Looking for a new fantasy game. Suggestions?

[Bilbo Bang-Bang]

I have been feeling like Pathfinder is suffering bloat and all the characters feel like they are being boiled down to railroaded builds in many, not all, cases. I like a lot of the things Pathfinder has done, but at the same time is caters to the "I want to be able to use my two hander everywhere all the time" crowd. Any games out there where as a player I given a solid reason not to Min/Max?

[Pan]

D&D 5E starter set is out in a few months I suggest you take a look. Its supposed to dial things back a bit and might be what you are looking for.

[Bilbo Bang-Bang]

Thanks.

Has anyone played the Savage Worlds "Darwin's World" game? If so, would you buy it again if lost?

[pachristian]

Check out rules systems on rpg.drivethrustuff.com.

I haven't played "Darwin's World" but I've used Savage Worlds (Pinncle Entertainment) extensively for several campaigns (pirates, Cthulhu horror, fantasy, western, and science fiction). For my money, it's the best multi-genre game out there. There is a free Gamma World conversion to Savage Worlds out on the internet. The system is pretty simple, but lends itself well to character customization. There are a lot of modules and game settings written for the system, making it easy to get into.

For old-school dungeon crawling: Check out Dungeon Crawl Classics by Goodman Games. Use the character funnel to prevent min-maxing. There are quite a few good published modules, if you don't like creating your own. Similar adventures to Pathfinder, but very different attitude.

Legend (Mongoose Publishing) is available for $1 from Drivethrustuff, and is a solid system. It has been updated into the (much more expensive) RuneQuest 6th edition. Both games are supported with a number of published adventures and worldbooks; and modules and materials are easy to convert between them.

Those are my top three.

[Bilbo Bang-Bang]

Cool. Thanks, fellas.

[David knott 242]

If by min/max you mean boosting one or two stats at the expense of all the others, then 13th Age offers a novel approach to preventing that. The defenses in that game are based on the middle value of three selected stats -- which means that you need to have multiple above average stats to avoid having mediocre or worse defenses.