I'm still hoping for a proper revival of the Gothic brand! I fear they harmed the IP too much though. Risen had the right idea, but they forgot what it was by the time the sequel rolled around. Somehow, even with its obviously much lower production values, Gothic 3 made me care a lot more about its characters and world than any TES game ever did, I genuinely felt bad when siding with the orcs and actually changed my mind.

You should try Kingmaker! It's really entertaining and the combat is amazing. It's not immensely well written, but the gameplay is the star. The style of narration is more inspired by pen & paper too, with small "book" segments where you make skill checks and have a narrator. Fair warning though, it's properly hard, I had to adjust the difficulty more than once. The realm managing bit is also difficult, I'd recommend lowering that by default for any player since mistakes can literally cost you the entire game farther down the line.

I recently took up D&D myself as well, with some of the kids at work (I work with autistic kids and youth). Been so long, but I still love it, I like being the dungeon master and setting them up all the time. We use the 3rd edition, as it's the one I'm familiar with, and it has somewhat deeper mechanics that I enjoy. Needless to say; the kids are having a blast!

You should give Pathfinder a try. It is based on D&D 3.5, but a bit modernized. And the ruleset itself is available free online. Haven't tried second edition so far. Kingmaker is based on the Pathfinder rules, Owlcat games collaborates on the game with Paizo.

IMO, for a person who likes 3rd edition, the best thing about Pathfinder is just being aware of it's existence.  There are a ton of adventures written for Pathfinder, so if a person likes 3rd edition rules, then they can adapt a Pathfinder adventure pretty easily to their game.

I am of the opinion that all of the D&D editions have problems in their rules.  Currently I am going back and developing a new rules system based on 1st and 2nd edition rules.  This is mostly because I really like the adventures from 1st edition and basic D&D (0 edition).  This was actually before my time, but I just think their adventures are the best.  To me the top adventures are really what make D&D shine.

I was kinda ambivalent toward 3e, it had a lot of rules, more or less for most things that could come to your mind, which I liked, yet it was still D&D with all its inherent flaws.

5e is quite easy to pick up and play, especially for kids and folks who never played any D&D, but the moment you want something more, core D&D starts to hold you back. I was thinking going all out with GURPS, since you can simulate pretty much everything with it, but that's way too much crunch and time, so I'm guessing I'll most likely end on Hackmaster (really like that combat system).

On the other hand, Paizo's support is what's drawing me to Pathfinder - I play mostly with minis, though I don't want or intend to collect evey mini under the sun, so their cardboard pawns, both for Beastiary Codex and separate campaigns, are a boon for people like me. And, from brief look I took, 2e rules look quite interesting.

Turn based are my favorite because I discovered RPG's with a turn based one. I like real time ones too but not if they are strategic cause I hate being rushed when a situation clearly demands reflection. If you can prepare before a battle and you have all the time to decide what weapons or magic you will use it's fine by me but if you are in a situation in which strategic decisions must be made during a battle that is in real time, my brain freezes and I hate that. I can't decide something important if there is a timer.

Example: I loved Final Fantasy X but I hated Final Fantasy X-2, so bad in fact that I played maybe 20 minutes and completely gave up on that game, whereas FFX not only did I fully do the game but I actually got the platinum trophy for it.

Yeah, I just might. One of the main issues plaguing 3rd edition is that, well, it's old. Finding DM screens, settings and manuals is difficult since most are out of print. I have Kingdoms of Kalamar that we use for the current setting, but I'm disappointed in it. I also have the excellent Midnight setting back home, in some box somewhere, it makes for an exciting campaign where the players have to toss out almost all conventional gameplay such as buying and selling easily, visiting settlements at your own behest and trusting just about anyone.

I'll have a gander at Pathfinder when next I visit the stores, I like the added tactical focus of party feats etc. The tactics of the combat are what really drew me into 3rd edition to begin with, it's miles ahead of the 2nd edition and its simplified battles.

Hi,

I prefer turn-based however there are a few games that have mixed up the formula a little bit.

My favorite RPG is Chrono trigger, very classic in its battle system with a few key components to make it stand out above the rest of its era.

Despite the above, I think the best kind of turn-based system that has ever been created is from one of the worst FF in history, Final Fantasy XIII.

It is very fast, tactic and classic, all at the same time.

I most say that Tales of Symphonia is a great example of a new formula of system kind of turn-based/active that works perfectly with only a few flaws and so on.

In conclusion: I rather have a turn-based game with a little mix up but with the essence of that system.

I like all of the above.

This is what got me interested in GURPS, it's fantastic system (well, more of a tool) - I run 5e for mixed kids/grown ups group with no prior P&P RPG experience and they find it fairly easy to comprehend and deal with (in big part it's becuase 5e goes away with most bonuses and replaces them with advantage/disadvantage mechanism). But it was fairly hard to explain why you can't target specific parts of body, why there's no headshots and instakills and why is "wounded" creature (though there's no such thing in 5e) at its full fighting capacity as if it was completely healthy - GURPS solves all this. But I've shown them list of skills, advantages, disadvantages and quirks, even for reduced Dungeon Fantasy version and they just flat out said...no.

As for Kingdoms of Kalamar...what you don't like about it? I've never played in it, but it's Hackmaster's default setting, and since I'll most likely end with Hackmaster, I'm intereseted in your take on it. Though, to be honest, unless it's custom setting, for as long as I've played I've been exclusively Forgotten Realms guy, so I just might end up putting Hackmaster there...

I generally like turn based combat, including SRPGS. When I'm playing action RPGs I feel like, in terms of combat at least, they're just less good action games. Whereas turn based games provide something distinct.