Low-Magic Fantasy-Themed Game

[DraconiumX]

Redwall. Lord of the Rings. The Iron Tower Trilogy. All of these settings have inspired me to run a low-magic, high-fantasy campaign. The kind of game with goblins and gnomes and all our favorite fantasy staples, but with very, very little magic. The kind of campaign where the PCs can't start knowing any magic or supernatural abilities, but can gain them in-game, through interactions and whatnot. The kind of game where having bad-ass powers actually meant something interesting, something the players had to work for. Having to actually earn their supernatural/magical powers...
What would be even cooler would be if magic had a drawback to using it, like in Shadowrun or Deadlands...preferably Deadlands, using powerful beings to gain power, beings who also want power...
I had another idea for the campaign, where the characters can only be NPC classes when they start, and have to learn from NPCs specialized classes like Fighter, Rogue, Ranger (Non-spellcasting variant), etc...
Anyone have any idea what system/campaign setting I could use?

 

[slwoyach]

E-6 D20
GURPS
Seventh Sea
Alternity
etc.

 

[Walking Dad]

Iron Heroes

Conan d20

Mutants and Master minds 2e (really, look at the Warriors and Warlocks supplement)

Modern d20 (use the Past sourcebook, Invocations from Unearthed Arcana)

Fantasycraft

 

[alms66]

My two favorite low-magic (and also a bit on the gritty/realistic side) systems (with settings included if you want them) are Dragon Warriors and The Riddle of Steel (difficult to find at a good price though).

GURPS would also work well for this, so I second that one too. And if you do use GURPS or another system, I'd still recommend buying the bestiary for Dragon Warriors and The Riddle of Steel, then convert those monsters to whatever system you use. It will scare your players to death - but in a good way.

 

[samuraiko]

Iron Kingdoms/
By far one of my favourite low-magic setting, especially because they replace it with crazy tech and alchemy.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Iron Heroes.

Savage Worlds (no Arcane Backgrounds). The Hell Frost setting is pretty awesome.

Deadlands: Classic (just remove the guns and set it in Middle Earth).

Best of luck.

 

[MortonStromgal]

What would be even cooler would be if magic had a drawback to using it, like in Shadowrun or Deadlands...preferably Deadlands, using powerful beings to gain power, beings who also want power...

Thats Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e (possibly 3e I haven't played 3e enough yet to comment)
GURPS also has a wild magic system which could simulate that.
Desolation also fits with its magic burn system and if you played Shadowrun 4e or New World of Darkness the rules will be easy to pickup.

Of those none specifically have a high fantasy setting to me though (well maybe warhammer but thats borderline). GURPS would be the easiest to do seeing how its a generic system to begin with.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

HERO: like M&M and GURPS, it's a toolbox system that lets you make your campaign world EXACTLY the way you want it.

 

[Kris]

Hello DraconiumX and welcome to the 'boards.

I read your post yesterday, but I deliberated for a while whether I should post a reply (as I didn't want it to seem like a shameless plug) ...but I've actually been putting together a fairly simple RPG based on the OpenQuest developers kit (which is itself a derivative of the mongoose runequest SRD) for a similar kind of thing.

I'm not going to pretend it's perfect, and if you don't like d100 systems (and a simplistic, possibly retro, one at that) then it's not going to go down well, but it's free - so if you want to check it out, here's a link:
Home

EDIT: ...or if you don't like clicking on random links posted on message boards do a search for 'age of shadow free rpg' on google.