Playing Dragon Age without Dragon Age

[The Rose Dragon]

Basically, the question is, for anyone who played Origins or Dragon Age II, is which systems can I use to play Dragon Age, other than Dragon Age? Games other than patently silly ideas such as playing a game of MAID set in the Grand Cathedral of Val Royeaux, that is (which would not be that bad, actually).

[Severus]

a you-play-it book.

Page 1:

Alistair looks at you with big puppy eyes.

Do you flirt with him: go to page 4
Do you tell him to stop: go to page 8

page 4: Sexy time

page 8: Alistair looks sad. Go to page 1.

[Salanmander]

The 4e style system actually feels like it could catch the feel of dragon age mechanics fairly well. You definitely want to have everyone have access to abilities more powerful than their standard melee or ranged attack which have some sort of limited use mechanic (like cooldown, or a ToB/4e encounter power type thing).

[nyarlathotep]

• Dungeons and Dragons (primarily Tome of Battle and specialized* casters stuff),
• GURPs fantasy
• Play World of Darkness as all mortals (oWoD had a specific medieval setting not sure about nWoD)
• Warhammer Fantasy RPG
• Deadlands with quite a bit of work on the DM's part and banning gun related abilities or changing them to crossbows
• Hackmaster though it could get a bit bland compared to what you're requesting
• Ares Magica this would likely take a lot of work and not be as varied as you might like but still possible
• Warcraft d20 not exactly my cup of tea but it might work for you
• World of Warcraft RPG ditto

I might think of some more later but that's all I got off the top of my head.

*by which I mean things like warmages and dread necromancers

[Tavar]

Hero system might work. Another generic system like, from what I've heard at least, Gurps, but with a bit more focus, and more support for heroics in the core book. Designing powers and stuff seems pretty easy, as well.

[CubeB]

http://www.greenronin.com/dragon_age/?

...Oh, wait, derp. You didn't want to use that one.

Uh... True20. Mutants and Masterminds. Wushu...?

[Nero24200]

I'd probably second something similer to 4th Edition (though with stamina, mana and cool-down rather than encounter/at will). Maybe even with the option of learning more than 2 abilities of each type (since you can learn alot of abilities in dragon age. I have a 35th level rogue who knows all thw TWF tree, three full spec paths and 16 normal rogue abilities, so limiting characters to 2 abilities of each type might not capture the same feeling).

Three classes, specilisations are already built pretty well into 4E mechanics, it would still require a fair bit of homebrewing but the basic structure works.

[jguy]

I was actually working on homebrew rules for a Dragon Age campaign since its so well written. Several were

• Dwarves cannot be casters but gain SR equal to HD+6
• No half orcs exist. Orcs are Darkspawn along with goblins
• Paladins are the warders of the wizards. Gain some custom skills to reflect this.
• Two classes of elves, city and forest

The rest was just campaign rules and such. Never really finished it.

[Hawriel]

why not just get the dragons age RPG box set?

[The Rose Dragon]

why not just get the dragons age RPG box set?

Because the game is not complete yet. I am not going to buy it until all of the sets are released.

[obliged_salmon]

The game you want is Burning Wheel. It has elves, greedy dwarves, gritty combat, everything you need.