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I'm down for whatever but it'd be really nice to have something a beginner like me can ease into. I've done some reading (surprisingly 5e is what most everyone seems to be talking about) and there is one thing that concerns me. With 5e, people often just face things that scale with their level all the time. This defeats the purpose of leveling up and getting stronger entirely. So I'm hoping that can be avoided. I don't mind a challenge but I'd like to know my progress actually means something.

I'm down for whatever but it'd be really nice to have something a beginner like me can ease into. I've done some reading (surprisingly 5e is what most everyone seems to be talking about) and there is one thing that concerns me. With 5e, people often just face things that scale with their level all the time. This defeats the purpose of leveling up and getting stronger entirely. So I'm hoping that can be avoided. I don't mind a challenge but I'd like to know my progress actually means something.

I feel that although sometimes that can be the case, such things would really be on a DM to DM basis. If we end up starting a 5e campaign, you could always bring that issue up to the DM and see what they think about it.

I'm down for whatever but it'd be really nice to have something a beginner like me can ease into. I've done some reading (surprisingly 5e is what most everyone seems to be talking about) and there is one thing that concerns me. With 5e, people often just face things that scale with their level all the time. This defeats the purpose of leveling up and getting stronger entirely. So I'm hoping that can be avoided. I don't mind a challenge but I'd like to know my progress actually means something.

I'll put it to you this way. When you're a low level, you're pretty much a nobody who can show some promise of greatness. As a nobody without much skill, you're not expected by anyone, other player characters nor NPCs, to go face down a fully grown dragon or something similar. Everyone in the universe that we're playing in knows it would be suicide to attempt it. Only at a higher level, once we have gained experience in fighting and solving problems and trained with people who are more experienced than us, can we be expected to hold our own against a fully grown dragon. Now we've made a name for ourselves and have great expectations thrown upon us. We can do what the common rabble can only dream of doing. And as we gain experience performing great acts, we start becoming living legends. And as living legends, we can stare down gods, ancient powers, apocalyptic threats to the lands, etc. We can be memorialized throughout all of time as heroes...or villains...

One thing I do like though is consistency. If the kobolds only have 5 hp, they should stay at 5 hp despite the PCs' levels.

If there are more skilled kobolds we happen to run into, I'm okay with those kobolds being stronger. Just keep the base kobold the same.

I'm down for whatever but it'd be really nice to have something a beginner like me can ease into. I've done some reading (surprisingly 5e is what most everyone seems to be talking about) and there is one thing that concerns me. With 5e, people often just face things that scale with their level all the time. This defeats the purpose of leveling up and getting stronger entirely. So I'm hoping that can be avoided. I don't mind a challenge but I'd like to know my progress actually means something.

That's the case for most RPGs that have advancement - so D&D, Pathfinder, D20, GURPS, or any World of Darkness game - in that sure, at level 1, you might fight Kobolds, and at level 20, you might fight Pit Fiends, and both will be of a similar difficulty level - but by virtue of taking on more dangerous enemies, you'll still feel as if you're advancing. It might not be as apparent if you're fighting humanoid enemies - since often the easiest way for a DM to make a human enemy more dangerous is just to give them class levels and call it a day - but if you've ever played Oblivion, for example, you feel a lot more badass fighting a Greater Daedroth than you do fighting a Scamp; more badass fighting a Kynmarcher than you do a Churl; and in general, as you level, you have more tools with which to be feeling more badass in general.
Not to mention that every so often a DM will throw some hordes of kobolds or whatever at you as chaff, and you'll be able to slaughter them in their scores where at first level fighting more than 2 or 3 each at a time was a death sentence.
(Not, mind you, Tucker's Kobolds, who are a fucking nightmare, but then again the DM isn't really conventionally supposed to optimize his enemies against the PCs, because generally that means PCs will die, and most players who haven't been in the hobby for 15 years are sort of averse to having Their Dude die; if you do want that lethal an experience, Descent: Journeys into the Dark is an excellent board game with a campaign feature).

At any rate I'll note now in case it's a factor in anyone's choices - I will make either the full rulebook, or a truncated version for PCs, available (probably as a Drive link) should a choice be made (provided I actually have the rules; I don't have rules for, for example, the Star Wars RPGs, that's definitely an Excalibur thing, but anything I listed as something I have experience with, I have PDFs of the corebooks).

(Not, mind you, Tucker's Kobolds, who are a fucking nightmare, but then again the DM isn't really conventionally supposed to optimize his enemies against the PCs, because generally that means PCs will die, and most players who haven't been in the hobby for 15 years are sort of averse to having Their Dude die; if you do want that lethal an experience, Descent: Journeys into the Dark is an excellent board game with a campaign feature).

Side note: I've run a Tucker's Kobolds adventure before. Fucking hilarious for me, not so much for the players.

My top systems, in order of preference, with what role I would want in order of preference, are as follows:

1. Pathfinder 1e - DM/Playing
2. Starfinder - Playing (I could DM, but it would take some adjustment)
3. 5e - Playing/DM
4. FATE (although I would prefer to not do this as a main thing, mainly do it as a one shot or something) - Playing
5. Pathfinder 2e (This is in the same boat as Pathfinder) - Playing/DM

In the absence of anyone actually saying very much, I'll just come out and state that I will be running a science-fiction FATE campaign.
I haven't yet decided if I want to use the Diaspora ruleset or not; anyone who's interested can weigh in.

As an introductory game for New People Who Want To Get Into The Hobby (or people who just want to learn a new ruleset), I'm still open to running either Pathfinder or FATE, but my eyes have been opened to the possibility of short-term Monsters and Other Childish Things, so that's the third option on the table (replacing Only War).
All the links are either to Drive PDFs of the rulesets, or in the case of Pathfinder, a link to the SRD, which just has...everything, ever, on the game.

Perhaps you could do a poll?

I am familiar with 5e. Have played Pathfinder very slightly. Also moderately familiar with Powered by the Apocalypse systems, especially Masks and Monster of the Week.

Realistically though my chances of participating are low, and DM'ing even lower.

In the absence of anyone actually saying very much, I'll just come out and state that I will be running a science-fiction FATE campaign.
I haven't yet decided if I want to use the Diaspora ruleset or not; anyone who's interested can weigh in.

I read through Diaspora today - first impressions are great. It seems to add some granularity to FATE that can create more mechanically different characters. It also allows for ultra-long-runners since all character growth is lateral (numbers aren't getting bigger, but people are changing and the world is turning). It's similar enough that I got the gist of most things but I skimmed over the detailed combat rules since I don't know yet if we would be using those, and the system is more of a toolkit anyway.

Diaspora looks fun, though I would still be happy to play "vanilla" FATE if it would make managing the game/characters/whatever simpler.

I just read through the introductory section of FATE, and it seems simple enough. Though I'll want to find myself a fourth d6 to use for making rolls. I don't yet know how Diaspora would affect things, but I'm sure y'all will explain it to me if I don't get around to reading it should we choose to use those rules.

I'd like to get in on this if possible, I'm p comfortable with RPGs in general so just throw a system at me and I'm sure I can get the general workings of it lol

p much all of the suggestions for systems have seemed really good so far, I'm up for any of them lol

Getting real excited to play FATE/Diaspora, let me know when chargen starts!

Would we need a channel for it on the Wintreath Discord or would it be a group chat, or something else?

Apologies for my big drop in activity seeing me ignore this thread for a little bit; it was that migraine time of month again and after that ended I just sort of fugued out for a couple days.

In the end, I decided against a purist form of Diaspora; I'm going to cannibalize good-sized elements of it, but aside from that, it's rather too Hard SF (and consequently rather too unforgiving) for what I figure most people really want to do.
What I'll be cannibalizing most heavily will be the skill list; to compensate for the dramatically expanded skill list, you'll have a 5-point pyramid, rather than a 4-point pyramid. It's not 1:1, since I wanted everyone to be able to have better-than-average competence in at least half the pyramid, so I've cut/compressed some skills.

Revised Skill List

Agility (Dodging attacks, throwing weapons, and general parkour-ing)
Alertness (Awareness, pretty much; an equivalent would be Spot checks)
Animal Handler (Dealing with...animals!)
Archaeology
Assets (this modifies your Wealth track)
Brawling (used in Combat for fists, feet, and wrestling)
Brokerage (your Bartering skill)
Bureaucracy (Handling not only paperwork, but knowing exactly who in an organization you should be talking to)
Charm (Bluff, Diplomacy, and schmoozing all rolled into one)
Close Combat (used in Combat for melee weapons)
Communications (this is your Hacking skill, either for ship-based Electronic Warfare, or personal-level decking)
Computer (this is your defense against Hacking; used for EW Damage Control in Space, or in person, for making often old, unreliable systems do what you want, whether it be by outright repairing them or figuring out workarounds and bypasses)
Culture/Tech (a measure of how well-travelled you are - think Streetwise, but on a planetary scale)
Demolitions (explosives!)
Engineering (used in Space for maintaining the ship and repairing Frame damage)
EVA (going out into space, operating in microgravity)
Gunnery (used in Space for the ship's weapons systems)
Intimidation
Medical
Navigation (used for piloting a Spaceship, whether a fighter or a battleship)
Oratory (crowd-level persuasion, general demagoguery)
Pilot (used for flying aircraft and shuttles)
Profession [Whatever] (your previous job before you took to Adventure; every character gets a free 1 in this; you may decide to take the 1 in a different skill if you'd rather your Profession be higher)
Repair (fixing up mechanical components; weapons and armor maintenance; keeping your vehicles in top shape)
Resolve (modifying the Composure track)
Science (because we're running on Hollywood Science, baby; you're not a geneticist or a physicist, you're a Scientist, and that means you have a doctorate in Everything)
Shoot (firing ranged weapons of any sort; whether an old chemical-explosive slugthrower, a compound bow, all the way up to a railgun or plasma particle cannon)
Stamina (modifying the Health track)
Stealth
Survival (living off the land, tracking, etc.)
Tactics (planning your combats, creating Advantages on enemies before a combat begins)
Vehicle (drive cars or other land vehicles, or pilot bluewater naval ships)

If you're interested in participating in this game, let me know and I'll role you appropriately; as is, for anyone looking to set up a future game, I figure it'll be 'easier' to do on Discord, so here's a permanent link to the server we've set up for the purpose.
EDIT: I should be clear that if you're interested in participating, the maximum number of players I can handle is 6, so...first come first served! This may, of course, be moot if less than 6 are interested but you never know.
Also, bear in mind the point of the server is to consolidate any/all such RPGs into one convenient Wintreath-adjacent place, so if you're like 'grrrr Doc is a lunatic, forget this FATE nonsense', you have the option to say 'I would like to run a 5e game' and we can set up roles/categories/channels for that purpose accordingly.

Time for the annoying part where I @ everyone who's showed even a tiny amount of interest;
@Aragonn @Chanku @Laurentus @Ruguo @Hapi Ever After @Arenado @Excalibur @Ender @Emoticonius @trader @Normaltype @Beohel