Recommend me some fantasy pen and paper rpgs

[The_Lost_King]

I'm starting a new campaign with some friends and was thinking of trying a new game.

I've played 3.5 and 4th edition D&D, Deathstalkers, and Black Crusade.

I want to find some games to dig into and see if there is anything I like the idea of more than 4e D&D(what I am currently planning the campaign to be blasphemous as it may be). I thought it would be best to ask what you guys have enjoyed.

If you want to know what I'm looking for I'll try to describe it as best I can. I really like the idea of 4e's combat what with everyone having the abilities to use rather than warriors just rolling dice and if they succeed it is usually only damage. I was also looking for something that kind of encouraged role playing. Something like where if you play your character and actually interact with the world and it's characters you will be given experience and such.

At the moment I'm thinking of just trying to create a system like what I described but I want to see if there is actually an rpg out there that allready has what I want. Also I just love researching rpgs. They are just fascinating to me.

 

[raeior]

The Dark Eye might be an option for you. It's basically your cliché good vs. bad fantasy world. It has an insane amount of skills related to household tasks, farming, bartering and basically for every job there is in a fantasy world there is at least one relevant skill so you could roleplay anything you want and have it supported by the rules. This obviously depends on the GM because I guess you could do this even in D&D or so if the GM is willing. In Dark Eye your "typical" GM would probably give you points for roleplaying and such (at least in my experience).

Two negatives that speak against Dark Eye:
Ridiculous amount of rule books (and very expensive ones). Everything is split into different ones, plants, creatures, detailed information about certain races or cities and so on. Even worse is that they lack proper cross referencing so you might search yourself to death if you want to know something specific. Also the publisher allows only very basic information to be present in user generated wikis and they mostly consist of 2 sentences and a reference to the relevant source books.

The other thing would be the combat system which especially in the beginning is kinda basic. Later on warriors get stuff like knockdown or other special abilities and mages have an INSANE amount of spells to chose from.

 

[Objectable]

Shadowrun. Its Cyberpunk as well as fantasy, but it has elves and magic and shit. So it counts in my book.

 

[SerithVC]

Pathfinder (an upgraded 3.5) one of my favorite systems
AD&D 2e (not as hard to learn as people claim) another of my favorite systems
D6 fantasy (only requires D6s, easily customisable, somewhat lacking in premade enemies but not to hard to make new ones or tweak the existing ones) it's a good system but doesn't have classes. there is a lot of freedom when it comes to making and upgrading your character.

another way to find fantasy P&PRPGs is to type it in on google or to check boardgamegeek.com's rpg site

 

[Thebazilly]

I'll second Pathfinder. It's certainly my favorite out of DnD systems. You could also try a generic system like Savage Worlds, which has optional rules for a variety of settings. I don't really play medieval fantasy settings any more, so that's all I can come up with right now.

 

[Malconvoker]

You could try 13th Age. Its a bit new but it give a lot of stuff for everyone to work with. Its a bit lighter on the rules than D&D but it opens up the characters a bit more.

I would say more but I'm going out now.