What level of realism are you looking for?
Shadows of Esteren would be worth a look.
Possibly RuneQuest (or Mongoose's "Legend" take on it) if you're after something that has more emphasis on skills (and thus, far more room for non-combat mechanics) than on attributes and levels.
Song of Ice and Fire by Green Ronin, if you don't mind losing magic or building it in yourself, but which has some very nice Intrigue rules.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay might be worth a look. I've only had a cursory glance at 3rd edition but the good ol' careers system is still in there, and there's a rulebook-only edition if you don't want to pick up the big expensive box with all the card decks (which you can play without if you prefer.)
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Have you tried Rolemaster? Nothing is particularly "realistic", in my view - but rolemaster gives that kind of feel (impossible things remain impossible, people in plate armour are easy to hit but hard to hurt, magicians get gradually better rather than receiving sudden bursts of power, a rapier is relatively much better when fighting someone in chain mail than in scale mail, etcetera).
It's a lot of work before the session, but after spending a few hours creating your character, the action proceeds very quickly (since spell casting, combat, physical activity and social interactions all use predominantly the same mechanic).
One thing you will find is that you will struggle between finding a game that emphasises story, and 'realism'. Usually story driven games make things more abstract (less realistic) in order to support the flow of story. For instance, Fate is a good example of a story and character background heavy game, but it's resolution system is extermely abstract, and doesnt simiulate reality well. This is because realistic mechanics tend to interfer with dramatic storytelling. In real life John McClain dies, like 99 times out of 100. That makes for a crummy die hard movie, but its realistic.
But in somehting like Fate (specifically I've played the dresden files rpg which uses this system), character backgrounds and the story are critical in the mechanics of the game. You get and use fate points to influence events based around your 'aspects' which are parts of your character background, history, and personality traits. It makes for a great story based system. But how these 'fate points' interact with the 'reality' of the game world, doesnt leave alot of room for realism.
Grimm is a great game for story, though it suffers when it comes to unique characters. It's about the roleplay, sure, but the kids are just framing devices. One Popular Kid is easily replaced.
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One thing you will find is that you will struggle between finding a game that emphasises story, and 'realism'. Usually story driven games make things more abstract (less realistic) in order to support the flow of story. For instance, Fate is a good example of a story and character background heavy game, but it's resolution system is extermely abstract, and doesnt simiulate reality well. This is because realistic mechanics tend to interfer with dramatic storytelling. In real life John McClain dies, like 99 times out of 100. That makes for a crummy die hard movie, but its realistic.
But in somehting like Fate (specifically I've played the dresden files rpg which uses this system), character backgrounds and the story are critical in the mechanics of the game. You get and use fate points to influence events based around your 'aspects' which are parts of your character background, history, and personality traits. It makes for a great story based system. But how these 'fate points' interact with the 'reality' of the game world, doesnt leave alot of room for realism.
I have to concur with Kolokotroni's assessment. Too much realism interferes with the fun of creating a story together. I have played in a Firefly campaign using D20 Future in which the firearms rules could be considered "realistic". What that meant in game terms was that it getting shot was very bad since there was no magical or super-science healing available. I personally didn't like that level of realism. I don't consider it fun to roleplay my character spending six weeks recovering from a gunshot wound.
I would recommend RuneQuest for a fairly realistic fantasy RPG, although I'm not familiar with the most recent version. I played 3rd and 4th editions. I liked the mechanic of hit points per body location, because then you could roleplay your character trying to fight with a wounded arm or leg. Armor also applies per body location, instead of treating every type of armor like a bodysuit the way D&D/Pathfinder do.
Fantasy Hero is another option that frees you from levels and classes. You can design whatever character type you want and pick your own skills instead of using a set list. The only drawback to Hero System is that combat can take a very long time to play.
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A story-focused game that's a bit more downplayed on the fantastic side and goes for a gritty/realistic feel without getting bogged down in a physics simulation:
One suggestion would be Burning Wheel Gold.
A newer, slimmed down version is being released soon, called Torchbearer. By soon, I believe that backers from the Kickstarter are being shipped their books now-ish, so probably a little after that it'll be available. It's taking some of the core concepts from Mouseguard, which was itself an adapted version of Burning Wheel, and making 1e style dungeon crawling game, but with BW style mechanics.
It's a good system, I've found that for myself it doesn't fit my personality as a GM. I can play in a game as a player and have a ton of fun though.
I second Burning Wheel Gold. That is, if you're looking for a serious emphasis on story and character, a slightly more historical take on arms and armor, and well... something very different from Pathfinder.
Tocrchbearer will be a different game, or so I heard, like Mouse Guard was. Same skeleton, different theme.
BWG is a pretty book anyway. Worth buying, even if only to read it and see what its about.
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Lot of people panning the new FFG Star Wars game because of special dice but its a bit of fun. Its rules lite and the dice "gimmick" promotes a bit of improv from everyone. Take that with a grain of salt I've only done two one shots of the intro adventure.
Edit: I see you want Fantasy and I think Edge of empire could do it but you would have to do a ton of conversion work. Probably not a good suggestion after all.
Burning Wheel Gold certainly seems promising... and only twenty five dollars for six hundred pages.
Though I have to ask about Burning Wheel's combat- how does it work, exactly, if there's less emphasis on it? I don't want a coin flip dueling system, you understand.
The basic mechanic is simple. You have a skill/attribute/whatever with a numerical value. You roll that many d6, 4/5/6 counts as a success. The difficulty of what you're trying to do determines how many successes you need.
Combat is actually moderately complex. There are some aspects of combat that are definitely familiar to other games (not D&D though), but it did have one major innovation at the time it was originally published. Intent.
In most conflicts, social as well as combat, you don't just stab each other in the face until one side falls down. There are rules for that, but most of the time combat is considered to be more nuanced than that. When you engage in a fight, you declare what your goal is. Examples:
-save the princess
-escape the castle
-protect the holy relic from the orcs
-hold the bridge until the villagers are rushed to safety
The other side chooses their goal as well. They might be diametrically opposed, but they don't have to be. For example:
-save the princess vs distract the guards long enough to assassinate the king
-escape the castle vs recover the crown jewels
-protect the holy relic from orcs vs steal their horses
-hold the bridge vs burn the village
So what happens at the end of combat, if the losing side scores enough for a minor concession, they might achieve part of their goal. The same goes for duel of wits (the more detail social interaction... when a single roll isn't enough and it deserves a whole scene).
The coolest part of the game IMO is the Beliefs/Instincts/Traits system. Each PC has 3 beliefs and instincts, and however many traits they've gained from character creation. Beliefs are essentially plot hooks for the PC. The player is responsible for writing them and working with the group/GM to make sure they fit the game. When a player pushes the game towards his beliefs and causes something to happen during the session, they get Artha, bonus points that can be used to boost rolls.
Instincts are behavior quirks. The player can use them as minor rule bends. For example, they can't do anything that requires a roll, but they can automatically accomplish actions for combat. For example, a character with an instinct "I'm always searching for ambushes" should be considered to always be doing so, regardless of whether the player declares it or not. Here's the thing, the player can use the Instinct to earn more Artha, if they either follow the instinct, or disregard it, in a way that gets the character in trouble.
For example, if the "I'm always searching for ambushes" describes how he's searching for hidden threats in the presence of the king (and the player describes how the king takes offense to it) that's causing him trouble. Or if the player willfully walks into an area of ambush and doesn't prepare... also trouble. Assuming they survive, they get more Artha!
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Have you considered the World of Darkness?
In particular, if you're after something revolving around magic then you could possibly look at the Mage series(The Ascension for a most medieval feel or The Awakening for more modern themes).
WoD isn't to everyone's tastes but in terms of something that is heavy on story/character development and contains a decent selection of magic, it could be worth looking into.
One of the great things about the magic in Mage is that it uses a very open-ended system so there are some nice possibilities for adapting characters and their abilities.
You have the option of medieval/modern (if you're willing to spend a bit of time converting bits, you could even have people jumping back and forth through time).
The system uses locations and times from the real world so you can create stories that have tie-ins to real historic events to develop a balance of realistic atmospheres to fit the level that you're after.
It uses a fairly simple D10 skill system, so number crunching is somewhat minimal.
Irontruth is confusing Burning Wheel's Fight system for Mouse Guard's (which is also good). Burning Wheel has a similar system for settling social conflicts, but for physical conflicts it is much "crunchier". In some ways crunchier than Pathfinder even; or more simulationist, I should say.
In Burning Wheel, just about everything is an opposed roll of some form of another. Duel-like combat is actually a kind of "rock paper scissors" where you choose your actions in a cluster and reveal them vs. your opponent's choices. The interaction between the two determines what you roll. For example, if you choose block and he chose strike, your successes with your weapon skill decrease his. If you chose dodge and he chose strike, your successes with your Speed attribute decrease his successes with the weapon skill. There are like a dozen potential choices, but it gets filtered down a bit by your loadout and tactics (you don't great-strike with a mere dirk, you can't block-and-strike without a shield, etc)
In this way, you try to choose actions in combat that you have the skills and gear to back up. This also helps you guess what the opponent's moves will be. It is very complicated, but once you get the hand of it, it's very cool. There's a lot of player agency, and each turn's decisions really affect the outcome.
The end result translates into physical wounds that are a lot like Shadowrun's staged damage system, with each wound carrying a penalty to further rolls. Armor is crazy effective in BW, and there is hit location, and armor by location. Reach is a huge part of the combat game, with a reach advantage going to a shortsword over a longsword, BUT you can win a better position so that a knife fighter can negate the advantage of a spearman.
It's worth noting that this is a very different system from Pathfinder, which is why I like it. I love Pathfinder, but when I want that kind of game I play Pathfinder. When I want a break from that, I play Burning Wheel (or Mechwarrior, or Fate, or...)
The detailed fight rules I outline above are not for every fight, either. For fights that are just a beat in the story, you're supposed to use an objective-based opposed roll like Irontruth describes well above. However, don't let that fool you into thinking that Burning Wheel lacks crunch! If you're looking for deep, simulationist combat it will not disappoint — it's all there as an option.
Also, note that the book is a lot smaller in form factor than the CRB. It's black and white, and it's the size of a hardback novel — so the 600 pages is not even nearly as long as the CRB's 500ish. The book is quite handsome, though, and the form factor means you never get weird looks on the subway.
If you're looking for a low-magic game where spellcasting is rare and a high-risk/high-yield activity, you might want to consider Monte Cook's Iron Heroes. I played it in a one-shot years ago, and rather liked it. If I recall correctly, it's based on the 3.0 OGL, so PF players will be familiar with the core mechanics.
Irontruth is confusing Burning Wheel's Fight system for Mouse Guard's (which is also good). Burning Wheel has a similar system for settling social conflicts, but for physical conflicts it is much "crunchier". In some ways crunchier than Pathfinder even; or more simulationist, I should say.
My memory is foggy, I thought BW had it too. BE had disposition for firefights. Luke Crane ran a demo of BE for me at GenCon '06 and we (to his surprise) achieved our objective quite handily.
Can't find my copy of BWG at the moment, but I'll trust you.
Intent was one of the great lessons of that game for me. I try to pull it out of my players when running anything these days. "What do you want to achieve with this roll?" is a question I ask all the time.
Yeah, you're not wrong, it's in there, but it's not the limit of crunch in the system. Given the context of your remarks, I chose to speak up.
We're both on Team Burning Wheel Is Cool so it's all good.
The Character Burner is obsolete. All the info in it is now included in the main book (of the Gold edition).
Magic/Monster burners can definitely be useful, but I would say you don't need them right away. The Adventure Burner is interesting, it has a lot of useful advice. There are a lot of essays and pieces about how to run BW on the interwebz, they took some of those and reworked/expanded them for the Adventure Burner. Not needed, but useful.
I have two suggestions
Warhammer Fantasy roleplay 2nd Edition
- Dangerous, but useful magic.
- horribly leathal combat
- interesting character creation and advancement that can be a real boon to character development.
Artesia: Adventures in the known world
- Beautiful art
- The most interesting character advancement system I have ever seen
- A fairly in depth and realistic combat system.
- A detailed and largely cohessive setting with laws of physics and meta-physics.
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Alright, thanks for the suggestions, I'll give these a look.
Though I continue to search for a system that has truly 'dangerous' magic- as in, high risk, high reward, with the caster and allies just as likely to be damaged as the target. Magic that is weird, dangerous, not fully understood, but played with anyway- kind of like nuclear power in the 30s, if you would.
Dungeon Crawl Classic has one of the most "dangerous magick" systems I've ever seen.
Otherwise OpenQuest, Cortex Classic, or an adequately customized DragonAGE.
Order of Importance: Burning Wheel Gold, Monster Burner, Adventure Burner, Magic Burner.
UNLESS you are doing a custom magic system instead of the cinematic skill-based system that comes with BWG. That would increase the importance of the Magic Burner.
You can run a pretty solid game with the first book.