I'm currently preparing yet another fantasy campaign. This time, the players will be portraying a group of up-and-coming members of some kind of crime organization. They'll commit crimes, try to avoid punishment and work their ways up. At least that's my starting assumption, they might become shining paragons of Ultimate Good after the third session...

We basically started this once before as a test game for D20 Modern for fantasy (quickly shoe-horned into the Forgotten Realms' Amn and with opponents right out of a friggin' Manowar song...). Now that I'm seriously running the campaign, I'll transplant it either into Kalamar (using the Geanavue sourcebook) or into the Iron Kingdoms (with the excellent "Five Fingers").

But I seriously don't want to run it with D&D 3E. For gangsters, I want something grittier as this shouldn't become a Vlad Taltos-campaign after a few months of gaining levels.

I've looked at True 20, RuneQuest, GURPS, D6, Masterbook, D20 Modern, now I'd like some suggestions about other rulesets that aren't as common. They shouldn't be too hard to get, but don't neccesarily have to be fantasy. I'd be willing to strip a system of its sci-fi system if the core is alright. Combinations are welcome, too ("Try Bazoogle 4th Ed with DitzQuests magic system!")

It should allow enough variation that you'd have some unique "rogues", and allow some advancement without changing the power level too soon (no skill die ranging from 1-3 for the whole campaign)

So, sell me your favorite obscure system

I've just recently decided to run a Babylon 5 campaign. That system might work well, depending on your needs for magic. It's a sci fi setting, so might take a bit of work, but it's d20 with a grittier feel. I also like the way the psionics system seems to work. It might fit in well as a magic system for a low magic setting.

Iron Gauntlets should work a treat!

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceIron Gauntlets should work a treat!

-clash

I'll second that.

nice flexible system and not to crunchy.

Quote from: McrowI'll second that.

nice flexible system and not to crunchy.

Allow me to third it, then.  IG allows you to do what you want and keeps it simple.

Classic Unisystem is plenty gritty without bogging down with rules.  It contains a lot of optional rules to make it gritty/cinematic/complex/simple to taste.  You can get Witchcraft for free from Drivethru if you want to take a look at the basic system.  That one's a horror game, but you said you didn't mind converting, and hey - free.  

If you like it you can go for the excellent All Flesh Must Be Eaten for a base system and the Dungeons & Zombies suppliment that has fantasy stuff already done for you.  And you could get by with just the WitchCraft PDF and D&Z if money's a problem, Unisystem books work really well together.

This is a pretty harsh system where combats can be quite deadly no matter how experienced you are.

We just finished a great urban campaign using Epic RPG.  Loads of differentiated rogue possibilities, gritty goodness, and with choice-y, measured advancement.  The guilds and occcupation systems would be the only thing you needed to add, and with a well-developed campaign setting, it should take not very much time at all.

Zachary the First's review is here, and mattormeg from this site just reviewed it here.

You might look at Dragonquest, particularly the 2nd edition before the game was sanitized by TSR.

Perhaps the "Unknown Armies" percentile system and combat rules?  They tended to enforce serious deadliness given that gunshots do percentile damage rather than the sum of the dice.  UA also has a neat system for psychological stress that reflects both madness and becoming emotionally numb.

Andrew

Quote from: flyingmiceIron Gauntlets should work a treat!

-clash

Here's what Iron Gauntlets does in the morning:

• Gets up
• Has some coffee
• Makes toast
• Rocks upon it all day long.
  

It's like The Fonz, man.

May I suggest "HARP"?
Sure, it's Rolemaster Lite, but it is very flexible and definitely on the gritty side. Further, you can download the rules free at www.HarpHQ.com.

Damn, someone beat me to the Iron Gauntlets suggestion. Just had it land in my personal space a couple days ago and I must say it's particularly sexy. I'm still working on getting it into my head, but thus far my only complaint is that it's a roll-low dice pool. It feels wonky to me, but by no means let that put you off of it.