What's your favorite complete homebrew system?

[Monolilith]

Like, an entire gaming system, ready to play, that an independent creator or group of creators has made. There are a lot of memorable ones out there (I got into tabletop through a thing called Challenger, which was so goofy that I think about it often to this day), so what are your stories about them?

That, and do you have a ready-to-play homebrew system yourself? Have you ever gotten a chance to play it, or another system you like?

Thirdly, what... what's the proper word for a homebrew system? It's probably not homebrew, is it?

[Knaight]

It depends on how you define an independent creator or group of creators - does a tiny group that founds a company count? Are we looking at anything outside the D&D tradition? Does the system need to not be commercial? Does any indie RPG count?

Some of the other questions are a bit easier - I have two finished systems that I've made, and am working on a third - all fairly rules light. I've gotten to play one of the two a few times, plus lots of stuff that fits within various different definitions of home brew system.

[freshhawk]

This is probably stretching the definition, but the books aren't published yet even if they are funded and it was made by one guy who played it for years first.

Open Legend (openlegendrpg.com). I bet most people have heard about it but not played it, my players fell in love with it and our time is now split 50/50 between D&D and OL.

The classless system and mechanics focused on effects rather than causes is so damn encouraging of player creativity. My players are almost always describing their actions using in game terms and getting told what to roll! They never do that in D&D. They RP more because their characters are now entirely their own. They can build whatever insane mess of a character they want ... and everyone still starts on the same footing.

It handles different genres exceptionally well, and mixed genres. It's free and open source.

Everyone loves the exploding dice rolls, and the single attack/damage roll. The combat has a really interesting (and swingy) back and forth flow because of the system. It's not suited to heavy resource tracking really although it's doable and it encourages narrative focused gameplay (the rules don't force it though).

[Cluedrew]

A homebrew system could still be called such... depends on how you define homebrew. To me it implies a sort of impulsive, off the cuff creation. So I have a system I am working on, but I don't call it homebrew because I am being very systematic about it. But the way, not even close to being finished. You could also consider it to be anything made "in house" (so D&D is WotC's homebrew) or unpublished to contrast major and indi RPGs.

My favourite homebrew system (depending on how we cast that net) is Roll for Shoes, a very rules light system great for comedy.

[Deaxsa]

Aren't all systems that are not derivative Homebrew? Or do you mean like,independent too (no publisher)

[Knaight]

Aren't all systems that are not derivative Homebrew? Or do you mean like,independent too (no publisher)

It's an iffy term - I really wouldn't call something like Shadowrun or Burning Wheel a homebrew system, but the definition of homebrew that is just new material for someone else's system doesn't hold either because of how the term is used for sufficiently obscure systems - I'd certainly call the two systems I made homebrew.

[Mutazoia]

I'll toss this one in the hat for consideration. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290243-High-School-Harem-Comedy-(Game-System-PEACH))

[Grizl' Bjorn]

I recently discovered honey heist, a game of role-playing criminal bears. So that.

[Firest Kathon]

If it still counts, my mention goes to New Hong Kong Story (https://newhongkongstory.de/) (sorry, the page is German only), where you play an actor who plays a role in a Hong-Kong-action-movie. It's really fun to play.

[weckar]

Heh, so there's TWO RPGs about that? Because Hong Kong Action Theater is... awesome.

[Quertus]

Umm... I'm apparently misunderstanding the term, but a friend of mine made a game called "Paradox" that I loved. Never published, AFAIK, but it was a game in which you could play literally anything (within a certain power level). Think RIFTS, but with more... rifts. Most of the players loved D&D, and just played D&D style characters. I played... Hmmm... Off the top of my head, a telepathic vampire (played more like an Illithid Savant by stealing skills), a sentient house plant, a karmic Euthanasia paladin, a Romulan engineer, a comic book superhero, and myself. Most of those were my way to help playtest the system, but the first and last ones were incredibly fun for me to play (even if they spent most of their time hiding / otherwise desperately trying not to die).

[Monolilith]

By my definition, 'homebrew' is without a publisher, yeah. Once something is published in books, it becomes a whole new thang, at least in my opinion. I'm super open to other points of view! :D

These are all stupid fun-looking, thank you so much. I have another question, now - what makes a system fun, and how can these ideas be brought into a homebrew system while maintaining originality? Basically, what makes these games your favorites? Let's get analytical!

[Quertus]

By my definition, 'homebrew' is without a publisher, yeah. Once something is published in books, it becomes a whole new thang, at least in my opinion. I'm super open to other points of view! :D

These are all stupid fun-looking, thank you so much. I have another question, now - what makes a system fun, and how can these ideas be brought into a homebrew system while maintaining originality? Basically, what makes these games your favorites? Let's get analytical!

Well, what I find unfun is having a character concept that by all rights should fit in the setting, but cannot be actualized under the rules.

D&D 3.x has such a breath of content, if a player describes something, there's a good chance someone can suggest a way to build something that will satisfy that request.

I liked Paradox because it was so open-ended, I could run absolutely anything I could think of (within the bounds of its sense of game balance, of course).

What else did I enjoy? Hmmm... The setting. Which was a lack of setting. We could (and did) travel anywhere.

...Which led to a huge amount of Exploration, which is one of my favorite components in a game.

There were cool little "obscure" bits to the game to exploit. Like how characters built up "bad karma", like dangerous or even potentially fatal negative XP. Or how high int characters were lucky. Or numerous other little quirks of the system.

And there's probably lots of other reasons, too.

[the OOD]

DUNGEONS THE DRAGONING 40,000 7th edition!!!!

mashup of WH40K, Mass Effect, White Wolf, Exalted, Planescape, Spelljammer, D&D, Borderlands, MtG, WH40K, Scion, Evangelion, and more, this system is the most explosively awesome RPG I have ever played.
the stories from this game cannot be done justice by me, but the link is in my sig, go look for yourself.
try reading it without deciding to play, I dare you.

[Lentrax]

High School Harem Comedy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290243-High-School-Harem-Comedy-(Game-System-PEACH)). Developed right here on this forum.