I love dcc and cairn, and currently enjoying shadowdark immensely. Flirting with call of Cthulhu as of yesterday ( played the solo adventure), think I might take an interest in skill based systems now!
Skill based systems are kind of nice. A few recs
Runequest. D100 system in the same family as CoV, same publisher even. It is a fantasy system set in a near east bronze age world. Mythology matters, faith matters, community mattersand character matters. The latest version is good snd really prettty.
Mythras. Formerly known as Runequest 6 but Chaosium took back the license. So they removed all the Runequest stuff and republished it as Mythras. Made it as a more generic fantasy toolkit. Has a really good combat engine.
-Genesys, or the Star Wars line it came from. Uses funky narrative dice and through those creates a really dynamic narrative.
My current game crush is Fate. I like the dice system is pretty weighted towards average. I like that it encourages a more writer's room style. I like that you can just start with your concept instead of the like "I'll take 2 levels of this, two levels of that, and then after four levels of foobar my character really comes online". I like that it's a generic system so you can play any setting.
My main problem is finding players who are eager and able to play it. The last time I tried I dropped the ball a little, but even aside from that the players didn't really seem to get it, either.
Was a while since I played any Fate but if memory serves (think it does after a quick googling) a key part of it are aspects. And those are cool. City of Mist, a thicc and chonky PbtA, also uses aspects but they call it tags. The hefty book is both setting and really many words about tags, how to use then and how to get more. I really like the system but nit the setting. Lyckily they are working on a mythic cyberpunk adaptation of it and there have for a long time been talk of coming out woth a generic toolset.
Homebrew World, a Dungeon World hack by Jeremy Strandberg. It has less D&D legacy in terms of moves, which are more PbtA-style and less of “add this points of damage” or “add +1 to roll”. It’s made for oneshots or brief campaigns, playbooks are interesting and fun to actual use. I’ve run a game recently, took 8 hours and was really a blast!
Of you like Jeremy's work I bet Stonetop is on your radar. It was kickstarted a while ago and work is ongoing. Think the rules section is pretty much done and it's only the setting book left. Stonetop is a Dungeon World hack centered around the settlement of Stonetop. The material for that I've looked at really makes it centered around the village, playbooks are based on roles in the village and there are rules for developing the settlement. Looks good and they even have a so far short edited and annotated let's play to highligt the system.
As an adult with particular life circumstances, I don’t have a luxury to play with a same group of people with decent regularity. That’s why HbW is my way to go as a GM. Stonetop needs investment I couldn’t afford… but its well-written and explains core game loops much better than DW rulebook… that’s the result of 10(?) years evolution
It is said that Dungeon World have aged worse than many other 1st gen PbtA, can somewhat agree. Could be that the hacks that have come from it does very much the same but better. And that there never was a 2nd edition that have made us forget 1st edition.
Yes, it's kinda sad. I'd totally love to have my rulebook with all the enhancements from best hacks but alas. As far as I know, creators of DW don't plan to update it
Sage may still be in the buisness but I haven't heard him being involved in anything. On the other hand with DW being "dead" the hack scene can flourish. No new edition can come and reset it.
But I do would need a heroicly epic high fantasy PbtA in my life. Will check out HbW when I have the time.
To start off here are my favourites, in no particular order. Recommend away!
13th Age
Fate Core
Have you looked into Strike! RPG? Setting agnostic tactical combat on a grid heavily derived from dnd 4e but with all the fat stripped, leaving a very light, low-math, simple to run combat with a ton of depth but low number crunching. All that is paired with a narrative system that's very intentionally kept light and with intent to get out of your way.
If you're looking to run something where the PCs are a crew of specialists with distinct roles, this might be worth considering.
(Please no PbtA or Burning Wheel stuff. I've tried it but it's very much not my thing.)