MERP.  I was already a Tolkien fan so I was predisposed to like it, I guess.  But of the many non-D&D games I've tried in 40 years of gaming, it was the only one I stuck with.  So it's an easy choice for me.

Quote from: I on April 08, 2023, 04:19:26 PM
Stormbringer.

Hellz yeah, I roll with Elric!, the 4th edition of the game, I think. For human-centric, pulp sword-and-sorcery gaming I use my own publication USR Sword & Sorcery.

Eh, call me a victim, but GURPS was the other system we went with when not saddled with D&D.  And yes, we did "Fantasy," at some point and my Minotaur Monk was fucking awesome.

Hackmaster. Hackmaster all day long.

Quote from: Joey2k on April 08, 2023, 07:13:05 PM
My favorite dedicated fantasy game is Barbarians of Lemuria. Or rather Legends of Steel BOL edition.

Yep, Barbarians of Lemuria as well.  I have run some fun games of BOL and have some great memories from running that game.

My favorite game of all time is DragonLance Fifth Age SAGA System. Besides that one and D&D itself: Castle Falkenstein.

Quote from: zer0th on April 09, 2023, 10:02:56 AM
My favorite game of all time is DragonLance Fifth Age SAGA System. Besides that one and D&D itself: Castle Falkenstein.

I have heard of this but I don't know anything about it.  Can you give me a little information about this game?

Quote from: I on April 08, 2023, 04:19:26 PM
Stormbringer.

Is that the one with the random chargen? I always liked that. Although I had a friend who wouldn't play it because if you couldn't be Melnibonean, it didn't matter.

We love DwD Studios Bare Bones Fantasy! It is a lot fun. We love the moral and personality systems.

Quote from: Tod13 on April 09, 2023, 07:12:39 PM

Quote from: I on April 08, 2023, 04:19:26 PM
Stormbringer.

Is that the one with the random chargen? I always liked that. Although I had a friend who wouldn't play it because if you couldn't be Melnibonean, it didn't matter.

I can only speak for 1st-3rd editions, but random chargen was only an option. It was a fun way to play, but you didn't have to.

Quote from: Baron on April 09, 2023, 07:14:40 PM

Quote from: Tod13 on April 09, 2023, 07:12:39 PM

Quote from: I on April 08, 2023, 04:19:26 PM
Stormbringer.

Is that the one with the random chargen? I always liked that. Although I had a friend who wouldn't play it because if you couldn't be Melnibonean, it didn't matter.

I can only speak for 1st-3rd editions, but random chargen was only an option. It was a fun way to play, but you didn't have to.

Thanks!

What about Runequest?  I played it a long time ago but I do not remember much about it.

RuneQuest, specifically Mongoose Publishing's RuneQuest II version. It's the only fantasy Rpg I want to run anymore.

Avalon Hill's RuneQuest (RuneQuest III) is an old nostalgic favorite but I haven't run it in a few decades.

Quote from: GhostNinja on April 09, 2023, 06:12:28 PM
Can you give me a little information about this game?

The DragonLance Fifth Age Boxed Set came at a time old school DragonLance fans would rather never happened: when Weis & Hickman were "excused" from TSR/WotC and another team was put at the helm of development of DragonLance, and they took that world to a direction hated by a lot of people. It was my first contact with DragonLance, so I don't hate on it for being an interloper in my cozy DragonLance.

The game system is very light-weight and it is player-facing, that is, all the checks are made by the player. It uses cards instead of dice.

It is a custom deck of cards with 9 suits, one with ten cards (the suit of dragons) and the rest with nine cards. Each of the 9-cards suits is associated with one of the eight abilities of player characters: Agility, Dexterity, Endurance, Strength, Reason, Perception, Spirit, and Presence. Each of these abilities have a score and a code. The score (1 to 10) is your potential and the code (A to D and X) is your skill in doing things related to that ability. The code defines things like how many schools of sorcery you know and what arms and armor you can use.

Character generation is done by the player drawing twelve cards. Each card has a value, a suit, a color, and two personality traits. And the player uses these cards' features to fill in the character sheet.

PCs have a hand of cards that he uses in checks. But this hand of cards is also his "hitpoints". When he uses a card in a check, he can get a replacement from the deck. But when he is damaged, he needs to discard cards and they are only replaced by healing (either magical or natural).

There are no classes in the basic game, but supplements introduced Roles that give your character something very mildly similar. The equivalent of levels would be the number of Quests your PC has, which determine the size of your hand of cards (and thus your "hitpoints").

NPCs has a simplified set of abilities, folding pairs of abilities into one: Coordination (Agility and Dexterity), Physique (Endurance and Strength), Intellect (Reason and Perception), and Essence (Spirit and Presence). Monsters stat blocks are super simple, generally six numbers (the folded abilities plus attack and defense) and a special ability. Since all the checks are made by the players, the NPCs stats are used as penalties in player's actions. Even when a monster attacks, the mechanic is the player checking if his PC successfully defends the attack.

The basic mechanic is playing a card from your hand as an action or reaction and adding the card value to the relevant ability score. Other modifiers (such as a weapon attack ratting) can also be added or subtracted. The result is compared to an Action Difficulty set by the GM. But you can also get a trump. If the card you are playing is of the suit associated with the relevant ability, you flip a card from the deck and add the value to the result, and you keep doing it if you keep getting cards of the trump suit.

Magic in the game doesn't use pre-made spells. A sorcerer or a mystic create their spells on-the-fly using small tables, from which you pick things like the effect, range, duration. You add up the cost of the spell from these tables and the cost (in spell points) is also the difficulty of casting it.

The game puts emphasis in building scenes (encounters) in a structured way and all published adventures use that style of scenes, with outcomes taking you to different scenes, like a "choose your own adventure" book. In this way, adventures are structured around events more than locations. But you can (and I did) play location-based adventures too.

I hope this rambling answer is somewhat understandable.

I used the game to run the published adventures (not all of them), a DragonLance campaign of my own creation, and my own homebrew world. I just love how it doesn't get in the way of action. The eight abilities are granular and well-defined enough for me to judge anything the players want to try, without having a long list of skills.

(And since ShadowDark invented a bunch of things like simplified distances, the DL SAGA System totally didn't use Personal, Melee, Near missile, Far missile, and Artillery to measure distances in 1996. ;-P)

Quote from: K Peterson on April 09, 2023, 08:05:52 PM
RuneQuest, specifically Mongoose Publishing's RuneQuest II version. It's the only fantasy Rpg I want to run anymore.

Avalon Hill's RuneQuest (RuneQuest III) is an old nostalgic favorite but I haven't run it in a few decades.

I ran the original Runequest and had a goodtime with it.   So you suggest the mongoose Runquest II version over the original edition?