Recommendations for a game to run in a weird fantasy setting?

#1

Our Dungeon World game has got to a place where the PCs are planning to make their way into another realm altogether and I am contemplating switching game for the new location as it would be fun for some of the mechanics to fit the new setting more directly.

They are going to be in a more magical, less fixed, realm. A place where they can’t die, but they are at risk of losing strands of themselves or having those replaced. The game will be more about questing and journey than about building a community ( as far as I know! ) and will be more about forging their way through the world than interpersonal drama within the party.

I would probably aim to stick with a PbtA of post-PbtA type of game ( I like The Veil’s roll+feelings mechanic but this is definitely a fantasy rather than cyberpunk setting ) although I’m open to other ideas if there’s something from another family that would work well. The setting is our own and we’ll be building it out in play, so a game that ties itself too closely to a specific setting won’t work well - even if it could be hacked to fit, that might take more time than I have.

We could stick with Dungeon World, but I feel like this situation doesn’t lend itself to HP and maybe something with a Take Harm type move would work better.

Any suggestions for something that would fit?

#2

I don’t know it well, but Fellowship might be a good fit?

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#3

It was on my radar but I hadn’t thought about it for this, thanks for the suggestion!

#4

Maybe some UltraViolet Grasslands? Something like that?

If you like crunchy games I think Numenera is weird sci-fantasy?

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#5

Lowell Francis (@edige23) has run a fantasy hack of The Veil that he reports good results from! Check out this blog post and this podcast for more!

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#6

Low crunch is better as we’re running the campaign as an AP and I’m better as an inventive storyteller GM than a crunchy number-juggling one who has to plan a long way ahead. I think Numenera is a bit explicitly end-of-time, but seems like the Cypher system suits strange settings, I know it was used for something based on the Vurt books.

I’ll look into Ultraviolet Grasslands, thank you.

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#7

This sounds very interesting - I know there is also Ryne but that is a little incomplete, I have a copy and it’s certainly something I’ve got on the list.

#8

There’s a new game called METAL WORLD: THE ROUGH CUT. It’s a pay-what-you-want title on DrivethruRPG.

The premise is that you’re in a world of the weirdest contorted fantasies that come from heavy metal music tropes. So you can pretty much take your band of adventurers into some really odd spaces.

#9

Seconding Fellowship. It’s designed to do non-Tolkien fantasy really well despite the name and playbook names. I’ve found it helpful to rename the playbooks to make them less obvious, and people are more apt to go crazy with their descriptions.

Dwarf > Mercenary

Elf > Traveler

Halfling > Scoundrel

Orc > Brute

Everything else works as-is.

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#10

I must recommend Troika. It’s got weird fantasy coming out of its ears.

The rules are straightforward (if you can play DW you can play this).

It handles weird spells and strange characters really well, and gives you a lot of cool inspiration as well.

I made a simple character-generator here with over 150 different classes: https://technicalgrimoire.com/troikagenerator

That gives you a good sense of what you’re in for.

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