Hat wrote:
Regardless of the system, I'm staying. The greatest strength is the world and the storytelling and I know that will come through regardless of the system.
With a sweep of his hat,
Paul
This quote serves me fine as well and should serve as the master sentiment bracketing anything else espoused below.
I'm not so entirely fond of the ARG; I've found my scant system mastery of it hard-won and similarly now struggle with defining each of my characters mechanically in measuring opportunity costs.
I also find it very hard to end up feeling "satisfied" with a given level of competence in anything. Even with 5+ ranks in a skill actions feel too "swingy," too over-reliant on the whims of the dice. I know Larissa likes her games, but I cling to my sad little attempts at personal agency all the same.
Passive skill values are nearly meaningless except in the cases of Arcanum and then they're life-or-death.
While Adaptations are a very clever idea in practice I've found it has expanded the amount of knowledge I've needed to have about a given spell very noticeably -first I have to know the base value, than I have to know the modified values. In effect I have to know 1.5+ versions of the same spell.
This
is far better than 3.X D&D and the godawful paragraphs of memorized spell lists, but it's still not great.
I can't remember all those Talents. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is.
That said I have no real fondness for 5th Ed. either, and readily nominate either of the Crafty Games systems of Spycraft 2.0 or Fantasy Craft as being the superior to D&D in any form.
I detest Pathfinder. I dislike 3.X slightly less.
I actually,
sincerely, think 4th Edition D&D is no kind of poor fit for any intended campaign outside of it's ludicrous amounts of itemization and torrent of spam-worth feats. I think the Dark Sun 4th ed. book's rules for a "no magic items" campaign and some judicious use of granted Improved Defense feats can rectify these problems, but I also understand (and take no offense in knowing) that nobody besides me cares about 4E and Arcanis.
Nothing said above should be interpreted as any disrespect of the obviously scrupulous care put into the crafting of the ARG, but it is what I "think." PCI is welcome to consider my issues to be essentially personal flaws; rather like Apple Products it could just be a case of the ARG being "smarter than Zac."