More fantasy winnowing

So more of the thinking and cogitating and researching on FRP's. In case you missed it I'm contemplating what games I should be running this year. Ideally its one and ideally its weekly. But I can see complications with these as basic assumptions. We are getting together sporadically right now even with one game fortnightly so I don't want to push the issue. If we get a fortnightly game going and hitting on all cylinders then I'd be really happy. 

In researching "A Song of Ice and Fire" rpg  I found a post on the forum which said ".....it is going to be a bit tricky running a game where the character don't know the traits and history of the Houses from the Series...so good luck with that" This comment is very relevant as my group too are Westeros neophytes. Sure the game could slowly introduce them to the elements of the Houses, the mainland, Bravaros, Valeria, and all the rest. I'm really the only fan so this may have to wait until the HBO series make this more main stream. Good to know...

I gave up on "Pendragon" for this current group for similar reasons.

Same thinking puts a line through "Colonial Gothic" while it appeals to me I don't think many of the group would find it exciting. This also holds for "Savage Solomon Kane" The group don't know it enough for it to be inspiring of a game/campaign for them call them niche games I guess.

However I'm not sure Witch Hunter gets tarred with the same brush. The central premise is very easy to grab a hold of and run with - your hunting witches and you belong to a group who do likewise do forth in the name of the lord and poke those Witches with hot pointy sticks and/or drown them to see if they float. Simple. However with Witch hunter I don't achieve my goal of a sandbox or at least not easily .... although I'm sure it could be done. I could likewise squeeze Colonial Gothic back into the mix using the same simple premise - Go forth slay evil in the name of the lord. So that's the Colonial game, less so straight swashbuckling game.

While I'm sure All for One - A straight swashbuckling game from triple ace games - is a good game it too isn't holding my attention. So All for One is out of the fantasy role-play sweepstakes. So that nearly knocks all the Ubiquity games out of the running. Desolation is a Ubiquity rpg and high fantasy which hanging on, but really mainly from the Ubiquity p.o.v. not the Desolation background. Hollow Earth where we actually play in the hollow earth is also a fun idea too.

One interesting comment was made during the SR session last time and that was an expression of interest in a setting - nominally SR undergoing the Awakening. That is the real world dealing with magic blooming in the "real" world. So immediately I thought of NoW-Changeling and even more so Fireborn. The idea is a fun one and one that deserves greater consideration. So while Changeling-The Lost is out, I see it as too inaccessible for the group, Fireborn get's a look in - it has both the modern and the ancient era so in that respect its quite interesting. Although the rules are apparently abysmal. Sadly that keeps me from simply going that way.

Savage Worlds - Hellfrost  is also not doing it for me right now - I own all the stuff it looks great but I'm really ..meh' about it. So its out.
Savage Freeport is also very exciting to me as well. This for a Swashbuckling game is probably more interesting to me then All for One, lets face it, Pirates are more cool then Musketeers - due respect to M. Dumas and Wade-Williams.

Sword and Sorcery/Planetary adventure game - I think I'd go the way of Planetary adventure Its something I've always wanted to do and it could be a hell of a lot of Simple enough to flesh out a sandbox for this. I could use Savage Worlds for this or Stars Without Numbers or Labyrinth Lord which brings me to B/XD&D or RQ Sword and Sorcery - Used for a Sword and Sorcery/ Planetary adventure game they would work fine too. Interestingly BRP/RQ could work really well for Planetary Romance.

Qin - Saw "IP Man" the movie this week and i fired my Wu Xia passions. My memories of "Warriors of Heaven and Earth" make me want to do this game too.

So what I get after looking over that is a D&D reto clone, Savage worlds or Ubiquity is possibly going to be the most successful.

Ultimately I think I  would settle on Savage Worlds maybe Ubiquity as my engine for a Fantasy game.