What is the right game for me?

[Pig Champion]

I'd say your best bet would be to take a retro-clone, T20 or 4E/PF and just houserule until you get something that meets your requirements. It's always worked for me.

 

[MerricB]

I'm going to guess there isn't a game that meets your criteria.

 

[fba827]

(snip)
Barring that I might be just tired of gaming,
(snip)

The fact that you even mentioned it hints that you are teetering very close (if not already) over the edge in terms of burn out.

If none of your games are in full force, now may actually be a good time to take a break if you think that's where you at.

Having said all that, looking over your criteria, I don't have any personal experience with a system that matches all of these ...
but do you fancy yourself good with house rules? you may be able to house rule something you already have that is close in to being what you like.

 

[Shades of Green]

I'd suggest Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game (BFRPG). The PDF is free, and the print version is cheap. Regarding your preferences:

Standard Fantasy
I like standard, Tolkienesque fantasy. 3.5, Pathfinder, and 4e has just gotten too weird. I like hairy foot halflings and orcs that are monsters. I don't like strange races that feel more sci-fi than fantasy or classes that fall too far from the standard tropes of fantasy literature.

BFRPG is built around "traditional" old-edition D&D concepts, and has standard fantasy classes and races even in its supplements (which are available for free download as PDFs).

Easy to Prep
Really, it's gotten to be way too much. I prefer the style of prep for 2nd edition or Call of Cthulhu, where you focus on a handful of stats and the rest is interesting story and character development. I spent over an hour creating a villain's stats for a session of PF last week, a sixth level rogue.

BFRPG is extremely easy to prep for in my experience; monster stats are simple and straightforward and making high-level NPCs is much less of a hassle than it is in 3E.

No battlemat or miniatures
I am currently carrying more than 20 pounds of gaming paraphrenilia including mats, markers, erasers, and a tackle box of miniatures and tokens to track conditions. Besides being an unnecessary strain on the DM, it clutters the gaming space and leaves little room for food, character sheets, etc. 4e takes this to the worst possible outcome. When DMing 4e I found it necessary to pre-draw on giant graph paper every room in a 40 room dungeon because the maps are so detailed.

BFRPG, by default, is designed to play without miniatures (though you can still use them if you want).

Positive AC
I hate negative AC and THAC0, the single most confusing aspect of pre-3.5 D&D. (Is there a single good reason why this was ever done?) Anyway, I'd like a simple way to determine success or failure in attack rolls and other checks. (The percentile system of Cthulhu and Basic is great.)

BFRPG has positive AC and uses D20-style attack rolls and ability checks.

Characters can't be wimps
Here's a strike against Cthulhu, Basic, Gurps, Warhammer, 1st and 2nd edition AD&D, etc. Your character is about as powerful as your typical monster (or less). I don't want to completely slaughter players who come to the table to escape the stresses of daily life. I like the power level in 3.5 or Pathfinder pretty well.

BFRPG has similar power levels to old-school D&D; as suggested above, if you want more powerful characters, start the game at a higher level. I've started my last BFRPG game at level 3 and had a blast with it.

Diversity of characters
I'd like characters to feel different from one another. 3.5 did this. 2nd edition did this with speciality priests. Castles and Crusades did not do this.

This is an area where the BFRPG core-book is a bit weak at, but the (free) supplements and the Dragonsfoot Forums community have a lot of varied material, including additional races, classes, spells etc, so this is not much of a problem.

A Rules Lite but Rules "Tight" System
I don't want rules for everything, but I want the rules that are there to be good. Call of Cthulhu, for example, was rules lite but rules sloppy. The rules that are there aren't very workable.

BFRPG has very light rules, and, in my experience, once you know the rules, it could be DMed without ever referencing to the books as long as you keep a very few reference sheets in front of you.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm going to guess there isn't a game that meets your criteria.

Sure there is. It's just in Beta Playtest right now.

Follow the link in my .sig.

(You might not like it, but it is easy to prep, positive AC, characters are diverse and not wimps, etc. Playtesting has been done with materials written for the game, Basic materials, 1e materials, and 3.x materials, without requiring a lot of modification. A playtest with 4e materials is upcoming.)


RC

 

[Pbartender]

I'm going to guess there isn't a game that meets your criteria.

I don't know... I think he could find a game, so long as he A) looks outside the D20 family of games, and B) doesn't mind a little bit work rewriting the setting to meet the "Standard Fantasy" criteria.

Spirit of the Century with a few minor house rules to turn it into "Spirit of the Fantastic" might work well.

 

[Umbran]

Sure there is. It's just in Beta Playtest right now.

Follow the link in my .sig.

By your description, RC, I'm going to guess your game will fail on the "Rules light but tight" requirement.

 

[Raven Crowking]

By your description, RC, I'm going to guess your game will fail on the "Rules light but tight" requirement.

Perhaps.

(Shrug)

Depends upon what is desired, exactly. I.e., what "light" and "tight" mean to the writer. Compared to the WotC editions, I think "rules light" is covered. Compared to the TSR editions, I think "rules tight" is covered.

Really, this is intended to be a "third edition" as I would have done it, with hindsight from the actual later editions.

Besides, you could scrape everything you don't like from the game, and it will not collapse. Or, you could play Basic Fantasy using RCFG "Shake it Off" rules, and get the benefits of a lighter system with tougher characters. Etc., etc., etc.

Consider it a toolkit.


RC

 

[Piratecat]

I'd suggest Warhammer 2nd edition or Savage worlds.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I haven't really looked at Dungeoncrawl yet (I think that is the name, open source but not OGL?). It might be worth checking out, and is free.