Shadow of the Demon Lord is an amazing game with an okay setting.

EDIT: I hadn't read the OP, sorry.

Let me try again: my favorite setting is Dark Sun but I'm not into AD&D, prefer B/X etc. Kult (2e) has a cool setting but the mechanics were so-so.

The current edition of Kult is a perfect case of vice versa (great setting with crap rules), but that's a given since it's PbtA (the by-the-book definition of "how to do games wrong").

Another example of great setting with meh rules was Underground from Mayfair Games: hilarious satirical near future setting coupled with a game system that was barely functional. The society parameters subsystem was nice, though.

Quote from: Baron on April 13, 2023, 09:52:51 PM
How could I forget Cyberpunk? Not a fan of the system, but I love the genre.

I can't believe I didn't think of Cyberpunk! Yeah, it's a fun setting, but it's the biggest pain in the ass of any game I've ever GM'd.

Quote from: ronwisegamgee on April 13, 2023, 09:36:49 PM
- Using Savage Worlds for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

Other than that, I rarely use settings that stem primarily from TTRPGs. I'm much more likely to use settings from other media (largely from video games).

SWADE for The Old World? That's interesting. Would never have occurred to me.

Out of curiosity, what video games? There's been a few games mentioned around the forum that I'd be curious what system people used to run them with.

Quote from: Wisithir on April 13, 2023, 11:04:58 PM
Star Wars. I do not think d20, Saga, novelty dice rulesets ever got the feel right, not sure about d6.

That's kind of how I feel about the Hyborian Age/Conan setting. Possibly the greatest adventuring setting ever created, but I don't think an official Conan RPG has yet done it justice.

Quote from: SHARK on April 14, 2023, 06:12:39 AM
But then, as you read deeper, and start to grapple with the mechanics--the downside hits you, that some of the mechanical stuff just is an epic mess.

Creating a magic-using character in 2nd edition might just be the absolute pinnacle of RPG character design. Too bad actually RUNNING said character properly is nigh impossible.

Quote from: Vestragor on April 14, 2023, 09:10:59 AM
The current edition of Kult is a perfect case of vice versa (great setting with crap rules), but that's a given since it's PbtA (the by-the-book definition of "how to do games wrong").

Another example of great setting with meh rules was Underground from Mayfair Games: hilarious satirical near future setting coupled with a game system that was barely functional. The society parameters subsystem was nice, though.

Powered by the Apocalypse? Lives up to its name...also didn't Underground use MEGS? That is easily the best superhero system ever devised, so I do not understand the knock here.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 14, 2023, 09:25:03 AM
That's kind of how I feel about the Hyborian Age/Conan setting. Possibly the greatest adventuring setting ever created, but I don't think an official Conan RPG has yet done it justice.

The d20 Atlantean edition is pretty decent; not great, but serviceable. I actually sought out a copy because the Modiphius version pissed me off THAT much. Hyperborea (Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea 3rd edition) is about the best game for Conan right now, probably. Through Sunken Lands is a close second.

Quote from: Brad on April 14, 2023, 09:49:24 AM

Powered by the Apocalypse? Lives up to its name...also didn't Underground use MEGS? That is easily the best superhero system ever devised, so I do not understand the knock here.

It's been nearly 30 years since I looked at it, but I remember that it used a logarithmic scale that was quite easy to break. Characters were either functional or badly overpowered to the point of absurdity without anything in between.

Quote from: Brad on April 14, 2023, 09:49:24 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 14, 2023, 09:25:03 AM
That's kind of how I feel about the Hyborian Age/Conan setting. Possibly the greatest adventuring setting ever created, but I don't think an official Conan RPG has yet done it justice.

The d20 Atlantean edition is pretty decent; not great, but serviceable. I actually sought out a copy because the Modiphius version pissed me off THAT much. Hyperborea (Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea 3rd edition) is about the best game for Conan right now, probably. Through Sunken Lands is a close second.

I'm in a 2d20 Conan game at the moment. It is ...playable... once you get past the extremely steep learning curve. I don't think anyone at the table actually likes it, though. GM just wants to finish the adventure before we abandon it. We had one guy in the group who I think was a fan of the system, and he left. Didn't say why but I suspect it was because we were all "playing wrong".

D20 Conan looks like a pretty OK game, not a great one. Hyperborea is a fine game, but I'd never run the official Conan setting with it. To me, D&D magic and Conan simply cannot go together. If I wanted to run Howard's setting, I think I'd go with either By This Axe I Hack or maybe SWADE with either the Lankhmar or Beasts and Barbarians rules.

My first thought is Dragonlance 5th Age with the SAGA System. I love the system, but Dragonlance just isn't suited to adventures - at least as it existed when 5th Age was released and it was more a setting for Weis & Hickman's novels. It would be better run with Ravenloft, or even Star Wars.

Rifts is the other way around. I don't think anyone plays it for the Megaversal System, but the setting just oozes flavour and enthusiasm. Having it move to Savage Worlds was certainly an improvement, but I think it could be done with something even better. Dead Reign is another Palladium setting that's great, but just tied to an awful system.

Quote from: Vestragor on April 14, 2023, 10:02:49 AM
It's been nearly 30 years since I looked at it, but I remember that it used a logarithmic scale that was quite easy to break. Characters were either functional or badly overpowered to the point of absurdity without anything in between.

Yeah, that's MEGS. It is great for supers because you can have Superman and Jimmy Olsen going on adventures and both their STR scores can be represented by two digits. I imagine if you're running more human-oriented adventures without dudes like Batman it would mean A LOT of 2s, 3s, and 4s for attributes.

Quote from: migo on April 14, 2023, 10:18:45 AM
My first thought is Dragonlance 5th Age with the SAGA System. I love the system, but Dragonlance just isn't suited to adventures - at least as it existed when 5th Age was released and it was more a setting for Weis & Hickman's novels.

  The setting as the Fifth Age team rebuilt it after Dragons of Summer Flame was rich with adventure possibilities, but handicapped by the designers' excess ambition and tendencies towards metaplot, and then strangled in its cradle when WotC took over and offered Dragonlance back to Weis & Hickman on a silver platter (and even let them mess with Ravenloft a bit for a story that wound up changing directions and making those changes pretty much pointless) ...

Quote
It would be better run with Ravenloft, or even Star Wars.

  Well, Tarokka decks are back in print, and work on adapting Ravenloft to SAGA was done back in the day. See DRAGON #240, 264, and the Kargatane Book of Souls netbook if you're interested.

Nightspawn is a fantastic game setting, really original take on playing monstrous characters in a dark world without all the goth trappings of White Wolf. And unfortunately it's saddled with the Palladium system. Ever since Savage RIFTS I've been supremely tempted to homebrew a Savage Worlds adaptation for it; it would provide a whole new life for the setting.

I love almost everything about Runequest.  Glorantha leaves me so cold that sometimes I get frost bite before I can close the book again.  It's like hypothermia too, in that it sneaks up on you.  I don't open Glorantha and always have an immediate freeze. Parts of it sparkle and look great in the sun. I then I realize, again, that the whole thing is built on fast and loose sophistry that falls apart as soon as you really think about it.  I didn't like reading papers on myth by people that thought that way, and I still don't like it in games. 

I always eventually get this image of a bunch of hippies on weed sitting around talking about how deep and profound something is--that's about as deep as your average mud puddle.

I'm probably gonna get slammed for that one.

Dragon Quest is the opposite.  Great, thoughtful setting, oozing hidden depths, and even a few great ideas on expressing that in mechanics.  But the mechanics as a whole are an unholy mess.  It's as if the designers understood that Gygax was correct in that sometimes it's OK and even helpful to have different mechanics for different things.  And they also were annoyed by it and decided to have a universal mechanic--in a heavily simulation type game.  The upshot is that there is a universal mechanic with a zillion exceptions.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 14, 2023, 02:09:59 PM
I love almost everything about Runequest.  Glorantha leaves me so cold that sometimes I get frost bite before I can close the book again.

I don't know which Glorantha you've been exposed to. I sneer at the behemoth it's become, but I'm a great fan of what we saw in the old 1e-2e days. There's a great PDF swimming around on the internet, a campaign log written by Jeff Okamoto detailing his five years playing in Sandy Petersen's RQ game. It's a blast, and (of course) very old school. The account can be quite inspirational. Anyway, I recommend giving it a look.

Already mentioned, but RIFTS is the old time posterchild for Great Settings with Crap Systems, also anything 2d20.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 14, 2023, 09:25:03 AM

Quote from: Baron on April 13, 2023, 09:52:51 PM
How could I forget Cyberpunk? Not a fan of the system, but I love the genre.

I can't believe I didn't think of Cyberpunk! Yeah, it's a fun setting, but it's the biggest pain in the ass of any game I've ever GM'd.

IDK, It's been YEARS since I played it, but I don't recall Cyberpunk's system being that bad. I did think that it had more attributes than it really need, and would probably have simplified them if it were up to me, but I always though that the core engine itself was fairly straightforward Roll 1d10+Mod vs TN.

Living Steel has an awesome system, at least when bolstered by two or three of the Phoenix Command books, but it works for everything except the Living Steel setting itself. The setting itself is badly broken by the sheer distances and technological breakdown involved, such that the postholocaust economy can't function because no one has the means to communicate and trade across continents. I wanted to like it, it seemed fertile ground for gaming ideas, but I couldn't make it work. The system on the other hand gave me endless hours of tinkering fun to perfect it, and supplied the framework for realistic combat results that other games just aggravatingly didn't.

Quote from: Wisithir on April 14, 2023, 05:35:28 AM

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 14, 2023, 01:39:33 AM
My plan has always been to run G.I. Joe and Transformers using Cartoon Action Hour, as I already emulate several other similar cartoons with it. I always appreciate system suggestions though.

Is that Transformers and G.I. Joe in the same game or two separate game? I have been looking for system that could handle both for miniature wargame IP that blended multiple 80's cartoon inspirations into one new setting. I think Savage Worlds Robotech might be a good choice based on the system's flexibility, snappy combats, and bennies to emulate unlikely cartoon plot contrivances.

Bot War is a miniature wargame that's a shameless stew of Transformers, GI Joe, MASK, Dino Riders, etc, etc...

https://tradersgalaxy.com.au/product-category/bot-war/