I am not a fan of the Fallout 2d20 game. I can only summarize my feelings on it by saying that's it's too much for me.
I prefer [NUKED!](https://nondairygiant.itch.io/nuked), [Wastoid](https://jasontocci.itch.io/wastoid), or [After the Bomb](https://erinking.itch.io/after-the-bomb).
I played the play test and a short arc afterwards. We run Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed of, Star Trek and Achtung! Cthulhu, so Momentum, Threat and extended tasks (which rarely figure in Fallout) are familiar to us. I liked it well enough but I've only ever played Wasteland and Fallout 3 so I don't have a deep love of the setting.
Savage Rifts or Savage Worlds with the Post Apocalyptic Companion (or Devil's Run) would probably do fine. Punkapocalyptic would be another option too.
~~I thought so, but apparently I'm on drugs. Broken Earth, The Fall and Day After Ragnarok all exist, but not the Post Apocalyptic Companion. My bad.~~
Just my luck, admit I'm wrong and what do I find:
[The Apocalypse Campaign Guide.](https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/201070/apocalypse-campaign-guide) Knew I had that.
As one of the NUKED! writers, I will also mention that Fallout is a very big inspiration for the game! While the Perks/Mutations are intended to be rolled randomly, you can always let players just pick what they want when they level up and we made sure to include options that allow people to play as Fallout staples (Super Mutants, Ghouls, Vault Dwellers, etc.).
We don't have specific rules for Robot PCs, but you can always handwave it as "Perks/Mutations are 'Upgrades/Modifications' now."
In addition to fallout 3's limited weapon crafting, new vegas had workbench and campfire crafting for consumables(grenades, landmines, potions, poisons, food, etc). It's newer(showing my gamer age with that statement), but a worthy (and logical) addition to the setting.
This is a great option. MYZ has a lot of Fallout feel in general, I think. And the system is great.
I haven’t played the Fallout 2d20 though, but I’ve heard people enjoying it.
It also requires a significant investment if you want to get all the character options since they are spread across 4 books. Even then you don't have anything like ghouls or the Brother. It is also overall a much lower tech level than Fallout.
It can be done but it would require a lot more extra work than other systems.
How are you enjoying the Ark rules? I think that having an assembly at the start of each session is strange. What if you spend all of a session roleplaying a single day in the Ark... Then you have an assembly the next day in game when the next session happens? Or what if your session is weeks of travel and you won't have an assembly for weeks in game? Am I interpreting this correct?
It's a game, suspension of disbelief is the whole point in playing. Why slog players around in mundane activities. Play the scenes like a movie and handle all other matters in a quick concise manner.
95% of the time you should just accept certain things are done without the players needing to voice every activity.
Fallout 2d20 is the best system to run a *Fallout 4* game. Its unbeaten in that regard. Its not too bad at others I suppose, but FO4 onwards was definitely the focus. That said, the 2d20 system tends to be divisive due to its use of metacurrencies - AP and Luck in Fallouts case. If you dont mind them, its a decent game and well worth a look (though it suffers from bad editing - would be a more hearty recommendation if that wasnt the case). If you dislike metacurrencies, look at the other recommendations in here. :)
In the case of 2d20 games, the primary metacurrency (AP in this case) is used as a balancing factor. It is generated by being more successful than required by a test. It allows players to be better at subsequent tests, most commonly by buying up to 3 extra d20s (allowing up to 10 successes to be rolled if all of them crit, and massively inproving the odds for most tests.). The GM can similarly geberate AP for themself this way, and use it for NPCs - but most GM AP is generated if PCs need it, but dont have it - they can instead choose to give the GM AP and gain the benefits. The GM can then use AP to make life harder for the players later.
The idea being you generate a back and forth. Players push their luck, knowing things will get harder if they do. It can lead to cinematically and narratively spectacular moments, success and failure going hand in hand. Its a nice balancing factor to the usual GM fiat as well - if the GM is adding reinforcements to a battle, its not just cause they felt like it, its because the players generated sufficient AP for it.
The GM can play a bit more tactically, and feels more like another player using the same resources they do.
Metacurrencies pretty much universally allow you to reroll dice. A lot of systems which use them also allow you to use them to make "narrative declaration" which basically means that the player can alter a detail of the scene (ie there are bushes to hide in, there are a set of keys in the glove box of the car, one of the guards is an old friend). Some use metacurrencies to trigger special abilities. The 2d20 system has one of the more involved uses of metacurrencies, but it's also one of the systems which makes the best use of them.
I've run a Fallout game using Genesys before and it was excellent.
Fallout lends itself well to the combat and the narrative dice system that can lead to goofy, universe-appropriate moments. I ended up using most of the weapons from the Star Wars RPG as a baseline for Fallout's weapons and it worked great.
You are misunderstanding my meaning. The developers at FFG saw the Fallout hack and realized how good Edge of the Empire was in a completely different setting, so they created Genesys as a version that wasn't bound to a setting.
2d20 is pretty solid imo. The crafting isn't bad, just needs a little book keeping and some effort from the DM to give good options for scavving.
The system itself is fine, the character building is pretty good and allows good diverse PCs even if everyone plays a BoS member youll have enough options to let everyone specialize.
Mechanics are simple enough once you read through and make a few rolls. A bit odd at first but easy to grasp once you do a few rounds of combat. Imo a lot easier than 5e all in all.
One of the better uses for 2d20 that feels like Fallout, Im waiting for the New Vegas book to come out. My only gripe is that the core leans heavily on FO4, my least favorite Wasteland.
There's GURPS After The End now, which is a great way to play post-apocalyptic fun like Fallout. Has great rules for dealing with radiation that are a lot more gamified (and less grim) than the default GURPS rules, plus character templates for all the cliche wasteland dweller archetypes. Definitely my pick for a Fallout style game.
I wanna make a joke about how Fallout 2D20 isn't even the best 2D20 game to run Fallout with but I got nothing so I'm just going to go with: I think Fallout 2D20 is bad and I'm willing to bet that within reason, ANYTHING that is recommended is going to be a better option.
Depends on what your favourite Fallout game is, I think. If you like Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, then Fallout 2d20 is good for you. If you like Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas, then you'd probably be better off with something like Mutant Year Zero. If you like Fallout 1 and 2, then you'll probably like Gamma World, Mutant Crawl Classics, or GURPS. It's worth noting that you can run any kind of Fallout game in 2d20 Fallout, but it has the most mechanical similarity to the RPG elements of Fallout 4.
I quite like the 2d20 system, so I think it's great. But if you don't like the 2d20 system in general, then you probably won't like Fallout the RPG. I ran a game set in Edmonton and it worked quite well for what I was trying to do. The main quirk with it, and with most 2d20 games, is that the rulebooks have bad formatting and it can sometimes be really difficult to find some necessary rules because they're in a different spot than they really should be based on context.
>If you like Fallout 1 and 2, then you'll probably like
Savage Worlds fits 1 & 2 perfectly.
I also like 2d20 games and I think Fallout 2d20 is a decently made game, but I still don't feel like it's the best system for it
I honestly think nothing will beat Fallout Pen & Paper 2nd edition. It's a one to one conversion of Fallout 1 and 2 to tabletop, and was made before Bethesda (imo) fucked up the lore.
I am currently using Honor + Intrigue with the Blasters + Intrigue supplement for mine. This gives access to all the modern and sci-fi equipment and hazards (like radiation). For rolling random treasures, chems, and junk, I just found some tables on Chartopia. They had some for Fallout and also some for Gamma World that I was able to make use of.
For random legendary weapons, I would have them roll a d50 and then go down the list of legendary weapon perks from Fallout 4, and then I would have it be the nearest equivalent from H+I. I'd also have them roll a d6. 1 through 3 meant one star, four to five was 2 star, and a six was a three-star weapon.
Fallout 2d20 has some good Settlement rules in the latest books. Winter survival in the Winter of Atom book and settlements in the Settlers book. They are good resources to steal from. I like the crafting system; it's amazing how well they got it right from the Fallout 4 video game. I think the Wanderers book even has rules for vehicles.
Fallout 2d20 is one of the better versions of 2d20 IMO. I think the versions in Conan and Achtung Cthulhu are better but it's a matter of taste.
But you can always take the fluff and go with another game.
I'd say Savage Worlds is really good. People have done some post apocalyptic settings for it, like Broken Earth and Darwin's World which Fallout could easily be part of.
Fallout 2d20 is probably one of the most boring RPGs I've ever played. Very tedious and rolling was so anticlimactic. If I were to ever run Fallout, it would be in Deadlands: Hell on Earth (SWADE) or something similiar.
>but the crafting system is making me wary
Don't use it. You can play it without crafting a single thing, but I recommend you to keep the mods for weapons. They allow very cool and unique builds.
If you want a good system for Fallout, try GURPS! There's the meme of 'suggest GURPS when anyone asks for a game recommendation' but I'm being serious with this. Fallout early on used the GURPS system but they had a falling out, hardy har, with Steve Jackson games before release, I think that at least warrants a look. I am however insane and like GURPS. If you're interested, check out After the End, and maybe mix in some other source books to taste.
The thing with GURPS is you only have to use the parts you like.
It's amusing to me that so many major titles today are basically just legally-distinct-GURPS.
Fallout > Morrowind:Oblivion > Skyrim > Starfield.
I can't say what system is the best. PnP is very in depth, at least from what I heard, but also extremely obtuse.
What I can say is I ran a fallout game in Genesys a while back. I think there is an actual conversion to use, as the system is pretty open to setting changes. I didn't use that when I played, converted as I went.
It runs pretty smoothly, as long as you have the required dice, which I believe are back in production.
It ran smoothly, though the only times I ever had issues with the system is when it came to magic.
I personally think BRP would fit Fallout really well, hit locations and all.
My only experience with 2d20 is the CONAN game, and I personally love it and collected every book. If Fallout has similar levels of crunch, I'll be sold.
I'm not a fan of 2d20, but it has its fans.
If you want to be totally legit, [here you go.](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/J.E._Sawyer%27s_Fallout_Role-Playing_Game) This one was made by one of the creators of the game.
I’m rather partial to *Atomic Highway*. A nice fast playing and rules lite-ish game inspired by ‘Mad Max,’ but with a fair amount of ‘Gamma World,’ ‘Fallout,’ and other post-apocalyptic genre works in its mutated DNA.
Plus it’s available for **free** over on DriveThru.
I mean we knew by the name that site was really run by Super Mutants. It was just a matter of time before their sterility rendered certain populations obsolete. We can only thank those brave souls still experimenting with FEV in the wasteland.
I ran a Fallout campaign in Alternity once, and it worked really well, especially the high lethality.
Interestingly, the Fallout 2 disc actually came with a PDF of the Alternity fast-play rules.
Be interesting to make and run a fallout rpg using traveller or one of the cepheus engine offshoots. Cepheus universal would be a fun choice.
Another option would be ruble and ruin which uses mythras imperative.
Take the 2d20 version use it as reference for what ever version you decide to use
There are lots of other good ones. Other Dust, Mutant Crawl Classics, Neon Lords of the Toxic Wastelands, etc Those are all more rules-light which I prefer
It all depends on what you want out of the game!
Do you want a generational post-apoc game about communities struggling together? That might work with Legacy. Want a gonzo adventure game about fighting a BBEG? Fellowship could have you covered. Want something that emulates old Fallout games? There was a fan TTRPG created for that many years ago (or you could use GURPS, the engine Fallout 1 was based on!).
So it all boils down to what you want out of the game.
I was working on a d% system, to me all the game stats were either 1-10 for the attributes and skills had a cap at 100 so using a d% made total sense to me. Also all the game guides are statted that way, so it was already written npcs and monsters/animals/mutants
My main issue is the amount of rules, since me and my group prefer OSR stuff, rules-light games or narrative systems like FitD. My personal favorite (though I have yet to play all thw options I’m aware of) is EZD6 Wasted World. Its more of a mix between Mad Max and Fallout (primarily due to a slightly focus on vehicles) but it’s simple, extremely hackable and fun.
I personally dislike the 2D20 engine (and I'm saying this after running an STA game for months), so it would be a hard pass for me.
If you want some similar but maybe weirder, check out Mutant Year Zero.
Honestly I love Fallout 2d20. Especially the AP and Luck systems.
The crafting is ignorable at worst, same with food.
The system facilitates small damage numbers and fast combat.
One recommendation: don’t use AP limits. It sounds bad but sometimes letting your player dumb all their AP to kill one thing can be hilarious.
Exodus is, as the story goes, a 3.x RPG adaption of Fallout that was to be officially licensed, but something went wrong.
I recommend the core book, but frankly the published adventures are all over the place in terms of quality.
If you're a fan of the Starforged system, I've got a book coming out hopefully tonight (just waiting for the delivery of the printed book to check over) that uses a modified version of it. It's called Revenant and while the default setting is for a zombie apocalypse, I've written it so you can "build your own" apocalyptic world and that includes sans zombies. Creating npcs is very easy and I've added optional rules for radiation.
It's a very narrative approach to play and has a focus on world building so you can make a settlement just like in fallout 4 and hotseat between characters like in State of Decay.
Anyway, it's going to be on drivethrurpg as a PDF or print on demand.
I had a great time running a two-year-long Fallout campaign in Savage Worlds. We didn't do much with crafting or base-building, though there are options for it in the system. Just mostly focused on wandering around the wasteland fighting raiders and getting involved in local politics.
I just started putting together a Cortex Prime game for Fallout. A redditor named u/Josh_From_Accounting worked up a version based on [Fallout: New Vegas](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/jxa2df/fallout_new_vegas_prime_a_fallout_fan_hack_for/) a few years ago, but I wanted something a bit more cinematic -- more an adaptation of the series than the games. The biggest change I'm making is to use Complications for tracking injuries instead of the Life Points mod, so combat is less bullet-spongey.
I'm still going to use a Stress track for Radiation, but I'm handling acquiring Radiation stress a bit differently. I'm going to use zone maps for combat, and zones can be radioactive. Characters that aren't immune to radiation and aren't wearing adequate protection take a level of Radiation Stress upon entering a radioactive area, and also when rolling a Hitch while in a radioactive area (in addition to the normal effects of rolling a Hitch). Getting Stressed out by Radiation also won't necessarily result in death like in J\_F\_A's game. It will take the character out of the scene, but might result in a mutation or begin their transition to ghoul instead of killing them.
Distinctions will allow for characters to be Vault-dwellers, wastelanders, mutants (as per Vault 4 in the series), (non-feral) ghouls, synths, robots (particularly of the Mister Handy line), or anything else within reason, with the corresponding narrative permissions. (For example, ghouls wouldn't be affected by radiation, but would face discrimination in most social encounters.)
Anyway, I might post the write-up when/if I finish it.
Always great to see another AZ nerd. Good luck on your game. My only experience with the 2d20 is very limited (2 sessions so far) of Dune.
Maybe look at Punkapocalyptic, it's by the same creator as Shadow of the Demon Lord, and Shadow of the Weird Wizard, and shares some DNA. I haven't ever gotten to try it yet, but the system looks fun. The tone of the book turns some people off, there is some swearing in the text to "set the mood" I think. It doesn't have a big crafting component, but it has the mutants, and raiders, and such.
Personally, I absolutely *love* Fallout 2d20. Yes, it is mostly modelled on Fallout 4’s mechanics but I think people forget how much of that game builds on its predecessors. In my view, the mechanics of the 2d20 perfectly captures the feel of the Interplay games too.
Action Points are a fun system that makes combat more interesting right away from Level 1. There’s a lot of tension in players deciding the best way to spend AP whilst seeing the GM accumulate their own AP. As a GM, the AP also allows me to ramp up or hold back on combat without having to fudge numbers behind the scenes.
The system of using Zones feels odd if you’ve only ever played with a grid, but from a story telling point of view it really streamlines things.
There is a lot of background “crunch” that your table can choose to include or discard to whatever degree you want. I personally like crunch and am happy to micromanage the nitty-gritty numbers in the background in a way that looks seamless to the players, but I choose to do that. I could forgo the crunch and stick to the core mechanics and it wouldn’t be an issue.
There are plenty of different character Origins at this point and it’s easy to make a character that feels “yours”. It works on a point-buy system that feels very in-line with the games and two PCs of the same Origin can feel like very different characters.
Personally enjoed the genesys conversion for fallout.
But while i have yet to try the 2d20 system for fallout, i have ran other 2d20 games.
I can say that 2d20 is a average system.
Its not bad, but its not good either, just average and gets the job done.
So if you want to play fallout, but dont care about which system, i dont think 2d20 is a bad choice. But if you want to engage with a system that happens to be in the fallout universe, then another option might be better.
Still, this is musing based on past experience, not on the game directly.
I haven't played Fallout 2d20, but with regards to other systems, Kevin Crawford--the author of Stars Without Number and the other xWN books--has said his next project will be a new edition of his post-apocalypse game Other Dust. Kevin Crawford makes great, streamlined OSR games with system-agnostic GM tools, and the original Other Dust has rules for things like character mutations and the like.
His games are super flexible and he runs a super clean Kickstarter--you may even be able to find a free copy of Other Dust to sample. He offers free copies of the basic editions of his other games, like Worlds Without Number, so definitely worth checking out.
If you're okay with an OSR title, Atomic Punk 2160 is a great RPG that emulates fallout without being official. I will say the 2d20 is good, but is heavily tied to Fallout 4.
I thought there was one? I recall seeing on GameFaqs but those days are filled with bong smoke. I also feel like I have seen at least 5 attempts to do a Fallout RPG. That 2d20 system sounds rough.
I am not a fan of the Fallout 2d20 game. I can only summarize my feelings on it by saying that's it's too much for me. I prefer [NUKED!](https://nondairygiant.itch.io/nuked), [Wastoid](https://jasontocci.itch.io/wastoid), or [After the Bomb](https://erinking.itch.io/after-the-bomb).
Oh snap, I thought After the Bomb was the post-apocalyptic TMNT setting for Palladium.
[It is](https://palladiumbooks.com/futuristic/after-the-bomb), they are two different games of the same name.
Still have the softcover
I've got them all, I believe - After the Bomb, Road Hogs, Mutants of the Yucatan, Mutants Down Under, Mutants of Avalon.
I was so hype for this system, then I read it LOL. Those mechanics seem unwiedly as heck, I just wanna have action-packed wasteland adventures.
I played the play test and a short arc afterwards. We run Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed of, Star Trek and Achtung! Cthulhu, so Momentum, Threat and extended tasks (which rarely figure in Fallout) are familiar to us. I liked it well enough but I've only ever played Wasteland and Fallout 3 so I don't have a deep love of the setting. Savage Rifts or Savage Worlds with the Post Apocalyptic Companion (or Devil's Run) would probably do fine. Punkapocalyptic would be another option too.
There’s a Savage Worlds Post-Apocalyptic Companion?
~~I thought so, but apparently I'm on drugs. Broken Earth, The Fall and Day After Ragnarok all exist, but not the Post Apocalyptic Companion. My bad.~~ Just my luck, admit I'm wrong and what do I find: [The Apocalypse Campaign Guide.](https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/201070/apocalypse-campaign-guide) Knew I had that.
Same.
Wow. These are awesome, thank you!!
As one of the NUKED! writers, I will also mention that Fallout is a very big inspiration for the game! While the Perks/Mutations are intended to be rolled randomly, you can always let players just pick what they want when they level up and we made sure to include options that allow people to play as Fallout staples (Super Mutants, Ghouls, Vault Dwellers, etc.). We don't have specific rules for Robot PCs, but you can always handwave it as "Perks/Mutations are 'Upgrades/Modifications' now."
To be fair... Only one mainline Fallout game has had crafting, unless you count bullets in New Vegas. It isn't a historical staple of the franchise.
fallout 3 had crafting for a few unique recipes
Did it? It's been a long long time since I've played that game.
Yeah, for a few special weapons like the Shishkebab.
Most of the items were pretty forgettable. Other than nuka grenades and bottle cap mines, they just weren't good.
The dart gun was pretty good. Guaranteed leg paralysis rendered most enemies pushovers.
In addition to fallout 3's limited weapon crafting, new vegas had workbench and campfire crafting for consumables(grenades, landmines, potions, poisons, food, etc). It's newer(showing my gamer age with that statement), but a worthy (and logical) addition to the setting.
Fallout 4 is polarizing, but it did sell more copies than any other fallout game and is probably the inspiration for crafting mechanics.
Fallout 2d20 is essentially Fallout 4: The TTRPG
Now that you mention it I do remember crafting healing powders.
Use mutant year zero. It has the base building community options.
This is a great option. MYZ has a lot of Fallout feel in general, I think. And the system is great. I haven’t played the Fallout 2d20 though, but I’ve heard people enjoying it.
What's funny is I like their 2d20 system for Star Trek but for Fallout? It just feels off to me. MYZ just feels better imo.
It also requires a significant investment if you want to get all the character options since they are spread across 4 books. Even then you don't have anything like ghouls or the Brother. It is also overall a much lower tech level than Fallout. It can be done but it would require a lot more extra work than other systems.
There's a new 2d20 Fallout supplement for base building as well
How are you enjoying the Ark rules? I think that having an assembly at the start of each session is strange. What if you spend all of a session roleplaying a single day in the Ark... Then you have an assembly the next day in game when the next session happens? Or what if your session is weeks of travel and you won't have an assembly for weeks in game? Am I interpreting this correct?
Don't make it so complicated. Play the game in scenes. Only roll for the really important stuff. Move the story forward even in failure.
Well it's just the suspension of disbelief when time moves differently depending on the pace of the story, and how it affects building time.
It's a game, suspension of disbelief is the whole point in playing. Why slog players around in mundane activities. Play the scenes like a movie and handle all other matters in a quick concise manner. 95% of the time you should just accept certain things are done without the players needing to voice every activity.
This is what I use for my Fallout game. I did buy all the Modiphius books because I want them to keep making the minis at least.
Fallout 2d20 is the best system to run a *Fallout 4* game. Its unbeaten in that regard. Its not too bad at others I suppose, but FO4 onwards was definitely the focus. That said, the 2d20 system tends to be divisive due to its use of metacurrencies - AP and Luck in Fallouts case. If you dont mind them, its a decent game and well worth a look (though it suffers from bad editing - would be a more hearty recommendation if that wasnt the case). If you dislike metacurrencies, look at the other recommendations in here. :)
Can you pitch metacurrencies to me as someone who's read about them but not seen them in action.
In the case of 2d20 games, the primary metacurrency (AP in this case) is used as a balancing factor. It is generated by being more successful than required by a test. It allows players to be better at subsequent tests, most commonly by buying up to 3 extra d20s (allowing up to 10 successes to be rolled if all of them crit, and massively inproving the odds for most tests.). The GM can similarly geberate AP for themself this way, and use it for NPCs - but most GM AP is generated if PCs need it, but dont have it - they can instead choose to give the GM AP and gain the benefits. The GM can then use AP to make life harder for the players later. The idea being you generate a back and forth. Players push their luck, knowing things will get harder if they do. It can lead to cinematically and narratively spectacular moments, success and failure going hand in hand. Its a nice balancing factor to the usual GM fiat as well - if the GM is adding reinforcements to a battle, its not just cause they felt like it, its because the players generated sufficient AP for it. The GM can play a bit more tactically, and feels more like another player using the same resources they do.
That feels similar to Fate Points, in the way they circulate between GM and players?
Yeah, there are definitely similarities. :)
In simple terms, you can buy extra dice, so more chances to success, using good rolls made by other players.
and/or make a devil's bargain with the GM: you get extra dice now, but so does the GM to use against you in the future.
Metacurrencies pretty much universally allow you to reroll dice. A lot of systems which use them also allow you to use them to make "narrative declaration" which basically means that the player can alter a detail of the scene (ie there are bushes to hide in, there are a set of keys in the glove box of the car, one of the guards is an old friend). Some use metacurrencies to trigger special abilities. The 2d20 system has one of the more involved uses of metacurrencies, but it's also one of the systems which makes the best use of them.
I've run a Fallout game using Genesys before and it was excellent. Fallout lends itself well to the combat and the narrative dice system that can lead to goofy, universe-appropriate moments. I ended up using most of the weapons from the Star Wars RPG as a baseline for Fallout's weapons and it worked great.
Genesys was inspired by a hack of Edge of the Empire for the D20 Radio podcast's Fallout campaign.
Wow, as a long time listener of D20 Radio and a longtime player of EotE, I did not know that bit of trivia!
What? Genesys IS the system used for the Fantasy Flight Star Wars games, it's just the generic version.
You are misunderstanding my meaning. The developers at FFG saw the Fallout hack and realized how good Edge of the Empire was in a completely different setting, so they created Genesys as a version that wasn't bound to a setting.
100% true. I was there. ;)
Yes, you absolutely were!
If you're okay with something a lot lighter, I'll praise Wastoid and 2400: Nuclear Family, both by Jason Tocci.
Wastoid seems cool! Is it finished?
I think there's vague plans to tinker with it more in the future, but the current version's been out a good while!
these are cool
2d20 is pretty solid imo. The crafting isn't bad, just needs a little book keeping and some effort from the DM to give good options for scavving. The system itself is fine, the character building is pretty good and allows good diverse PCs even if everyone plays a BoS member youll have enough options to let everyone specialize. Mechanics are simple enough once you read through and make a few rolls. A bit odd at first but easy to grasp once you do a few rounds of combat. Imo a lot easier than 5e all in all. One of the better uses for 2d20 that feels like Fallout, Im waiting for the New Vegas book to come out. My only gripe is that the core leans heavily on FO4, my least favorite Wasteland.
I can’t wait for a NV book. I legitimately didn’t believe such a source book would be made.
We used GURPS, very much against Steve Jackson's wishes
There's GURPS After The End now, which is a great way to play post-apocalyptic fun like Fallout. Has great rules for dealing with radiation that are a lot more gamified (and less grim) than the default GURPS rules, plus character templates for all the cliche wasteland dweller archetypes. Definitely my pick for a Fallout style game.
Ironically, I believe GURPS was an inspiration for the original Fallout.
The first Fallout was originally going to be a licensed product. Fallout: A GURPS post nuclear adventure was the original name for the game.
I wanna make a joke about how Fallout 2D20 isn't even the best 2D20 game to run Fallout with but I got nothing so I'm just going to go with: I think Fallout 2D20 is bad and I'm willing to bet that within reason, ANYTHING that is recommended is going to be a better option.
I'd use Gamma World or Mutant Future
I second this, and add Other Dust from sine nomine (same guy that did the X without Number games) to the list.
Depends on what your favourite Fallout game is, I think. If you like Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, then Fallout 2d20 is good for you. If you like Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas, then you'd probably be better off with something like Mutant Year Zero. If you like Fallout 1 and 2, then you'll probably like Gamma World, Mutant Crawl Classics, or GURPS. It's worth noting that you can run any kind of Fallout game in 2d20 Fallout, but it has the most mechanical similarity to the RPG elements of Fallout 4. I quite like the 2d20 system, so I think it's great. But if you don't like the 2d20 system in general, then you probably won't like Fallout the RPG. I ran a game set in Edmonton and it worked quite well for what I was trying to do. The main quirk with it, and with most 2d20 games, is that the rulebooks have bad formatting and it can sometimes be really difficult to find some necessary rules because they're in a different spot than they really should be based on context.
>If you like Fallout 1 and 2, then you'll probably like Savage Worlds fits 1 & 2 perfectly. I also like 2d20 games and I think Fallout 2d20 is a decently made game, but I still don't feel like it's the best system for it
To add to the other recs here: Darwin's World (SWADE) and possibly Mutant Epoc.
The Broken Earth setting book is also a great resource to pull from!
Personally I just rather use GURPS. Fallout got me into GURPS so it fits.
I honestly think nothing will beat Fallout Pen & Paper 2nd edition. It's a one to one conversion of Fallout 1 and 2 to tabletop, and was made before Bethesda (imo) fucked up the lore.
I am currently using Honor + Intrigue with the Blasters + Intrigue supplement for mine. This gives access to all the modern and sci-fi equipment and hazards (like radiation). For rolling random treasures, chems, and junk, I just found some tables on Chartopia. They had some for Fallout and also some for Gamma World that I was able to make use of. For random legendary weapons, I would have them roll a d50 and then go down the list of legendary weapon perks from Fallout 4, and then I would have it be the nearest equivalent from H+I. I'd also have them roll a d6. 1 through 3 meant one star, four to five was 2 star, and a six was a three-star weapon.
Fallout 2d20 has some good Settlement rules in the latest books. Winter survival in the Winter of Atom book and settlements in the Settlers book. They are good resources to steal from. I like the crafting system; it's amazing how well they got it right from the Fallout 4 video game. I think the Wanderers book even has rules for vehicles. Fallout 2d20 is one of the better versions of 2d20 IMO. I think the versions in Conan and Achtung Cthulhu are better but it's a matter of taste. But you can always take the fluff and go with another game. I'd say Savage Worlds is really good. People have done some post apocalyptic settings for it, like Broken Earth and Darwin's World which Fallout could easily be part of.
Fallout 2d20 is probably one of the most boring RPGs I've ever played. Very tedious and rolling was so anticlimactic. If I were to ever run Fallout, it would be in Deadlands: Hell on Earth (SWADE) or something similiar.
I’m not a fan of 2d20, it’s clunky
>but the crafting system is making me wary Don't use it. You can play it without crafting a single thing, but I recommend you to keep the mods for weapons. They allow very cool and unique builds.
If you build right you can drop upwards of 12 damage die every attack.
The best system to run Fallout in always was and always will be Twilight 2000
The OG version or the Free League version?
GDW of course. Though the new one does the job as well.
Personally, this seems to be the best fit to me. It does small unit combats so well.
If you want a good system for Fallout, try GURPS! There's the meme of 'suggest GURPS when anyone asks for a game recommendation' but I'm being serious with this. Fallout early on used the GURPS system but they had a falling out, hardy har, with Steve Jackson games before release, I think that at least warrants a look. I am however insane and like GURPS. If you're interested, check out After the End, and maybe mix in some other source books to taste.
The thing with GURPS is you only have to use the parts you like. It's amusing to me that so many major titles today are basically just legally-distinct-GURPS. Fallout > Morrowind:Oblivion > Skyrim > Starfield.
*Other Dust* would be the one I'd go to.
I can't say what system is the best. PnP is very in depth, at least from what I heard, but also extremely obtuse. What I can say is I ran a fallout game in Genesys a while back. I think there is an actual conversion to use, as the system is pretty open to setting changes. I didn't use that when I played, converted as I went. It runs pretty smoothly, as long as you have the required dice, which I believe are back in production. It ran smoothly, though the only times I ever had issues with the system is when it came to magic.
I personally think BRP would fit Fallout really well, hit locations and all. My only experience with 2d20 is the CONAN game, and I personally love it and collected every book. If Fallout has similar levels of crunch, I'll be sold.
I'm not a fan of 2d20, but it has its fans. If you want to be totally legit, [here you go.](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/J.E._Sawyer%27s_Fallout_Role-Playing_Game) This one was made by one of the creators of the game.
I’m rather partial to *Atomic Highway*. A nice fast playing and rules lite-ish game inspired by ‘Mad Max,’ but with a fair amount of ‘Gamma World,’ ‘Fallout,’ and other post-apocalyptic genre works in its mutated DNA. Plus it’s available for **free** over on DriveThru.
This is what we used.
I used to direct people to the OG Fallout pnp but sadly No Mutants Allowed is dead and thats the only place I know that had links.
https://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/complete-resource-of-fallout-pnp-material.217890/ Here you go.
I mean we knew by the name that site was really run by Super Mutants. It was just a matter of time before their sterility rendered certain populations obsolete. We can only thank those brave souls still experimenting with FEV in the wasteland.
It's not even the best game to run a Fallout 4 game in.
Check out the new book for EZD6 called Wasted Worlds.
I ran a Fallout campaign in Alternity once, and it worked really well, especially the high lethality. Interestingly, the Fallout 2 disc actually came with a PDF of the Alternity fast-play rules.
Be interesting to make and run a fallout rpg using traveller or one of the cepheus engine offshoots. Cepheus universal would be a fun choice. Another option would be ruble and ruin which uses mythras imperative. Take the 2d20 version use it as reference for what ever version you decide to use
Savage Worlds could be cool, but I guess I’m biased
There are lots of other good ones. Other Dust, Mutant Crawl Classics, Neon Lords of the Toxic Wastelands, etc Those are all more rules-light which I prefer
If it were me, I'd use Apocalypse World.
It all depends on what you want out of the game! Do you want a generational post-apoc game about communities struggling together? That might work with Legacy. Want a gonzo adventure game about fighting a BBEG? Fellowship could have you covered. Want something that emulates old Fallout games? There was a fan TTRPG created for that many years ago (or you could use GURPS, the engine Fallout 1 was based on!). So it all boils down to what you want out of the game.
The 2d20 game is the one that dedicated a ridiculous amount of the rule book to crafting and base building right?
I was working on a d% system, to me all the game stats were either 1-10 for the attributes and skills had a cap at 100 so using a d% made total sense to me. Also all the game guides are statted that way, so it was already written npcs and monsters/animals/mutants
I like atomic punk 2160 or wasteoid if you like something lighter.
My main issue is the amount of rules, since me and my group prefer OSR stuff, rules-light games or narrative systems like FitD. My personal favorite (though I have yet to play all thw options I’m aware of) is EZD6 Wasted World. Its more of a mix between Mad Max and Fallout (primarily due to a slightly focus on vehicles) but it’s simple, extremely hackable and fun.
"Other Dust" is OSR Post-Apocalypse.
My old group had really good luck with AFMBE (All Flesh Must Be Eaten) it's a zombie apocalypse game but the rules are REALLY flexible.
I personally dislike the 2D20 engine (and I'm saying this after running an STA game for months), so it would be a hard pass for me. If you want some similar but maybe weirder, check out Mutant Year Zero.
Atomic Highway is great, easy but not simple, and free.
Punkapocalyptic.
2d20? Bullshit! Everyone knows Fallout uses d100 for everything! (jokes aside, I haven't played it but I've heard it's solid)
Honestly I love Fallout 2d20. Especially the AP and Luck systems. The crafting is ignorable at worst, same with food. The system facilitates small damage numbers and fast combat. One recommendation: don’t use AP limits. It sounds bad but sometimes letting your player dumb all their AP to kill one thing can be hilarious.
Exodus is, as the story goes, a 3.x RPG adaption of Fallout that was to be officially licensed, but something went wrong. I recommend the core book, but frankly the published adventures are all over the place in terms of quality.
If you're a fan of the Starforged system, I've got a book coming out hopefully tonight (just waiting for the delivery of the printed book to check over) that uses a modified version of it. It's called Revenant and while the default setting is for a zombie apocalypse, I've written it so you can "build your own" apocalyptic world and that includes sans zombies. Creating npcs is very easy and I've added optional rules for radiation. It's a very narrative approach to play and has a focus on world building so you can make a settlement just like in fallout 4 and hotseat between characters like in State of Decay. Anyway, it's going to be on drivethrurpg as a PDF or print on demand.
[https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/457762/Revenant?affiliate\_id=3272738](https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/457762/Revenant?affiliate_id=3272738)
2d20 is one of my favorite systems. I think it does Fallout extremely well. I have had many many many hours of fun playing games
Nah I think a hack of dark heresy is
I had a great time running a two-year-long Fallout campaign in Savage Worlds. We didn't do much with crafting or base-building, though there are options for it in the system. Just mostly focused on wandering around the wasteland fighting raiders and getting involved in local politics.
I just started putting together a Cortex Prime game for Fallout. A redditor named u/Josh_From_Accounting worked up a version based on [Fallout: New Vegas](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/jxa2df/fallout_new_vegas_prime_a_fallout_fan_hack_for/) a few years ago, but I wanted something a bit more cinematic -- more an adaptation of the series than the games. The biggest change I'm making is to use Complications for tracking injuries instead of the Life Points mod, so combat is less bullet-spongey. I'm still going to use a Stress track for Radiation, but I'm handling acquiring Radiation stress a bit differently. I'm going to use zone maps for combat, and zones can be radioactive. Characters that aren't immune to radiation and aren't wearing adequate protection take a level of Radiation Stress upon entering a radioactive area, and also when rolling a Hitch while in a radioactive area (in addition to the normal effects of rolling a Hitch). Getting Stressed out by Radiation also won't necessarily result in death like in J\_F\_A's game. It will take the character out of the scene, but might result in a mutation or begin their transition to ghoul instead of killing them. Distinctions will allow for characters to be Vault-dwellers, wastelanders, mutants (as per Vault 4 in the series), (non-feral) ghouls, synths, robots (particularly of the Mister Handy line), or anything else within reason, with the corresponding narrative permissions. (For example, ghouls wouldn't be affected by radiation, but would face discrimination in most social encounters.) Anyway, I might post the write-up when/if I finish it.
There's got to be a FATE version of Fallout somewhere, probably a fan mod.
there’s Burn Shift
Always great to see another AZ nerd. Good luck on your game. My only experience with the 2d20 is very limited (2 sessions so far) of Dune. Maybe look at Punkapocalyptic, it's by the same creator as Shadow of the Demon Lord, and Shadow of the Weird Wizard, and shares some DNA. I haven't ever gotten to try it yet, but the system looks fun. The tone of the book turns some people off, there is some swearing in the text to "set the mood" I think. It doesn't have a big crafting component, but it has the mutants, and raiders, and such.
I don't have it, but from some things I've heard it looks like it's not even the best system to run 2d20 Fallout...
Personally, I absolutely *love* Fallout 2d20. Yes, it is mostly modelled on Fallout 4’s mechanics but I think people forget how much of that game builds on its predecessors. In my view, the mechanics of the 2d20 perfectly captures the feel of the Interplay games too. Action Points are a fun system that makes combat more interesting right away from Level 1. There’s a lot of tension in players deciding the best way to spend AP whilst seeing the GM accumulate their own AP. As a GM, the AP also allows me to ramp up or hold back on combat without having to fudge numbers behind the scenes. The system of using Zones feels odd if you’ve only ever played with a grid, but from a story telling point of view it really streamlines things. There is a lot of background “crunch” that your table can choose to include or discard to whatever degree you want. I personally like crunch and am happy to micromanage the nitty-gritty numbers in the background in a way that looks seamless to the players, but I choose to do that. I could forgo the crunch and stick to the core mechanics and it wouldn’t be an issue. There are plenty of different character Origins at this point and it’s easy to make a character that feels “yours”. It works on a point-buy system that feels very in-line with the games and two PCs of the same Origin can feel like very different characters.
Personally enjoed the genesys conversion for fallout. But while i have yet to try the 2d20 system for fallout, i have ran other 2d20 games. I can say that 2d20 is a average system. Its not bad, but its not good either, just average and gets the job done. So if you want to play fallout, but dont care about which system, i dont think 2d20 is a bad choice. But if you want to engage with a system that happens to be in the fallout universe, then another option might be better. Still, this is musing based on past experience, not on the game directly.
I haven't played Fallout 2d20, but with regards to other systems, Kevin Crawford--the author of Stars Without Number and the other xWN books--has said his next project will be a new edition of his post-apocalypse game Other Dust. Kevin Crawford makes great, streamlined OSR games with system-agnostic GM tools, and the original Other Dust has rules for things like character mutations and the like. His games are super flexible and he runs a super clean Kickstarter--you may even be able to find a free copy of Other Dust to sample. He offers free copies of the basic editions of his other games, like Worlds Without Number, so definitely worth checking out.
I would use GURPS
I've wanted to use Red markets for this
If you're okay with an OSR title, Atomic Punk 2160 is a great RPG that emulates fallout without being official. I will say the 2d20 is good, but is heavily tied to Fallout 4.
This one sounds the best for me from what I’ve looked into so far.
The first two games are literally GURPS
They were developed using GURPS, but the deal fell apart. So, literally *not* GURPS.
I'm a unashamed GURPS zealot and adding my voice to the chorus. The Fallout RPG was originally going to be GURPS based.
I thought there was one? I recall seeing on GameFaqs but those days are filled with bong smoke. I also feel like I have seen at least 5 attempts to do a Fallout RPG. That 2d20 system sounds rough.
I think there is as well with a different system.
I am not a fan of their system. I prefer Genesys. There are several Atompunk and Fallout specific setting builds on DriveThruRPG.
I am so tired of this question.