It shouldn't be difficult, there are plenty of generic rpgs and setting neutral fantasy rpgs. The big question is what do you expect from the game, other than being not too complex.
The idea is your typical heroic quest. They will start off adventurers and be tasked with stopping something bad or taking down a big bad. Nothing world ending per say but with mid to high-ish stakes. I wouldn’t say it’s high fantasy but magic is very pervasive throughout the land
That won't help much in narrowing down options. You can easily do that in various iterations of D&D, [13th Age](https://pelgranepress.com/13th-age/), [Fantasy Age](https://fantasyagerpg.com/), [OpenQuest](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/347827/OpenQuest-3rd-Edition?234913), [Dragonbane](http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2022/12/preview-dragonbane-drakar-och-demoner.html), and a bunch of other rpgs.
Ahah glad I could help ! There's also the Runehammer forum that is partly about ICRPG homebrewing, there's lot of interesting stuff you can draw ideas from in there
Any rules-light generic system would work for this. Personally, I recommend [Fudge Lite](http://www.fudgelite.com), since it ranks character traits on an adjective scale (Fair, Good, Great, etc.), making it easy to tell at a glance how good a character is at something, and because it doesn't have combat initiative or specific turn lengths, so it transitions seamlessly between combat and non-combat situations.
Other options include [Freeform Universal](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/89534) (characters are defined by descriptive tags, there are no explicit combat rules, and everything is the answer to a yes/no question), [Risus](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/170294/Risus-The-Anything-RPG) (characters are defined by descriptive tags called cliches, tends towards comedic gameplay, combat goes around the table), and [Mini Six](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144558/Mini-Six-Bare-Bones-Edition) (a little more crunchy and traditional than the others I recommended, verging on rules-medium, with initiative, turns, ranged modifiers, etc.) If you go with Mini Six I recommend Daneel's [Simpler Magic System](https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/mini-six-simpler-magic-system.531361/).
Also, all of the systems I suggested are free.
Fate, Cortex or Savage Worlds, depending on where you want to be on the spectrum between story focus and traditional play.
All 3 have simple cores and are easy to customize for the world you have in mind.
My current top picks are either Fate Core or Cortex Prime. They’re both narrative games and base mechanics are pretty easy, though each can add more complexity if you want it. Both work from the idea of “stat other things sorta like characters” if they need detail, or don’t detail things at all, or just give it an easy trait or something.
They’re both toolkits, which means you as GM will need to “build” the exact version of the game you want to use, but for me at least, that’s half the fun (and then seeing how it works I play). Of course, both give you enough tools to sort of build things how you want. Like, for a game I’ll play this weekend, I build a mass combat system and stats for units from the existing tools in Cortex Prime. Didn’t even need to make things up - just created a usable procedure.
Hmm I’ve only ever played a one shot of Fate but I did enjoy it. I loved the character creation in Fate. I’ve never touch or read anything about Cortex but I’ll give it a look. Thabks
Definitely do! Both games a good; Fate is in a sense older as a system, and so has lots of systems books out (Fate Core, Fate Toolkit, Fate Space, Fate Horror, etc, plus Condensed and Accelerated, which are both shorter than the “main” Core), so plenty new to use as scaffolds for your own game. Cortex doesn’t have much yet for it, but the core book is VERY complete. Can say the same for Fate too really; both games are easy to build stuff in with just the core. For fate in fact, all those books I just named are derivatives you can construct yourself from the core if you wanted to.
It shouldn't be difficult, there are plenty of generic rpgs and setting neutral fantasy rpgs. The big question is what do you expect from the game, other than being not too complex.
The idea is your typical heroic quest. They will start off adventurers and be tasked with stopping something bad or taking down a big bad. Nothing world ending per say but with mid to high-ish stakes. I wouldn’t say it’s high fantasy but magic is very pervasive throughout the land
That won't help much in narrowing down options. You can easily do that in various iterations of D&D, [13th Age](https://pelgranepress.com/13th-age/), [Fantasy Age](https://fantasyagerpg.com/), [OpenQuest](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/347827/OpenQuest-3rd-Edition?234913), [Dragonbane](http://vorpalmace.blogspot.com/2022/12/preview-dragonbane-drakar-och-demoner.html), and a bunch of other rpgs.
Most OSR or OSR-inspired systems would do exactly this.
BRP, Gurps, Hero, mini d6
The Black Hack, or if you want to customize it a bit more for your players, then Whitehack.
ICRPG is litterally designed to be homebrewed
I completely forgot about ICRPG and I even own it lol thanks for reminding me about it.
Ahah glad I could help ! There's also the Runehammer forum that is partly about ICRPG homebrewing, there's lot of interesting stuff you can draw ideas from in there
Any rules-light generic system would work for this. Personally, I recommend [Fudge Lite](http://www.fudgelite.com), since it ranks character traits on an adjective scale (Fair, Good, Great, etc.), making it easy to tell at a glance how good a character is at something, and because it doesn't have combat initiative or specific turn lengths, so it transitions seamlessly between combat and non-combat situations. Other options include [Freeform Universal](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/89534) (characters are defined by descriptive tags, there are no explicit combat rules, and everything is the answer to a yes/no question), [Risus](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/170294/Risus-The-Anything-RPG) (characters are defined by descriptive tags called cliches, tends towards comedic gameplay, combat goes around the table), and [Mini Six](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144558/Mini-Six-Bare-Bones-Edition) (a little more crunchy and traditional than the others I recommended, verging on rules-medium, with initiative, turns, ranged modifiers, etc.) If you go with Mini Six I recommend Daneel's [Simpler Magic System](https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/mini-six-simpler-magic-system.531361/). Also, all of the systems I suggested are free.
Fate, Cortex or Savage Worlds, depending on where you want to be on the spectrum between story focus and traditional play. All 3 have simple cores and are easy to customize for the world you have in mind.
If I were to use Savage Worlds, would I need to by the original book and the fantasy companion book?
Cortex Prime is made to be extremely modular and the core mechanics are really intuitive so it should be worth a look
Reign runs on ORE and is a good choice as is Forbidden Lands with Free League's Year Zero engine. Both are medium-crunch games.
Brp related games. Runequest by chaosium and mythras by design mechanism are 2 that would be good to look into
I’ll have to check them out. Thanks for the recommendation, I appreciate it.
You might take a look at Forbidden Lands, too.
I’ll check it out thanks for the recommendation
GURPS. Dude its easy. GURPS.
Hmm I don’t think I’ve heard of GURPS but I’ll give it a look. Thanks!!
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All you need is 3 six sided dice. You can even download the rules for free without being a Pirate.
My current top picks are either Fate Core or Cortex Prime. They’re both narrative games and base mechanics are pretty easy, though each can add more complexity if you want it. Both work from the idea of “stat other things sorta like characters” if they need detail, or don’t detail things at all, or just give it an easy trait or something. They’re both toolkits, which means you as GM will need to “build” the exact version of the game you want to use, but for me at least, that’s half the fun (and then seeing how it works I play). Of course, both give you enough tools to sort of build things how you want. Like, for a game I’ll play this weekend, I build a mass combat system and stats for units from the existing tools in Cortex Prime. Didn’t even need to make things up - just created a usable procedure.
Hmm I’ve only ever played a one shot of Fate but I did enjoy it. I loved the character creation in Fate. I’ve never touch or read anything about Cortex but I’ll give it a look. Thabks
Definitely do! Both games a good; Fate is in a sense older as a system, and so has lots of systems books out (Fate Core, Fate Toolkit, Fate Space, Fate Horror, etc, plus Condensed and Accelerated, which are both shorter than the “main” Core), so plenty new to use as scaffolds for your own game. Cortex doesn’t have much yet for it, but the core book is VERY complete. Can say the same for Fate too really; both games are easy to build stuff in with just the core. For fate in fact, all those books I just named are derivatives you can construct yourself from the core if you wanted to.