Best Online system?

[10d10]

So... for a long long time me and my friends went from play by forum to play by MSN/Skype/Anything, since we're all far away, we make do with WoD (nWoD nowadays) since we were used to it and it was supposed to be story-focused.

But I wanted to know from the more well rounded players here who experienced other RPG systems.... which ones would be best fitting for online playing in a modern setting with magic/psion-ish type of powers?

[sirpercival]

Modern, or postmodern?  If the latter, then I submit Magipunk.

[Agita]

For any sort of modern setting with 'magic' of whatever form, if you want a narrative system, I recommend a good hard look at Dresden Files RPG. It does basically everything nWoD does and more, only better. The FATE system it's based on might take some getting used to, but it's the best narrativist system I've had the pleasure of playing and GMing with. While its books are very focused on the Dresdenverse that the game is based on, it's nearly trivial to adapt to many other settings - if so inclined, you can very easily recreate the nWoD splats in spirit if not in exact mechanics, for example. Other FATE-based games may work in the same vein, but DFRPG is the only one I've personally played.

As online play goes, it's hard to gauge what will be quick and what will be slow, really, but mechanics-light systems in general will run faster than mechanics-heavy ones for obvious reasons. In DFRPG, the chat environment can be very useful for working things like aspect invocations and maneuvers out as a group, which the game heavily encourages.

For other alternatives... Mutants & Masterminds will work with practically any setting, but is probably less than ideal for online play, being very involved and mechanics-oriented (though a chat enviornment can help with descriptors in a similar way to aspects).

[10d10]

Modern, or postmodern?  If the latter, then I submit Magipunk.

Modern, an urban fantasy type of setting. But I'll check magipunk! Thanks

[10d10]

For any sort of modern setting with 'magic' of whatever form, if you want a narrative system, I recommend a good hard look at Dresden Files RPG. It does basically everything nWoD does and more, only better. The FATE system it's based on might take some getting used to, but it's the best narrativist system I've had the pleasure of playing and GMing with. While its books are very focused on the Dresdenverse that the game is based on, it's nearly trivial to adapt to many other settings - if so inclined, you can very easily recreate the nWoD splats in spirit if not in exact mechanics, for example. Other FATE-based games may work in the same vein, but DFRPG is the only one I've personally played.

As online play goes, it's hard to gauge what will be quick and what will be slow, really, but mechanics-light systems in general will run faster than mechanics-heavy ones for obvious reasons. In DFRPG, the chat environment can be very useful for working things like aspect invocations and maneuvers out as a group, which the game heavily encourages.

For other alternatives... Mutants & Masterminds will work with practically any setting, but is probably less than ideal for online play, being very involved and mechanics-oriented (though a chat enviornment can help with descriptors in a similar way to aspects).

I heard good things about the Dresden Files/Spirit's system. Mostly as a narrative rich, or at least not heavily focused on combat. Mechanics are not a problem, but things like Hero or with a broken mechanics is never a good thing to play with.

Thanks for the tips I just got the DFRPG books, I'll look into them to see how it goes

[sirpercival]

If Magipunk is not for you, I second, third, and fourth Agita's suggestion.  DFRPG is amazing.

[10d10]

How about the GUMSHOE system? Does it have any magic for the PCs?

[veekie]

I'd have to say DFRPG as well, but based on different factors.

Firstly, locations are intrinsically abstract. Terrain factors are basically Aspects on the location, which means as long as you know the Aspect you can use it to augment your stuff rather than worrying about whether you are close enough to a certain map tile. This, as well with using Zones to move and define area effects makes it easier to go entirely mapless, as a given scene is effectively 4-5 zones at most.

It also handles urban fantasy pretty well. While it has somewhat of a bias towards spellcasters being too potent(this being a series about a modern day wizard after all), it has built in means of representing shapeshifters, minor talents, vampires, emotion-feeders, etc in a fairly good manner. Straight mortals even have some advantages of their own, should they go busting monsters.

Additionally, it can handle conflicts on the physical, social and mental level using the same basic mechanics. Each sort of offense strikes at its own stress track, and yet operate on a related level, as they all wind up being neutral consequences.

Basically, anything you can do in nWoD you can probably do here with minimal customising.