Your favourite non-D&D game?

[Bagpuss]

Shadowrun.

Call of Cthulhu is another one I keep returning to.

There are other games and systems I prefer, but finding players for them is harder, Call of Cthulhu and Shadowrun seem easier to persuade people to try. I'd rather play Cyberpunk myself, but it seems easier to persuade D&D players to switch to a game that still has elves and dwarfs.

 

[Dioltach]

D20 Modern for me. I like the character creation and development options, and I like the low-magic, gritty style. And I like the flexibility: it works in just about any real-world or novel-based setting.

 

[Jhaelen]

Earthdawn. Because you _can_ play D&D style adventures using the system and setting but don't have to. Character development tends to be more important, and meeting one of the horrors is a lot like meeting Mythos creatures in Cthulhu: it's scary, they're deadly, and even if you survive, the encounter may leave you marked (often literally!).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Call of Cthulhu. (I use CoC d20, but I bet any Cthulhu-based game is good, really).

 

[Fletchyr]

Legend of the Five Rings rpg. I love the background, the samurai code and strict social structure add a level of depth the players need to add into their characters. There are some serious holes in the game though, and way to much "GMs descretion" rules.

 

[billd91]

Call of Cthulhu is probably my favorite non-D&D game. Though I also love Mutants and Masterminds and Villains and Vigilantes as well as Traveller.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One thing I liked in Palladium's Heroes Unlimited game were the random power generation tables for characters that got their powers from things like mutations. Like other Palladium games, the really was no concept of balance. But in a supers game- at least as a simulation of the genre- this was really appropriate. It is, AFAIK, unique.

I'd use those tables in other supers games to generate interesting characters.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is my current favorite non-D&D game and may approach my all-time favorite depending on how well it continues now that the license was dropped.

My second-favorite non-D&D game is Shadowrun. Even though it's been a while, the previews of the new edition have me thinking of delving back in. This was the only game I've ever been abe to successfully run completely ad-libbed.

My favorite RPG of all time (passing D&D even though D&D has seen more play in my group) is Earthdawn. It's a great campaign world with rules tied tightly into the backstory. The only issue I had with it was that I found it difficult to design adventures for the system, so once the published adventures (which we all enjoyed immensely) ran out the game fell out of favor.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Our group has been very D&D focused for many, many years, but I've been dabbling with Savage Worlds with a splinter group, and I'm rapidly becoming one more fanboy.

I'm endlessly curious about other systems - Fate, Gumshoe, Shadowrun, L5R, and more .... but some members of our group are really dedicated to D&D.

So, I mostly just steal elements from other systems and drop them into D&D when I run it.

-rg

 

[Ratskinner]

You know I think an awesome game could be assembled by stealing nuggets from those three games, Burning Wheel, and Fiasco.

I gotta say I'm not sure how well all that would fit together . Although, they all do have little bits of brilliance in them.

What would you take from Fiasco? I mean, it's brilliant, but so different from the others.