Can you fine gentlemen recommend any Fantasy RPGs that have magic in them but aren't about Wizards or Mages slinging Fireballs, Rainbow beams and enriched Uranium lasers every combat? My group are interested in playing a Fantasy game, I'm super hyped because I'm fed up of sci fi and I want to run something Heroic and not morally ambigious. The only issue is the magic. I get that in games like DnD or Pathfinder, the Magic is an inherent part of the game. You'll probably suffer if you don't have a wizard, even if I as a GM explicitly don't send them against Wizard NPCs.
I'm looking for something where Magic exists, but in a subtler way. Magical creatures can still breathe fire and what have you, but there aren't spellbooks for sale and mage guilds in every city. If people are casting magic, it's ritual stuff with cost, time and preparation.
I've played a lot of WFRP 2e in the past, but the low success chance of most actions put me off using it for a game that I'd like to be about Heroes and not Murderhobos accidentally doing the right thing sometimes.
Runescape, Burning Wheel and maybe OSR retroclones like "Adventurer Conqueror King", but with those you need to understand the design choices and well, there still can be this DnD creep but AFAIK lower.
So those 2 former titles are probably what you are looking for, but "Runescape" is very different and "Burning Wheels" need some serious reading through, so it might not be ideal.
Brayden Evans
I've found that I had a pdf of Burning Wheels, I've started reading and remembered why I forgot it. The mechanics of it sound interesting but it's so hard to read. I'm not finding an RPG called Runescape, dare I presume you meant Runequest?
Asher Nguyen
>I'm super hyped because I'm fed up of sci fi and I want to run something Heroic and not morally ambigious
That's less on the setting or ruleset and more on the tone of the campaign and the antagonists you want to let the players face. Make sure to tell this upfront to your players so they don't mistakenly create anti-heroes and ruin everyone fun.
Brandon Gray
Lord of the Rings.
You could easily modify Banestorm to remove the direct damage spells. Nothing would break.
I'm thinking about creating a low-magic system using Impulse Points in GURPS. The article in the new pyramid plus Power-ups Impulse Buys gives you a LOT of ammunition to make magic VERY powerful but non-flashy magic system.
Basically it's hard to find a setting that does it, but if you have a setting in mind, then there are plenty of systems which can support it.
Parker Murphy
Play 4e, use inherent bonus rules, don't let players be most Arcane or Divine classes.
Grayson Jones
So a fantasy game not built around wizards
Use gurps, run your favorite one in that
Josiah Howard
Fantasy Craft. /thread
Robert White
D20 Conan. GURPS. Rolemaster. CJ Carella's Witchcraft. Warhammer fantasy roleplay. Barbarians of Lemuria.
Angel Phillips
GURPS
Connor Gray
Fantasy Craft.
Camden Turner
Sorry, I should have clarified. Certain systems lend themselves to a certain type of game, which is why I said in the OP that I didn't want to use WFRP, since the inherently high failure/mortality rate would put a damper on heroic endeavours. I've never heard of banestorm, I'll look it up after work, cheers user
Joseph Scott
The One Ring sounds like what you need.
Levi Gray
Check out Fellowship. It's a pretty boss RPG that gives you guys a chance to make your own Lord of the Rings saga. Setting is crafted as you play.
Xavier Cox
You know you can just tweak whfrp2e's numbers? Sorry, I'm a huge fanboy of that game and if you like it all but one aspect, ...
Alternatively the dark eye or midgard. We germans like our magic rare.
Or universal rpgs (fate, savage worlds, cypher, gurps,...)
Owen Ortiz
Provide PDF fag
Noah Sanders
>I'm a lazy shitlord and can't go to the PDF archives. Well that's all you had to say!
It's exactly what the title says. The magic is highly ritualistic and based on long preparations, rather than short spell and flick of fingers.
Benjamin Phillips
Adding ten to everything feels a bit like cheating, and I don't want to cheat on WFRP, I love it too much.
I suppose I'm long overdue to dip my toes in gurps, didn't know it had such precise splats.
Anthony Stewart
That's literally THE best part of GURPS magic
Matthew Bennett
Listen to these fine niggas. Gurps is your best bet. You can write the exact fantasy setting you want right down to every minute detail.
Bentley Walker
Beyond the Wall is pretty good for "Young Adventurers leave their home village to make their mark on the world"
It's a b/x OSR game that uses a playbook chargen system to give each player a bit of unique backstory, while helping to flesh out their home village and the people who live in it. It also helps to differentiate characters, so the "Would-be Knight" and the "Village Hero" might both have the warrior class, but they have different stuff that can happen to them in their playbooks.
Magic is divided into cantrips, spells and rituals. Cantrips can be cast without limit, but require a skill roll or something goes wrong. They're also all pretty basic shit like magic light and talking to animals. Spells are pretty vancian, but with a more mythic bent than most OSR games. The only direct damage spell is magic missle. Rituals are for big stuff, everything from naming rituals and divining to fireballs. They take 1*ritual level hours to cast, so they're very situational. It's all got a very folklore feel to it, so you should check it out. It also comes with scenario packs for making a first adventure on the fly, and the first expansion "Further Afield" has a pretty neat system for running ongoing campaigns
Easton Hill
forgot pic
Oliver Wilson
There's actually a lot of good recommendations already in the thread, so I'll throw in another one even though it's kind of obscure.
Hackmaster 5th edition might be exactly what you're looking for.
Wyatt Moore
Alternate choice, go with a purely narrative system like ... In Spaaace!, Wushu, The Anti-pool, or whatever and simply state that magic has subtle effects.
Angel Diaz
I'm planning to do this, hopefully before long, and I think I'll be going for GURPs.
This sounds really nice, I'll have to try and remember this.
Lucas Ward
As an OSRfag, I would say that the best thing about OSR is how easy it is to steal from each other. Or to take the good bits from the RPGs you like.
I'm also a massive Traveller-fag, and Traveller is built off stealing shit from people smarter than you I can say with no doubt, there's no shame in intellectual theft
Aaron Russell
Burning Wheel, although the system is pretty bad and combat is extremely complicated and ultra lethal.
A Song of Ice and Fire roleplay. Also not a great system, but manageable and it can be a pretty dun world. Biggest problem is the weirdly unrealistic character generation.
Running the World of Darkness system in a more traditional fantasy world. Other than removing guns and adding some armor, you'd need to change very little.
You can also do this with any genereric system. FATE if you like meta narrativist games. Savage Worlds if you like tactical combat. GURPS if you like pedantic levels of detail.
Kayden Jackson
Bit late on the conversation, but thanks for mentioning this. I've been looking through the free files and it seems right up my alley.
Nathaniel Lewis
Personally I'd like to see a game based around The Belgariad simply because of the way magic functions in the setting, but it'd be a bit difficult to figure out how to scale everything
Isaac Adams
I presume he meant RuneQuest. RQ works, but isn't hyperfocused on high heroics out of the box. You can easily tweak it that way if you want to. The old Stormbringer-game is pretty nifty too for your concept.