I would like to run a very gritty low fantasy style game, drawing inspiration from the likes of the Dying Earth, the Malazan Book of the Fallen and Dark sun. The sexting is a world that is old and slowly dying, where the gods are many and old and weary, often striking bargains with mortals to gain more power and were magic is powerful but manly takes the form of ancient artifacts, forgotten rituals or powered by bargains made either with dark gods or eldritch beings. I am looking for a system with fast paced but in depth combat and good social mechanics.
I am considering GURPS but have bounced off the system numerous times due to the number of options available occasionally being overwhelming and I am also considering Runequest 6/Mythras but I am concerned that that system might make PCs too geared towards combat.
What would you advice?
Best system for gritty low fantasy game
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I honestly don't know any game with good social mechanics, or at least not ones I'd use that also have depth in combat. You'll probably have to frankenstein it together.
My gut reaction would be Savage Worlds. Apocalypse World (one of the fantasy spinoffs) would fit, but the combat isn't really in depth in it. Strike! has bretty gud tactical combat, but the social mechanics are anemic.
I've taken a look at savage world, it doesn't really appeal to me as a system, I would prefer something more simulationst in its structure.
I feel like SW has plenty of simulationist leanings (despite the pulpy feel its going for), aside from maybe bennies, so anything more than that and you are basically looking for simulationist games.
Maybe give Mutants and Masterminds 3 a look? I know it's supposedly a superhero system, but can be used as a lighter GURPS alternative.
You could try Burning Wheel.
>Dying Earth,
If it's in Appendix N, then OSR emulates it well.
>Malazan Book of the Fallen
That's high fantasy, not low. Also literally GURPS.
>Dark sun
Literally an OSR setting.
>sexting
I, too, am phone poster.
You have got to be careful with that auto-spellchecker.
>the gods are many and old and weary, >magic is powerful but manly takes the form of [tedious/risky crap]
And again, you don't seem to know what genre you want.
You *say* Low Fantasy, but you are describing Swords and Sorcery.
Speaking of S&S, have you considered running OSR?
>I am looking for a system with fast paced but in depth combat
The only systems that do both have abstract, gameist combat systems so far from simulationism that it unsuspends disbelief.
>and good social mechanics.
Why would you want (or need) mechanics for roleplay activities?
>I am considering GURPS but [...]
This will sound like an odd suggestion, and it wouldn't be my first choice, but MAID is a *much* better generic system than GURPS.
It would not be my first choice for your setting, but hey... beats GURPS? Take a look at it, if you want.
>What would you advice?
I would go with is OSR. Then again, I would probably go with that for anything...
Thanks for the advice, I do have the Rules cyclopedia and was actually thinking of OSR as a possible third option but I was hesitant as I am not certain how to incorporate the race as class as I did not intend to have non-humans in my setting.
In regards to the setting I was leaning more for low fantasy high magic, with powerful magic available in the world, but the heroes mainly dealing with their own concerns, not fighting to defeat NOT!Sauron and save the world from falling into darkness. The gods that show up occasionally are not all powerful paragons like the gods of D&D, rather petty deities like the god of a road showing up and accepting a deal to allow safe passage in exchange for a small offering or favour, while taking the form of a weary old man.
I suppose that my description was a bit vague and so can understand your confusion.
PS Thanks for the advice about auto correct, that was a particularly embarrassing one.
Noone recommended Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e yet?
OP here, I actually have an insane amount of material for that but it seems very setting specific.
only really the winds of magic are specific, the rest is pretty generic.
Shadows of Esteren
drivethrurpg.com
Zweihander is slightly more setting neutral but is still clearly Warhammer Fantasy
>how to incorporate the race as class as I did not intend to have non-humans in my setting.
Re-skin them to non-race classes as appropriate.
Or just... don't include them. That's an option.
Something, something, no such thing as RPGcops.
I run GURPS almost exclusively for gritty low fantasy games, and I believe it fully excels at the genre. Even if it seems daunting, GURPS Lite is free and only 32 pages. And when you've learnt it well enough, you'll always have a generic system to fall back to for any game you might want to run, but don't know a better system for.
GURPS is absolutely worth learning for any tabletop fan.
Symbaroum
Here's an user who knows his shit. I've had a far better time using Symbaroum for gritty games than GURPS, Dungeon World, or any of the other big names in the genre.
>Dungeon World
Not gonna' recommend Torchbearer to the OP, but Torchbearer is strictly better than DW.
how does the setting being low fantasy affect your world building? do people still use technology from ancient human civilizations ala thundarr the barbarian?
also, Low Fantasy is kinda hard to connect with a system but I might suggest Call of Cthulhu or GURPS (although with GURPS it seems you're missing a lot of potential within the system if you're only using it for Low Fantasy)
I take that back, GURPS may be the perfect system for Low Fantasy because of all the social and non-combat skills (which you might not get to use in a world less familiar)
Not sure Malazan is Low Fantasy.
It's more like "Shitty Fantasy", where magic exists and there's all kinds of magical things and multiple ways of getting magic and actual demigods walking the Earth, but mostly it just makes the world a shittier and less pleasant place.
Same with Black Company.
It'd be "dark fantasy" I guess because the setting is inherently dark and gloomy despite all the magical shit.
The Finnish game Symbaroum is definitely Dark Fantasy, having this vaguely Dark Souls-ish atmosphere of impending doom.
Also, there seems to be a lot of trolls here trying to mislead people into confusing the terms High and Low fantasy but this thread is starting to clear things up:
Low-Fantasy/High-Fantasy definition arguments only end with the death of an otherwise decent thread. We already had a good discussion die on us yesterday, don't make it worse by starting that up again.
>"nonrational happenings that are without causality or rationality because they occur in the rational world where such things are not supposed to occur."
Yeah, nothing about that taking place in the real world, just in a rational one.
A discussion can only really be had though if the people speaking are using the same definitions of the words they're using, otherwise what they say doesn't mean what they intend to mean when they say it to the other person (who thinks the words they're hearing mean something other than what is intended)
did you just have a stroke?
It's a useless discussion. Despite the "official" definition, everyone uses an incorrect, but understood one. The prevailing definition is the one people use.
This is the last (you) you're getting from me, and I hope everyone else sages and hides you from now on.
Nope, I looked up the literal definition of low fantasy.
you misunderstand - we agree on that exact thing! it is useless to argue about the definition of a word when it is clear what that definition is and because definitions are not based on how popularly a word is misunderstood (otherwise no one would ever need to clarify anything and words would all lose meaning without any new meaning being gained)
you trolls keep throwing around words like 'literal' and 'academic' and 'literary', etc. but what you all fail to recognize is that THIS IS THE FUCKING DEFINITION OF THE WORD
Look, I don't care about this argument one way or another; it's so staggeringly irrelevant to things that the literal dump I'm taking on my break as I write this post actually has more meaningful impact. I have no idea what you are even arguing about and why you are so passionate about it at all, and it feels sort of like you're continuing an argument with me that you started with some OTHER guy in some other thread days ago.
Maybe you should re-evaluate your priorities if that shit actually matters that much to you, start a blog or something.
Because mostly you're just confusing random people taking a dump break at work at this point, so to speak.
>Fate/Stay Night is low fantasy
to restate (yet again for those who can't find the answer in all these posts of people misinformed and being shitty about it):
"Low fantasy" is fantasy stories (i.e. with magic although commonly this magic is limited) that take place in a real setting whether it be modern or historical (this includes any setting connected to our reality, e.g. Wonderland or Narnia, both of which are accessible from Earth)
"High fantasy" is fantasy stories which take place in an entirely fictional setting, with or without magic but commonly with a high degree of magic. These settings have no connection to our reality (i.e. our Earth never appears in the setting, e.g. the setting of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, the D&D setting, or the Magic the Gathering multiverse, etc.)
I personally also separate High and Low fantasy from Science Fiction
No one uses your definition of Low Fantasy. Ergo, it is a useless definition, ergo you should go fuck yourself.
Not him, but Fate/Stay Night is part of the urban fantasy subgenre if I recall correctly, albeit filtered through an extremely wordy Japanese porn game.
sorry, I should say both can include or not include magic (and the levels are inconsistent anyway so ignore what I said about magic being limited in Low fantasy)
everyone who knows what the definition is uses it
and calm the fuck down about being wrong; why is it so hard for you to correct a false belief, especially when you apparently care so little about its impact?
Because your autism has already killed one thread yesterday.
>knowing what a word means
>autism