Looking for a new RPG

[Maquise]

I've had an idea for a type of RPG I'd like to play, but don't know what games meet the criteria. Here's the type of game I would like to play:

• Medieval Fantasy setting.
• Heavy Emphasis on martial combat
• Characters are affluent, and have many resources from the start
• Characters develope over the course of the game, not necessarily more powerfully. As they gain experience, they also gain hindrances
• Magic is rare, but world-changing. When the players decide to use it, it is costly, but can completely change the course of the adventure.
• Although combat is well-developed, the game is driven by story, and character goals.

Basically, I'm looking for a game that would run a story like A Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, as opposed to the more typical DND-type adventure. Bonus points if it is easy to acquire and find people who play it.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

It's pretty tightly tied to its source material, but have you heard of Pendragon? You play as King Arthur's knights, going on quests and grappling with the drama caused by your character's legendary virtues and vices.

[Beta Centauri]

Fate. You can emphasize the combat as much as you want. I don't know what you mean by combat being "well-developed" but I expect there are Extras that will do what you want.

[Maquise]

It's pretty tightly tied to its source material, but have you heard of Pendragon? You play as King Arthur's knights, going on quests and grappling with the drama caused by your character's legendary virtues and vices.

I haven't, but it sounds very interesting looking at it. Could you break it down for me a little?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I haven't, but it sounds very interesting looking at it. Could you break it down for me a little?

Yeah! So, to start with, it's got a very novel setup. Each year, your knight has an adventure--which generally corresponds to an adventure path or module in D&D. As you adventure, and do deeds worth renown, you begin to accumulate Glory, which is how you remember your character's great deeds. (The catch, though, is that you don't get that Glory right away! It goes into a sort of temporary buffer.) Then the seasons pass, and it's winter.

Winter is when you reap the Glory that you earned that year. Your knight also increases their skills, gets to see what happens with their home, might possibly lose points in attributes due to aging, and maybe even gets married or witnesses the birth of heirs to their family! That last bit is important: because of a character's aging, they'll get to an age where they're not fit to go out and adventure. (They might even die on an adventure!) When that happens, you get to play their heir! You can keep the story going from generation to generation if you wish.

Character-wise, your knight has some neat stuff: they have Passions which spur them to act accordingly, such as particular vendettas against people. They also have Traits which they must sometimes resist--a knight may have to avoid giving in to their Proud trait when they are insulted, or perhaps their Merciful trait compells them to help a suspicious figure.

All-told, it's a very detailed game that's had a lot of love put into it. It's also the only game I know of which has a campaign that spans eighty years in the game-world!

[Maquise]

It's pretty tightly tied to its source material, but have you heard of Pendragon? You play as King Arthur's knights, going on quests and grappling with the drama caused by your character's legendary virtues and vices.

Yeah! So, to start with, it's got a very novel setup. Each year, your knight has an adventure--which generally corresponds to an adventure path or module in D&D. As you adventure, and do deeds worth renown, you begin to accumulate Glory, which is how you remember your character's great deeds. (The catch, though, is that you don't get that Glory right away! It goes into a sort of temporary buffer.) Then the seasons pass, and it's winter.

Winter is when you reap the Glory that you earned that year. Your knight also increases their skills, gets to see what happens with their home, might possibly lose points in attributes due to aging, and maybe even gets married or witnesses the birth of heirs to their family! That last bit is important: because of a character's aging, they'll get to an age where they're not fit to go out and adventure. (They might even die on an adventure!) When that happens, you get to play their heir! You can keep the story going from generation to generation if you wish.

Character-wise, your knight has some neat stuff: they have Passions which spur them to act accordingly, such as particular vendettas against people. They also have Traits which they must sometimes resist--a knight may have to avoid giving in to their Proud trait when they are insulted, or perhaps their Merciful trait compells them to help a suspicious figure.

All-told, it's a very detailed game that's had a lot of love put into it. It's also the only game I know of which has a campaign that spans eighty years in the game-world!

Looks about exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for, except maybe with more options to develop a new setting. Still, I will try to get ahold of it.

Any other options?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Yeah, that's the trick with Pendragon--it does Arthurian stories very well. It doesn't do much else.

Burning Wheel would hit most of your points, and could be run to hit all of them, I think...hmm.

[Kaun]

Maybe The Burning Wheel?

Edit: I just noticed Carpe mentioned this already

I don't have an immense amount of experience with the system. But in saying that, it is meant to hit more of the points you have listed then any other game i can think of.

wow that took like 6 edits. I need way more coffees.

[aspekt]

You might have a look at Reign and Ars Magica (the previous edition, 4th is free on drivethrurpg).

Reign is generic medieval fantasy rules so good options for developing your own setting.

Ars Magica is set in medieval Europe, but of course with magical elements.

They both have wider storytelling such as town building and intrigue elements and are worth looking into.

[hifidelity2]

I've had an idea for a type of RPG I'd like to play, but don't know what games meet the criteria. Here's the type of game I would like to play:

• Medieval Fantasy setting.
• Heavy Emphasis on martial combat
• Characters are affluent, and have many resources from the start
• Characters develope over the course of the game, not necessarily more powerfully. As they gain experience, they also gain hindrances
• Magic is rare, but world-changing. When the players decide to use it, it is costly, but can completely change the course of the adventure.
• Although combat is well-developed, the game is driven by story, and character goals.

Basically, I'm looking for a game that would run a story like A Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, as opposed to the more typical DND-type adventure. Bonus points if it is easy to acquire and find people who play it.

How about GURPS

its can do any setting - although its set up me "normal" Fantasy with just the basic book
You can give the characters any amount of property / cash at start via a free Advantages of Status / Wealth
You can tweek the XP system to do this and give extra Disadvantages of Enemies / Reputation etc
Magic can be as weak or powerful as you like*
The last point is up to the DM & Players


*I am running a low magic world in one of my campaigns -

[Knaight]

REIGN is ideal here. Contrary to Aspekt's description it isn't generic medieval fantasy, and does have a setting attached. However, it's fairly easy to remove the setting, and there's quite a bit to it that makes it ideal.

• It has the martial focus you want.
• What magic there is can be a very, very big deal (often involving long rituals).
• The big one: REIGN has an entire system for dealing with organizational conflicts, modeling large scale organizations (from a temple to a country), and having these conflicts be influenced by exceptional actions by the PCs.
• REIGN is a really good system for when the PCs are somewhere up in the ranks of these organizations, and can easily handle things like large groups of followers, intrigue, etc.
• Even the setting-specific flavor of REIGN has a whole bunch that basically says "this is a political fantasy game".

I also really, really like the core dice mechanic, so there's that.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Maybe The Burning Wheel?

Edit: I just noticed Carpe mentioned this already

I don't have an immense amount of experience with the system. But in saying that, it is meant to hit more of the points you have listed then any other game i can think of.

wow that took like 6 edits. I need way more coffees.

Yeah, here's my point-by-point breakdown.

Medieval fantasy setting: yep. This is the default in Burning Wheel, and it's baked into character creation itself, where you take a character through various paths of life.

Heavy emphasis on martial combat: hm, sorta. Combat is detailed, involved, mentally stimulating, and also painful. You don't want to get into a fight willy-nilly--you fight when you're really willing to risk getting crippled or wounded over it.

Affluent characters: ehm.......if you start characters off at an appropriate level of experience. The "default" character is not terribly rich at all, but you could make characters who were pretty rich, especially if you opted to focus on Noble lifepaths in the human setting. (Come to think of it, Dwarves can be pretty affluent as well.)

Developing skills and hindrances: sorta. Characters do slowly get more powerful, increasing various skills as they use them. But overall, it's nothing like the massive power ramp of D&D. In terms of hindrances, I don't recall much in the way of "aging" mechanics for Burning Wheel. However, every so often, players can vote to give characters traits, so if a group wanted to, they could definitely vote debilitating traits onto characters over time.

Rare, world-changing magic: not by default. There's a "sorcery" subsystem available to characters from the get-go. However, it's isolated to a small handful of character lifepaths, and it's definitely an optional component. What you could do instead is to say that Faith magic is the only magic that exists in the setting, and that the only level of Faith magic that can be used is minor miracles. That said, Burning Wheel (even with sorcery) isn't magic-heavy.

Story/character-driven: absolutely. Players develop Beliefs for their characters, which are ambitions, bonds with other player characters, and/or strong ethics. As these drive play, the characters earn reward points that can be used to improve rolls. And, if you consistently use those points on the same skills, you'll upgrade the quality of the skill. Burning Wheel has a way of drawing out character motivations to the forefront of the game.