My partner and I enjoy worldbuilding and we like bringing our world to different systems and seeing how our world looks and acts through the lens of that system.
For simplicity sake, imagine a typical fantasy setting. Elves, dwarves, orcs, magic, yadda. What would be your system of choice for playing in it?
If you don’t like your standard fantasy, obviously this question is not directed at you.
Bonus points if you tell me what you like about your chosen setting in relation to a fantasy setting.
My current game infatuation is Fate. It’s a general purpose game so you can use it for any setting. It’s not very crunchy, so you can delegate a lot of stuff to Aspects.
Can the elf talk to the trees? Well, his “Elf Prince of the Eldest Forest” aspect makes that plausible. The dwarf with his “Royal Gemcutter of Moria” not so much.
Of course, this is a very different mode of play than the “I took 3 levels of ranger and took ‘Speak With Plants’ as my 4th level special power” or whatever you’d find in a crunchier system.
Mouseguard. Everything’s of epic proportions when you’re a mouse.
Absent knowing anything else, and assuming most of the “usual” fantasy tropes are in place?
Either Savage Worlds, or Colville’s Draw Steel depending on how I feel and how my upcoming experimental play of the second one goes.
I really enjoy the flashback mechanic from Blades in the Dark. It’s a nice narrative mechanism that makes the player write a bit more of the story.
Aside from that, I’ve been playing Cyberpunk RED. It’d be fun to see the Interlock system in fantasy. I enjoy the focus on skills rather than levels - I could see some fun crunch around skills in different schools of magic and combining them for spells.
I quite like Monte Cook’s Cypher System for just about any setting. Fast, elegant rules with just the right amount of crunch to keep things interesting. It’s really easy to grasp and can be easily tailored to fit any setting. I also love how it uses a descriptive sentence instead of cookie-cutter character classes.