A better D&D/Swords & Sorcery game for me?

[2D8HP]

This thread is mostly to feed my curiosity, in that in all likelihood I would only buy and read the game, as to actually play it would require other people who would try it, but this exchange at the 5e Forum, copied below, has me wondering what else is out there?

Well I may very well be one of the "abrasive" poster's, when you express some strong opinions (i.e. "Cyberpunk is lame", "Swords and Sorcery rocks") than that is hard to avoid (also "abrasive" is just plain funnier) so sorry about that. While I bought 3e (and then was irked by first 3.5 & then 4e were released so soon afterward), I never found a chance to play it, and I've been curious to try since the "Inner Sea" setting looks interesting and while previously I felt that:

You may change it around a a little bit , but for me as long as the game features a Dragon sitting on a pile of treasure, in a Dungeon and you play a Wizard with a magic wand, or a Warrior in armor, wielding a longbow, just like the picture on the box I picked up in 1978, whatever the edition, I want to play that game!

after reading in this thread what some say 3.P does "better", I'm reconsidering trying it since those aspects are what I don't like about 5e!
That is I prefer something closer to the "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" stories I read, rather than the "Naruto" cartoons my son watches, plus I now quickly suffer from "options fatigue".
While I've had "hella" fun playing 5e, it is not the perfect edition of D&D for me, because that edition doesn't exist.
My ideal form of D&D would:
1) Be as easy to learn and to create PC's as the 1977 "Basic" D&D rules were.
2) Have as quick flowing combat as 5e has.
3) The ability to make special "snowflake" PC's like 3.x D&D.
4) Feel as intuitive to GM as early 1980's "Call of Cthullu".
5) Have a "Ranger" class as awesome as the1e AD&D Ranger was.
Since "perfect" D&D doesn't exist, the free 5e Basic Rules plus some of the extra rules in the PHB is "close enough for government work", and plenty fun for me.

@ 2D8HP: Then you definitely want 5th edition or E6 3.P. That simulates the level of sword and sorcery you're looking for, while full blown 3.P quickly escalates into high end mythology where you're fighting unborn moons while throwing mountains and channeling a spell capable of nuking cities from your private demi-plane, while controlling your army of custom made supersoldiers.

Yeah that doesn't sound like my thing (still better than Cyberpunk and Vampire though).Thanks for the heads up!

But what if a not perfect, but a better version for me exists? There are "editions" of D&D that are unknown to me (2e AD&D, 4e D&D, post 1970's "Basic"/"Classic"), and they're other RPG's.
And 5e D&D may indeed be as close as I get as I keep getting told that:

I think the style of game you describe playing in the 70s just isn't the mainstream form of RPGs anymore. People still play 2nd edition and presumably some such groups have games a lot more like those simple old-school dungeon-crawls, but I guess there is only so much novelty in such a game and over time people got interested in trying to tell more ambitious stories....
-
and I hope you manage to find a group who share your love of good old-fashioned dungeons, dragons, ale and good conversationalists.

They're different things I like better about 5e D&D, such as my PC having a more than even chance of surviving a session, and the clarity of the rules, but what I don't like is that they are so very many rules to learn, and that the PC's turn into comic book caped superheroes as the level up.
From the most fun to less fun RPG's I've played:
1) Dungeons & Dragons with most of the disperate rules as they were just before the 1978 AD&D PHB (ignoring "psionics").
2) 5e D&D (if I "cherry pick" rules).
3) "1e" AD&D (if I "cherry picked" rules)..
4) 1978 Runequest
5) "1e" AD&D with almost all the rules.
6) 5e D&D with all the rules and most of the "options".
7) Other RPG's that suffer a deficit of AWESOME! as they do not have a "Swords and Sorcery" setting.
So what is out there?

[Yora]

I think you should look into Basic Fantasy. It's the Basic/Expert rules slightly cleaned up to be more in line with the expectations of post-2000 players. (Easy Attack Bonus and no races as classes.)

The more pure version of B/X would be Labyrinth Lord.

A version with some more significant and interesting changes would be Lamentations of the Flame Princess. (Completely different thief class, attack bonus only for fighters, weapons and armor for everyone, a good encumbrance system, and several other neat things.)

All three pdfs are free.

There is also Adventurer Conqueror King, which is $10 and in my opinion doesn't really offer anything substentially better, but also has a lot of fans.

Why go with the Basic/Expert system? I think a lot of the really good points are covered here. Despite the examples of the post, all the points that are mentioned make it great for Sword & Sorcery as well.

And in a somewhat longer form, I did a thread on reading through the whole original B/X game last year.

[Knaight]

There's a certain amount of spitballing involved here, and guessed at preferences. Correct me if any of these are wrong:
1) You favor rules light games.
2) You enjoy the classic fantasy tropes.
3) You're willing to dispense with class systems to some extent.

This suggests several immediate options, all of which do have certain quirks.
REIGN: REIGN can do sword and sorcery, and more than that it can handle organizational conflicts with people doing important things on a personal scale - in short, it can handle the trope of the warrior king better than anything else I've seen. The magic is a bit atypical, but it's really cool. The default setting tends to lend itself more to political conflict than anything, but it can do sword and sorcery just fine.

Warrior Rogue and Mage: WR&M is free, it's minimalist, and it can do everything you ask for. However, it does run into the "snowflake" PCs issue a bit. There aren't any classes, and characters are defined primarily by their three attributes of Warrior, Rogue, and Mage. Characters stay at a human level, but heavy mechanical customization is absent. It's really easy to homebrew though.

Hack n' Slash: This is a customized version of Fudge for dungeon crawling, and it works well in that niche. It also explicitly describes itself as a "throwback to a simpler time", and is intended for a style similar to early D&D.

Blood Sweat and Steel: This isn't quite done yet, but once it finally comes out it will be exactly what you're looking for. It's another Fudge S&S game.

[BayardSPSR]

OP, I'm curious if you've been exposed to Dungeon World or other D&D-themed games not built on D&D rules. And if so, what are your opinions of them?

(Speaking as another person who enjoys the pulpy premise of old-fashioned game styles, but hasn't found a set of rules that don't, for me, impede that.)

[Thrudd]

I think you might like "Dungeon Crawl Classics". This is a game built on the bones of old D&D with some very fun new ideas to replicate swords & sorcery themes.

[2D8HP]

OP, I'm curious if you've been exposed to Dungeon World or other D&D-themed games not built on D&D rules. And if so, what are your opinions of them?

(Speaking as another person who enjoys the pulpy premise of old-fashioned game styles, but hasn't found a set of rules that don't, for me, impede that.)

On the advice of a different thread on this Forum, I picked up DUNGEON WORLD, and while I read the rules, Dungeon World looked fun, and clever.
While for me it suffers the same problem of most new RPG's (including 5e DnD) in that I can no longer seem to remember many of the rules besides 70's DnD and 80's CoCthulu for very long after reading them (yet I played just as much Top Secret and Traveller why can't I remember those rules?).
For someone with more mental agility than me (which is likely most of you), I would recommend it.
Plus it's cheap!
I also remember playing a bit a Runequest '78 rules) in the 1980's and it seemed pretty good, character creation took longer and was harder than 70's DnD, but was more of a mini-game like Traveller, but not to the extent of GURPS, or Champions.
I also played a small bit of MERP/Rolemaster in the 1980's, but I have little memory of it.
I haven't yet had a chance to check out the games recommended on this thread yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

[nrg89]

I will suggest Savage Worlds. It's one of the most versatile, fast paced and easiest systems I've ever used and I started with it because I thought D&D was just too annoying to teach new players (don't get me started on the feat trees...). You succeed on a four or greater for most checks and increase the base die, not some modifier, as you progress.

It can do Sword & Sorcery (there's like three settings for that off the top of my head, such as Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser's city of Lankhmar), Science Fiction (I can name four settings for that) and high fantasy (I can name only one settings for that, because the magic is much lower than in D&D but low level casters are less useless). It's niche is pulpy action stories.

[2D8HP]

Why go with the Basic/Expert system? I think a lot of the really good points are covered here. Despite the examples of the post, all the points that are mentioned make it great for Sword & Sorcery as well.

And in a somewhat longer form, I did a thread on reading through the whole original B/X game last year.

I checked out your thread, and I recently picked up from Half Priced Books 1994's:"The Classic Dungeons and Dragons Game Rules and Adventures Book", and while they are some changes (with the 1975 "Greyhawk" supplement, non-humans could play Thieves as well, while the '94 rules go back to the LBB's "Race as Class"), it looks to be pretty much the same game that I remember from the 70's (I never got any post 1970's rules, after I read and was repulsed by '85's "Unearthed Arcana", until 3e which I never played).
In looking over it I'm increasingly realizing that my beloved "Advanced" Dungeons and Dragons, which was a completely different game!

"No royalties for you Arneson! Mine all Mine! Bwahahaha!
Wait, what's that Blume?"

was in large part a mistake, it would have been better had they kept it the '77 "Basic" game with "options", no separate "Advanced" game.
I don't know what 2e AD&D or 4e D&D were like, but from what I've seen of it, I also wish 3e had been skipped as well, and that instead we had a cross between oD&D and some of 5e as the game today.

[Dizlag]

I will suggest Savage Worlds. It's one of the most versatile, fast paced and easiest systems I've ever used and I started with it because I thought D&D was just too annoying to teach new players (don't get me started on the feat trees...). You succeed on a four or greater for most checks and increase the base die, not some modifier, as you progress.

It can do Sword & Sorcery (there's like three settings for that off the top of my head, such as Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser's city of Lankhmar), Science Fiction (I can name four settings for that) and high fantasy (I can name only one settings for that, because the magic is much lower than in D&D but low level casters are less useless). It's niche is pulpy action stories.

I will second this recommendation for a rules light, fast-furious-fun!, and class-less system. The best setting for Savage Worlds IMHO is 50 Fathoms. It's a swashbuckling - swords & sorcery world o' fun! Watch out for those coconut chucking spider monkeys though! They will frickin' kill ya! hehehe

Slipstream is a Science Fiction setting that "feels" very much like the old cereal pulpy action movies/tv shows of Flash Gordon. Very pulpy action feel to it.

Again, Savage Worlds is pretty awesome!

Dizlag

[2D8HP]

I think you might like "Dungeon Crawl Classics". This is a game built on the bones of old D&D with some very fun new ideas to replicate swords & sorcery themes.

I will suggest Savage Worlds

Oh my, I see that both DCC and SW have Lankhmar Adventures!
Decisions, decisions....

I will second this recommendation for a rules light, fast-furious-fun!, and class-less system. The best setting for Savage Worlds IMHO is 50 Fathoms. It's a swashbuckling - swords & sorcery world o' fun!

You had me at "swashbuckling".

As someone who tried "GURPS" mainly because the "Swashbucklers" (and "Vikings") worldbook was so infused with AWESOME!, 50 Fathoms does look like something I'd look like to check out.
Thanks!

[Dizlag]

You had me at "swashbuckling".

As someone who tried "GURPS" mainly because the "Swashbucklers" (and "Vikings") worldbook was so infused with AWESOME!, 50 Fathoms does look like something I'd look like to check out.
Thanks!

LOL! There is another setting called Pirates of the Spanish Main for true pirating and privateering in the Caribbean. =)

Good luck and enjoy!

Dizlag

[Knaight]

Oh my, I see that both DCC and SW have Lankhmar Adventures!
Decisions, decisions....
You had me at "swashbuckling".

As someone who tried "GURPS" mainly because the "Swashbucklers" (and "Vikings") worldbook was so infused with AWESOME!, 50 Fathoms does look like something I'd look like to check out.
Thanks!

If you're willing to see "swashbuckling" as an alternative to S&S the field widens a bit. Just off the top of my head there's Seventh Sea and Flashing Blades.

[LibraryOgre]

My big three for D&D-likes would be

Castles and Crusades. Very easy to pick up and run with, very easy to mod, good for use with old adventures... just switch the AC. Characters are race+class+stats, and you can practically just hand out a pre-printed race page, a pre-printed class page, and a page for stats and gear and have characters done. Since it's heavily based on the d20 engine, it's pretty easy to plug in a lot of 3.x stuff if you want.

Hackmaster. Character creation is a bit more involved, and dependent a lot of random rolls, but the combat is quick and and lets people act on every second if they like.

Savage Worlds: Classless system, but characters are easy to create and the system is easy and straightforward.

[Thrudd]

Oh my, I see that both DCC and SW have Lankhmar Adventures!
Decisions, decisions....
You had me at "swashbuckling".

As someone who tried "GURPS" mainly because the "Swashbucklers" (and "Vikings") worldbook was so infused with AWESOME!, 50 Fathoms does look like something I'd look like to check out.
Thanks!

The thing about DCC I think you'd like is that a prewritten backstory is absolutely not a thing that will ever exist in that game. The book tells you that every game is supposed to start with each player randomly generating multiple level 0 characters who are meant to go through a "meatgrinder" adventure in order to determine who the adventurer characters will be. These characters get a random race (mostly humans) and a profession with a single related weapon, which is sometimes an improvised weapon like a frying pan or a pitchfork. Any characters that survive the meatgrinder become level 1 and are given a character class, and now they've got a "backstory".

[2D8HP]

The thing about DCC I think you'd like is that a prewritten backstory is absolutely not a thing that will ever exist in that game. The book tells you that every game is supposed to start with each player randomly generating multiple level 0 characters who are meant to go through a "meatgrinder" adventure in order to determine who the adventurer characters will be. These characters get a random race (mostly humans) and a profession with a single related weapon, which is sometimes an improvised weapon like a frying pan or a pitchfork. Any characters that survive the meatgrinder become level 1 and are given a character class, and now they've got a "backstory".

That sounds a bit like the old Treasure Hunt adventure module, has the PC's start at 0-level and without a class, or an alignment yet, which your PC earns in play, which seemed cool to me.

[TroubleBrewing]

Torchbearer.

For that matter, Burning Wheel too. It's just a wonderful system.

[Arbane]

Luckily for you, there is now an entire genre of games catering to folks who enjoyed low-level high-risk dungeon crawls, the "Old School Renaissance/Revival". Just do a search for 'OSR RPG', and you'll find a lot of them. I don't follow the scene myself, but I see some of the ones I've heard of (LotFP, DCC, ACKS, Torchbearer) have already been mentioned.

[Mutazoia]

Amongst those not mentioned already:

MERPS (Middle Earth Role Playing System)
Warhammer Fantasy
Conan
Iron Heroes
Iron Claw
D6 Fantasy
Ysgarth

[Arbane]

Ysgarth

Is this one still around? I remember having the (6 small) books back in 1980-something. Has it changed much since then? (I'll admit, it looked like an overcomplicated Fantasy Heartbreaker back then.)

Hm... looking at its website, it says they're getting ready for a new edition in 2012. This does not fill me with confidence.

[Mutazoia]

Is this one still around? I remember having the (6 small) books back in 1980-something. Has it changed much since then? (I'll admit, it looked like an overcomplicated Fantasy Heartbreaker back then.)

Hm... looking at its website, it says they're getting ready for a new edition in 2012. This does not fill me with confidence.

Dave got a little side-tracked with politics.

[Waddacku]

There's a new OSR-based game from Sine Nomine out recently, called Godbound. While the main point of the game is basically sandbox BD&D Exalted, the deluxe version of the book (as opposed to the free version) includes rules both for Common Mortals and Heroic Mortals. What you end up with is a game running on a simple engine (but with some interesting tweaks to combat), a number of different levels of power to play it at, from campaigns of regular people just trying to survive in a hostile world to young gods ascending to rulership of the realm and beyond and reshaping it in their image. Unlike regular D&D, these aren't just a function of different character levels, but of what types of characters you are playing. It also features plenty of character customization, for that special snowflakeness (including abilities and guidelines for importing abilities from other systems).
Being written by Kevin Crawford, it also has huge chunks of it dedicated to making the game easy to run for the GM.

The free version of the book doesn't include the chapters on mortal characters, martial arts, giant robots, ascending to supreme godhood, etc., but I'd recommend checking it out to see if you like the look of the base mechanics.

[Psikerlord]

This thread is mostly to feed my curiosity, in that in all likelihood I would only buy and read the game, as to actually play it would require other people who would try it, but this exchange at the 5e Forum, copied below, has me wondering what else is out there?
But what if a not perfect, but a better version for me exists? There are "editions" of D&D that are unknown to me (2e AD&D, 4e D&D, post 1970's "Basic"/"Classic"), and they're other RPG's.
And 5e D&D may indeed be as close as I get as I keep getting told that:
They're different things I like better about 5e D&D, such as my PC having a more than even chance of surviving a session, and the clarity of the rules, but what I don't like is that they are so very many rules to learn, and that the PC's turn into comic book caped superheroes as the level up.
From the most fun to less fun RPG's I've played:
1) Dungeons & Dragons with most of the disperate rules as they were just before the 1978 AD&D PHB (ignoring "psionics").
2) 5e D&D (if I "cherry pick" rules).
3) "1e" AD&D (if I "cherry picked" rules)..
4) 1978 Runequest
5) "1e" AD&D with almost all the rules.
6) 5e D&D with all the rules and most of the "options".
7) Other RPG's that suffer a deficit of AWESOME! as they do not have a "Swords and Sorcery" setting.
So what is out there?

You might consider Low Fantasy Gaming - free PDF book: https://lowfantasygaming.com/

To summarise, it is an OSR/modern mix, rules lite, with an emphasis on sword & sorcery, low magic, gritty/dangerous combat, 12th level max, roll equal or under attribute, skills = reroll pool, martial exploits, and mechanics to support sandbox style play such as 5 min shorts rests, party retreat and improvisational chase rules.