What system would you use for gritty fantasy?
Ratskinner
Adventurer
My response would depend on what you wish to focus on:
a) story-telling/character development
b) grim resource management, tactics, and strategy
c) exploration of setting (and also, do you have a setting in mind?)
However, I tend to be a bit of a system Hacker, so "write an appropriate hack of X" might be my first response. (Where X = {Apocalypse World, Fate, Savage Worlds, Archipelago, etc.)
I haven't played Blades in the Dark, yet, but it looks interesting.
a) story-telling/character development
b) grim resource management, tactics, and strategy
c) exploration of setting (and also, do you have a setting in mind?)
However, I tend to be a bit of a system Hacker, so "write an appropriate hack of X" might be my first response. (Where X = {Apocalypse World, Fate, Savage Worlds, Archipelago, etc.)
I haven't played Blades in the Dark, yet, but it looks interesting.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
GURPS is the go-to game for gritty, but it might be too much work to establish templates and races and whatnot for just a shortish game.
Warbringer
Explorer
Warhammer
Savage Worlds (very quick to get up and running)
Savage Worlds (very quick to get up and running)
Warhammer 2e, great for short games, gritty and quick to learn.
Savage Worlds if we're talking a quick session or short series of them. It's "gritty" in that death comes pretty easily, by default. That said, I don't really enjoy it for a long-haul campaign as much, because the longer you go the more character types sort of blend together.
If you're doing something a little longer (summer campaign or something), seriously consider giving the 5e LotR book a try. It does a great job of toning down the "high fantasy" aspect of d&d and bringing a more dangerous and mundane style to the rules -- without being depressing about it. The big bonus here is that anyone who's already familiar with 5e will hit the ground running.
If you're doing something a little longer (summer campaign or something), seriously consider giving the 5e LotR book a try. It does a great job of toning down the "high fantasy" aspect of d&d and bringing a more dangerous and mundane style to the rules -- without being depressing about it. The big bonus here is that anyone who's already familiar with 5e will hit the ground running.
ExploderWizard
Hero
For a short game Warhammer 1E or 2E all the way. Heck , even if you don't plan on a short campaign if the players behave as if they were playing D&D.....tada- short campaign!
Celebrim
Legend
Does Call of Cthulhu count as fantasy? That's plenty gritty.
I'm afraid I don't understand the question.
Since it is a shortish campaign, the answer is probably, "The system you'd need to do the least work in, which is probably the same as the system you are most comfortable in."
I don't know that there is a wrong answer here. "Gritty" is also poorly defined. Most systems are "gritty" if gritty means 'low levels of power and a significant risk of death and failure' for the assumption that the PC's have not yet obtained significant power, which is a common starting assumption of most systems. Several OSR publications have leveraged 1e AD&D as a grim and gritty horror game with reasonable success (and any failure has nothing to do with system limitations). Or if by 'gritty' you mean, "filled with unpleasant themes and events presented in an uncensored and frank fashion", this is also something you can achieve in any system just by changing the drapes.
Even something like Mutants & Mastermind could be used to do 'gritty fantasy', provided you approached the system with a certain mindset and set the campaign at CL5 or CL7. For a GM highly experienced in M&M, that would probably be really easy to do and even natural, even to the point of being able to largely improvise such a game.
I'm afraid I don't understand the question.
Since it is a shortish campaign, the answer is probably, "The system you'd need to do the least work in, which is probably the same as the system you are most comfortable in."
I don't know that there is a wrong answer here. "Gritty" is also poorly defined. Most systems are "gritty" if gritty means 'low levels of power and a significant risk of death and failure' for the assumption that the PC's have not yet obtained significant power, which is a common starting assumption of most systems. Several OSR publications have leveraged 1e AD&D as a grim and gritty horror game with reasonable success (and any failure has nothing to do with system limitations). Or if by 'gritty' you mean, "filled with unpleasant themes and events presented in an uncensored and frank fashion", this is also something you can achieve in any system just by changing the drapes.
Even something like Mutants & Mastermind could be used to do 'gritty fantasy', provided you approached the system with a certain mindset and set the campaign at CL5 or CL7. For a GM highly experienced in M&M, that would probably be really easy to do and even natural, even to the point of being able to largely improvise such a game.
Any particular genre? The One Ring has Tales from Wilderland, seven adventures, and I'd classify it as 'gritty' under my definition; plus it is a great system. Runequest with the old Borderlands pack should fit the bill, depending on how short you want - seven adventures, but some are definitely longer than others.
