Please recommend me a good Fantasy RPG that isn't D&D or based on a derivative system thereof. Not trolling...

Burning Wheel if you want to do epic, thematically heavy fantasy à la Lord of the Rings

Torchbearer if you want something dungeon crawling based, focused on resource management and solving puzzles

Legend of the Five Rings if you want something more focused on courtly intrigue, and with a more "eastern" feel

Reign if you want something focused on leading armies and fighting in huge battles

Exalted if you want to have the power level of a God and are willing to deal with shit tons of rules

Runequest if you want something with a much more Bronze Age feel, instead of D&D's pseudo medievalisms

7th Sea (1st edition) if you want something with a more Age of Sail/Renaissance tone. Lots of gunpowder and swashbuckling

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay if you like the whole idea of a ragtag group of wandering adventurers, but you want to run something more gritty and lethal

Fantasy Craft if you want something with the ridiculous amount of character build options as 3.PF, but with almost none of the issues 3.PF has

Essentially, you got plenty of options

OP what you want is Dungeon World

It's pretty much objectively one of the best currently out there. It has fast easy to use mechsnics and is perfect for beginners, it's a lot cheaper than most of these other rules bloated systems that cost fifty dollars. There is no reason for extra rules when it is he role playing that matters. Dungeon World is fast and innovative and still feels exactly like the spirit of ADND before DnD 3.5 destroyed the hobby and ruined a generation of role players.

You want fast, intuitive combat? Dungeon World does that.

You want real, deep roleplaying mechanics? Dungeon World does that.

You want great mechanics that reward diversity of play? Dungeon World does that as well.

My last session of Dungeon World my human fighter wrapped a vampire in a bear hug and wrestled him out a window. This is real roleplaying we are talking about here, not babby 3.5 shit. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Dungeon World today, it is an evolution and perfection of the half-formed ideas in Apocalypse World (the game it is derived from)

I found you don't mind furries give ironclaw a try.

If you do mind furries then GURPS

>grapple a vampire is roleplaying

>responding to copypasta

Couldn't tell. You cannot distinguish it from the classic Veeky Forums answer to dnd.
There is a thread right now for the speed that cannot play a 3.x game right.
Have a look is hilarious.

Mythras/RuneQuest is my personal choice. Mythras is just RuneQuest with the Glorantha setting removed from the core rules. With that, it'll handle anything. You can even use supplements for Guns, Large-scale combat, naval combat, or even incorporate elements from M-Space(the Sci-Fi spinoff of Mythras) to run a Planescape system.

Barbarians of Lemuria is pretty cool. Rules-light Conan-style swords & sorcery.

>Barbarians of Lemuria,Mythic Edition (current edition) -- mediafire.com/folder/7llc83r2xf8bg/Barbarians_of_Lemuria_-_Mythic_Edition

>Barbarians of Lemuria, Legendary Edition (earlier edition, shorter but not as refined) --mediafire.com/download/p5w885sa9a869ma/Barbarians Of Lemuria - Legendary Edition.pdf

>Barbarians of Lemuria, House Rules / Patches for Legendary Edition (if you want minimalism of Legendary, but with the rules tightened up) -- mega.co.nz/#F!CtQR2bST!y_awB-GHCiL3CdK4iLCV7A

Rolemaster

I played apocalypse world and it was shit. An absolute mess of a system.

What did they change?

Stand aside shitty meme systems, a good game is coming through.

Me on the right

Do anything but this and you're moving in the right direction.

Seconding this.

Seriously? I don't like Apoc World for reasons but I wouldn't call it a mess.

Dungeon World is worse in many respects, but still an OK game.

THE ONE RING
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Use GURPS. Dungeon Fantasy is a good place to start, but that's depend on how serious your game is.

Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok
You want to be Vikings fighting for your life during the Fimbulwinter? This is the game for you.
It doesn't use dice instead you draw the Norse runes from your bag that represent your characters powers and attributes.

>don't like apoc world for reasons
>Dungeon World is worse
Could you expand? I'm a forever GM, sick of D&D and live in the arse end of nowhere with limited number of players around. Looking for a system to jump to and DW is top of the list right now. What are the reasons it shouldn't be?

I don't like AW because it is set up to spiral out of control until the characters are at each other's throat because of conflicts of interest. I much more prefer heroic figures doing heroic stuff.

However, DW is about a team of adventurers, which means that bonds, for example, lose meaning because players are always working together.

A lot of D&D-isms also dilute the strengths of AW. for example the "classic six" stats are a lot less "purposeful" than in AW (they have a lot more overlap, like ranged/melee combat), and adding the HP/damage system also made everything related markedly worse.

The XP system is also a mixed bag; I like the goal oriented XP, but the bonds and "rolling a miss means you get XP" can go fuck themselves.

That said, DW is still a good game overall. The AW framework is very solid, even in this wrangled state. And the DM guide is fantastic.

thanks mate, really useful

I will warn you, do not use it online (on roll20 or whatever)

It does not work very well.

I didn't like the total lack of a turn order. It ended up just getting really messy, and leading to the gunlugger just doing ever single encounter before anyone else could get a word in. The class system also lead to about half the classes being useless during combat and the other half being shackled to some kind of base or "hardhouse", and the whole Hx system kind of lead to everyone being a dick to eachother.
It might be good for a group that's new to RP but the rules were also way too insubstantial for my liking.

The worst part was probably the manual being written entirely in universe ("FUCK SHIT PISS DIRT MURDER SADNESS FUCK FUCK DEATH FUCK SHIT FUCK"), although i imagine that's not as much of an issue in Dungeon World, unless the manual opens up with "Forsooth Weary Traveller, hast thou heardst oft thine etc etc."

I think that's more of an issue in DW, my group hogged actions there because we were all in the same place trying to achieve the same thing via similar means. In AW oftentimes we were on different sides, had different goals, and so on, so as long as the GM goes around the table giving everyone some spotlight it works more smoothly.

Insubstantial rules is just story games in general, and a lot of people don't like that.

That's what the gunlugger is supposed to do though. And that's how the classes are supposed to work out. They are specialists. They interact with the world best in their own specific ways. It uses a sort of spotlight balance, and solves the issues of spotlight balance (the other players twiddling their thumbs) by making the scenarios resolves in very few rolls.

I mean, you could dislike all that (I certainly do) but the game is doing exactly what it set out to do. It's hardly a mess in that sense.

Not having a turn order does suck in DW though.

Earthdawn is definitely worth a mention. The setting is actually built around a lot of dungeon tropes, and it's basically Shadowrun's ancient world/last age of magic.

Also, Ars Magica, although by fantasy game that's more of a medieval wizard simulator than a swords and sorcery type action game.

I guess I was trying to play it more as a sort of slightly rules-lighter D&D in a fallout-ish setting, which this system would definitely be a mess for.

The GM also made the game super combat heavy.

Anyone know where I can pick up the burning wheel collection in PDFs?

A lot of the necessary books to play are out of print.

BoL is fucking glorious and exactly what I was looking for when I was shopping around for a new system. The only downside I can think of is that the rules are pretty rooted in a specific setting, but I like the way that setting does just about everything. Haven't had much chance to really dig in and play it, so I can't say when and where it starts to break, but it's simple enough that I can't see a fix being difficult. I've never run anything so quick and simple that still felt meaty and encouraged roleplay.

another upvote for mouseguard here

For variety, here's a few weird ones that turn all the D&D conventions on their heads.
- Nobilis
- Sorceror
- Fate (Anglerre or Dresden)
- Ars Magica

>Iron Kingdoms is pretty good
Iron Kingdoms is interesting, but fair warning it's in the same "miniatures skirmish game that happens to have a few RPG elements stapled on" sub-genre as 4e. Which is fine, of course, it's just not really a pen-and-paper RPG in the traditional sense.

My niggers
Although if you play burning wheel make sure the group munchkin gets heavily restricted if they pick that one thing that lets you pick a vampire or demon trait.
because you can become immune to anything that isn't magical as a starter character

I see Dungeon World and up one further! Blades in the Dark! You are a gang of thieves! The setting is Dishonored. Like, it isn't Dishonored, but anything you don't know about the setting you can muddle through if you assume it is Dishonored. It's heavily reminiscent of a lot of other "gritty victorian fantasy" stuff we've had of late like Mistborn etc.

The point is that Blades pulls back a little bit from the precipice of simplicity offered by Dungeon World, and creates a system with extensive capacity for depth and progression without killing the smooth as a bar of soap narrativist tactical combat off. It is, to me and everyone I know, the best compromise between the easy play experience of Dungeon World and the sense of accomplishment in more established systems.

As an aside, L5R is fun. I haven't played it for a while and its setting is far from typical, takes a bit of learning to behave properly (Shit like actually caring at all about money being deeply dishonorable, and if you find a magical weapon you should keep it on your mantlepiece, not your inventory are hard to grow into), but L5R 4e was a fun time. Has a very interesting roll system.

>upvote

>"miniatures skirmish game that happens to have a few RPG elements stapled on" sub-genre as 4e
Eh, the two of them are definitely more bound to the tabletop than most games but even 5e (the lightest modern D&D) also takes a lot of advantage out of grid combat, it's just not as essential (and is just as if not more focused on combat). And idk how it's not an RPG in the traditional sense when trpgs came from wargames. In terms of RP, careers encourage interaction much more so than classes because they have implications and roles in the universe, and the setting itself is core to the game, campaigns are much more likely to include some elements of politics or some other side of it.

Good thing certain woods, metals, plants, and springs are magical in my games.

>And idk how it's not an RPG in the traditional sense when trpgs came from wargames
Yes, of course they're close relatives. I'd draw the line at what the mechanics are encouraging players to do. In a miniatures-driven game, combat is always going to be the focus, because otherwise what did you bring all this stuff for? IKRPG games tend to be a narrative thread tying together a sequence of action scenes. That doesn't mean you can't RP, but that the system provides minimal support for doing so.

OD&D as played by Gygax had wargamey sessions, but most of of the time they never even used miniatures and it was very talky and loose, except for keeping track of time, resources and map drawing. ttrpgs came from dungeon crawlers, and a lot of conventions are based on that, but that hasn't really been the norm for a long time now. Still, 4e plays like a tacstrat, it feels to me like the rest of the game is designed around a couple long encounters instead of encounters being a short diversion from everything else. It's very different and something you have to want or it sucks as much as using a dungeon crawler for crunchy drawn out combat.

>Which is fine, of course, it's just not really a pen-and-paper RPG in the traditional sense.

This is literally what D&D was, depending on how you look at its relation to Chainmail.

D&D is also very combat-focused though, sure the miniatures may drive it a bit further (keep in mind many use miniatures for 3.5/5e too) but when 90% of the mechanics are focused on combat and then you have a pretty weak skill system for anything else, I have no idea how combat is a "short diversion". How does D&D provide more support for roleplaying too, backgrounds? They're basically less significant careers with the big difference being that they distill down to bonds, flaws etc.

I agree that IK is more likely to be combat sequences stringed together with RP and story, but it's minimally different in that regard from other combat-focused rpgs like D&D both in their rules and my experience of them. If people that like combat more play it and it results in much more combat-focused campaigns, that doesn't mean the game is more combat-focused and campaigns will always vary.

Meant to reply too.

I was talking about older editions of D&D. 0e and 1eAD&D are dungeon crawlers for the most part. Combat is a quick thing that whittles down resources before you have to pull out of the dungeon or take your chances setting up camp in the wilderness. You do as much running away as you do fighting and the meat of the game is the exploratory aspect, interacting with the world. It's mostly freeform but there are still a shitton of rules for parley with monsters, navigating traps, and wilderness survival. The wargaming side was a high level thing when you had a castle and mooks. Most encounters weren't worth the time to set up the miniatures because they lasted all of 3 rounds.

Later editions are where you see the combat focus and epic battles with rules to support it. The time involved makes it less exploratory, which is what a lot of people want.

All I was really trying to say was that ttrpgs as we know them were originally dungeon crawlers with a very different focus than the early wargames with some added rp between battles that led to rpgs and that 4e and IK are in many ways radically different from other current combat focused rpgs and feel more like a tacstrat as far as the gist of what you do and how long it takes to do it than other games.

Riddle of steel
Midnight
are my favorite alternatives

also if you're referring to later versions of D&D (3e and onwards) you could consider trying basic, advanced or 2e. 2e just provides a very barebones core while providing tons of optional rules which are easy to pick up or leave out depending on what kind of game you want or how much crunch you want.

Old versions of dnd (basic/advanced/2e) aren't even the same game as the newer editions

Right, yeah OD&D and related games definitely have a different flow and don't treat combat the same as many modern rpgs. Though I still think the difference between 3.PF/5e/similar games and 4e/IK is mostly just how you run them and they can be very similar, and in combat length I actually find IK to be much faster than 5e because things don't have 10x as much hp as the damage of the pcs.

Yeah, my intent wasn't really to derail the thread with a discussion about categorizing different systems. Really just trying to paint a picture for the OP of what to expect. While you can technically play any scenario in any system, there's no arguing that different systems put the focus in different places.

Nothing wrong with that. As I said above, if what's essentially a miniatures tactics game with RPG trimmings is what you're looking for, then the IKRPG is a fine choice. Those seeking a deep RP experience will probably come away disappointed (or at the very least, it's BYORP).

Yeah you did it wrong. It's meant to be power struggle / drama / conflict shit, less than direct combat, which is supposed to take place a few times per story arc. Combat has to be meaningful because of how deadly it can be. Basically you take a small conflict and build it up and the characters have to defuse it, it's a rise and fall of tension, it's definitely not meant to be played like D&D.

It's a really good game but a lot of people don't like it, which is fine. Hell even I am usually not in the mood for the level of RP that AW requires to make the most of the system.

BoL is easy to hack into anything in the same neighborhood as sword-and-sorcery. Pulp adventure, westerns, post-apocalypse, anything "sword-and-x," etc.

yeah we were sort of a group of 5 adventerers who worked together and fought hordes of baddies

>Earthdawn

My gentleman of Theran descent.

Earthdawn also has one of the best if not the best magic item system ever made. It does a great job in avoiding the D&D "Tossing a +1 Sword in the Trash when you get a +2 Sword."

This

Mouse Guard is like, Dungeon World but with more work.

...

>Barbarians of Lemuria
Came in here to recommend this.

>all this BoL love
I'm sorry but everything I know about lemuria comes from spirit science and I'm not laying a finger on that system.

What fucking anime is this from and how trash is it

Osomatsu san is quality

>good
>not d&d ripoff

Nice try, NMI.

The best fantasy Uncle Kev ever wrote was the RRT kickstarter

Mouse Guard is like Dungeon World but actually good.

Top keks right there.

I hope this doesn't start a fight, but Blue Rose definitely fits the bill, if the Roddenberrian utopian and gender-freewheeling aspects of the setting aren't a turn off for you, OP.

Fate Core

Fellowship
Polaris
Golden Sky Stories
On Mighty Thews
Trollbabe
The Warren

How good are fantasy craft options? When I moved from 3.PF no system ever had the same sheer amount of things you could do. Even if the system itself is shit, I hate how most good ones don't have a tenth of the content so if you have an unusual idea for a character you are stuck trying to get your DM to homebrew your ideas in a way he likes or just refluffing some character options which feels really disappointing sometimes.

Since this seems to be the place to ask, what are some good modern fantasy settings? Right now the only one I have on my list is scion 2e which isn't even out yet.

Osumatsu-San. It's an adaptation of a Showa-Era anime and is pretty funny gag comedy.

I've been enjoying The Dark Eye. It's what Germany's been playing instead of D&D for 30 years. So it's crunchier but more grounded (weaker magic, fewer spells, having to practice each individual spell and train it as a skill, no resurrection, slower recovery, more danger of death and bigger penalties for things like being outnumbered,) with a lot of stuff that's just plain weird that some kraut thought was perfectly normal. For example, witches sometimes come from eggs. Like, a coven of witches will go into the hills and come back with an egg with a baby witch in it, and nobody knows how or why.

What's the source? I love that art style.

Unknown Armies.

Role Master...

Savage Worlds

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 2nd Edition

Barbarians of Lemuria

Arthur Pendragon

Torchbearer

Kilian Eng

It's only now that I realize that the only capital-f Fantasy RPGs I've ever played have been D&D based outside of one session of DungeonWorld.
I've read the rules for Open Legend RPG after seeing it suggested on Veeky Forums a few times, and it seems pretty good in abstract. Haven't had a chance to actually play it yet though.

Not that guy, but personally I've always considered Arneson's Blackmoor stuff to be the more important half of that formula. While of course Chainmail had the fantasy rules section and the castle rules had those GM/underground mapping elements (complete with traps), Arneson had already been essentially running an RPG for his friends for about a year with their own cobbled together ruleset. He brought the shape of adventure to it.

The classes are pretty general use, and a lot of abilities and features are moved from class to feat. There are also Specialties separate from class that give you benefits. This means you can mix and match a lot more than 3.PF. Want a sneaky magic user? Play a mage with the Rogue specialty and some Covert feats.

Want a slightly more diplomatic fighter without the accoutrements of a mounted character or paladin? Play a Soldier with the Aristocrat specialty.

Want a Muscle Wizard? Play a Mage with the Fist specialty , and the Martial Arts(Int) and Master Arts feat, using Int for unarmed attack, damage, defense and initiative.

Despite this ability to mix and match, the actual number of options are admittedly limited when compared to PF. There is the main book, an addon book, a few classes sold individually, and the previews from their Spellbound splatbook.

Harnmaster for medieval low fantasy action.
The One Ring for more narrative Middle-Earth.
MERP/Rolemaster for classic hack & slash in Middle-Earth.
Dragon Age for a relatively easy dark fantasy system.

>Not that guy, but...

Oh yeah, that's why I said "depending on how you look at it".

I just kinda find it silly that 4e gets shafted (I feel) because the combat system is a good standalone game for once. It's also the easiest edition to make fights scary in, aside from the level 1 situation of "you can instantly die from a crippled goblin's rusty dagger" not existing in it.

The way weapon types, damage, and properties are set up means that all weapons have something going for them and only a few are really outmoded by other weapons.

Between the races and the different species feats you can play damn near any fantasy race just with the core book.
Combine that with the Specialties like mentioned and you've got a potluck of concepts that are functional out of the box at level 1, without having to wait a few levels for them to start being fun or make sense.

Every class and every feat path gets a couple of flavorful gamebreaker-type abilities, but you aren't really able to have them all 'on' at once so it doesn't get out of hand or more over the top than you want it to. It just gives everyone a few very flashy and well assured ways to be effective.
Speaking of flashy, there's a pro wrestling-inspired feat path that culminates in you being able to do stuff like dazzle someone with nonlethal damage by powerbombing someone next to them. You can strike them functionally deaf and blind for a few seconds as they're drawn into your act.

What might normally be gated by Wealth By Level, and everything that implies, is broken down and reimagined through Prudence/Panache and a Reputation system: Panache decides how well you're assumed to be dressed and how much extra pocket money you have month to month (whether from honest work or grifting is up to you), and Prudence decides how much of gold found adventuring your character resists blowing on one thing or another.
Reputation lets you become more Renowned with certain groups, and each level of Renown entitles you to more permanent 'prizes' that stick around after the adventure like magic items, castles, or airships, and anything else that builds on the story of your character in a meaningful way. Even powerful favors. Plus that Renown gets you a title, and respect with various groups.

All that said, the book has some organization quirks and reads as being more dense than it actually is so learning it, and convincing other people to learn it, can be a real pain.

...

Yeah even the Burning Wheel rulebook is very explicit on the fact that some options shouldn't be given to first time players or without the GM's permission

Which edition are you two talking about, and can you elaborate on those magic items?