Let’s make this short. The novelty of #rpgaday2015 has faded off and
now we come to the favorite fantasy, horror, sci-fi, whatever game.
I’ll post this one as a separate entry, but I’ll bulk the other ones.
This one goes equally to Barbarians of Lemuria German
edition (still haven’t read the new
Mythic edition but am slightly put off by the replacement of Brawl by
Initiative) and PDQ/Jaws of the Six
Serpents.
Why? Both games are sword-and-sorcery, a genre which I like a lot.
It’s a bit more gritty and magic is mostly corrupt and dangerous, a
welcome exception from high fantasy. BoL and JotSS are both excellent
rulesets for heroic characters.
BoL has a career/lifepath-system which is fun. Also, the Boons and
Flaws add the “Advantage/Disadvantage”-mechanic (waaayyy earlier than
the popular D&D 5e). The German edition looks gorgeous with great
artwork (ignore the cover, the interior stuff is hawt!) and good
layout.
PDQ/JotSS are open-ended, narrative and a little bit more freeform. Tim
Gray expands the system in JotSS to better fit the genre. For me, PDQ
(the original PDQ, not PDQ#) is the better Fate: it has aspects but
isn’t immersive-hostile like the Fate compels etc.
Furthermore, both games are very versatile and can be easily adapted to
other genres. I totally recommend both games, they are very good. PS: I
totally forgot Far Away
Land
(aff) which is also a worthy competitor: an old school (unique, no D&D
retro clone) fantasy heartbreaker in Adventure-Time-style. This is
great, too, check out this
review.
Also, Blood of Pangea, another
rules-lite old school Sword & Sorcery entry. I also like this a lot,
it’s even more lightweight than the others. PPS: Do I really need to
pick a favorite? Writing this article made me really want to play these
games again! :-)
Links:
Barbarians of Lemuria German BoL
Mythic
Edition
(aff)
PDQ
Jaws of the Six
Serpents
(aff)
Blood of Pangea
Far Away
Land
(aff)