I'm looking for a game that has these things. . .

[Aus_Snow]

Interesting, but reasonably fast combat, on physical, social and spiritual levels, with some "real" consequences from each, or close enough. Wounds, stress, fatigue, etc.

The classic "battle of wills" as something that can, and will, happen (courtesy of mage or psychic types, probably) and be interesting (i.e., detailed enough, by default).

Magic that has the feel of that found in many fantasy novels (not Vance's. . .), except playable too.

A neat, streamlined, fairly balanced system that scales well from "commoner" to demigod or so, and that isn't paying homage to any previous game(s), just for the hell of it, or to appeal to dedicated players of such as potential customers. A game that's simply as good as it can be, regardless.


Well, that'll do for now. I'll be lucky if anything covers the above, no doubt. I hope those I'm asking on behalf of (I'll be the GM) appreciate this!

Looking forward to hearing about any suggestions you might have. Thanks in advance.

 

[pawsplay]

GURPS fits all that criteria. The only downside is you might have to shop around a bit to find a pre-made magic system you like. The default option is a skill-based system that fatigues the mage, is affected by local mana level, and scales up to be pretty powerful without turning mages into aircraft carriers. Also, GURPS Lite is available free.

 

[Aus_Snow]

GURPS, with just the two core books? Otherwise, it's out. Also, having "IQ" as a stat mightn't mesh too well with the intended feel. Mightn't be streamlined enough, either. And possibly trying to be too broad (deliberately, I know). Fantasy alone is what is needed. But I will give it another look, when I get the chance. . .

Ah, appealing to readers of fantasy fiction. . . fun! They are opposed to D&D - because of negative experiences as much as anything, it seems - but otherwise pretty open. Except for what must be there, and must not be there. Hm. A few things I didn't mention, but that shouldn't be relevant here.

Not sure if anything exists that's just right.

 

[Rel]

Savage Worlds.

 

[pawsplay]

GURPS, with just the two core books? Otherwise, it's out. Also, having "IQ" as a stat mightn't mesh too well with the intended feel.

Well, it's called Intelligence. It's just abbreviated IQ. Did you know Palladium Fantasy has always had I.Q.?

Anyway, on the more substantive points. Two core books (and maybe just the slim player's guide for the less invested players) plus maybe one or two sourcebooks for a magic system or setting, if you want (many are available as PDFs with a friendly price). It has fatigue, stress, crippling rules (if you want them), psychological shock and horror, and rules for contests of wills.

As far as streamlining... I hope I am not jumping to conclusions, but whenever I hear someone thinks GURPS isn't streamlined enough in play, I immediately assume they probably haven't played it. It can be pretty bloody fast if you want it to be, and even with all the bells and whistles in the Advanced Combat section, it really boils down to attack roll, defense roll, damage, damage effects. Easy-peasy.

The only non-streamlined thing about GURPS I can really think of would be a new player, learning from the book without other GURPSians, trying to digest all the Advantages and Skills in one go, without first pruning options based on the milieu in which you want to play. But if you start with GURPS Lite, or you can enlist the help of other GURPSians, maybe even some people on the SJ Games fora, it's a snap.

 

[Nagol]

Ars Magica

 

[alms66]

To play GURPS as a fantasy system (which is the only way I've ever used it) you need the two core books only. It's nice to have GURPS Magic (many more spells, critical if you're going High Fantasy) and GURPS Thaumatology (if you don't like the standard magic rules or just want a different magic system). It's also good to have GURPS Fantasy, especially if you're building your own world. Other than that, I'd recommend Fantasy HERO 6E as well, if you are building your own world. It's true that it's for a different system, but it's still largely useful to any fantasy world builder. The only full fantasy setting GURPS has, last time I checked is GURPS Banestorm, or you can find a few settings online.

GURPS fits all that criteria. The only downside is you might have to shop around a bit to find a pre-made magic system you like. The default option is a skill-based system that fatigues the mage, is affected by local mana level, and scales up to be pretty powerful without turning mages into aircraft carriers. Also, GURPS Lite is available free.

If you choose to go with GURPS I would suggest using the standard GURPS magic with Unlimited Mana rules, they are posted freely on the internet or you can get GURPS Thaumatology for a slightly more official version. Of course, if you buy that book there are several other magic systems in there as well. The Unlimited Mana rules remove the "fatigue the wizard" part in favor of causing personal damage to the wizard if he uses too much power - it's a really fun magic system though.

The only non-streamlined thing about GURPS I can really think of would be a new player, learning from the book without other GURPSians, trying to digest all the Advantages and Skills in one go, without first pruning options based on the milieu in which you want to play. But if you start with GURPS Lite, or you can enlist the help of other GURPSians, maybe even some people on the SJ Games fora, it's a snap.

This is often the biggest hurdle for new people to GURPS - the character creation can be complex and time consuming because there are so many options. This can be resolved easily by use of Templates though. If you want, you can buy the old 3E books GURPS Warriors, GURPS Wizard and GURPS Rogues to give you lots of templates for the players to use. Of course, you'll need to update them to 4E, but that's really easy to do. If you don't want to buy those books, you can build your own templates (the rules are in the core books) and besides, you can customize them to your world that way too.
Once you get past character creation, which is extremely quick and easy using templates, GURPS is very easy to run and simple to use. At it's heart you'll only need to know which skill or attribute you want to run a check against and that's it. The advantages and disadvantages your players select might make that a tad more complicated, but those are known factors after character creation. For the combat, because the attacker rolls against his skill and the defender rolls against his skill, it can take a long time with two skilled fighters. Fix this by doing a "quick contest" where both attacker and defender roll at once and whoever wins by more wins the contest.
The third thing about using GURPS for fantasy though, is that there are no good traditional fantasy settings in print. Many people will say Banestorm is good, many have a problem with it and don't like it for one reason or another. I'm in the latter camp, I like the idea of the "Banestorm" but my like of the setting ends there. It's easy to convert other settings though, so just use your favorite or make your own if you're inclined to do so, assuming you don't like GURPS Banestorm.

 

[amerigoV]

Dragon Age RPG looks really interesting to me and hits a lot of your requirements. Where it fails is that only levels 1-5 are out. I just saw something about levels 6-10 will be available for free as Beta - I am not sure if that is a good thing (they are just testing the fine minutiae) or it is a bad thing (they do not know where they are taking the system). It is also somewhat tied to the DA world, but they did not hit you over the head with the history - almost assuming that you have played the video game from that perspective.

Not skill heavy - uses the prime attributes for resolution. You can get specializations that help with the checks. The resolution is all 3d6 + attribute + specialization vs. TN. One of the dice (the Dragon Die) determines how well you did something. It also used in the combat system to generate Stunts (if you roll doubles, the dragon die gives you Points that you can use to choose interesting combat/magic stunts in combat - mixes things up a bit).

From reading, it just feels like AD&D 2e house ruled to work - magic is a mana pool not Vance, Proficiencies that make sense, fast combat play, etc.


I'll also throw in a vote for Savage Worlds. Fantasy may not be its pure sweet spot (although I need to pick up Hellfrost and see what goodies it has) - the Toughness/Parry combo can get grindy if you are not careful. I love it because I can easily genre hop - something I NEVER did before Savage Worlds. I am running a SW Ravenloft game side by side with a PF game (another GM) and the players seem perfectly comfortable switching between the games.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Yeah the DA Set 2 is going to be out mid this month as a BETA, which is great news. It is an exciting system IMO

Green Ronin Publishing: Be Your Own Master

 

[Aus_Snow]

Well, it's called Intelligence. It's just abbreviated IQ. Did you know Palladium Fantasy has always had I.Q.?

Well, I knew that. But no, I've never even seen Palladium Fantasy (happy about that, too). Appearances, trappings, terminology - these things can matter. If, for instance, a classic fantasy setting book was sprinkled with modern or sci-fi images, for some people that could be a real turn-off. YMMV, blah.

Two core books (and maybe just the slim player's guide for the less invested players) plus maybe one or two sourcebooks for a magic system or setting, if you want (many are available as PDFs with a friendly price).

It's out then. One core book, or two if it absolutely has to be. No supps, as I said.

whenever I hear someone thinks GURPS isn't streamlined enough in play, I immediately assume they probably haven't played it.

I only have my experiences to go on. I have played [an earlier edition of] GURPS, and though it was fun, I'm not entirely convinced so far that it would be right for this task. It might just scare them off. Or not - like I said, I will try to check it out. The 4th edition, I mean. Perhaps it won't require supps, and won't be too offputting, etc.


Regardless, thanks go to you and alms66, for suggesting something, and giving reasons why.


Dragon Age, I will have to see about investigating also. Ars Magica, although it's a superb system (if not one I'm that familiar with), mightn't suit all [three of] the players.

Savage Worlds. . . what's the reasoning there? Other than being able to "genre hop" (neutral score for that) - what does it bring to a classic "fantasy a la modern literature" type campaign? Oh, and is it "scalable", from peasant to demigod, or something roughly equivalent?