What system would you use for gritty fantasy?

[Ath'kethin]

Dungeon Crawl Classics would be perfect, as would Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperboria. Depending on what genre of adventure you wanted to run, of course.

 

[aramis erak]

Say I wanted a really gritty shortish campaign. What system would you recommend and why?

Depends upon the player base, but I'd lean towards Burning Wheel, GURPS Lite, or WFRP 1E.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

Morrus, have you checked out ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG yet? It ticks off all of the major themes of a grim, gritty game. It even has a 35 page morally grey adventure in the core book, if you want something that can be ran quickly without a lot of preparation required.

Message me and I will get you sorted for a comp copy.

Best,
Daniel

 

[raleel]

Mythras would be in this space as well. A lot of good suggestions in here

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not generally a fan of GURPS, but for "gritty", it brings the goods.

 

[pemerton]

Burning Wheel is fantasy, and gritty, though better for longer than short campaigns.

RQ can be pretty gritty.

I don't know DungeonWorld as well, but I think it could do gritty.

And then there's Moldvay Basic and its clones/relatives.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Shadow of the demon Lord, one level pet session upto tenth. Fun and quick, but gritty and dark.

 

[innerdude]

GURPS definitely does "gritty," if that's what you're looking for, but it will require lots of up-front GM load.

If you don't want to have to delve through all of the bits and pieces of GURPS' disparate sub-systems, and are okay with its baseline magic assumptions, I'd go with Runequest.

Savage Worlds can definitely be "dialed down" to be gritty. By default, I don't find it to be particularly "gritty," per se, but it's simple enough to make it that way.

• Lower the "damage over toughness" threshold to cause a wound from 4 to 3 (or even 2)
• Disallow "soak" rolls entirely, or require standard soak rolls to succeed at a -2 penalty
• Limit the benny economy, either in frequency given out, or limit how many can be spent on soak rolls -- "I'm giving out an extra benny per session, but you can only make two soak rolls in any given session."

 

[Lanefan]

I'll second DCCRPG for something short and gritty (I can't imagine playing anything long term in that system!), or CoC with the nasty dial turned up.

 

[steeldragons]

D&D. If 5e doesn't work, playing 1 or 2e...or even Basic/BECM for that matter would do the trick.

I don't really think "gritty" is a system reliant thing.

Are the characters in legitimate danger they may or truly may not be able to handle? Is magic somewhat restricted and/or rare? Is healing difficult (and/or, again, healing magic very difficult to come by) and/or lengthy?