Arcanis and 5th Edition D&D

Hello,

I think it’d be great to have enough people to make that an option again. Sure it won’t happen right away but the more people we attract the more likely it is to occur.

That’s my hope. We’ll see if there is enough interest in Arcanis for 5E players.

I have been playing Arcanis since almost the beginning and love the story! It has brought me close to a great many people that I would not have had the pleasure of meeting. The community use to be huge , and when the change to the new system happened we lost a lot of it , including pretty much all of my local players , a small number of us play at Origins but that has lessened in recent years.

I have several times gauged interest of return to the story if the system was to go back to a more widely used one or one that felt more familiar, and they have all said they would gladly revisit the story they (like every one ) all talk about how amazing your story is Henry. But the system just gets in the way of them enjoying the experience, which is a similar frustration I hear from new players as well when I try and bring them into the world.

I would love to see the community grow again and help keep this game and world both thriving.

I’m baffled by the comments about “not wanting to learn a new system”. Learning new mechanics is easy as long as one person at the table understands them (and, even if not, it’s still not too hard). Over the years, I’ve played scores of systems (I own probably 50+ different RPG systems (but some I picked up in PDF and have never played)). I’m honestly curious to hear from people that feel this way or know the reason why others feel this way. Why do people not want to learn a new system? How will they know if there is a better system out there if they don’t try any besides the one they currently play?

I’m even more confused by the comment that “the A:RPG system gets in the way of the story”. A:RPG was developed specifically to tell the Arcanis story – it is a far better system than any version of D&D for telling the Arcanis story. Why do some feel the A:RPG system gets in the way?

If we can bring new players into Arcanis (and A:RPG) then great but the necessity of converting some modules to D&D baffles me (though I’m certainly not arguing that it isn’t necessary – I just don’t understand the mindset that seemingly makes it necessary).

There were a few D&D4 fanboys around but anyone with broader gaming experience generally hated it.

I’m in the minority. I have a very broad gaming experience and I like D&D 4e. It certainly had problems (too few skills, level outstripping skill training, and fights at high level taking way too long, etc) but it also played well. At this point, I enjoy 4e more than the “search 37 rulebooks and hyper-optimize your character” “play” of 3.x/Pathfinder.

I will try D&D 5e (Saturday actually) but am not expecting a whole lot. I previously played a very early playtest version at Origins (pretty sure it was the first or second con WotC ever ran it at) and it had major problems but I’ve heard they fixed some of them (and not others).

The more systems I play, the less I like class-based systems (unless they are very broad like Archetypes in Arcanis)…

Many ‘old’ systems suffer rulebook bloat due to ‘publish or perish’ imperitives. For all its foibles, Rolemaster was even worse (although I enjoyed it for other reasons). WH40k is a nightmare these days due to the pricepoint (haven’t played in two years due to power-leaps).

Have you checked out any of the more recent Rolemaster versions? They are much better about balance (and put out a lot fewer products than RM2 did). Personally I prefer RMSS/RMFRP to RM2/RMC but, overall it’s pretty evenly split (which is why they are working on RMU as a unified single system).

A:CSE I feel is the opposite direction and could use 1-2 more produce releases per year (Origins and another around Christmas or January). If I could make the time at home I have the skills to write full products. I can’t even make the time to write the adventure I’m working on (outline submitted two years ago).

I agree. Another even worse system is Metal, Magic, and Lore. I really like the system but they are only managing something like 1 release every 2-3 years (and do not have free adventures or back-catalog like Arcanis does).

Back to D&D4, I just had a strange thought. I wonder how it would go as a “class-less” system (no class restrictions on Powers)?

Interesting thought. I suspect you could come up with some very broken combos but I can’t think of any off-hand. Even without mixing powers, you could get some possibly broken powers (I had a Psion that by low paragon was doing something like 1d6+16 damage in a 3×3 square and applying an effect on top of it – the only real balance was that it was not “friendly”).

Sometimes a system of rules is vital to what kinds of games you want to run.

For example Call of Cthulhu doesn’t work in standard D&D of any edition. Or through A:RPG. The point of CoC is to get weaker as you go…and eventually suffer/RP a very colorful demise or retirement. Similarly 7th Seas is about swashbuckler-ing action. Its rules make PCs a lot tougher than mooks and had some of the earliest minion rules. 7th Seas was the first time we laughed as a party as we took on 50 enemy swordsmen … cause we knew we would win through.

A:RPG has a lot going for it. I love the clock & weapon tricks (a reason to wield a dagger or to hit someone with a shield!). It admittedly also has some wonkiness to its layout and organization (the rules for jumping are under the athletics skill instead of movement. Someone with no ranks in athletics might never find it…The stacking rules seem clunky to me and, IMO, should be simplified). One of the other great things about A:RPG is that it brought magic down from an epic feel to a sword and sorcery feel. The strategic level spells of D&D are gone (teleportation, mass flight, commune) leaving spell casters (like warrior types) operating at a tactical level. I love that! Knock on wood I think we have rough parity between casters and warriors at all levels!

I am all in favor of trying to recruit old hands and new players to widen our base. And I think offering a couple of re-skinned mods in 5E is a smart idea.

But I remain somewhat worried about moving the game to be dual set with 5E rules. I loved 2nd Edition of D&D which I played in college. I like 3.X but as a sometimes module writer doing the stat blocks was like doing taxes. I like 4E. And I’ve bought and am interested in 5E…if only some decent modules would be written beyond the Encounters program. BUT! By the time D&D PCs reach 5th level they have access to invisibility and flight. By 9th, powerful divintaions, teleportation and raise dead. Everyone has an extensive collection of magic items. I don’t see how the spellcasting and magic systems can be easily reconciled. And remain (somewhat) worried that tackling such issues will be a net drain on our limited campaign resources.

Well, I also just mentioned this in another thread but I will reiterate here as well. I play 5e once a week now via roll20, and about a month and a half in, I firmly believe 5th edition is the best so far for D&D.
I then started my own Campaign and homebrewed Arcanis races into 5th edition. It actually went well with a few hiccups but it worked. We did two sessions like that before I finally convinced a few of the players to go online and buy A:RPG. Now we have fully switched over to this system. They all loved it. We did lose one of the players due to a lack of interest in learning a new system, but all the others were all about it.

In my opinion, I think this system is still the best around. Of course you have to consider the implications of getting more players, and personally I would continue to play this system over a 5e sourcebook for Arcanis. And there will always be those people out there that prefer classic D&D system, which 5e very much feels like.

The next thing I will mention, is that currently there is a massive lack of settings books for 5th Edition. There is like a 4 page PDF for Eberron, and Forgotten Realms is kind of built into the system books… but otherwise there is a hunger for material with a much larger fanbase due to it being the new D&D system.

Either way, Arcanis is my favorite setting and I will stick it with no matter the system.

And just thinking on it, a great alternative to a system other than Pathfinder or D&D would be the AGE system by Green Ronin (which was used for Dragon Age) and will be featured prominently on Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop RPG thingy………….. plus Green Ronin and PCI have worked together before so who know’s maybe they’d be happy to oblige………

Just a system that is easy enough to work with to quickly fit in with the Arcanis setting with little leg work from the conversion standpoint.

It’s what I use for my home campaign, and since I focus on story and action instead of heavy rules and crunch it works very very well.