The other week I posted an article about one of the current “conversations” around 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, specifically how it’s “easy mode” and how not every game needs to be run in 5th Edition. This second point does have some merit to it, as there are certain types of games and themes that may not necessarily translate the best to the high heroic fantasy nature of DND. Now, in the post I came down hard on the side of minding your own table and letting other people play whatever the hell they want to play.
That said, I would be remiss in not bringing up some other options for you if you’re looking for something in the same genre as Dungeons and Dragons but feel like switching up the mechanics or style of play.
AGE System – Green Ronin Publishing
Years ago, Green Ronin Publishing scored the rights to Bioware’s massively popular Dragon Age IP and created an homage to old school roleplaying with their boxed sets (and eventual full release) of the Dragon Age Roleplaying Game. It offered a simple to learn system that still offered player options and narrative flexibility through the Stunt System. Several years after the release of this game, they offered the setting agnostic Fantasy AGE, a way to use the system in a more “traditional” fantasy setting. Using three basic classes (the Warrior, the Rogue, and the Mage) to build your character, you further refine him through picking focuses and talents that give you bonuses to different tasks as well as granting you special abilities that other characters don’t or focus on different types of magic. It’s a very simple system to pick up and there are a number of releases that get better and better with each release including the Fantasy AGE Companion that greatly expands on character options and Fantasy AGE Lairs that includes fantastic new uses for the games Stunt System. And if fantasy isn’t your jam, they also offer Modern AGE, which is a classless version of the base game recalibrated for a more modern kind of game.
7th Sea Second Edition – Chaosium
Originally published by John Wick after a massively successful Kickstarter, the rights to 7th Sea unfortunately had to be sold off after John Wick Productions ran into financial difficulties and laid off most of their staff. That said, this is still a wonderful, if non-traditional, fantasy game that lets you do a lot. Set in a fictional world that isn’t at all a fantasy version of our world (and specifically Europe) during the Age of Sail, 7th Sea allows you to be the swashbuckling hero that you’ve always wanted to be, swinging from chandeliers and fighting nefarious masterminds who seek to gain power for themselves. Or maybe you wish to play a horror game where monsters created by a recent war continue to make life difficult for the citizens recovering from the war. Or maybe you want to live out your Jack Sparrow fantasies and play a pirate or privateer on the open sea. Or maybe you want to do courtly intrigue where the battlefields are great balls and the weapons are rumors and secrets. Or maybe you want to brave the unknown and explore far-off lands or the ruins of the setting’s antediluvian people, the Syrneth. You can do all of this in 7th Sea, even in the same campaign. It’s a very robust system that is designed for quick action around the concept of the players being the stars of the show and the same basic mechanic powers everything within the game and does so quite well. That said it’s not your traditional fantasy, and you have to be up for its certain type of flavor, but when I’m hungry for that kind of game, I don’t find much that satisfies quite as well.
Tiny Dungeon – Gallant Knight Games
Maybe you’re in the mood for traditional fantasy, but you don’t want all the bells and whistles that come with a big game like Dungeons and Dragons or one of the other games on this list. Look no further than Tiny Dungeon – run on the Tinyd6 engine, this game is incredibly rules light and offers a quick play experience with minimal rules to get in the way of your game. At the same time the game offers an impressive level of customization for your character and packs a lot of useful things for the gamemaster to help them run the most successful game possible. There’s not much more to say about this game, but that you should absolutely check it out.
Realms of Pugmire – Onyx Path Publishing
Okay, okay. So this is *technically* an OGL product for 5e, but I love it too much to not put it on this list. If you’ve known me for any amount of time, this should come as no shock. Pugmire is a post-human setting where animals that were previously uplifted by mankind have formed a medieval society that looks and plays like a traditional fantasy game, except you’re playing dogs and cats (or birds or lizards or rodents). It can be played silly or it can be played serious and the themes of companionship and discovery serve both kinds of games. It’s also not as deep and intricate as standard 5th Edition, only supporting play up to level 10. But the game does offer an array of character options through the use of talent trees that you select from when you increase in level instead of simply gaining set abilities. It’s 5th Edition if that game were passed through a translator and then back to your native language – the mechanics are recognizable, but the dressing is different.
These are just a few of the fantasy games out there that I have experience with that you can explore if you’re finding that 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons isn’t scratching quite the same itch as it used to or you’re simply looking to expand your horizons. There are plenty more out there, so don’t be afraid to experiment.
Ben Erickson
