Favote Fantasy RPG(s) other than D&D

[NiTessine]

Well, first and foremost there's King Arthur Pendragon. The system of Virtues and Passions is nothing short of brilliant in how it actively directs the actions of the PCs to model those of King Arthur's knights, and the character generation lifepath is awesome. And the hereditary campaign concept of The Great Pendragon Campaign is most excellent, as well. A dream I have is to run the whole campaign, some day.

Then there's Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play (first and second editions, not familiar with the third). It's one of my go-to games for gritty fantasy, where your average group of player characters may be composed of a vagabond, a ratcatcher and a beggar. There is heroism, to be sure, but there's also grisly death and wading in the mud, and even when you win you'll probably be worse off than you were.

My second go-to game for grit is the Finnish fantasy RPG Praedor, which is one of the few games I know where you stand a good chance of dying from infected wounds after a battle if they're left untreated. The system itself is an elegant D6-based affair, and is very easy to learn and teach.

 

[jdrakeh]

Fantasy Wargaming (yes, really), Harnmaster 3rd, GURPS Lite 3rd + GURPS Magic, MERP, and The Fantasy Trip. In no particular order. That list is subject to change shortly.

 

[rgard]

Mine are:

1. DragonQuest.
2. GURPS.
3. MERP & Role Master, though we never played either straight up. We mined the modules and spell lists for 1e AD&D.
4. Palladium FRPG. Again, mined this one for 1e AD&D.
5. Arcanum. Yet again, mined this for 1e AD&D

Thanks,
Rich

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

For the world as a whole, I can't do better than the previous posters recommending the Mongoose Glorantha: The Second Age, or the old AH Glorantha: Genertela book. If you can find the Moon Design reprints of the 2nd edition RQ material, the Cult Compendium gives an overview of the setting that's pretty good given the emphasis on mythology in the setting (though it includes a fair amount of mechanics too). The Heroquest material shouldn't be overlooked, though it does tend to be rather specific to particular regions/cultures. Frankly, at the moment the Mongoose material is a lot easier to get and is generally good - that's what I'd suggest.

Bear in mind that the Mongoose stuff covers the Second Age of Glorantha, while pre-Mongoose versions of Runequest covered the Third Age. This is now the setting for the Heroquest version of Glorantha.

You can find an overview and some interesting stuff here (I particularly like the "Heroquest Voices" - which pretty much republishes stuff that was previously put out for the Avalon Hill version of RQ):
What is Glorantha? | HeroQuest – Glorantha

And to go right back to the OP on this thread - my favourite fantasy RPG is definitely the current version of RQ (Mongoose RQII) - knocks the socks off everything else I've read/played.

 

[TerraDave]

This one


Though I am cheating, as that would really be another D&D.

 

[TerraDave]

Fantasy Wargaming

Have you actually played using the rules contained within?

Not just read it or used it as a reference, but actually played it, by those rules?