So you're done with D&D but still want to play D&Dish fantasy...

[Celebrim]

I love D&D 3.0e and I will never be done with it. 5e felt shallow by comparison and while I respected a lot of its design chops, I felt that in the long run things like bounded accuracy and the proficiency system would feel too limiting, so I never tried to switch over to it.

PF1e and 3.5e are of course close and mostly compatible, but both have huge balance issues that are harder to fix than starting with 3.0e and figuring out what breaks in core. You can of course borrow from PF1 and 3.5e as needed as both have some good ideas, but both suffer from massive bloat as well and I believe that a good rules set should be much tighter than either one.

I've never seen any system address what I need from a fantasy RPG quite like D&D 3e though I suppose I could run something like BitD I'm struggling to think of a scenario where I would. Most things that are fantasy but not suitable to D&D I'd probably want to run in something like D20 modern tweaked to the particulars of the setting.

One particular problem I have is that some systems I think would require me to 'tutor' as a player in campaign orchestrated by an expert in that system before I really understood how to make them work, and I just don't foresee that as a realistic possibility. For one thing, good GMs are pretty rare I think and there is just no chance I'm going to get into a game in a system I'd want to learn (Pendragon, BitD, DitV, etc.).

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

@Celebrim If Legendary Games ever finish their Corefinder heartbreaker, it might be just what you're looking for. A tightened rebuild of PF1.

 

[nevin]

I don't think anyone's mentioned Savage Worlds yet. It's byline is Fast. Furious. Fun. It's a generic system, with your abilities rated by die type - d4, d6, d8, d10, d12. To succeed in an action, you have to beat a target number of 4. There's certainly a lot more to it, but that's the core of the system.

It's got add-ons for all kinds of play, and even has an official Pathfinder set of supplements as well as a more generic "fantasy" supplement, and several interesting pre-made worlds (50 fanthoms, Frost & Fur, Hellfrost, Beasts & Barbarians) including sci-fi, superheroes and weird/horror (such as Deadlands and Realms of Cthulhu). Even has a few official pulp adaptions - John Carter of Mars and Flash Gordon.

It was built out of an expansion called Rail Wars for Deadlands, which is a Weird Wild West

@Celebrim If Legendary Games ever finish their Corefinder heartbreaker, it might be just what you're looking for. A tightened rebuild of PF1.

i suspect the fact that they haven't finished might mean they are discovering that there is no easy way to keep the crunch, balance it and keep the players. A lot of the "fun" stuff in crunchy games is the stuff that is unpredictable and in some scenarios overpowered. PF2e got the balance but they lost a lot of players with it. DND 5e gave up on the balance and lost a big group as well. (Mostly people that were tourists or were going back to other systems if they didn't get more crunchy). It's more like alchemy than science to get that sweet spot where most of the players get at least some of what they want.

 

[darjr]

I'm going to use 5e as a stand in for a type of game that may not vibe with everyone. Please allow me the leeway.

I'm running a campaign of Daggerheart. It feels like 5e to me in the respect that it's not super deadly and meant for players to have a character arc, sort of. Also the character build subgame is more like 5e. Finally the player side is more like 5e in that there are options and built in "things to do".

I'm playing in an AD&D game with lots of players 9-12 some times. I actually appreciate the down time and the freedom to just kind of "mingle" while the game goes on. I also appreciate many of the old school R isms. One big difference here though is death happens to PCs at 0 HP. Which eliminates the pop-up nature of game play that even AD&D can have. And makes in combat healing much more important.

I'm running a periodic Shadowdark campain as a secondary DM when the number of players that show up is large. Again I appreciate the OSRisms and the lack of darkvision. Also were running the OAR 1 book. With some changes. That's been nice.

I'm playing occasionally in DCC games, running a couple few. One is a loose Lankmar set of games a DM is running as his open campaign for meetups and local conventions. Kinda like a one man living campaign. It's DCC. I love it for the gonzo. Especially at higher levels. And some of the OSRisms.

I'm also going to run one-shots of things. Eat the Reich is very high on my list right now, maybe. As well as Spire.

 

[Divine2021]

I played an absolutely terrible 5e game at Gen Con this past week, and I’m thinking I’m done for good now. I played a GREAT game of Dragonbane. I’ll happily make that switch.

 

[darjr]

I played an absolutely terrible 5e game at Gen Con this past week, and I’m thinking I’m done for good now. I played a GREAT game of Dragonbane. I’ll happily make that switch.

Gah. I really really liked Dragonbane. I want to do more, but it just kinda keeps getting nudged off the list. I think I need to change that.

 

[Theory of Games]

I'm going to keep posting it: if you can escape D&D, just do it. There's so many other ttrpgs out here that offer such a wide variety of Fantasy genres + innovative rules that can be far more enjoyable at the table (depending on the group).

The sun don't rise and set on D&D

 

[Gorgon Zee]

The non-D&D fantasy games I have run or played at least 200 hours of:

13th Age: Invented by the leads of 3E and 4E to be the game they wanted to make but couldn't, for me it's a great example of what 5E could have been if WotC had prioritized fun over committee-building a corporate franchise. I don't hate 5E, but it's so bland compared to 13A.

Big Eyes Small Mouth Uresia: This thread has been very focused on Tolkien-style games, but S. John Ross's Uresia is a very fun anime world for which BESM2 worked well for me. Ran it with kids at my local church for a couple of years very successfully.

Pathfinder 2: For crunchy combat fun, building characters that are mechanically interesting and for a pretty good generic world with decent politics (for fantasy).

The One Ring: I must have run 1000+ hours of MERP/Rolemaster back in the day, but The One Ring is, despite a few mechanical flaws and some odd design decisions (hey, let's ignore languages in a Tolkien game!) it feel very much the closest to the world of JRRT.

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The non-D&D fantasy games I have run or played at least a half-dozen sessions and decided were not for me:

Fate. Love the system and will run it for modern, space and several other genres, but fantasy tends to have less social aspects and more combat, so not the best fit.

Savage Worlds: Just didn't work for me. Sort of in-between level of crunch that made my gamist side feel left out, and annoyed my narrative side. 13A or PF2 eliminate the ned for SW for me -- for fantasy, at least

 

[Thomas Shey]

Savage Worlds: Just didn't work for me. Sort of in-between level of crunch that made my gamist side feel left out, and annoyed my narrative side. 13A or PF2 eliminate the ned for SW for me -- for fantasy, at least

This suggests to me that you kind of really lean into a more D20-adjacent desire in fantasy at least (though I acknowledge the BESM note); I'd call SW plenty gamist in a lot of its orientation.

(That said, I haven't seen it used in fantasy at all; all the games I've seen it used for were modern or SF).

 

[AK81]

I really like Savage Worlds.

In many ways, maybe even most, I like it better than DnD/Pathfinder.

But there is one thing that I just really love about DnD and it's clones, and that's the d20+mods vs a DC. It's just so easy to understand and get a feel for.