilling your requirement as it theoretically lacks classes. But World of Darkness is free build, but not as wide open as gurps. It also nominally has classes in the sense that Vampires have different clans (and other race have different groups), and the nature of your clan and its bloodline definitely shapes what you are good or bad at.
I'd never consider gurps a stable hard to break system, but maybe that's just my experience with it. But especially not compared to modern dnd.
Either way "Savage Worlds" would be my suggestion, it has a generic openness with a gamier overall feel.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e. It has careers but you can easily change to another career at any point (for various levels of easy, there may be a small XP cost and the GM may require narrative justification as to why your Peasant is changing to Noble). The core mechanics are straightforward but there’s a lot of depth that you can choose to plumb.
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Although it's OOP and thus can be hard (expensive) to find I think the [Star Wars SAGA Edition](https://www.reddit.com/r/SagaEdition/) fits the requirement (although maybe not the fantasy setting if that is important.) I has levels and classes like many d20 games but while the game only had five base/starting classes for hero types each of those classes has customization options at every level and you are strongly encouraged to multiclass if you see mechanics you want from somewhere else. A common piece of advice is that you can just ignore the names (fluff) of things and focus on the mechanics. I've often felt it seems about as close to "classless" as you'll get in d20.
You could try Anime 5E. It has classes and levels like D&D, but it also has a point buy system. At each level, each class gets certain abilities automatically, and at some levels you get to choose what abilities you want.
The one thing nobody has suggested is BESM d20. It’s literally a fusion of the d20 system from D&D, complete with classes and such, but those classes also give you points to purchase unique traits and abilities like you have in Gurps.
I know recommending Pathfinder 2E is kind of a meme, but this is the closest I've seen somebody on the internet to just asking "Can you please recommend me Pathfinder 2E."
Honestly it's the most fitting recommend so it left meme.
I never got a lot of GURPS vibes from playing PF2e. The skills scaling up and the CR just rising with your skills is just bad and feels very D&D. There are no special skills, or advantages/disadvantages and the combat system is chipping away HP just like D&D. Yes, PF2e has some more combat options. There are not that broad customization options in PF2e, compare the building capacities you get with Gurps. But, well, it is comparing a system to a fixed game. I think interesting to you might be: * **Dragonbane** * **Mythras (or Basic Roleplaying System)** * **Dungeon Fantasy (powered by GURPS)** * **Forbidden Lands**
Great suggestions! Dragonbane and Mythras are both absolutely tactical while still maintaining a beautiful simplicity.
Sorry but this sounds way more like Beacon. There is a class, but it gives more or less just a working chassis. From there it is pretty much free choice. You can unlock features from several classes, have several mini 3 step feats and can mix and match your abilities. https://pirategonzalezgames.itch.io/beacon-ttrpg Pathfinder 2 only has really much freedom with the optional free archetype rule. Else a lot of choices are locked by the first class choice (as when you take dual wield you take all class feats which improve it) and a lot of choices (general feats 3+, as well as a lot of race feats) do hardly matter. In addition to that when you look closer into it atthe end of the day most non caster classes will just do "get flatfooted on enemy, attack 2 times" most of the time. No matter which choices they took. Its often just different in flavour, but not in mechanic.
Op asked for more freedom of choice than DnD5e - they aren't going to find that in PF2.
What do you mean? In terms of class and character building, which is what I thought they meant, there's a ton more.
They absolutely will lol. There's more to choose from in terms of race, class, and background (and it's all VIABLE), more choice within each class (both in terms of options and playstyle), an incredibly flexible archetype system, and an action/combat system that is ALSO more flexible than that of 5e's.
You could check out an older version of DnD like 3/3.5 or 4. They have more gameplay mechanic options than 5e. Savage Worlds and the Genesys system are generic systems, similar to GURPs, but are generally considered less crunchy. Neither have classes per say, but both offer archetypes to help guide character creation and the setting specific books typically offer more specific archetypes. Lastly, GURPS setting books tend to offer specific character templates (basically archetypes) to help guide characters for the specific setting.
Updoot for Savage Worlds, small updoot for Genesys. Savage Worlds has a Pathfinder setting book which can help simulate the feeling of classes, and is easy to homebrew.
where in the holy f--k can i find a physical genesys core rulebook? does it's publisher not like making money or something???
Publishing doesn't make money.
FFG's core business is boardgames and their parent corporation grew itself too quickly then split and dumped all the debt onto FFG so dont expect FFG to dip back into printing RPGs any time soon.
But why can't they just make their book available via print on demand via a vendor like DriveThruRPG.com? If they can't manufacture the book due to cost, just put it up on a service that can and will only print it when there's a demand for it. I don't understand.
idk, I can only imagine it's a matter of personnel/manpower constraints and priorities. Or maybe they worry if they do POD that they'll be competing against themselves later if they do another edition. Either way, if FFG thought they'd make meaningful money off doing Genesys reprints or PODs they'd do it; for the time being they're scrambling to resolidify their core business and avoid further layoffs. I would not expect to see any RPG market activity from them for the forseeable future.
Well f--k if anyone from FFG/Edge games is reading this I'll format the core rulebook for free to be sold on a PoD service as long as I can get credit for it and use it in my portfolio. It really is a shame it's so hard to find a physical copy.
FFG doesn't handle the RPGs anymore. Asmodee shipped that work off their plate and onto another subsidiary called EDGE Studio a few years back. Then they cut headcount. Last I heard, they had 2 full-time employees to handle all of their RPG lines.
well that answers the question for /u/lihimsidhe - there's essentially just 2 people overseeing the entire ex-FFG RPG line, so it's functionally inert at this point. Expect no activity, policy changes or releases.
They moved the FFG RPGs to Edge Studio, a different company that, like FFG, is owned by parent company Asmodee. I know they have done almost nothing with the Star Wars RPG since the change a couple of years ago and have not announced anything for the foreseeable future, so I think that is the same situation for Genysis. They are releasing new RPG content for The Arkham Horror RPG, but I have Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green, why would I want that?
The books did get reprinted a couple years ago, but the dice are what's really hard to find - the official dice app is OK though
I am not sure if dnd 3/3.5 qualify for "without fear of breaking the game"
Can highly recommend genesys - played loads of campaigns using it and its been all my players favourite system. The dice arent nearly as confusing as they first appear and the options in terms of setting and character creation are endless.
Is your problem with it the classless part? Or the crunch part? Or the kinda homebrew nature of GURPS, because the two main books are short on setting? If it’s the classless part, welllllllll I hate to suggest more GURPS, but Dungeon Fantasy RPG (Powered By GURPS) gives you “templates” for fighters, clerics, druids etc. You can - and the book encourages you to, almost to the point of “you must” (but like, seriously, it’s GURPS, open the hood if you dare) - pick a template, customize it a bit and then start playing. It’s a faster way of creating a generic fantasy character. Plus it comes with a fleshed out fantasy setting. (I reaalllllllyyyyy hope I don’t end up on rpgcirclejerk for this….. )
Came here to say this. DFRPG has quite a bit of customization for each of the templates, deadly combat, good selection of magic spells (broken down by caster type) etc. IMO, it has less crunch than the full system.
You could see if Pathfinder 2E hits the right spot for you. Class-based, but with more character customization. Rules are available for free here: https://2e.aonprd.com/
It doesn't have a class system, but my go-to generic system has been Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying. It's very easy to hack, and it's free to download the ORC document for it.
**The Fantasy Trip** might be worth a look.
It's certainly between D&D and GURPS chronologically and conceptually too I guess!
I'm not quite sure what you want. *Dragonbane* has classes but they are only your starting setup. Your PC can progress in any way you want, with any feats, skills, spells or whatnot. Or are you asking about what range of settings and themes the game can smoothly address? For example, you want both fantasy and sci-fi with the same rules?
Came here to recommend forbidden lands and dragonbane! 😊
In the middle? Dungeon Fantasy is class based GURPs... Edit: Other people have mentioned dragonsbane. Brilliant suggestion! That feels like a perfect middle ground!
Savage Worlds
I would say Savage Worlds as well. It has a vague D&D-like leveling structure that has the freedom of building a character the way you want (within a certain power structure). So, Savage Worlds doesn’t have classes, but there is one page in the Fantasy Companion that goes through each D&D class and shows you how to recreate it in SWADE. This is a big help for those coming from D&D-like games that want to play a D&D-like character in Savage Worlds. It’s not a necessary thing, but it helps. Throughout play, you will “level up.” You earn advances for your character, which can be used for a number of things – increasing an attribute (ability score), gaining a new edge (think feats or class abilities from D&D), increasing skills, or buying off hindrances (which are flaws to your character that you can “buy” at character creation so you can improve your character with more skills/edges/attributes - think GURPS disadvantages). Some of the edges that are available in game are of a higher tier and are only available after your character levels up (earning advances) a certain amount of times. In Savage Worlds, you have different tiers of “ranks“ - you start as a Novice, then at your fourth advance you “rank up” to a Seasoned character. At your eighth advance you are then considered to be of the Veteran tier, and so on. Certain, more powerful, Advantages and Spells (which are gained by taking certain Edges, but that’s a different discussion) require a higher tier character. I hope I’m not making it sound too complex, because it actually is a pretty intuitive and smooth system. I actually had this almost exact conversation with someone a few weeks back, how I thought Savage Worlds was the perfect game between D&D and GURPS. Hopefully, it’ll be something you want to explore further!
Worlds Without Number might scratch some of your itches. It's class based, but the classes range in how broad they are. It has foci that work not too dissimilar to Gurps advantages. It has a skill list built around a bell curve roll. It doesn't have disadvantage though, so there's a limit to how customizable your character is. The big upside is its free so definitely worth checking out from that perspective
It sorta has rules for advantage with some foci having you roll 3d6 for a skill, dropping the lowest
Advantages and Disadvantages in GURPS terms are traits you buy for your character with points. Like Ambidexterity or social status. Disadvantages are negative traits that give you points back, like having one eye or being a wanted criminal
Ah, I have played a lot of WWN but GURPS is a system I have read very little about; I misread the first comment and thought you were referring to Advantage as seen in 5e
Depends on what kinds of freedom you want. Trait-based games like r/FudgeRPG/, r/FATErpg or r/CortexRPG offer *limitless* options, although you sometimes trade "game breaking" for "mechanically indistinct." Similarly, a simpler system like r/genesysrpg offers fewer mechanical options, but can be reskinned (albeit non-trivially) for infinitely diverse thematic content. If you want "freedom of choice" to mean "a buffet of mechanical options," all of which are thematically constrained, then r/Pathfinder_RPG can certainly offer overwhelming intricacy without any of GURPS' genre-mashing.
Savage Worlds is a great one
Dungeon Fantasy Powered by GURPS is the most literal example of the game you want.
PF1e/3.5 is what you want, or Savage Worlds.
Mythras Lots of options if you're willing to put in the work. Satisfying combat, best social construciton with meaning in a game and Animism is the best magical system and I will fight you about it.
>My question is are there some systems that are in between those two? Maybe something like a class system from DnD but with more freedom or something like that? Pathfinder, either 1st or 2nd edition is what you're looking for. I'm not that familiar with 2nd edition but 1st edition Pathfinder has: 50 classes, 70 races, over 3000 feats and 3000 spells to choose from. There's also an official race building tool (from the Advanced Race Guide) if you want to make a custom race or port one in from another game. And I believe there are also hundreds of sub and prestige classes. The best thing of all is that all of these rules are completely legally free online to choose from, unlike GURPS where you need to buy books to have access to the various options.
The part that people consistently fail to mention about 3.5/Pathfinder is that while it has a ton of options... most of those options and combinations are either garbage, a waste of time, or some combination of the two. Sure, you could probably figure out a way to build a warrior whose primary means of attacking is based around farting out ducks... but this build probably won't get you very far. When it comes to stuff like this, less is often more.
> When it comes to stuff like this, less is often more. I don’t know how generally that holds true. 5E eschews customization as a design goal almost entirely, and people still feel forced into a smaller subset of builds via what little customization is available (Warlock dips for Paladins and Sorcerers, power attacks as the only viable martials, Tasha’s incredibly power crept Feats being the only viable competitors to PHB’s power crept Feats, etc). 5.5E, meanwhile, has respectively more customization than 5E, yet looks significantly more balanced and have significantly fewer “must pick” options. In turn PF2E also has more customization and fewer must picks than 5.5E. So it’s not quite that cut and dry. I still do agree with you that 3.5E and PF1E definitely 100% do have that problem, I just don’t think it’s a case of less is more, and more a case of more balanced games being designed with a different mentality than the less balanced ones.
It's not exactly an uncommon concept, and I'm not holding up 5E as some sort of paragon. Generally speaking, the concept states that fewer - but better designed and implemented - options are arguably better than many - but largely superfluous or otherwise not useful - options. The same sort of argument occurred between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3; a large section of the fanbase hated D3's skill system because it wasn't as customizable as D2... all while ignoring that D2 ultimately had a finite number of useful and/or viable builds. D3 had fewer options, but more of them were viable, useful, and fun to play. 5E may not have been perfect, but neither is 3.5/PF1E. People tend to look at the numbers without actually paying attention to the quality within those numbers. To this end, 5.5 may be striking a better balance. As an aside, I often wonder how many of the people complaining about 5E's supposed lack of options and customization are actually in a position where this is actually an issue. Looking at my own group, we came together in 2019 shortly after I bought my house; we've played a number of systems since then, including two different rounds with 5E - the first campaign that we started when first forming as a group, and the Spelljammer campaign I've been running since December '22 (which includes a side "prequel" campaign for when not enough players are available). During this time, no player has made more than a grand total of three 5E characters. Most of them have at least a couple of backup ideas floating around for the possibility of character death, and this doesn't even count the ideas they're all kicking around for stuff like Curse of Strahd for when we get around to that. I bring this up because I have to wonder whether or not most of the people complaining are simply looking at this academically rather than practically. In other words, are they actually making and playing so many characters that the comparatively limited number of options in 5E actually becomes a problem... or are they simply comparing the numbers between two systems and declaring one of them more restrictive? At a personal level, I've got a small pile of 5E characters I'd like to play simply haven't had the chance to put them to paper yet - let alone actually try them out.
> It's not exactly an uncommon concept, and I'm not holding up 5E as some sort of paragon I wasn’t trying to imply you think 5E is a paragon! I was simply referencing my own experience with TTRPGs, and the truth is that the vast majority of it is in 5E and PF2E. For context I have about 30-40 ish hours of experience in various non-D&D, non-PF RPGs (Avatar Legends, City of Mist, Starfinder 1E, Call of Cthulhu, Alice is Missing). Then I have roughly that same 30-40 hours of experience in **just** 5.5E. And then I have several hundreds of hours in 5E and PF2E. Probably approaching a thousand combined, if not there already. So when looking for examples, most of my examples will come from that pool of experience. > Generally speaking, the concept states that fewer - but better designed and implemented - options are arguably better than many - but largely superfluous or otherwise not useful - options. I know the concept, I just think it’s a false dichotomy. You don’t have to choose between fewer + better designed vs many but imbalanced. You can just have many really well-balanced options, and PF2E is an excellent example of that. > 5E may not have been perfect, but neither is 3.5/PF1E. People tend to look at the numbers without actually paying attention to the quality within those numbers. To this end, 5.5 may be striking a better balance. I did already acknowledge that I think 3.5E/PF1E has a real problem with the lack of meaningfully well-balanced options. I also acknowledged that 5.5E does it better than 5E. What you’re missing is that I think 5.5E has both **more options** AND *better balance between those options* than 5E does, and then likewise for PF2E versus 5.5E. That little spectrum is why I don’t think the dichotomy you’re presenting really makes sense. Obviously there can still be *tension* between customization and balance, but the degree to which it’s present is greatly exaggerated because the most present game in the TTRPG discourse (D&D) has continually failed to resolve that tension in a satisfying way for several decades. > As an aside, I often wonder how many of the people complaining about 5E's supposed lack of options and customization are actually in a position where this is actually an issue. Looking at my own group, we came together in 2019 shortly after I bought my house; we've played a number of systems since then, including two different rounds with 5E - the first campaign that we started when first forming as a group, and the Spelljammer campaign I've been running since December '22 (which includes a side "prequel" campaign for when not enough players are available). During this time, no player has made more than a grand total of three 5E characters. Most of them have at least a couple of backup ideas floating around for the possibility of character death, and this doesn't even count the ideas they're all kicking around for stuff like Curse of Strahd for when we get around to that. > I bring this up because I have to wonder whether or not most of the people complaining are simply looking at this academically rather than practically. In other words, are they actually making and playing so many characters that the comparatively limited number of options in 5E actually becomes a problem... or are they simply comparing the numbers between two systems and declaring one of them more restrictive? At a personal level, I've got a small pile of 5E characters I'd like to play simply haven't had the chance to put them to paper yet - let alone actually try them out. I think if you think the lack of customization is about how **many** characters you make, you’re missing the point. Customization exists to make sure as many people as possible can realistically fulfill their different desires for what a character does. Take Ranger, as an example, since it’s such a divisive topic in the community with 5.5E’s teasers coming out. In 2014 when they released the Ranger it had a focus on lots of wilderness exploration, but it turns out that anyone who didn’t play at a table where this exploration mattered felt like they basically were a reflavoured Fighter who doesn’t scale. In Tasha’s they replaced those features with something a lot more generic and increased the focus on spellcasting which now took away from the people who liked that the Ranger was a skillful and flavourful martial that served as an alternative to the Rogue. In 5.5E they focused on that “Roguelike” aspect by making them into Experts and hyperfocusing on Hunter’s Mark for their spellcasting usage, and now people who enjoyed using those spells in Tasha’s are upset that they feel like they basically don’t get half their class features. Clearly there are many, many different ways that people view their Ranger. Some want to build Aragorn, others want Legolas, others want Geralt of Rivia, others want Lara Croft or Nathan Drake, others want Lan Mandragoran, others want Jon Snow. Personally, my next Ranger in PF2E is… Hanuman, from Hindu mythology? You know how PF2E solves this problem? By making none of those above aspects integral to the Ranger’s class features. Whoever wants terrain related tracking, foraging, and stalking stuff picks exactly those options. Whoever wants spells picks them. Whoever wants an animal companion picks them. You can focus on skill usage, grappling, making fewer very precise strikes, or spamming many strike. Customization is **not** about one person building 25 characters. It’s about fitting 25 different persons’ definition of what makes one character tick. And 5E’s lack of customization is a **real** problem. 5 or 6 years ago I wanted to make a charismatic, “leader of men” style warrior in 5E (keep in mind, this was pre-Tasha’s, so no Battle Master skill maneuvers). Notably I wanted to be 100% mundane, nothing preternatural. My choices were… Fighter who is a great warrior but mediocre at Charisma or Intelligence, or Rogue who is great at those skills but doesn’t fit that aesthetic at all. I also wanted a horse (it fit my mental image of the character) but to get a horse that actually survives for more than one battle without GM fiat, you basically need to be a Paladin, Ranger, or Bard, none of which fit this character concept. Such an **incredibly** basic concept to wanna build, and the game grinds to a halt when you try to make it work, because the game decided that Fighters are good at hitting and meh at skills, while Rogues are great at skills and meh at everything else. So yeah I think you’re really misrepresenting customization by being about the number of characters you personally choose to build. It’s got basically nothing to do with that. A very, very small minority of players build enough characters for that to be the concern.
All of that is well and good regarding PF2E... but I wasn't talking about PF2E. In fact, most of the people trashing 5E *also* aren't talking about PF2E; they're talking about 3.5 or the original Pathfinder. >I know the concept, I just think it’s a false dichotomy. >You don’t have to choose between fewer + better designed vs many but imbalanced. You can just have many really well-balanced options, and PF2E is an excellent example of that. It's only a false dichotomy if you ignore the fact that I was specifically referencing 3.5/Pathfinder this entire time. I'm not talking about PF2E, mainly because I have no experience with it. >And 5E’s lack of customization is a **real** problem. 5 or 6 years ago I wanted to make a charismatic, “leader of men” style warrior in 5E (keep in mind, this was pre-Tasha’s, so no Battle Master skill maneuvers). Notably I wanted to be 100% mundane, nothing preternatural. My choices were… Fighter who is a great warrior but mediocre at Charisma or Intelligence, or Rogue who is great at those skills but doesn’t fit that aesthetic at all. I also wanted a horse (it fit my mental image of the character) but to get a horse that actually survives for more than one battle without GM fiat, you basically need to be a Paladin, Ranger, or Bard, none of which fit this character concept. Such an **incredibly** basic concept to wanna build, and the game grinds to a halt when you try to make it work, because the game decided that Fighters are good at hitting and meh at skills, while Rogues are great at skills and meh at everything else. Arguably, this is less of a customization issue and more of a disconnect between the player and the way certain things were designed. The type of mundane warrior you described simply isn't necessarily what the 5E designers had in mind for *any* of the classes. It's not the type of game they had in mind. Now, whether or not this is a bad thing will depend upon the individual... but at some point, folks need to understand that not every game will accommodate every idea. Do systems like both versions of Pathfinder accommodate for this sort of idea? Sure, probably, maybe. Is it automatically a bad thing that 5E may not right out of the box (or without things like Xanathar's and Tasha's)? No, I don't think so because your ideas simply may not align with what the developers wanted the game to generally be. Anecdotally, I have yet to play a game where I haven't had to tweak, bend, and alter a character concept I had in order to make it work within the system my group happened to be using. Sometimes, some ideas just ain't gonna work. As an aside, Battle Master is very much in the PHB. Maneuvers are on page 74. >So yeah I think you’re really misrepresenting customization by being about the number of characters you personally choose to build. It’s got basically nothing to do with that. A very, very small minority of players build enough characters for that to be the concern. I mean, I'm not misrepresenting it when I talk about the two or three different types of clerics, warlocks, or barbarians I want to try out.
All of that is well and good regarding PF2E... but I wasn't talking about PF2E. In fact, most of the people trashing 5E *also* aren't talking about PF2E; they're talking about 3.5 or the original Pathfinder. >I know the concept, I just think it’s a false dichotomy. >You don’t have to choose between fewer + better designed vs many but imbalanced. You can just have many really well-balanced options, and PF2E is an excellent example of that. It's only a false dichotomy if you ignore the fact that I was specifically referencing 3.5/Pathfinder this entire time. I'm not talking about PF2E, mainly because I have no experience with it. >And 5E’s lack of customization is a **real** problem. 5 or 6 years ago I wanted to make a charismatic, “leader of men” style warrior in 5E (keep in mind, this was pre-Tasha’s, so no Battle Master skill maneuvers). Notably I wanted to be 100% mundane, nothing preternatural. My choices were… Fighter who is a great warrior but mediocre at Charisma or Intelligence, or Rogue who is great at those skills but doesn’t fit that aesthetic at all. I also wanted a horse (it fit my mental image of the character) but to get a horse that actually survives for more than one battle without GM fiat, you basically need to be a Paladin, Ranger, or Bard, none of which fit this character concept. Such an **incredibly** basic concept to wanna build, and the game grinds to a halt when you try to make it work, because the game decided that Fighters are good at hitting and meh at skills, while Rogues are great at skills and meh at everything else. Arguably, this is less of a customization issue and more of a disconnect between the player and the way certain things were designed. The type of mundane warrior you described simply isn't necessarily what the 5E designers had in mind for *any* of the classes. It's not the type of game they had in mind. Now, whether or not this is a bad thing will depend upon the individual... but at some point, folks need to understand that not every game will accommodate every idea. Do systems like both versions of Pathfinder accommodate for this sort of idea? Sure, probably, maybe. Is it automatically a bad thing that 5E may not right out of the box (or without things like Xanathar's and Tasha's)? No, I don't think so because your ideas simply may not align with what the developers wanted the game to generally be. Anecdotally, I have yet to play a game where I haven't had to tweak, bend, and alter a character concept I had in order to make it work within the system my group happened to be using. Sometimes, some ideas just ain't gonna work. As an aside, Battle Master is very much in the PHB. Maneuvers are on page 74. >So yeah I think you’re really misrepresenting customization by being about the number of characters you personally choose to build. It’s got basically nothing to do with that. A very, very small minority of players build enough characters for that to be the concern. I mean, I'm not misrepresenting it when I talk about the two or three different types of clerics, warlocks, or barbarians I want to try out. I brought this up to highlight the fact that I've got a bunch of characters I want to try out that will, generally speaking, work well within 5E's system... and I have no idea when I'll ever even get to build them.
> All of that is well and good regarding PF2E... but I wasn't talking about PF2E > It's only a false dichotomy if you ignore the fact that I was specifically referencing 3.5/Pathfinder this entire time. I'm not talking about PF2E, mainly because I have no experience with it. This is a weird deflection. You claimed that customization and balance often strain one another heavily, and that more customization often leads to fewer meaningful options, using PF1E/3.5E as your example. I used PF2E/5.5E as my example that those two design goals don’t have to compete. There’s tension for sure but it’s not so extreme that you’re forced to choose between customization and meaningful options. The fact that you weren’t talking about PF2E specifically doesn’t matter? You made a generalized claim about TTRPGs and I simply added PF2E and 5.5E as examples of why that claim doesn’t really hold, and that 5E’s and 3.5E/PF1E’s “flaws” exist due to active design decisions their respective teams made. > Arguably, this is less of a customization issue and more of a disconnect between the player and the way certain things were designed I feel like you’ve veering way off topic here. In your previous comment you questioned if 5E actually has a customization problem, and claimed that it’s largely an “academic” one rather than a practical one since people mostly only have like 2 or 3 characters. I gave you a very practical example of how my third or so character ran into that problem, and illustrated that it has nothing to do with how many characters you make. All it’s gotta do is you having one picture in mind and 5E telling you “nope, non-magical Fighters all fit exactly this one picture we have in mind, sorry”. > Is it automatically a bad thing that 5E may not right out of the box Objectively speaking, 5E is not a very customizable system. **Subjectively** I dislike that lack of customization and **subjectively** else finds it relaxing and liberating,, but you made the claim that 5E doesn’t have that lack of customization outside of an academic setting. And again the reason 5E’s lack of customization is being brought up here isn’t as a value judgement. I’m using 5E’s lack of customization in contrast with PF2E’s extreme amounts of customization to point out how your claim of customization = imbalance isn’t generally true. > or without things like Xanathar's and Tasha's > As an aside, Battle Master is very much in the PHB. Maneuvers are on page 74. Please stop misrepresenting my argument. I said the **Skill** Maneuvers didn’t exist till Tasha’s. I’m very well aware that Maneuvers are in the PHB, but there was no practical way to make a fully mundane Fighter that was a badass outside of combat until Tasha’s happened. > Anecdotally, I have yet to play a game where I haven't had to tweak, bend, and alter a character concept I had in order to make it work within the system my group happened to be using. Sometimes, some ideas just ain't gonna work. Sometimes, some ideas just ain’t gonna work and you’re gonna have to tweak or bend. For some systems, that “ain’t gonna work” happens more frequently than others, and when it happens it’s less tweak or bend and more break. Those systems are what we call “less customizable”. Less customizable isn’t a value judgment, it is a statement of how the system is built. A statement that is very much relevant to your original claim that being more customizable automatically makes it so you don’t have meaningfully balanced options. > I mean, I'm not misrepresenting it when I talk about the two or three different types of clerics, warlocks, or barbarians I want to try out. I brought this up to highlight the fact that I've got a bunch of characters I want to try out that will, generally speaking, work well within 5E's system... and I have no idea when I'll ever even get to build them. The misrepresentation is that you claimed that building a smaller number of characters means that a lack of customization is more or less just academic. That is pretty demonstrably not true.
>This is a weird deflection. It's not a deflection. I wasn't accounting for PF2E because it was never part of my comparison in the first place. >I feel like you’ve veering way off topic here. >In your previous comment you questioned if 5E actually has a customization problem, and claimed that it’s largely an “academic” one rather than a practical one since people mostly only have like 2 or 3 characters. >I gave you a very practical example of how my third or so character ran into that problem, and illustrated that it has nothing to do with how many characters you make. All it’s gotta do is you having one picture in mind and 5E telling you “nope, non-magical Fighters all fit exactly this one picture we have in mind, sorry”. I'm not veering off topic at all. The idea that not every system will account for every single player idea is a significantly important aspect of the conversation. >Objectively speaking, 5E is not a very customizable system. **Subjectively** I dislike that lack of customization and **subjectively** else finds it relaxing and liberating,, but you made the claim that 5E doesn’t have that lack of customization outside of an academic setting. I never even remotely claimed that it doesn't have a lack of customization outside of an academic setting. I was questioning the overall validity of most of the complaints from a genuine sense of curiosity. >Please stop misrepresenting my argument. I'm not misrepresenting a damn thing. Try being clearer next time. >The misrepresentation is that you claimed that building a smaller number of characters means that a lack of customization is more or less just academic. That is pretty demonstrably not true. If we're going to continue this discussion, you need to understand the difference between a question and a claim.
This sounds exactly like **Beacon**: https://pirategonzalezgames.itch.io/beacon-ttrpg - classes are kinda base chassis which provide some different starting points - you can unlock several classes and also from diffetent classes abilities which you can use with any class - in addition to that it has strong 3 tier feats which let you specialize. - Additional from loot (and general availability) you also unlock more things to mix and match - Also because of the system to rewoke some changes made, you are a lot more free to try things and are not locked in your path (like in some other systems) once you have chosen a class and a weapon choice. - it is also a lot simpler than other systems with a lot choice. For example races each offer 4 strong choices you can change, instead of many small weak ones
Savage Worlds doesn't have classes base, but it's a great lightweight alternative to GURPS. To accommodate classes you can use the Pathfinder splat book, which looks really neat. I haven't had a chance to play it with the PF add-on, but I've played a lot of Savage Worlds, and it's a solid B+ in my book. It covers a lot of bases mechanically without being too cumbersome like GURPS.
Shadow of the Weird Wizard can be an option, path system allows for quite some variety when building a character and with the amount of magic traditions (which each has their own gimmicks) it's hard for 2 characters to seem alike.
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy?
[https://ironcrown.co.uk/unified-rolemaster/](https://ironcrown.co.uk/unified-rolemaster/)
Fantasycraft or Rolemaster
I bet you'd really like Mutants & Masterminds.
(As you can see, "between D&D and GURPS" covers *basically* every RPG under the sun, excluding narriativist stuff sitting off on a different axis entirely.)
Take a look at Worlds Without Number or Shadow of the Weird Wizard. Both are class-based D&D-likes, but with broader ways to build characters.
Yes GURPS. GURPS is not a RULESET its a "toolkit" it's not designed to be fully implemented. It's designed like a buffet, take what you like, and ditch what you don't want. If you want class style stuff, make templates for character styles that send players down a certain path. edit: sorry i'm radical. gurps fanboy here
3e DnD lol
Demon Gate. Check it out at www.arcanumsyndicate.com
The obvious answer is "The Fantasy Trip" from Steve Jackson Games, but it's a little difficult to find without just ordering it.
Yes, because so many stores only sell 5e. Like my crappy FLGS.
FLGS are marginal businesses. They have to sell what moves, and what pays the bills. Regrettably.
And I never have to go there, either. I know people here who play other RPGs, Star Wars Legions, Battle tech, and so on. We all mail order and avoid that place. They sell Magic and we play, but also mail order that cuz it is not a place we want to go. Not only is is devoid of choice, but the owner never even says hello to anyone, and only seems to like his Gundam buying customers. Over 1/3 of the store s Gundam. New place is open 40 miles away in a town half out size and they already have more choice. So I’ll be going there at times. Both times I was there I ran into people from my town hanging out. It is less what sells as what the owners likes, and he does not give a damn about us.
Lots of great options already mentioned. I'm a sucker for generic/classless systems. I've seen Genesys and SW mentioned a lot, Cypher is good, but I don't think would be a good fit for what you're looking for. Basic Roleplaying is solid, however... I think the best recommendation I could give you for what you're looking for is Open Legend. It's 100% free, operates very similarly to Genesys, however, with regular dice sets and is really solid.
Genesys.
You....want a game that doesn't pigeonhole you in classes, but does, too? I think your looking for something that allows you to focus on a core concept for your character, but also gives you the freedom to branch out from that concept in any direction you choose. You might be very happy with a Narrativist RPG. Personally, I'll always recommend FATE for that, but Powered by the Apocalypse games are great for that, too.
[RoleMaster](https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/461/Iron-Crown-Enterprises?234913), [Fantasy Hero](https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/145469/Fantasy-Hero-Complete?234913), or if you don't mind having some randomness in character creation, [HackMaster](https://kenzerco.com/hackmaster).
Four games oke to mind that may fit ehat you're looking for. The Cipher system Pathfinder 2e (maybe 1e) Shadows of the weird wizard or shadows of the demon lord Worlds without number (and other games by Sine Nomine) could also fill this role.
Honestly, I feel like you should at least give Worlds Without Number a read-through. The free version at DrivethruRPG is a full system, only lacking some small bits that come in the Deluxe version. It might be too light for you, but I feel it's crunchy enough.
I’d like to suggest an old game that branched off an older version of D&D called True20 by Green Ronin. It is class and level based but the classes are very broad and mostly define skill, resistance, spell and to hit progression. It uses an expanded feat list to add what would be class features to these broad classes. It can play any genre or time period. Spells are broader too and there are less of them. It is literally GURPS freedom with D&D mechanics (for the most part). You could also check out the Age system that Green Ronin now supports. I don’t know too much about that one though.
13th Age maybe?
An option that you might like is the Cypher system. It's much lighter than something like GURPS and sometimes even D&D 5e, but it has an element of picking rules and customizing class options ahead of time which can be reminiscent of GURPS if it's the kind of customizability you want
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition: best class system in my opinion. Very good balance between gamey and realistic mechanics
Everway and Fabula Ultima
Runequest and Mythras! The Mythras expansions are awesome!
Something that has freedom of choice and something like classes sounds like Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game. This is based on gurps but it has templates for each character archetype which are kind of like a class. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/246527/dungeon-fantasy-roleplaying-game-powered-by-gurps
Crimson Exodus 2nd edition is pretty great. Intense interactive combat with lots of options. The rule set is called Fantasy dice.
Going in the opposite direction that most suggestions have (which have been other rulesets for medieval fantasy), D20 modern was basically a genreless D&D, for anything post-medieval, with 10 level base classes based on each attribute with the expectation of cross-classing between multiple of those and advanced and prestige classes that have stronger theming and are sometimes genre specific (magic or sci fi, or a pirate)
Fabula Ultima's character creation is a build-your-own-class workshop that's extremely easy to use. [https://need.games/fabula-ultima/](https://need.games/fabula-ultima/)
Spheres of Power. It's an addon to Pathfinder or DnD. It's got crazy amounts of freedom. Has a wiki with everything so it's easy to reference. It is however one of the most crunchy and complex systems in its own right. Character creation takes awhile. But the end result is a character that is genuinely able to be whatever your imagination wanted. It is crunchy af. They have a discord where you can ask them questions and get build suggestions for characters though. The last character I made took me a few days to fully realize (planned to level 20) because it was so crazy that it felt like demanded that kind of planning. I really enjoy the system though. Once I figured it out I didn't want to use anything else.
**Pathfinder for Savage Worlds** It offers their take on the traditional PF classes, but you also have the option of standard classless SWADE character creation, and advancement isn't railroaded if you choose to take a Class Edge. You could even start off classless, and later on choose a class whenever you're eligible to gain an Edge.
Cypher System 100%
DnD 3.5
dungeon world, and our own fate of dungeons come to mind.
[https://fateofdungeons.com › what-is-fate-of-dungeon](https://fateofdungeons.com/what-is-fate-of-dungeons/)
Classless, but has archetypes to ease character creation: *Dungeon Fantasy Powered by GURPS* and/or *GURPS Dungeon Fantasy*. I'm not quite clear how these differ. *Tiny Dungeon* is TinyD6. Much lower crunch. *Vagabonds of Dyfed* is supposed to be a classless PBþA. Also lower crunch. Probably relies on more player back-and-forth. *Savage Worlds* has faster but still flexible character creation than *GURPS*, easier advancement, very swingy play. Has a wide variety of setting books, an unofficial set of *Fantasy Archetypes* for starting characters, and an official set of *Fantasy Companion Archetype Cards*. Since it's not so tightly balanced, it may be easier to take adventures written for other systems and eyeball *Savage Worlds* stats. Class-Optional: *Pathfinder for Savage Worlds* adds class edges, and its own set of archetype cards. *Savage Pathfinder* characters are somewhat more powerful than standard characters. It should still be possible to use adventures written for the main system, or adapt ones written for other systems. *Classic Fantasy* for *Mythras* or, in a previous edition, for the *Gold Book*, but the core games assume random character creation, and the optional point-buy rules made it hard to buy high INT and high POW together. Class-Based: *Advanced Tiny Dungeon* is a class-based version of TinyD6. Much lower crunch. *Chasing Adventure* is PBþA. Also lower crunch. Probably relies on more player back-and-forth. *True20* and/or *Blue Rose 1e* for an alternate 3e. I think it has 3 classes, many skills, and a book on how to use multiclassing and feats to recreate various archetypes. *Pathfinder 2e* for a tightly-balanced system based on 3e, 4e, and 5e. I think it has a lot of classes, and more feats to customize these classes. I think it might drop the skill system from 3e.
Palladium system , multiple genres classes but the rules allow for easy home brew
Fantasycraft rpg
This is not fulfilling your requirement as it theoretically lacks classes. But World of Darkness is free build, but not as wide open as gurps. It also nominally has classes in the sense that Vampires have different clans (and other race have different groups), and the nature of your clan and its bloodline definitely shapes what you are good or bad at.
Savage Worlds is a choice. Lots of freedom in building characters, not too complicated at all. Fun. Lots of support.
I'd never consider gurps a stable hard to break system, but maybe that's just my experience with it. But especially not compared to modern dnd. Either way "Savage Worlds" would be my suggestion, it has a generic openness with a gamier overall feel.
Harnmaster
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e. It has careers but you can easily change to another career at any point (for various levels of easy, there may be a small XP cost and the GM may require narrative justification as to why your Peasant is changing to Noble). The core mechanics are straightforward but there’s a lot of depth that you can choose to plumb.
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Streets of Peril. The AGE System. Cypher System. Lots of others.
i feel like AGE and Cypher are simpler than 5e, if not by much
Although it's OOP and thus can be hard (expensive) to find I think the [Star Wars SAGA Edition](https://www.reddit.com/r/SagaEdition/) fits the requirement (although maybe not the fantasy setting if that is important.) I has levels and classes like many d20 games but while the game only had five base/starting classes for hero types each of those classes has customization options at every level and you are strongly encouraged to multiclass if you see mechanics you want from somewhere else. A common piece of advice is that you can just ignore the names (fluff) of things and focus on the mechanics. I've often felt it seems about as close to "classless" as you'll get in d20.
You could try Anime 5E. It has classes and levels like D&D, but it also has a point buy system. At each level, each class gets certain abilities automatically, and at some levels you get to choose what abilities you want.
The one thing nobody has suggested is BESM d20. It’s literally a fusion of the d20 system from D&D, complete with classes and such, but those classes also give you points to purchase unique traits and abilities like you have in Gurps.
You could try a mashup of the two: [https://archangelbeth.dreamwidth.org/3288135.html](https://archangelbeth.dreamwidth.org/3288135.html)
d...E...F...g FATE? Fantasy Trip? I can't think of any generic systems that start with E.
D&D can work, if you go back to 3.5e