I'd like to see a game that's about normal run-of-the-mill 21st century folks from the real world thrown into a fantasy world trying to adapt to their new circumstances. And I don't mean "okay now pick a class and start hitting dungeons", I mean a game that focuses on the slow process of adaptation... learning new languages and customs, integrating, making new friends, making a life.

Making the choice to either cling to the values of a 21st century Earth that no longer exists, or to try and "go native" and adopt the worldview and attitudes of a new and very different culture.

I mean raiding dungeons and killing dragons (or whatever the setting's default adventure implication is) can certainly be a part, but playing out a realistically slow transition to a new and different reality should be a part of it.

It absolutely doesn't have to be heroic fantasy either; some kind of sci fi setting or time travel or whatever works as long as the players have to adapt and change to a new context. Ideally not a well known property (Forgotten Realms, Fall Out, Star Wars) so the players don't have that frame of reference, either.

Preferred system:
Top Tier: Fate. Accelerated or Core. The way Aspects shift over time works well for this, I think, as does the focus on who the characters are.

Mid Tier: GURPS, Champions, other crunch heavy simulationist systems. I don't really like crunch heavy.

Bottom Tier: DnD 5e, 0e, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Dungeon World or other PbtA games assume a good deal of competency at 1st level in your chosen class, so you'd have to significantly work against the system with some kind of 0-level cludge until the PCs have adapted. I mean, they'd work, but why go with a system you have to struggle against?

Anyway that's what I'm after, thanks.

Are you interested in a post-apocalyptic setting? In particular, a 'thinking-person's zombie game'.

This is not the usual shoot-em-up zombie deal (though there is some of that, of course), but it's more about normal folk adapting to the new world, trying to survive in a dangerous environment, and trying to figure out how to rebuild civilization - if that proves possible. There is also an element of mystery in how the zombie apocalypse came to be.

Yeah, that'd be cool, as long as the primary focus is on character development, and the post-apocalyptic world is different enough that trying to cling to who they used to be is a recipe for disaster.

Ideally the rest of the world has had the chance to change before the PCs reach it; say they've had a place of relative safety for a few months/years, a last bastion of civilization that maintained the illusion of the fallen world, but now they need to head forth into the zombie-haunted apocalypse and see how the rest of humanity has adapted.

Hmm, not sure if it would be a fit for you, our goal is to rebuild in the image of the old world, but pop in and take a look - no obligation. The game is suited to taking on new PCs at any time.
link to another game

Not really what I'm after, but thanks.

Bump

I like this theme, and I love FATE, but feel like I don't know the system well enough. If you are OK with me learning as I GM, I could probably do this.

Well, now it's a little awkward...

I'm interested in gm-ing it too, but I still don't have any practical experience with Fate, and I'm slow (2-3 posts a week max).

Still, I'm proposing Fate Accelerated (probably gonna go with Dresden File Accelerated for the magic/ritual rules if that come up) for up to 3 players. Characters would end up in Karthun: it checked almost every tropes for a standard high fantasy settings, but like Eberron, the level of (magical) technologies is probably closer to the 90's.

I would flag the game as mature because of the many undead horrors in the setting.
This message was last edited by the user at 04:10, Mon 15 Jan 2018.

Go ahead, MalaeDezeld. I would be happy to be a player in that game!

"Hitting every trope" isn't as important to me as "players having to adapt" so in general, the stranger the better. But by all means if you feel up to running the game, I'd love to give it a go.

I think Karthun IS a strange homebrew (now published) d&d setting and that's why I pick it; that and I presume that most of you aren't familiar with it.

I have created the game link to another game

I'm still in process of setting it up, but you could join already (don't mind the absence of the requesting players flag).

Possibly too wtf-homebrew and/or history-focused for your tastes, but I'm currently running a survival horror game set in 1880s Siberia and am at a reasonable jumping-on point: the settlement has been effectively destroyed by what one of my players termed "an avalanche of vampires" and survivors are trying to work out why the local eldritch abomination who incidentally saved them became active right then and whether it's going to be a hazard tonight...plus where the hell that many vampires came from in the middle of a hundred miles of snow, snow and more snow, and what was pushing them to migrate...slow game, about 1/3 of the way through what looks set to be a walking campaign, weird monsters, character interaction is an explicit survival mechanic.

link to another game

See, I love historical settings and absolutely wouldn't mind a time travel game, but the key here is a 20th century character adapting to the new setting. Could I play a modern era human somehow sent back in time 138 years?

Do you mean a 21st century character, or would 1945 do? Also, how attached are you to your sanity?

Yeah, meant 21st. Been almost two decades and I still call it the 20th, hah.

I'd be cool with a character from 1945, and I'm ready to ride SAN like a roller-coaster.