Branching Out from Fantasy

[DMH]

Primetime Adventures and vs Monsters are card based games with easy rules. vsM has a setting that is sureal in the manner of the Prisoner though it could be easy to adapt to other genres. PA doesn't have a setting. It emulates television shows so the GM and players (director and cast) have more control over the game than usual.

If you want horror that the players drive, try Sorcerer. Yes, the writing is a bit hard to stomach for some but the core idea, people summoning things that can not exist for power, is one of the best themes in rpgs.

If you want a modern day, no magic setting with political overtones, try @ctiv8 (this is pdf and POD). It is all about people trying to make the world a better place and have the chance to do so because of a network of support.

A couple relatively new science fiction games with eh systems and great settings are Eclipse Phase and Lesser Shades of Evil. Both are about immortals on a future Earth or Solar System. EP is more of what people expect from science fiction- space stations, ray guns and genetically altered people. LSE is an almost fantasy setting (Earth has been remade) where the PCs are immortals who are stuck in the middle of a civil war of those who made them such.

And finally, Mutant Future is a free download from Goblinoid Games. It is a retroclone of Gamma World based on their Labyrinth Lord engine. It can be played for laughs, serious campaigning or as a horror game like few others. It has a lot of online support via their website, Skirmisher Publishing's forum (hundreds of monsters and score of mutations) and blogs.

 

[Hussar]

Well, if you're shopping for a new system, you're doing so at the right time. It's certainly a buyers market out there. Hrm, to suggest a few:

Savage Worlds (for ten bucks, you just can't go that far wrong). Fairly crunchy, but, very generic system. The world books and the MOUNTAIN of online supplementary online material could keep you going forever.

And of the FATE system games look like fun, although I've never played them.

If you're into SF (particularly modern hard SF) then Suffiently Advanced is a very good system. Easy peasy to learn, but complicated enough to keep you rolling.

When DriveThruRPG had their thing for Haiti relief, I picked up a metric ton of different games that I'm slowly going through.

It's not really fantasy, but a REALLY fun read, Chronica Feudalis is a historical RPG set in medieval times. Written as if it were the 10th century version of d20 Modern. Very fun read. Based heavily on FATE and Savage Worlds mechanics, IMO.

That might keep you busy.

 

[Rechan]

Since Fate is getting mentioned a lot, I thought I'd drop a link to the Fate SRD.

This is the full text of Spirit of the Century, lacking only examples.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Sci-fi would be the usual next stop, when briefly holidaying away from fantasyville, or so I hear.

So yeah, Traveller's a good choice. Or there's always Star Wars, natch -- j/k . Or hey, if you like FATE at all, or think you might (check out the free SRD* here or elsewhere, or ask around, particularly at RPGnet, for more details) there are two (and maybe more) intriguing options: Diaspora, which is hard sci-fi, and Starblazer Adventures, which is not (it's rock 'n roll space opera, or thereabouts.) Ah, so many choices, and I've barely skimmed the surface. . .

Horror might take third place, at a guess. Here, you can find all kinds of great games, such as those already mentioned.

Supers?. . .

I don't know. It's hard recommending anything when I really don't know much about what you like, dislike, and all that. Well, regardless, hope you find what you're looking for!


* edit --- Heh, or yeah, see Rechan's post above for that. Guess I took too long trying to figure out what to suggest.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

For the real simple stuff I turn to Cartoon Action Hour: Season 2. It's designed for recreating 80s "30-minute toy commercial" cartoons, but really the core system could be used in a variety of contexts.

For superheroes more simple than Mutants&Masterminds there's BASH Ultimate Edition.. I don't actually have it myself, but people seem to like it.

 

[Festivus]

Do you like the 4E Engine? Perhaps then Gamma World would work for you when it comes out this fall?

 

[pawsplay]

Allow me to suggest a few of the very best games ever written.

GURPS 4e - That shooting the zombie in the head thing? Piece of cake in GURPS. While the system is not perfect, no system is, GURPS is your game for taking all those combat variables and putting them together. The game plays fast. Character creation is an invitation to tinker, but it doesn't have to be that way; if you pick a template and go, it takes less time than creating a medium-level D&D character. GURPS is fun, fast, versatile, and elegant. Want a lighter, leaner system? Run GURPS Lite with basic combat options, and you still have a better core than many genre-specific games. I would definitely make GURPS my go-to game for zombies.

Shadowrun - In addition to offering nice hooks for D&D and Warhammer players in terms of familiarity, Shadowrun has been points-of-light since the day it was published. It blends cyberpunk with urban fantasy with D&D style swords-and-sorcery. Shamans, mages, technomancers, and street samurai clash in the night. Briefcases change hands. Blood is spilled over mysterious passcodes.

Hero System - Admittedly, GURPS and Hero are more alike each other now than ever before, but Hero is still number one when it comes to action-oriented superheroes. The system lovingly details over-the-top martial arts maneuvers, explosive energy blasts, assault rifles, and world-spanning ESP inside a fairly compact package. The core books may look compartively huge to a D&D player, but they replace an entire shelf of books for most game systems. Like GURPS, Hero is very fast and versatile. It does involve some light arithmetic involving fractions. And, for that matter, it does heroic fantasy, too, if you ever feel like trying something different.

 

[Piratecat]

Some of my favorite non-D&D games:

Call of Cthulhu: there are several versions, from the original BRP through d20 to Pelgrane's Trail of Cthulhu (which I love.) You're a normal person trying to thwart unthinkable horrors, and going hideously insane in the process. High investigation, high creep factor. Great for a one-shot, reasonable for a short campaign.

Feng Shui: action movies meet Hong Kong kung fu flicks. In this cinematic system dying is much less of a problem than looking bad. I find playing exhausting because my mind is always working to find the coolest thing to do, but it remains one of my favorite games. Simple rules that would benefit from a few tweaks. Note that this is a great game to introduice totally new players to the concept of roleplaying, since everyone has seen an action movie. I'd also use this for a spy game instead of Spycraft, which I find too fiddly. Great for a one-shot, reasonable for a short campaign.

Dread: my favorite horror game hands down. Very atypical in that your character sheet is a questionnaire and you use a Jenga tower for decision mechanics. One shots only, and totally worth it.

Spaceship Zero: published by Green Ronin, this sci-fi game has you effectively in a cheesy 1950s Lost In Space / Buck Rogers scenario. It's ludicrously fun. Great for a one-shot, reasonable for a campaign.

Mutants and Masterminds: This has become my favorite system for superhero roleplaying due to its streamlined, flexible mechanics and fast-paced play. Great for one-shots or campaigns.

Paranoia: possibly my favorite RPG. I've definitely laughed more in Paranoia games than in any other system. But this is one-shots only.

Savage Worlds or Hollow Earth Expedition: I like both of these systems a whole lot for pulp action. Savage Worlds also does a great job adapting the wonderful campaign world of Deadlands. Both are good for one-shots or campaigns.

Dogs in the Vineyard: this indy game is supremely adaptable to other settings, such as Jedi Knights, and has hands down the best social combat I've ever seen. Not bad for a one-shot, fantastic for a campaign.

 

[The Shaman]

I can't say I ever really burned out on fantasy because it never caught fire with me in the first place. I played a lot of AD&D when I was younger, because that was what others wanted to play, but it was never my first choice of genre. That fell to games like Metamorphosis Alpha, Boot Hill, Traveller, Top Secret, and Flashing Blades.

And in fact it still does to this day.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

...What, no BESM? ;p

I'm getting ready to try DMing a BESM game that's sort of a modern mix of fantasy and horror. TWEWY meets Geist meets The Void meets urban exploration kinda thing. Kiiiinda hard to describe.

BESM is easy as hell to DM and can really more or less be used for any setting.

That said, it can also be hilariously easy to crack open if the player wants to.

My experiences with it have been that it's better to concentrate less on dice rolls and more on general freeform with the occasional rolling when something big is going down. Also, it's nice to have "defects" that actually add to the character, instead of D&D where they were free feats, and Shadowrun where you can defeat a group of runners by throwing a box of misc. things at them and assuming they'll all be allergic to one of them.