Alright, we get it, you don't like D&D. So what broad-use, not-setting-specific fantasy TTRPG do you recommend instead...

Alright, we get it, you don't like D&D. So what broad-use, not-setting-specific fantasy TTRPG do you recommend instead, O wisest of Anons?

But I love D&D.

What's the specific game you want to play? What kind of "fantasy"? I'm partial to Burning Wheel, but it isn't everyone's cup of tea. HarnMaster or HackMaster are good for gritty medieval stuff, GURPS and FATE can be brewed into whatever you want for crunch/narrative respectively, I've heard good things about DungeonWorld for basic delving games.. You've got a lot of options.

The kind people who go "ugh D&D as if that's THE fantasy game" like.

Probably most of those people run GURPS. I've never tried it but it and Hackmaster are high on my list for when our group decides to burst out of our D&D bubble.

As demonstrated above, there are a lot of different fantasy games which offer different advantages. A lot of the "ugh D&D as if that's THE fantasy game" sentiment is based around it being used in circumstances where a different game would be more appropriate. Pick the right tool for the job.

As says, GURPS is pretty popular due to flexibility, but it's less effective at delivering on certain thematic effects which operate better when woven into a system from the start. Also at some point you're just using GURPS to make a game that may already exist.

GURPS

I use GURPS personally, but from what I've heard from other anons Fantasy Craft is a pretty solid system for D&D style kitchen sink fantasy games. Burning Wheel has a lot of really interesting ideas, and there are a ton of retroclones out there for classic dungeon crawling.

I guess there's no really comprehensive answer for this thing. Most of the frustration with D&D being "the" fantasy game probably has more to do with the fact that D&D as a first rpg is full of pretty glaring flaws and despite its presentation isn't all that suited to playing any setting other than D&D. I personally like D&D though so to each their own.

Imagination.

Barbarians of Lemuria. It's a straightforward 2d6 + Modifiers system, magic is esoteric with greater spells requiring more elaborate rituals to cast, and it's far easier to teach newbies how to play than D&D.

MGCYOA and the like. I spin storys outta cyoas.

Point is, d&d is not "broad use" neither is it "not-setting-specific". It does only specific kind of fantasy it artificially invented - high magic kitchen sink bullshit with american """""renaissance"""" fair flavor. The fact that this kind of fantasy is now so widespread is because d&d infected other media, not because it was inherently "generic".

Compare it to fantasy classics, from Tolkien through Howard, Moorcock, Le Guin, Cook, Martin, and so many fucking others. D&D gets nowhere close to those. Even funnier, despite all of those classics being wildly divergent and belonging to different subgenres, the gap between any of those is still much less than between any of them and D&D.

D&D is only a "broad" game for faggots that think the shitty subgenre of fantasy spawned by it is somehow synonymous with the genre at whole. The fact that there is so many such people is quite sad.

Tavern Tales, OSR stuff, Fellowship. I'll put up with Dungeon World's shit over DnD any day.

Strike!, because I enjoy simplicity and grid combat.

BoL is pretty good too tho.

I ran a great fantasy game using Strands of FATE, but hey, you know what's cooler than being cool?

Something that's not your boring totally-not-tolkien fantasy. Seriously, there's a lot of good backdrops for your story, go wild.

>high magic
not inherenlty better or worse
> kitchen sink bullshit
a lot of people prefer that, sicne it allows you to pick and choose from any mythology you want
most people are not perturbed by it, and actually expect it, complaints come mostly from purists
>with american """""renaissance"""" fair flavor
nothing wrong with takign the hollywood version of things, if thats what youre players like, a great many people prefer the ability to pay for a small army of mercenaries instead of making them sweat an oath of fealty

nothing inherently wrong with DnDs flavor, i am not surprised at all it became the most mainstream version

HERO

>GURPS is pretty popular due to flexibility, but it's less effective at delivering on certain thematic effects which operate better when woven into a system from the start

Pretty much this. If you want to use a pre-written setting and theme, then don't use GURPS. If you love world-building and building stuff together from scratch, GURPS is great.

D&D

>GURPS
>FATE
>STRIKE shillfag
>that's it
Yep, thread went about as expected.

HERO. It's pretty flexible and is one of least intimidating "crunchy" systems out there if you ignore all of the optional example text cluttering the books up.

Nobody said it was inherentky bad, just that it's not "broad" at all. It's a specific kind of fantasy that doesn't map to the literature at all.

I'd rather play a fantasy coming-of-age novel than DnD's borked take on one.

A smartass answer, but in the end, the most likely.

I would recommend Barbarians of Lemuria. If you want your dwarves/ elves/ orcs, you may make them in it, although it's better for Conan fantasy, and I'd recommend it for any such old-school kind of fantasy. If you wanna play your Forgotten Realms or other similar settings, go with DnD, I won't judge you.
I heard WHFRP is good, but I don't like rules-heavy systems in general.

>I heard WHFRP is good, but I don't like rules-heavy systems in general
It is quite rules light.
And it is not for everyone, it tends to support a way that WHFRP should be played.

If you want generic d100 try BRP.

>high magic
OK, but Casters > Martials problem results from the DnD take on high magic.
> kitchen sink bullshit
> a lot of people prefer that, sicne it allows you to pick and choose from any mythology you want
Yet you pick and choose only from Germano-Scandinavian mythology, sometimes adding the orcs and the halflings to the equation.

>Alright, we get it, you don't like D&D.

But I do like D&D. I just like the edition nobody plays anymore and the one everyone hates.

>So what broad-use, not-setting-specific fantasy TTRPG?
Found your problem.

Your system sucks if it's meant to be "broad use and not setting specific". You're bringing assumptions about the game with every system and they may not serve you well; designing a system that's meant to be used for everything is inherently going to produce either a mess or a system that's really good at one thing and tries to shoehorn that into everything else. Even beyond not being "setting specific" (and D&D is very much so; not every game even has dwarves and elves, let alone owlbears, mind flayers, and dungeons), the mechanics of D&D don't suit everything. Class and level, detailed tactical combat, a very low focus on interpersonal mechanics, all of these push and pull the game in particular ways.

But more particularly, I don't hate D&D because of that, I hate the editions of D&D I hate (mostly 3.5) because they fucking suck at doing what they set out to do. 3rd edition was just abysmal at actually running dungeon crawls and pacing them, with a system that encouraged ignoring encounters and burst-based gameplay. It was a game that didn't know what it was trying to do.

>not inherenlty better or worse
>a lot of people prefer that,
>most people are not perturbed by it
>nothing wrong
>nothing inherently wrong
Not the question. OP asked about generic fantasy. D&D's flavour isn't bad, but beholders and five encounters a day sure as hell doesn't cover every fantasy setting ever.

>people like things that I don't like

Also, as with most RPGs, you can put it in any setting you really want. You don't have to use the mythology given, you don't have to even allow humans in the game or the same gods or any of the lore at all.

>Yet you pick and choose only from Germano-Scandinavian

Who's you? Me? No. You? Probably since you apparently have 0 imagination and let the game devs tell you what to use.


D&D has a lot of problems, all games do, but its setting really isn't one.

>Also, as with most RPGs, you can put it in any setting you really want.
If you want to write a new monster manual and probably a new magic system at bare minimum, sure.

You can just re-flavor things as necessary. It's not that much work to just change the name and physical description of a monster as you go along and as needed.

That's like saying you need an entire new weapon system when you can just call the Shortsword whatever you want and keep it the same stats.

The only difficult one would be the magic system, but that's not really the defining feature of the setting.

This is how it works in all RPG systems: you take the base stuff and change the flavor as needed. It's also why the really broad systems often suck: there's no base to change the flavor of requiring you to literally make everything.

I don't hate D&D, but it's not a broad use system. It's suitable only for a very specific niche of fantasy, and just kinda bad outside that.

Within that niche, I've had some great times with it despite the general system issues it suffers, but you're doing it a bit of a disservice trying to compare it to generic fantasy systems.

What exactly does kitchen sink mean?

FantasyCraft.

>STRIKE shillfag

It's Strike!

Only the S is capitalized and with an exclamation mark at the end.

From the phrase "everything but the kitchen sink." Pretty much means that the setting has all the things.

>but that's not really the defining feature of the setting
If it can't do that then it's not universal, is it?

I feel like you're all missing a key point of why it's important to use a specific system- Design informs tone. It's not just about adding new content or tweaking how magic works, it's that fundamental design decisions in a game can and do influence how that game plays. Trying to run a game of tense, gritty medieval politics with a system built for fantasy superheroes will not be a good experience for the GM, because they will constantly be fighting the system to run the game they want to. With a more appropriate choice, their intended tone would be supported by the games mechanics.

True generics are odd here, as they lack any of those tendencies by design, although some do still tend towards something despite claims otherwise. It's a strength in some ways, as they'll never be a nuisance, but they'll also never support a GM in the same way.

>So what broad-use, not-setting-specific fantasy TTRPG do you recommend instead
D&D really isn't "broad use", except insomuch as it's a big enough game that it gets used for everything, whether that's a good idea or not.

>Barbarians of Lemuria.
Good choice.

>It is quite rules light.
This. You'll get through about three fights before you've tried literally everything the rules will allow.

Is there a serious rpg system that has a Free-form approach to skills and skill checks, kinda like Roll For Shoes, but just a bit more structured? Like, I can get bonuses for very specific and very niche actions that my character is prone to repeating?

BRP?
Can you explain that?

you leave dark sun alone

>BRP?
Basic Role Playing - it's the system that games like RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu run on.

Dark Sun barely worked in 2E, user. The psionics rules alone...

To be honest, I somewhat found it to work better in its 4E iteration?

I've heard this before, actually. I think Surges actually created a better tangible mechanical cost to the kind of survival challenges Dark Sun was notable for, without them being boring auto-lose conditions or simply irritating busywork.

This.
It's Gurps ++

>Yet you pick and choose only from Germano-Scandinavian mythology
If you choose not to run campaigns centered on rakshasa and naga, that's on you, mate.

but i love d&d

D6 Fantasy by WEG.

FATE.

GURPS is pretty boring answer though, since it can be used on any query about almost any kind of TTRPG system.

>but it's less effective at delivering on certain thematic effects which operate better when woven into a system from the start.
How so? Can you give any details? When it comes to doing D&D it certainly pulls it off.