Help me find a non-OGL system

[PhoenixPhyre]

In the wake of the (very likely) changes to the OGL which are utterly repugnant to me personally (this is not the place to debate those changes), I'm looking to transition away from D&D 5e to something entirely non-OGL. But I'm not nearly as familiar with other systems as I'd like.

Hard Requirements
* Non-OGL. This excludes anything Paizo.
* Fantasy
* Simple action resolution, preferably fixed dice (no dice pools or counting successes).
* Limited, if any, meta-currencies/meta-currency economy. I want players mostly thinking in character terms, not in narrative terms.
* Either not bound to a specific setting or extremely easy to alter the setting.
* Easy to homebrew for. These last two are 80% of the fun I have as a GM.
* Easy to learn (for players).

Soft requirements
* Lower on the power scale. More like levels 1-10 of D&D 5e than like Exalted.
* Not horrifically imbalanced.
* Class/level, not build-a-bear.
* Free, or at least cheap. $30 for all the materials is fine, multiple $50 books, not so much.

Ones I've looked at and rejected already
* Savage Worlds. The crunch is all in the wrong spot for me, personally.
* FF d6. Not only does this use the OGL, but from the reviews the balance is all sorts of borked and the power level is way too high. This is a soft rejection.
* PbtA anything. I strongly hate the style.

[DeTess]

Icon might be interesting? I haven't played it, but I did play the other system from the same publisher (which is sci-fi), and as I understand icon uses some of the same design principles, which might work for you. The playtest document is available for free here: https://massif-press.itch.io/icon

edit: looking over it, it might be too high on the power scale. Tenra Bansho Zero is a bit lower on the power scale (for the most part), but it has more meta currencies, and it's setting is a bit of a weird fantasy/sci-fi blend where you've got traditiona samurai fighting side by side with mechs and the like.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Research log:
* Downloaded ICON and looked through it. Dice pools, which I'm not a fan of. Also quite...loose? Not sure if that's the right word. But feels very narrative-focused. Still a possibility though.
* Downloaded Worlds Without Number and looked through it casually. A possibility, although way too many skills and I prefer more class features rather than build a bear "feat-likes". Also no racial/species/whatever stuff, which is kinda important for my setting. I'd have to retrofit that back in. Not sure I like the mix of "d20 + mods >= TN" for attacks and "d20 roll under TN" for saves...

[Theoboldi]

Research log:
* Downloaded ICON and looked through it. Dice pools, which I'm not a fan of. Also quite...loose? Not sure if that's the right word. But feels very narrative-focused. Still a possibility though.
* Downloaded Worlds Without Number and looked through it casually. A possibility, although way too many skills and I prefer more class features rather than build a bear "feat-likes". Also no racial/species/whatever stuff, which is kinda important for my setting. I'd have to retrofit that back in. Not sure I like the mix of "d20 + mods >= TN" for attacks and "d20 roll under TN" for saves...

Just wanna point out, there are racial stats in Worlds Without Kumber, you can find them in the bestiary throughout and especially under demihumans where it gives several generic ones to flesh out non-Gyre settings.

Essentially, they're just special foci that you can take at first level to give your characters their race-specific bonuses.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Just wanna point out, there are racial stats in Worlds Without Kumber, you can find them in the bestiary throughout and especially under demihumans where it gives several generic ones to flesh out non-Gyre settings.

Essentially, they're just special foci that you can take at first level to give your characters their race-specific bonuses.

Hmm. That makes that easier then.

[animorte]

This may be a good thread to look for other systems in general. I'm certainly following it. I'm also not particularly fond of dice pools.

* Downloaded Worlds Without Number and looked through it casually.

This was the very first thought I had, as I recently discovered it several months ago and opened up a thread about it. The resolution system works, the power level is reasonable, definitely fantasy.

The difference between you and I is the build-a-bear structure and I realize WWN is a bit more suited to my tastes in that regard.

Have you seen Grod_the_Giant's Stars system? I haven't had the opportunity to do much more than a casual look through it myself. (I'll grab the link if you'd like.)

[KorvinStarmast]

Have you looked at the cypher system?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Have you looked at the cypher system?

That's numenara (spelling?), right? I've glanced through the core book a long time ago, but don't remember it in any detail.

[Algeh]

Are you specifically looking for a new system that has a similar license and third party product availability to the 1.0 OGL? Or are you just looking for a clean break and not concerned about whether the system you move to has a defined structure for 3rd party products?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Are you specifically looking for a new system that has a similar license and third party product availability to the 1.0 OGL? Or are you just looking for a clean break and not concerned about whether the system you move to has a defined structure for 3rd party products?

As long as it's not actively hostile to (non-commercial) homebrew, I don't really care. I don't plan on publishing anything for pay, just freedom to homebrew and run custom settings without clammy corporate fingers demanding my work and threatening to sue if I don't tow their lion[1].

[1] an in joke from another forum.

[Telok]

Basic Role Play, the foundation of the CoC system trimmed & fantasy-ized.

Mythras, Rolemaster, Bloodshadows (aimed at a sort of "Shadowrun but in the 1920's" vibe but you just drop the guns and cars to go full fantasy), Gurps (it's a tool box, just keep to two or three fantasy books), Tunnels & Trolls, Fantasy Trip, Strange Tales of Songling, Forbidden Lands (Free League Games), Vaesan, Mork Borg (it's a comedy game, I swear), Atlantis The Second Age (Morrigan Press), Palladium, Pendragon, Arcanum ( 30th Anniversary Edition) Paranoia: Troubleshooters (just drop tech and patch in your preferred fantasy armor & weapons & skills), Cadillacs & Dinosaurs...

Look, there's a "character a day" thing going on this month across a bunch of forums. Just trawl through one untill you see something interesting.

[ngilop]

List of non OGL fantasy games I have played

Earthdawn
GURPS
Blood & Bronze
Legends of the Five Rings
Rune Quest
Burning Wheel
The One Ring
MERP
Warhammer Fantasy
D6 Fantasy

[Bohandas]

I've heard good things about GURPS

[Satinavian]

I assume "available in English" is another hard requirement ?

[Anonymouswizard]

Have you looked at the cypher system?

Ah Cypher. I really want to love it, but it has issues. Like, Adepts don't fit into the structure the other Types create, at least partially because once you move out of Numenera they lose a big part of their skill set (they were the dedicated technologists, hence the additional cyphers). Honestly the generic version probably works better with just Warriors, Explorers, and Speakers, especially with the addition of flavours (which literally has a 'uses magic powers' option).

Honestly it's mostly interesting because it's a resource management game with a randomiser.


Anyway, 'fantasy' is a broad genre. So as a slightly less'forever system ' recommendation:

Ryuutama, mainly because it's fairly cheap and an intentionally very different kind of fantasy to D&D. Pretty much every check is rolling two dice determined by your stats and adding them together, the gameplay is based around going on journeys, and it feels a bit more whimsical. On the potential downside there is a GMPC as an inherent part of the game.

[Pauly]

Barbarians of Lemuria. Available online for free for the old edition. Set in a Conan-esque kind of world and super easy to mod.

I’m bot sure how hard your ‘fantasy’ requirement is, but Call of Cthulhu is a very good game with fantasy/horror elements. The default 1920s setting is far enough away in time to be as good as fantasy for modern gamers.

The new Conan RPG looks good, but I haven’t played it. Hyborea is basically a mixed up jumble of things that became fantasy tropes so I believe it should be easy to cut it loose from the setting.

[Satinavian]

Just remembered that Dungeonslayers might fulfill your requirements. There should even be some old English version around somewhere.

[KorvinStarmast]

Basic Role Play, the foundation of the CoC system trimmed & fantasy-ized.

Mythras, Rolemaster, Bloodshadows (aimed at a sort of "Shadowrun but in the 1920's" vibe but you just drop the guns and cars to go full fantasy), Gurps (it's a tool box, just keep to two or three fantasy books), Tunnels & Trolls, Fantasy Trip, Strange Tales of Songling, Forbidden Lands (Free League Games), Vaesan, Mork Borg (it's a comedy game, I swear), Atlantis The Second Age (Morrigan Press), Palladium, Pendragon, Arcanum ( 30th Anniversary Edition) Paranoia: Troubleshooters (just drop tech and patch in your preferred fantasy armor & weapons & skills), Cadillacs & Dinosaurs...

T&T's exploding-dice-on-a-triple system probably doesn't fit Phoneix's needs. (I play in his setting, we discuss homebrews and balance with some frequency) Rolemaster is d100 based. IIRC, so is Runequest and Basic RP system. (I have a pdf of that somewhere).

Earthdawn

Isn't that related to another game system - Shadowrun?
I've never played it, but I think it might fit into the general theme of Quartus.

The rules of the game are tightly bound to the underlying magical metaphysics, with the goal of creating a rich, logical fantasy world. Like many role-playing games from the nineties, Earthdawn focuses much of its detail on its setting, a province called Barsaive. It was also originally written as a prequel to Shadowrun, mirroring its setting of returning magic with one where magic has just recently dropped from its peak. However, after Shadowrun was licensed out to a different publisher the ties between the two were deliberately severed (See Setting) and remain so

[caden_varn]

You could look at Genesys from fantasy flight games. It's the generic version of the FFG star wars system. You only need the core book to run it, although it looks like it haa some supplements out now.
I suspect it may fall foul of the dice pool issue though - the dice mechanic is a bit more complex than most, with different types of dice for skills, difficulty etc.
Not OGL, not aware of any specific licensing requirements

Iron Kingdoms (privateer press) may also be worth a look, although it's probably a bit hard to divorce from it's setting which is more -clockwork punk? It certainly has guns as a prominent part of the setting (& steamjacks (robots to you & me), but these are easier to remove than the guns.

Is Dangerous Journeys available in PDF anywhere? It's old & out of print, but was written by Gygax when he left TSR. Fantasy, setting is Aerth, which is mediaeval Earth with A in front of a lot of the country names . It's a bit complex on the chargen side if you use the advanced rules, but plays pretty fast from what I remember. Don't think it was class based though, but the char gen was more dice roll controlled than choices from what I remember. Soooo out of print that I cannot think you'd have any issues with licensing.

[PhoenixPhyre]

T&T's exploding-dice-on-a-triple system probably doesn't fit Phoneix's needs. (I play in his setting, we discuss homebrews and balance with some frequency) Rolemaster is d100 based. IIRC, so is Runequest and Basic RP system. (I have a pdf of that somewhere).
Isn't that related to another game system - Shadowrun?
I've never played it, but I think it might fit into the general theme of Quartus.

d100 based isn't a fundamental issue as long as it's simple.

The issue with Earthdawn is that it's tightly coupled to a single metaphysics. And that's something that's a hard no for me--messing with the metaphysics is a substantial chunk of my enjoyment.

[Ashtagon]

Fighting Fantasy might be up your alley. Arion Games is the current licence holder.

[Telok]

I’m bot sure how hard your ‘fantasy’ requirement is, but Call of Cthulhu is a very good game with fantasy/horror elements. The default 1920s setting is far enough away in time to be as good as fantasy for modern gamers.

Heck, earlier this week I pulled out the CoC Dreamlands setting suppliment and rolled a native of the Dreamlands who is a full on fantasy character including being a sky-galleon pilot. Write your own spells, import your fave setting, and run a gritty* fantasy game.

* the combat is potentially rather more lethal without hp scaling if you stupidly forget to dodge or parry. But you could super easy mod in classes to replace the default skill-by-use advancement, and just tack a few extra hp on at the end.

[Anonymouswizard]

Fighting Fantasy might be up your alley. Arion Games is the current licence holder.

I think he asked for an RPG, not a gamebook

But yeah, Advanced Fighting Fantasy is pretty rad. It's basically the system from the gamebooks with a bit of randomised damage and Skill being broken up a bit. Plus the space opera spinoff includes species design rules, so you can play truly bizarre things if you want.

Just note that elves get access to minor magic by default, and that minor magic gets a +6 to casting (allowing for viable mage builds with low Magic but decent Skill). A party can be pretty magical if they desire to be.

[BRC]

Bundle of Holding seems like it might have a good list for you

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/NonOGLFantasy

[PhoenixPhyre]

Bundle of Holding seems like it might have a good list for you

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/NonOGLFantasy

Thanks!

That'll give me a starting point. And at ~$30, that fits my "cheap" criteria.

[Easy e]

Romance of the Perilous Lands by Osprey maybe in line with what you are looking for.

[animorte]

Bundle of Holding seems like it might have a good list for you

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/NonOGLFantasy

That's brilliant actually. 6+ days left on the deal.

[NichG]

Any reason not to write a custom system from scratch or use a custom-written system by someone else? Does it have to have purchaseable books? If the main issue is worries over licensing, this is in some sense the safest thing to do, and if you're going to want to customize 80% of the system anyhow...

[PhoenixPhyre]

Any reason not to write a custom system from scratch or use a custom-written system by someone else? Does it have to have purchaseable books? If the main issue is worries over licensing, this is in some sense the safest thing to do, and if you're going to want to customize 80% of the system anyhow...

I am actually noodling through a custom system...but that requires effort. And effort is hard. There's a reason I've more or less stayed "stock" (core system at least) on D&D 5e--I add lots of homebrew content, but very few actual houserules.

[Local_Jerk]

In the wake of the (very likely) changes to the OGL which are utterly repugnant to me personally (this is not the place to debate those changes), I'm looking to transition away from D&D 5e to something entirely non-OGL. But I'm not nearly as familiar with other systems as I'd like.

Hard Requirements
* Non-OGL. This excludes anything Paizo.

I don't get it. What's the point of this?