Very often when you are plan for games you keep going on what you already know and in a sense that is good but doing so you miss out on other system that might be better than those you already knows.

Me too often fall back on DnD when playing fantasy and I'm looking for other systems for that. The setting I'm after would be a more "free" feel to it than DnD 5th Ed rather rigid setting. I'm thinking more in the style of what burning wheel or dungeon world pulls out. Ok now I don't like Dungeon World as that has a too non-rigid feel about it... So again I ask, any suggestions?

I will admit, I don't know much about Burning Wheel or Dungeon World, but...

Anima: Beyond Fantasy - Highly open system where most anything can be built. The character generation is a bit... complicated, but once you get past that, it's a great system.

Exalted - It can be a trainwreck learning the system, an uphill trainwreck, but it's a very fun system with plenty of options.

Houses of the Blooded - A nearly-diceless system with the best rulebook I've ever read. It's simple to learn, and easy to play, but it's got a very different feeling that most systems. You play HotB to lose spectacularly, not to win, so it's not for everyone.

Iron Kingdoms - A fun and fairly simple system, but I'm not certain if it would be more or less open than DnD in your eyes. Character generation is very simple and straightforward, and I would personally call it open, but I can easily see how one might call it rigid. I can offer more details if you like, but suffice it to say it could be very hit or miss.

I'm led to understand that the following systems are also very open, but have no experience with them whatsoever:

-Savage Worlds
-GURPS
-Palladium (not certain if this is one game or several)
-FATE

I'd offer some other suggestions, but I don't know that they'd fit what you're looking for.

I tend toward Pathfinder (which I doubt you'd like as it's in the vein of DnD) and Savage Worlds for fantasy.

Savage Worlds does a certain lower powered "feel" of fantasy really well but it doesn't do "epic" fantasy, at least not without 3rd party stuff (Savage Suzerain for instance).

Thanks for that list I will check them out :).

As for Palladium, I have played that quite much and it is one game or a game system I should point out and it is the fantasy version of Rifts for those that doesn't know (and if it is not then my memory is worse than I thought as it is more than... 20 years since I played it).

I love Exalted and can't wait for 3rd edition.

GURPS... one system I have never played, is that good or?

A good question to ask to put context around your request would be: do you prefer a tactical combat focus or a more re story based game?   Some systems are definitely more suited to one or the other.

Story, not so much about ROLLplaying but ROLEplaying.

I've played in some Living Force games where we, while using a d20 system, didn't roll a single die all evening.

I tried Burning Wheel once...my big complaint with it is the heavy focus on creating a group at the outset (in all fairness, that may have been the GM's bias creeping in, as he was adamant about avoiding any sort of redundancy in the party).  The problem was, when we had the inevitable player drop-outs occur, it was really difficult to integrate new players...so the game never really got off the ground.

Experiences like that have made me a fan of simple systems...I appreciate, for instance, the almost infinite adaptability of GURPS, but the lqst time I built a character for it, it was an hours-long process.  Burning Wheel wan even worse--it probably would be much simpler in a tabletop setting, where everyone can confer real-time, but in a PBP environment, it took weeks to put the party together.Palladium wasn't as arduous, but I'm not a fan of level-based character advancement so it has some fundamental issues, for me.  It's been decades since I played D&D of any stripe, but my favorite is still AD&D, the (sort of) original edition...enough rules to do most stuff without so much minutiae that building a character became more trouble than it was worth (for me).

Outside of that, I don't have much experience with fantasy systems (published ones, at least...a couple of my friends did home-brewed fantasy games that I thoroughly enjoyed...)

That's your GM's.  Good GM's know whatever system they're running well enough to say, "What do you want to be good at?"  Then whatever you answer, they spend 2 minutes and build you a character that does that.  If you're not sure, they give a few areas, ask what you want to specialize in, then build you a character that specializes in that.

"You want to be strong and hit stuff?  Ok, Half-orc Barbarian."

"You want to be strong and use magic?  Ok, Troll Shaman."

"You want to be a spy and snipe stuff?  Ok, Disciplined Contract Professional Sniper."

"You want to be a Jedi?  Ok, human paladin with..."

(I tried to use different systems that I've named recently in this forum for those.)

Customizing your own character is for when you're experienced enough with the system to know what's useful or what's cool and what's both, or neither.  "+8 to reading?  That's useful, right?"  "Dude, it's a Call of Cthulhu game, it might be better if you can't read at all." ;)
This message was last edited by the user at 14:35, Mon 25 Jan 2016.

It's not all the GM...some of my dislike for some of the systems I listed came from the gameplay, as well as character generation (BW being the unmistakable exception to that, since the one game I tried didn't last long enough to get a handle on gameplay.)

Wuich is not to downplay the value if a good GM.  A good GM can take a barely-tolerable system and make it enjoyable, and a bad GM can make a fun system absolute agony to play.  But some systems have different appeal, which is part of the reason for the proliferation...someone looks at System X and says, 'I like the feel they create for this and this, but there's gotta be a better way to do that and that.'  Or they feel like certain parts of other systems are pointless distractions and do away with them altogether.  Some build systems to streamline all but a couple of key aspects of the game, while others revel in fleshing out as many details as possible.

However, an assessment of any system as superior to another is purely a personal opinion.  What works for one player may or may not work well for another, which is why I specifically stated my assessments in terms of 'my opinion' or 'my experience'.  While I didn't care much for Burning Wheel, for instance, others have obviously enjoyed it greatly...otherwise, the GM that created the game I tried would have gone with another system for that game.  Just because it didn't work for me doesn't mean that it doesn't work at all.

But explaining my experience with the systems gives others a frame of reference...things to be aware of if they're considering tryingthe system out, or a description that someone whose experience was better (or worse) than mine can address and use as a jumping-off point to discuss their experience.

Check out Green Ronin's Fantasy Age. Its 3d6 vs target number. Not really a solid setting for it. Its built off of the game that powered Dragon Age.

I can endorse GURPS for fantasy at any level from low and gritty to seriously epic.  Feel free to ask questions.

I seriously have to endorse the BRP (Basic Role Playing)system. There are no real classes, If your stats say you can cast spells (and your GM allows) you have the option of casting spells, You do not want spells? don't have to take em.

The game is extremely easy to pick up, simply roll against your skill to pass/fail (d100 based). No "Take 10" no "High is good here but bad here" and (imho) no "Ohh your all of a sudden a higher level and you can take more damage than an hour ago"

To me the BRP system pushes people more towards the storytelling over the EXP gain.

I wonder if that was my friend's jumping-off point for home-brewing his fantasy game...it sounds very similar, but I think he said he used a Star Trek game for his preliminary inspiration.  I'm not sure, it's only been twenty-five years since we talked about it and that was in passing...but he'd been playing his game for ages, at that point (he developed it while he was in the Air Force...I got to know him after he'd been medically discharged and going to school for a few years, so...)

But, yes...at the point I was introduced to his game, I'd only ever really played D&D (mostly AD&D, we moved out of the Basic and Expert stuff pretty quickly after I started playing)...and that was the point at which I realized how much I didn't like level-based character advancement.  *grin*  So I guess you could consider this a 'Yeah, try that system' reply, even though I haven't ever officially played that system.

Pendragon and Middle Earth are good.
And there's some good looking retro-D&D clones that attempt to replicate the best parts of the early editions.
The Tunnels and Trolls and Fighting Fantasy systems adapted from the gamebooks are pretty streamlined, from memory.

Dare you to use F.A.T.A.L..
Roll for anal circumference!
I'm not kidding, there's a chart for that.

Earthdawn!

It's not just an obsessive reflex. Earthdawn is mechanical - I wouldn't actually say crunchy, but it's not ... 'Story driven'. What it does do that is awesome and makes it worth my time on this thread, is take everything about D&D and integrate it into the world to make sense. You don't just suddenly go up a level that your character is totally unaware of and magically you're harder to kill and have a while new ability you didn't have this morning. You actually magically go up a level (which your character would call advancing to the next Circle), and you actually magically improve your durability and actually magically have access to new abilities because they are part of your Discipline (aka class).  The story and mechanics in Earthdawn entwine and support eact other beautifully, and that is what makes it more story based than D&D... Without losing the basic mechanical underpinnings that you do seem to like.

Tunnels & Trolls also just put out a new edition... I've heard good things. And there is a "mechanics-lite" Earthdawn by, um.. Vagrant something. I haven't seen it, though.