Need an alternative to D&D.

[Jhaelen]

Yes, a story I run can have a lot of politicking, role-playing, social maneouvering and investigation.
[...]
My setting is North European Medieval for the most part, with magic being known, practiced but not routine. Earthdawn might be interesting. Ars Magica I like but it's not good for mundanes.

I don't know how acquainted you are with Ars Magica, but given your description it sounds like it might be a perfect fit with its Mythic Europe setting!

While the default assumption for Ars Magica is a troupe playstyle you don't have to use it, if you prefer a more 'traditional' approach. Normally, each player will create a Magus character and a Companion (i.e. 'mundane') character (and any number of 'grogs', i.e. commoners, craftsmen, or guards). Companions can be Knights, Monks, Merchants, or whatever important role you can think of for your campaign.
You can also replace the Magus character with a Mythic Companion, which is comparable to D&D's Rangers or Paladins, i.e. mostly mundane characters (including Fey-blooded) with a few supernatural or magical abilities.

Stories usually involve only one or two Magus characters, while the rest of the players play their Companions. Since Magi due to their 'magical aura' have trouble to socially interact with mundanes, these Companions actually serve an extremely important role.
Typically, only if you want to have a story involving the Order of Hermes, like a Tribunal meeting will you have an all-Magus party, and the focus will be politics.
Magus characters generally prefer to stay in the background, studying or experimenting in their Covenant to improve their magical skills, learn new spells, etc. Most consider 'adventuring' to be a waste of their precious time that could be better spent poring over books or working in their labs. Also, while they wield very powerful magic, its use is rather strictly regulated by their Codex, so it takes a more supportive role and doesn't actually interfere with 'normal' adventuring. So, Magi are mostly there to deal with supernatural opposition.

So, imho, it's an excellent match. I imagine, the only problematic part would be to convince your players, especially since you'll have to translate the character concepts into Ars Magica characters. There's no simple conversion, so they'd have to re-build them from scratch.

 

[pemerton]

the issues I'm seeing with the system and that people are telling me that those issues are baked into it by design, have put me off 5e.

But that leaves me stuck with a load of campaign background I've written out, a group that have developed PC backgrounds, etc. There's a lot of work and investment. So I'm looking for suggestions for an alternative fantasy system that I can drop in, in place of D&D 5e. That could be a different edition or a different system entirely. I know there are a lot of games out there. My requirements are moderately crunchy combat but capable of handling other things well, a magic system that allows similar things to D&D (i.e. needs to be fireballs not subtle curses) and ideally a similar range of power - i.e. you can scale up from goblins to ancient dragons.

Burning Wheel is not a d20 game. And it is a lot more demanding on players than D&D - more gritty, failure is more common, and PCs can really suffer. But it has crunchy combat, very effective and flexible skill system, a magic system comparable to D&D (though with less divination), and it supports a scene-framing style of play.

PC building is via a lifepath system. PCs are defined by D&D-style mechanical traits plus Beliefs, Instincts and character Traits (the first two categories player authored; the final ones are acquired initially from lifepaths, and then via a whole-of-table "trait vote" on a periodic basis). PCs earn fate points when Beliefs and other traits are engaged via play. The basic instruction to GMs is to (i) frame the PCs into situations that will test their Beliefs (and preferably generate internal conflict for PCs - each PC has 3 Beliefs and 3 Instincts, so they can be brought into conflict), and then (ii) twist the knife.

The way I think of it is Runequest, but reconceived through a modern "indie" lens rather than the ultra-simulationism that informed systems like RQ, RM etc.

EDIT: I see that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] beat me to it!

And to clarify about magic: when I say it is comparable to D&D, there are spells as discrete "things" that a wizard learns. But casting is not based on slots, nor on spell points - every spell cast requires making a CON check (at a difficulty determined by the spell's power) to see if points of CON are temporarily lost. If you lose more points than you have CON (happened to an NPC in the session I ran last weekend) you take damage instead.

Having read some more of the thread, I saw that you're into investigation, intrigue and politics. BW's skill system handles all these very well.

 

[HawaiiSteveO]

If you haven't at least considered giving Savage Worlds a chance, you're doing yourself a disservice. Savage Worlds is generic in the mold of GURPS and HERO, but infinitely less complex. In play it feels very much like "classic" BECMI D&D / D&D Rules Cyclopedia, only it's using a vastly more elegant, consistent, and easy to GM system.

Out of anything I've heard suggested in this thread so far, Savage Worlds would be by far the easiest in terms of GM preparation time.

I'm pretty new to SW but have to say I think it's great and am wondering where it's been all my life!

I've played / DM'd D&D in its various versions off and on for 25 years, enjoyed it all and still do. As far as GM duties go though I don't think I will ever run a D&D game again. SW all the way!

At $9.99 (U.S. so about $50 Canadian !) You can pick up the core rules PDF, or even download the basic starter rules for free! The Pinnacle website has tons of free stuff, adventures, maps etc.

http://www.peginc.com/freebies/SWcore/TD06.pdf

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

So, my group recently expressed interest in doing a fantasy campaign so given D&D is the big name in the genre I bought it - naively it appears. The PCs are still low-level but I'm already finding the system a little hinky with things like Perception and AC feeling very loose with balance and result. But more especially I'm learning things like the system really doesn't support well anything other than, well, "dungeons". I'm participating in several threads on topics like encounter balance and balancing ranged and melee combat on the 5e forums but constructive discussion is just being bombed by people insisting that people are "playing it wrong". For example, it seems to break if you have one encounter a day. In my games, you could go weeks without an encounter and when you do have one it's a big dramatic finalé. I don't see the point of combats that don't advance the story. I've been told by other posters on the forums that "D&D isn't for you." There's a thread on ranged combat and tweaking that and it's just getting buried by aggressive posters who insist that encounters should start at X range, etc. Ignoring the fact that my GM'ing style is very player driven and I don't want to deny them the strategic ideas they have that control how encounters emerge. Honestly, certain posters here, the issues I'm seeing with the system and that people are telling me that those issues are baked into it by design, have put me off 5e.

Honestly, it sounds like you just bought the wrong edition of D&D. Which sucks for your wallet, but it does give you a simple solution: Play 4e instead. 4e is very well balanced, you can run an entire campaign of once-per-day encounters without breaking it*, and it's perfect for big dramatic encounters with dastardly villains and big damn heroes.

I wrote a blog post about Why 4e Fans Love 4e, and also a DMing 4e D&D post which highlights 4e's few pitfalls.

*With only one encounter per day, PCs will of course have more daily powers to use at once, but so long as you steer clear of the later 'essentials' classes where they tried to go all retro, there will never be one PC who can end encounters all by himself by blowing all of his spells while other PCs are twiddling their thumbs.

 

[Beleriphon]

Thanks. I would never have thought of looking at Mutants and Masterminds. I actually have the 3rd edition. Well, kind of - I have the DC edition because of my players was interested in a comic book game and I think it was cheap. I read through it and was impressed by how flexible it was. Also that it seemed to scale well to different power levels. The supplement seems interesting. It locks things down to Power Level 6. I'll have to refresh my memory on how it all works and see how they approach magic.

DC Adventures and M&M Third Edition are identical in all respects except the DC books have DC characters rather than Green Ronin's own characters as examples and in art work.

\GURPS is so obvious I could kick myself. I've heard of it, never played it. Again, I'll take a look.

Hero is the one with the 4 million page rule-book, yes?

Hero is the one with a relatively complex free form building system in the style of M&M, it requires somewhat more intensive math than just addition and subtraction (there are fractions!), but if you can do basic arithmetic it isn't ridiculous. Hero is a pretty hefty, but its no more so than any other game that crams a player book, GM book and book of foes into a single volume.

I personally don't like Hero, but that's because the game play is more complicated than I care for when it comes to rolling dice, but it has fantastic world building for superheroes in its Champions line of products. The Fantasy Hero product is a condensed version of the Hero system into something more streamlined for fantasy adventure play, where as the main Hero book is designed to provide info for all genres including comic book superheroes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Quibble: since Champions/HERO dates back to the mid-1980s and M&M is a D20 system derivative. M&M is in the style of HERO, not the other way 'round.

As for the math, it's almost all adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. As I recall, 1-2 martial arts throwing maneuvers in the Ultimate Martial Artist expansion supplement involve a square root of the velocity of the target being thrown.

 

[Beleriphon]

Quibble: since Champions/HERO dates back to the mid-1980s and M&M is a D20 system derivative. M&M is in the style of HERO, not the other way 'round.

As for the math, it's almost all adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. As I recall, 1-2 martial arts throwing maneuvers in the Ultimate Martial Artist expansion supplement involve a square root of the velocity of the target being thrown.

I'm aware, I'm making the comparison since the OP notes they already have M&M books.

 

[Derren]

The Dark Eye has been translated into English so you might want to look at that (Quickstart Rules are free on Drivethorugh).

The Dark Eye is basically the German D&D with less of a Dungeon and Encounter focus and with the same roots (Tolkin inspired fantasy world) although their setting is a little less high magical and draws more on the European Middle ages for their setting than D&D does.

I haven't looked at it for several edition but I think it is still a bit dice heavy.

 

[Koloth]

Most current d20 systems are combat oriented. Side effect of computer games. The early versions also gave XP for treasure recovered. The earlier versions also had different scales for inside vs outside. IIRC, inside units were feet and outside units were yards. So a spell or weapon with a 10 unit range would have a 10 foot range inside and a 10 yard range outside.

One thing my groups do is award story XP for plot advancement. Negotiate the peace treaty, story XP, rescue Lassie from the well, story XP. No combat required.

And who says the main encounter for the month didn't require a few preliminary encounters just prior to the main event? Burn off a few spells and supplies.

Do look at the GURPS Lite download. A lot of older 3rd edition GURPS stuff(sometimes available in used book stores) will work with minimal conversion with the current 4th ed.

 

[neg]

Hackmaster from Kenzerco?

Might I suggest Hackmaster from Kenzer?

Here is the home page of the system:

http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/

Our group played a great deal of 3E, 3.5E, and Pathfinder. In that same time we navigated from the lampooning 4th edition of Hackmaster which we enjoyed to the completely different mechanics of 5E Hackmaster which we all find superior to the traditional D&D/Pathfinder systems and their derivatives. Gone are the crazy stat blocks and build trees that inhabit those systems.

Hackmaster largely works on half levels so each level in Hackmaster is equivalent to two in other systems which makes the scaling of the system slower, but the sweet spots longer and more enjoyable for players and GMs.

The system is based on a count up system where you can do something on every second of combat. There are no rounds or turns, just seconds in the battle and you can move on any second and attack at regular intervals. The system is built on making trade offs between skills and combat prowess. There are a large range of social skills that should appeal to you and your group who love to role play. But combat is deadly with exploding damage dice and extensive and detailed crit tables. It is an opposed roll combat system so anyone can hit anyone with a bad roll of the defender or an excellent role for the attacker. We find the system logical, deep, and rewarding.

There is a the basic rules you can download for free that covers the first 5 character levels. But since you are clearly and advanced user, if the basic rules interest you, go for the Hackmaster's Player's HBK. Basically a combination of the PHB and DMG rolled into one.

We have found it the best single alternative to D&D and we have tried lots of derivatives. There is nothing like it in the market. Once you Hack you may not go back!

Best of luck on your search. Finding a system everyone will buy into is always a challenge.