I'm finally on a list that isn't a sh!t list.

I'll note that for Pathfinder 1E, 2E, and Starfinder, every single bit of content you'd buy a rulebook for is up for free on Archives of Nethys as well, so unlike DnD you don't need to pay anything for full rules as written access.

Another great video, with the cherry on top of being called out in the description! Thanks for staning for Shadowdark, Dan!

My favourite way for new DM's to dip their feet into the water is to get one of the old 'Choose your own adventure' books you might have played as a kid. Deathtrap Dungeon - Ian Livingstone. £4 2nd hand. Very basic rule system (only 2 pages!) to learn. Although designed for solo play - simply multiply the monsters encountered by the amount of the players you have. Ridiculously easy to adapt however you want.

They're never going to kill DND. Ever. It's the Kleenex of ttrpgs. When I play ANY ttrpgs, wanna know what my pals call it? DND night. It's ingrained.

ICRPG Core 2E was the first book I ever bought and the first system I ever GMed! I acquired the Collector's Edition because of my love of it! I love every Runehammer product (including EZD6 which I use for my longest ongoing campaign) I always use the loot included since it is so well done! Shadowdark is awesome too! I have yet to play it as well

Pathfinder 2e rulebook is the old one. It updated a while back. I believe "mathfinder" was used more for 1e. 2e is way more streamlined (way easier than 5e) thanks to the 3 action economy.

How much displayed on your t-shirt before goes BOOM!

I love PF 1e, and I hate D&D 5e for the same reason: customizability. 5e makes most of your choices for you, but PF lets you make mistakes. PF lets you build *wrong*, and that's okay. The most powerful build I ever saw was a guy building a brawler wrong (I forget what he did, but it was more powerful than mine, and I'm a power gamer who loves making the "correct decision").

The original D&D little brown books slays D&D

When I saw the thumbnail, I was like hey that Simon Whistler guy actually got cool! Also, there's a video where a well known Pathfinder youtuber talks about the Pathfinder rule book absorbing an attack he took when he was at a protest. That book has saved a life! Also.. FINE. I'll buy Shadowdark! the VHS looking workout video was f***ing BRILLIANT! If you like quicker stuff, Cairn and Knave are both rad. Dragonbane is oddly more awesome than I expected also. 2 out of those 3 are D20 roll under, though.

I want to follow the Dex Save Dan Pathfinder exercise plan.

Just to clarify he's probably talking about the 'current' version of Pathfinder which is 2e/Revised which was modeled after D&D 5e, not the original Pathfinder which is based after D&D 3.5e and is jokingly called D&D 3.75. I prefer the older (pre 4e) versions of D&D personally and I think both 4e and 5e went in the wrong direction even if it simplified things. I'll look through other videos to see if he's ever commented or reviewed Zweihander as that's very grimdark and very lethal (better chance your character will die than not).

I would add a few more Fantasy d20 based systems to this list: 1. Whitebox Fantasy Medieval Adventure Game (FREE) 2. Basic Fantasy RPG (FREE) 3. Cairn (FREE) 4. Dragonbane 5. MÖRK BORG 6. OSE 7. BlackHack 8. Lamentations of the Flame Princess 9. Dungeon Crawl Classics 10. Dungeons & Dragons 1e or 2nd edition or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. 😊

I might just be sold on Shadowdark, I love that old grimy style and I've been looking for an old school style system without the baggage of old school. Thanks, Dan!

Fast becoming my favourite D&D channel!

It's only Monday and this video is already the highlight of my week.

Smashing it 💥 keep the videos coming!

Love the little guys moving about on the table and mantelpiece.

This is great! It is so engaging and informative!

out of the 10 (i think) ttrpgs i have played, not a single one was as bad as DnD, and only one wasn't exceptionally easier to fully learn (fucking shadowrun!). my personal reccomendations are either cyberpunk RED or chronicles of darkness. RED is super simple and even has a useful app, its t he easiest thing ever to pick up. chronicles is the perfect intro, to my mind, its got lots of advice that dnd doesn't give iirc (like setting boundaries early or getting inspiration), its a simple system, its _actually_ easy to modify (unlike dnd), its _relatively_ popular, and you don't need hundreds of dollars of books to get a full game.

Perfect ICRPG and Shadowdark are my favorites

What the hell have you done with Eddie? You promised us Eddie

Good list. I was hoping for more TTRPGs, other systems that use a d20 for skill/hit rolls includes Lancer. Which isn't a fantasy setting, but rather a sci-fi mech game. Advantages here are that the mechanics for the player side? Free PDF download, and the Comp/Con site can get players access to all the mechanics from splat books for the player side, including new mech licenses, talents, and so on. Only the GM/Lore stuff is behind a paywall, and the lore stuff even has at least a couple good lore series out there on UKposts (thanks 11dragonkid). Lead artist is Abaddon/Tom Bloom of Kill Six Billion Demons, so if you don't like his art style you probably won't like a lot of the art in the books. Cons it requires a map. Not literally, but it is almost as much wargame as it is RPG. And if you are just playing it for the first time starting above License Level 0 is a bad idea as increasing levels exponentially increases the variety of things/abilities that the players have access to which can lead to confusion if you don't already know what you can do very very well. For more fantasy stylings there is Godbound, a game of divine heroes/villains who literally change the world. It's similar, but not the same by any means, to D&D and Pathfinder in that you have levels and such. Cons... if the GM isn't literally ready to run a game where the players can run roughshod over the setting then it will likely be quite hard. Pros here, there is a free edition of the core book, making price of entry literally just reading the book. This isn't a quick start, but it is literally just the core book meaning that you will likely need to either get home brewed stuff online or make stuff of your own for villains, monsters, and the like. Another pro, in my opinion, is that the players can literally change the setting in dramatic ways from the word go.

I love me some Shadowdark! I play in a bi-weekly game by Facebook Messenger, and it makes my week.

Thanks for sharing this. I like your whole list.

How did you cram all the pages back into that 5e PHB?

💯 agree on the top choices. I’d add Cairn to the list. Well written, easy to play, and free. But it gets away from the traditional 6 stats of D&D.

6:16 you use a D&D related image while talking about pathfinder. Also wanted to add, about the pathfinder book weight thing: they also sell a "pocket" version of the same book. its softcover and smaller with everything in it. its awesome.

hahaha that intro lol

I think everyone who talks about the D20 dice mechanics in their videos should say you have a target number that you must either roll or roll above it, that would be much easier for a beginner to understand. Because if a person watches a video and the UKpostsr says roll over, the person being totally new, will be told the target number. For example the target number is 14, then when that beginner rolls, they are going to think they need to roll a 15, it's very confusing for someone who knows nothing about how to play.

Damn dude, you keep making fire 🔥

Well looks like i'll be taking a look at Shadowheart then! I'd love to see you go through the process of setting up a game - pretty please?

Interesting rundown. I felt like there was an element that didn't get much mention, namely--OK, so once you've gotten past the ease or difficulty of the rules, you've spent the money, built up the muscle to carry the book or whatever . . . are they any good to play? I mean, you could have an RPG that was really easy to learn, but if that was because there was only one character class and all they could do was hit things with a melee weapon, that might get a bit old pretty quick, you know? So yeah, once you're going with these RPGs, what can you do with them?

Love the SB6 shirt. I've seen them live a time or two.

Spot on, mate! Spot on.

I've played a lot of ICRPG and is it a GREAT system. I've played a couple of sessions of ShadowDark and it left me flat. I would also recommend EZD6. I found both ICRPG and EZD6 to have a similar tone to 5e in that they are also heroic high-fantasy but I enjoy both of them more than 5e.

Great energy! Hoping to see your channel take off. Maybe you could give Crown and Skull a look next?

If youre into the such, i would always suggest King of Dungeons created by Baz Stevens, it was a kickstarter ttrpg that came through a couple years ago and ive had a good bit of fun with it, although you arent really gonna find much about it outside of the kickstarter, any physical prints, and the avrious pdfs of it.

I was over D&D when they started with the Tiefling and Dragon man horsecrap.

Just got ICRPG Mater edition on the mail, after getting the first edition, runnerhammer is an amazing creator, also would reccomend his other game War Maker if you want to play an extremly simplyfied vertion of Warhammer

Enjoyed this. Are you going to Break down other TTRPGs?

Subscribed!!

When you get your Simon Whistler on Wish.

Good luck getting a group going. I've played these games since I was 13 and DMd various sized games, mostly but not exclusively cyberpunk with homebrew horror, for almost 30 years. Now I'm in my 50s and damn its hard to find groups to play with or DM for. Edit: posted to appease the youtube algorithm goblin.

I know another D&D-like called Olde Swords Reign. It's basically 5e redone by people who respect your time. Pros: Everything you need all in one digest-sized book. Simplified rules and character creation hearkening back to the 1974 original, but with enough customization to keep character growth interesting. Simple, evocative black and white art. Maybe not on the level of Shadowdark, but still servicable. Most importantly, the pdf is FREE. Cons: What? It's free. Okay, fine. It doesn't have any base random encounter tables, but it does have an overview of how to make your own. Worst case scenario, you can also get a game like Basic Fantasy (pdf also free), and use those when starting out.

Idk, big disservice not mentioning that Pathfinder 2e's rules are legally free online.

dam your channel good great work

Yeah ICRPG ROCKS❤❤❤

knave,,,, knave is a great slimlined rpg, designed my own ttrpg influenced by knave, shadowdark and ICRPG.... Swords 'n' Stones

I demand that the shocked gnome appears in every episode, and then gets their own series

Damn no Lancer or GURPs.

Video starts at 4:36

Once you drop the D20 and give in to the more consistent D6 I HIGHLY recommend Ezd6.

"what's the point of playing pathfinder, when I've got DnD?" Better balance at any aspect you might want. Better balance between martials sand casters, better balance between spells and schools, better balance at high levels... Any aspect of this game you can take, just works out of the box. That's a HUGE advantage over DnD

Always heard good things about ICRPG, not tried it yet, however.

Drop the link to “Beauty and the Balrog” now!

Lefthand Righthand Arsecrack? Someone should tell him about FATAL

Icrpg campaign when?

My 6 INT no like big scary book words, like ICRPG and Shadowdark simple small sentences

What I love about these videos is that they are genuinely helpful, and made with genuine intent to inform and communicate. Rather than just 10 minutes of algorythmic fluff that claims to express some idea or provide a solution and in fact says nothing. This is ACTUAL CONTENT 🎉

Weirdly enough, I find D&D 5e the worst system for people to start with. I find when trying a new system, it's always the D&D players that dig their heels in unless the game is deliberately trying to copy D&D.

Or check book store dumpsters😂😂😂

Fuck yeah 🤘🏻

Reply if you're interested in an ICRPG or possibly EZd6 one shot GMT+1.

We play 5e and 3.5 still. Which I have been told is like pathfinder or pathfinder is D&D 3.75. I am done with buying things from WotC though.

Hell yeah, ICRPG! I’d also recommend Dragonbane, since it’s an easier to learn fantasy TTRPG than D&D and the box set includes literally everything you need to play an RPG right out the gate.

Lukewarm recs

ICRPG=A-OK

I am a little sad about how pathfinder 2e seems to be perceived by a lot of content creators. This is not really their fault, it’s just like, a common misconception. The thing is, pf2e is really focused on making the game part of the game interactive and fun, instead of being focused on math and character building and optimisation. There are a lot of options, sure, but they do not feel as important as they do, for example, in 3.5 or 5e, since they are very balanced between each other and more than anything they just permit you to do secondary stuff, and never will directly impact how effective you are. I’d say that it is a game for people who like having to overcome challenges in play (for example tactical challenges for fights, which are way more tactical and fun than in most other ttrpgs, but also exploration challenges, time management challenges, etc etc, they all are very curated so to be fun to interact with), but not really for people who enjoy a lot of math and character optimisation. The amount of options is surely fantastic and help a lot making you character feel unique, but the meat of the game is at the table, unlike in 5e where you can basically win the campaign in character creation

I love both ICRPG and Shadowdark. I do find it somewhat amusing, though, that every time people mention alternatives to D&D, they mention D&D-like games. I'd love to see people go a little further afield and try things like Savage Worlds or Fate Core.

That's why I'm glad I live i merica I can pop the bugaler

F D&D😂🤣😂🤣that is what my gaming group basically said as well. One con of 5e is the character sheet or what beginning players like to call a "tax form". Filling this out is not fun...it's like doing your taxes. Index Card RPG is awesome and so is Hakerin!

I like your anti-D&D attitude. The game is so bad and greedy that it inspired me to make my own system. I designed it from the ground up to beat it in almost every category (other than lore and art, I guess).

"TTRPGs that are different from D&D 5e!" First one listed is Pathfinder 2e, which is essentially D&D 5.5...

Hello! I enjoyed your formatting style compared to other D&DTubers but the video was too short and since it uses a few examples (other videos go for even longer and do the same thing with more efficiency yet their formatting not as good).

Hey Dan, it's Sarah. Loving this.

Aside from the cost, my main issue with current D&D is that it's a superhero game with elf ears stuck on. It's essentially turned into the easy mode, no bad feels, version of a game where darkness was once scary, healing slow and adventures dangerous. All of the emotionality that people seem to eat up with a spoon is not really in any of the expensive rule books. So, system should not matter. If you just want to be an overly dramatic "horny bard", you can do that in any game via role play. What D&D does have is a whole lot of rules for grinding, complex murder math. The bulk of it is "killing shit" or utility magic and healing from trying to kill shit. I am enjoying gaming more now that I moved away from D&D. It just does not feel like what I know as D&D anymore. Shadowdark does. Dragonbane does. I love Runehammer's stuff and if you like ICRPG, you may LOVE Crown and Skull. You want semi-sandbox, emergent story and simple rules that still give interesting battles and allow for player creativity without needless complexity, this game has that covered.

Pathfinder 2E is absolutely perfect on the crunch side. I enjoy it so much.

I like your video. A rules light system using index cards did not slay a 50 year old ttrpg, the first ever ttrpg at that. I understand it isn’t for everyone. Hell I can’t stand anything WotC has had their slimy hands on.

I've been playing 5e, and a lot of homebrew never opened a book, luckily its all online. If i dont know how to do something, I just make it up. 5e is very easy to modify. Just don't like Pathfinder combat.

ICRPG IS BEST DND

The caveat with PF2e's math is that is no more complex that D&D's math, there is more of it and there is more rules overall but that is because D&D lacks structuring a lot of stuff that is left to the GM to improvise while PF2e actually gives you a much more robust base to start off Great video, I only heard of ICRPG but never played it

What about Stormbringeror Palladium or Hyperboria or Lamentations of the Flame Princess???

3.5 and PF1E better be on this list, I know its technically DnD but god damn it does everything every edition does but better. Exploration? Horror? Good combat? Character building? World building? Making a stronghold? Whatever you want it to do, it can do.

The system matters little as long as the mechanics aren't silly or overly complicated. The fun is getting together with friends and making memories. Playing D&D is not expensive. Buying anything is completely optional as long as someone has the PHB. Even that's optional, because you can play with the basic rules for free. The whole thing can be done on your phone.

LEARN RUNEHAMMER SO YOU CAN TEACH ME RUNEHAMMER PLEASE AND THANK YOU

Censoring swearing with swearing. 😂 I wish I could do that in real life!

I like the idea of D&D but not all the culture around it. Fuck all that shit. Get a mace and some mates and lets go clubbing in the Caves of Fucking CHAOS!!!!

Nah, not really. Sure, DnD sucks and Pathfinder is better but there are FAR better alternatives. Warhammer FRPG, Savage Worlds, Ubiquity, D6 based systems like Open D6, there are so many. I can't say anything about ICRPG since I haven't even read it but Shadowdark is just so over-hyped and brings nothing new to the table. It's bland, boring and way too expensive. It's mainly random list that one can find for free on the internet. No thanks. edit: oh, and I think Free League systems should be one of the main alternatives. Symbaroum and Forbidden Lands are just too good to not play them. Though my faves are Coriolis and Mutant Year Zero but they're not Fantasy.

Boo to maths! Thanks Dan!

Nah man, D&D is super lame. I'm pretty enamoured with Genesys and Cypher personally.

So, level+proficiency+bonus+item+circumstance+status is a lot of math? An operation of addition with 6 variables? and most of them only range from 1 to 8? Really, is that the only difference between the math of pathfinder and DND. Damage is mostly the same. AC is mostly the same Initiative is mostly the same If I would not recommend Pathfinder 2 for its math, I would not recommend Pathfinder 2 because of the hundreds of feats and options to personalize your character. And the worst of it is that all the contents (except for the adventures) are free online supported by the creators... Wait a minute, that's actually good 🤔 (just a bit overwhelming if you don't know how to use the filters)

D&D 5e sucks. We don't talk about it. It is only known because of the legacy of previous editions and because of its marketing budget. Pathfinder is nowhere near 5e. Pathfinder is 3.5e (or more corrwectly, 3.75e) Never plaid ICRPG, can't comment on it. Never plaid Shadowdark, can't comment on it. If you want the real D&D experience, go for AD&D 2nd edition. My personal favorite system since I was 12 years old (more than thirty years ago) is Rolemaster 2nd/3rd edition. Its greatest Con is its greatest Pro. Everything is possible because ecerything has a table, stat or rule. Every spell under the sun, every profession imaginable, every weapon ever, every skill you might or might not have heard of. Want to play an ex-orgre phalanx hunter with professional olympic levels of boat rowing skills? Can do. Want to be an escrima wielding centaur necromancer who has taking their harpsichord hoby to professional levels? Why not. Want to be an adventure-hardened trogolodyte prostitute or a spell casting goblin harem eunuch? Go for it. Even a halfling werewolf immortal martyr is not outside the realm of possibilities. Caution, this is not a game for people who suffer decission paralysis.

genuinely disagree with everything he says about DnD. He's talking to it like ur a DM, or you're playing in person all the time. players don't need the player handbook. They can, but don't need it at all. DnDbeyond makes characters for you, and the DM knows everything else. So work with your DM. And price? Cheap as chips compared to 40k. Even cheaper if you play online. The best way to get into DND is just to play it! find an online or local group and play. Don't bother with the books I never have. (unless the yare campaign modules)

The constant swapping from front-on to side... is dumb, and nauseating. Couldn't finish the video..