Which One?

[DV8]

Hey Folks,

I'm starting to get the itch to jump back into RPG after a 3 decade absence so I would venture to call myself of noob.  LB is doing his best to get me to go down the D&D 3.5 path.  I think I have to take several things into consideration. 

- Rules overhead.  I love the "next" game, but this creates an issue with the continual learning of new rules.  Let's keep it simple!
- Community of players.  I love obscure games until it comes time to find people to play with.  Ops.
- Longevity.  I want to find an RPG with staying power.
- Child friendly.  I have a 9 year old that has expressed some interest.  I know this will be toughest criteria to meet.

My prelim research has lead me to the following.  D&D, Pathfinder, Savage World, Mouse Guard, any Warhammer RPG and The One Ring.  I would appreciate any feedback.  Including yours LB  :-X

Thanks,
DV8

[eyebiter]

Basic edition Dungeons & Dragons

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/redbox.aspx

[Bison]

Pathfinder

[Arctic Blast]

I'd vote Savage Worlds.

[Toonces]

I've been looking at Mouse Guard myself, primarily to play with kids.  There was a sweet box set that went out of print pretty quickly, but if it reprints I'll definitely be picking it up.

However, of the ones you posted, I haven't played any of them recently but Pathfinder seems like a well-supported rendition of D&D 3.5.  Seems like a fairly steep overhead, though.

[DV8]

The fan love of Mouse Guard borders on insane.  I bought one of the comics from Amazon to see if my son takes to the story.  If so, maybe MG.

Pathfinder seems to be more played than D&D and scores higher on RPG_Geek.com.  The starter box also is very appealing.

[bayonetbrant]

Pathfinder is DD3.5, just extended.  The issue with Pathfinder is that it can be as complicated or as simplified as you want to make it.

Savage Worlds is a lot of fun, and not particularly difficult.  Plus it's a generic system, so there's a lot of RPG options to play with it, and some old favorites (like Space: 1889) have been resurrected as Savage Worlds campaigns.
However, SW requires a good GM that can react to player actions on-the-fly because unlike some of the D&D-lineage products, there's no attempt to make a rule for everything

I've never played Mouse Guard, but heard good things about it.  I'd be worried if it's already OOP, regardless of the fan support.  Things go OOP for a reason, and a small-but-rabid fan base that wasn't enough to keep things in print may not be enough to keep it going if only 2-3 of them lose interest or time for generating material.

The concern I'd have with D&D at this particular moment is that they're busy developing DD5e.  DD4e hasn't been out 5 years, and they're already on to 5e, and in the meantime 3.5/Pathfinder is still everywhere.  I actually really liked 4e, but I fully recognize that I'm very much in the minority.  Just be careful you don't sink a bunch of money into a game system that gets replaced in the next 6 months with 5e finally drops.

[DV8]

Excellent feedback.  I believe MG is still in print.  I think the box set is OOP.

[Martok]

Hey Folks,

I'm starting to get the itch to jump back into RPG after a 3 decade absence so I would venture to call myself of noob.  LB is doing his best to get me to go down the D&D 3.5 path.  I think I have to take several things into consideration. 

- Rules overhead.  I love the "next" game, but this creates an issue with the continual learning of new rules.  Let's keep it simple!
- Community of players.  I love obscure games until it comes time to find people to play with.  Ops.
- Longevity.  I want to find an RPG with staying power.
- Child friendly.  I have a 9 year old that has expressed some interest.  I know this will be toughest criteria to meet.

My prelim research has lead me to the following.  D&D, Pathfinder, Savage World, Mouse Guard, any Warhammer RPG and The One Ring.  I would appreciate any feedback.  Including yours LB  :-X

Thanks,
DV8

If it wasn't for that last requirement, I'd say D&D 3.5 would be right up your alley.  As it is, however, you might be better of going with 4th Edition. 

[Double Deuce]

Well, no one has brought up GURPS, probably because it has a heavy, up front work load for character creation but it can be made to handle any theme relatively easy. I'm currently running a rules light Kung Fu Panda game for my 13 yo daughter and 8 yo son where we kinda make stuff up as we go along but follow the GURPS skill check and combat mechanics. Being based on a cartoon its great for exercising the imagination with all kinds of crazy things the kids can think up. Like the cartoon, nobody dies so the bad guys are back each session/episode ready to thwart the characters plans.

[Toonces]

WRT to Mouse Guard, yes, I meant that the uber box set was OOP, but the regular game is still very much in print.  In fact you can get most of the stuff through drivethrurpg in .pdf if you like electronic documents.  Also, like the Kung Fu Panda game, nobody dies in Mouse Guard.

I dunno, I think if I was going to go whole hog into D&D I'd just go with Pathfinder.

[DV8]

Here is what I'm thinking about doing.  Picking up a PDF of MG and the Pathfinder Beginner Box.  One for me and one for the little one.

"We all bundle"

[LongBlade]

"We all bundle"

Heh.

We've already chatted fairly extensively but I will add a few thoughts that I don't think came up in our discussions and are of a general nature.

Most RPGs have a fairly steep learning curve. I don't know about MouseGuard, but in general unless there's a starter box with pre-created characters and a scripted introduction you may find all of them challenging to start without an experienced guide.

Kid-friendly games just require the grown ups in the room to refrain from tredding into more mature subject matters. That said, these games have combat mechanics and some level of violence is going to be built-in to the system. You can whitewash an encounter as much as possible, but in the end characters are pulling out swords and bows and are using them. A wizard zapping a kobold with a lightning bolt is electrocuting it (or trying). Unless the group agrees to nerf everything and just knock out the bad guys (which may strain credulity in some instances) it will be difficult to entirely avoid some things.

WRT longevity, almost all of these games can have a long shelf life. The material is limited to the imagination. That said, if the material only provides for twelve bad guy permutations it may get old. D&D has books and books of monsters (and monster-ish critters). As I've noted, I probably have at least thirty different books I can bring to the table. Longevity is perhaps its strongest point.

Community of players - this is something I'm not sure how to answer. As I mentioned the other day, the quality of an RPG experience is dependent on the players and DM. Frankly, I think it's irrelevant how many groups are playing Game X. Far more important is whether the four to six players in my group are a good fit.

I think that covers all four of your questions.

[Capn Darwin]

There are a number of good super hero RPGs out there too. Knocking out bad guys would be more likely in those games.