If it’s a PbtA please expand on your system of choice!
I’ll start:
I really enjoyed Sexy Battle Wizards, but I think The Witch is Dead speaks to me more. I like player characters just being little weak dudes and struggling against normal stuff. (both of these are free by grant howitt and 1 page of rules)
I also enjoyed rude detectives, it has a surprisingly juicy dice system for a game that’s just 4-5 pages. It’s themed around child detective stories.
PbtA I like magpies stuff, like avatar and root, but my favorite until now was Fellowship 2e I think. Just so extremely versatile, and it’s a joy to give a lot of narrative control to players.
Last one is kinda cheating: my current favorite game is rules light within it’s genre. 13th Age is the easiest ‘dnd’ I’ve ever seen, and the amount of dumb rules and bookkeeping it prunes has reinvigorated 20f games for me! But compared to other games, it’s still a bunch of rules of course.
Ironsworn is one of the lightest systems I enjoy, it’s on the crunchy end of PbtA. Lots of moves so you don’t have to rely on Defy Danger that much when doing some perilous adventuring. Novel way of handling “clocks” with their own set of moves. And fully support Co-op and solo play which also ads some moves.
Blades in the Dark is lighter but I don’t quite make the setting work for me, its awesomeness have yet to click for me. Its mechanics though - chef’s kiss.
@tissek @GataZapata I don’t think you can call Blades (or Wicked Ones, mentioned below) rules light. It’s core mechanic is super simple, yes, and has inspired lots of lightweight hacks. But Blades has soooo much tacked onto it that it almost feels like a board game to me in the sense that there are just so many moving pieces, and stages of play, and faction play, etc: it feels like a collection of mini-games sometimes.
I played starforged, I think that’s the same in space. Been meaning to read and run it ever since but you know how it is…
Especially the solo play the intrigues me.
I steal from the roll tables for that for the games though hehe.
Base ironsworn is free BTW as far as I know, for anyone reading
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Blades is one of the most often hacked games… There is an entire section on drive thru rpgs for “forged in the dark” games with different settings. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=100226_0_0_0_0&src=fid100226
I know… I just need to find the time and space to delve properly into it. Wicked Ones is already high on my reading list, Band of Blades sure does interest me. Time though…
Wicked ones is excellent! I had a lot of fun with it. Have the hardback physical and love the game.
@GataZapata @tissek @rhythmicotter although IT feels to me that Wicked Ones is a crunchier FitD. Still a great Game. We had way too much fun with it.
I liked the magic system. I made like a haunted ghost spirit to keep the place we were going to raid up at night, just coming through the ceiling and bleating in the night. It gave me just enough guidance to be really fun for me while seeming super free form as the shaman (I think)
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