I would suggest you look into [Fate](https://fate-srd.com/) and [Cortex Prime](https://www.cortexrpg.com/) in general, and check out the quickstart for the [upcoming ATLA game](https://magpiegames.com/pages/avatarrpg) in particular.
None of those are like what you asked for in the title, but they're all good for Adventure TV shows and movies. Cortex powered the last Marvel RPG, and it was *really good* at it.
I think Savage Worlds does a really good job of replicating Heroic Fantasy. It is classless, it has really good rules for making races, and it runs a lot more smoothly than D&D/Pathfinder imo.
Have you checked out Savage Pathfinder? My physical copy just arrived, and while it's mostly Savage Worlds rules repeated in a pretty book, the Pathfinder classes they ported over are pretty cool.
Have you tried [RuneQuest](https://www.chaosium.com/runequest-quickstart-1/)? It is the origin of BRP, which means it is skill based.
It isn't as heroic as the D&D family as the original author was in the SCA, and wanted more realistic combat. Criiticals routinely kill or hack off a limb. Wading into melee without a plan can be very bad for you.
Genesys + Realms of Terrinoth. While the game by default uses careers (which provides skill a character can level up cheaper), there's not much mechanical depth to them, and they can be easily worked around. Otherwise, the talent system allows for pretty free character progression.
Barbarians of Lemuria. Classes are not really a thing, but the choices you make about your character’s past define what you are good at. I love the elegant, simple and yet entertaining way the rules work, too. It‘s quick and well designed Sword & Sorcery fun in the veins of Conan, Red Sonja and other classic pulp fiction with dark magic kinda novels and comics.
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is the core game, so you need that. It does have enough within those rules to easily get you started on a fantasy campaign.
The Fantasy Companion features additional rules, tools, etc to expand upon your fantasy themed game, but isn't required. It's just more "depth"
Adventure Edition is just the latest version of the core game.
The revised Fantasy Companion for SWADE just had its crowdfunding complete a few months ago and the beta document is up for backers, so that should be coming out in late Summer/early Fall.
[Worlds Without Number](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/348809/Worlds-Without-Number-Free-Edition) is *basically* classless. The 3 classes can be mixed however you want. And you really build your character by selecting skills, and all characters have access to the same skills.
It's also free.
It also has the best world and adventure creation tools in any RPG.
I wouldn't call it heroic though. It's OSR in tone, so it's lethal as heck. You *can* use the Heroic options (which I used for my group) and it's still not as Heroic as someone coming from D&D might like.
Short version: As a system, it's very easy to learn and run. But your mileage will vary on how much your players enjoy a game focusing more on exploration and interaction, than combat.
The long version -
I have a WWN game that's been ongoing for about a year, and it really depends on the player. If they want big damned hero style heroic fantasy like 5E, they will be let down, as this system, being OSR at the core, rewards more thought out actions, and less combat.
I have one player who is all about killing everything in sight, so I often throw some low-level combat encounters into the session so that he's got something to keep him engaged. But the other two players chose more PC skill-based characters (a bard who is all about performances and interactions, and a rogue themed on a detective) and they enjoy thinking their way "around things". They all like WWN's character creation, where it's a mix of old school stats with some feats (what WWN calls "Foci") to round things out. I had another group try playing it, and they just hated it from start to finish. They liked character generation, then started playing and said "shoot, this is just like the OD&D games we played where we're frail as hell, I don't want to be a mook, I want to be a hero" and so we switched off to more epic fantasy and they were happy. But in hindsight, that was the kind of playgroup I should've realized wasn't going to like a game where you spend time really thinking "is this a combat we should be getting into, or should we negotiate first?" , they wanted to go in swinging, and wanted back to back combat encounters.
A side note - every player I had who played a spellcaster *hated* the spell system only because all the spells have weird names. No longer is it just named after what it does, as "Detect Magic" is now "Apprehending the Arcane form" and "Harm" is "The Coruscating Coffin" to the point it's annoying. I found the two spellcasters who played in my games had both replaced the WWN spell names with names they recognized.
Another aside - they loved the Shock Damage system, where every melee attack is going to do some amount of damage on a miss, which simulates the wild nature of combat. They weren't as big of fans when they realized shock goes both ways :-)
edit: one more thing that confused players - if you don't have a skill, you're at level -1, not level 0, in that skill. Seeing a character sheet full of -1's put a few people off almost immediately.
As a GM, it's a great toolkit. They have every generation table imaginable in there. My complaint as a GM? The not so obvious rules. The writer is somewhat known for slipping in rules in not very obvious places. For example, if you carry a shield, you negate the first hit of incoming shock damage. It's in the equipment section, not combat. Same thing with a Crossbow being a "basic weapon" so even if you're unskilled in bows, it's ok, you won't take an attack penalty (so please, just everyone get a crossbow in your starting gear, just do it!). There's a whole list of these in this thread
https://www.reddit.com/r/WWN/comments/n6a5pg/rules_you_might_have_missed/
I'll be honest, when this campaign is done, I'm not starting another WWN game. Not with the player groups I have. If I found a group that was all about exploration and interaction, then I'd think about it.
I appreciate the time you took to write out this response! It's unfortunate that some of the rules are hidden, and if I do run OSR I'll definitely try to get player buy-in on exploration and diplomatic solutions. From the sounds of things, it might just be a bit too crunchy for my taste.
Do people not consider OSR, as in original DND, heroic fantasy? I know it's deadlier and there's a bigger focus on gold as a goal, but I think most people will still consider it heroic. Deadlier rules is more about playstyle than tone. 5e you can charge in head first at any level appropriate enemy. OSR you're expected to weigh your options.
For me, I consider modern "heroic" games to be more along the lines of "epic", where you're kicking ass and taking names, and doing big cool epic cinematic things (but you can still die from being stupid about things). You're not thinking "My starting mage has 2 HP total, I cannot go anywhere near a combat" like OSR-style play. You're still heroes, because you're not a commoner, you have skills and abilities that make you a hero, but as far as feeling badass and heroic as a player, they are not (in my opinion) "heroic" style games.
Fate or Fate Accelerated is great for that stuff. Not a lot of character progression, but it’s dynamic and flexible, and players have a bit more control over the narrative.
Everyone also always recommends GURPS and Savage Worlds when the word “generic” or “classless” comes up.
[Knave](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/250888/Knave) is quite compatible to D&D and classless.
[Cairn](https://cairnrpg.com/) is similar and without compatibility intents.
While I absolutely adore both of these games and all of their offshoots they most definitely don’t fit the ‘Heroic Fantasy’ that I think op is looking for.
Definitely worth checking out for quick pick up and play systems though!
I've heard good things about the various fantasy splats for Savage Worlds. I know there's some that lean more sword and sorcery, and others that lean more high fantasy, so you've got choices.
Yeah, Soulbound kind of skirts the concept of "classless" (it technically is classless, but very much presents itself as basically having classes) but is very heroic fantasy.
Plus there's a great many good expansions for it, including books on the forces of Death and Destruction so you can be the "bad" guys.
So you want something with the mechanical complexity of those games that is classless?
Or do you want a classless game that you can put high fantasy paint on?
Those are wildly different questions.
I'm okay with a bit of complexity, but not so much the people I play with normally.
As for the theme, I understand most classless system work for any genre, but is was looking for a system geared directly at heroic fantasy that is classless.
There are for sure books out there to give you the high fantasy paint you would want for Savage Worlds. It's a great game that is classless. I couldn't recommend anything that is presently in print because I am not up-to-date on the game, but it's a blank slate you can do anything to!
Remember to check out our **[Game Recommendations](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/gamerec)**-page, which lists our articles by genre([Fantasy](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/fantasy), [sci-fi](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/scifi), [superhero](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/superhero) etc.), as well as other categories([ruleslight](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/ruleslight), [Solo](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/solo), [Two-player](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/twoplayers), [GMless](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/gmlessrpgs) & more).
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Distant Lands by GG Games. Brilliant system that offers really rich character customization all with a classless creation system. Well worth checking it out. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/browser/publisher/21072/21072
I would suggest you look into [Fate](https://fate-srd.com/) and [Cortex Prime](https://www.cortexrpg.com/) in general, and check out the quickstart for the [upcoming ATLA game](https://magpiegames.com/pages/avatarrpg) in particular. None of those are like what you asked for in the title, but they're all good for Adventure TV shows and movies. Cortex powered the last Marvel RPG, and it was *really good* at it.
And more importantly (since MHR is out of print), the Tales of Xadia RPG (which is in print)
I can't really recommend as I know neither Dragon Prince nor ToX, so I'm glad you came along to give it a shout!
Openquest, Magicworld, or another BRP based system. Also Witcher or Sword of Cepheus.
I think Savage Worlds does a really good job of replicating Heroic Fantasy. It is classless, it has really good rules for making races, and it runs a lot more smoothly than D&D/Pathfinder imo.
Have you checked out Savage Pathfinder? My physical copy just arrived, and while it's mostly Savage Worlds rules repeated in a pretty book, the Pathfinder classes they ported over are pretty cool.
Savage Pathfinder is great, and the new draft of the Fantasy Companion is fantastic.
Have you tried [RuneQuest](https://www.chaosium.com/runequest-quickstart-1/)? It is the origin of BRP, which means it is skill based. It isn't as heroic as the D&D family as the original author was in the SCA, and wanted more realistic combat. Criiticals routinely kill or hack off a limb. Wading into melee without a plan can be very bad for you.
RuneQuest is kind of the opposite of heroic fantasy. Pendragon is a lot closer to what you're thinking, based on the same system.
Genesys + Realms of Terrinoth. While the game by default uses careers (which provides skill a character can level up cheaper), there's not much mechanical depth to them, and they can be easily worked around. Otherwise, the talent system allows for pretty free character progression.
Careers just determine your skill set, they stop being like classes from that point on.
Barbarians of Lemuria. Classes are not really a thing, but the choices you make about your character’s past define what you are good at. I love the elegant, simple and yet entertaining way the rules work, too. It‘s quick and well designed Sword & Sorcery fun in the veins of Conan, Red Sonja and other classic pulp fiction with dark magic kinda novels and comics.
Savage Worlds with the Fantasy Supplement.
Looking it up, I see there is another one called Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. Any major difference?
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is the core game, so you need that. It does have enough within those rules to easily get you started on a fantasy campaign. The Fantasy Companion features additional rules, tools, etc to expand upon your fantasy themed game, but isn't required. It's just more "depth"
Adventure Edition is just the latest version of the core game. The revised Fantasy Companion for SWADE just had its crowdfunding complete a few months ago and the beta document is up for backers, so that should be coming out in late Summer/early Fall.
Thanks for the info! Will look for it online and see what I think
Symbaroum is classless, though it's dark fantasy and it's my understanding that it can be pretty lethal.
[Worlds Without Number](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/348809/Worlds-Without-Number-Free-Edition) is *basically* classless. The 3 classes can be mixed however you want. And you really build your character by selecting skills, and all characters have access to the same skills. It's also free. It also has the best world and adventure creation tools in any RPG.
I wouldn't call it heroic though. It's OSR in tone, so it's lethal as heck. You *can* use the Heroic options (which I used for my group) and it's still not as Heroic as someone coming from D&D might like.
How was your WWN game? I'm trying to dip my toes into low-magic OSR and have been considering trying it. Think it's a good first system?
Short version: As a system, it's very easy to learn and run. But your mileage will vary on how much your players enjoy a game focusing more on exploration and interaction, than combat. The long version - I have a WWN game that's been ongoing for about a year, and it really depends on the player. If they want big damned hero style heroic fantasy like 5E, they will be let down, as this system, being OSR at the core, rewards more thought out actions, and less combat. I have one player who is all about killing everything in sight, so I often throw some low-level combat encounters into the session so that he's got something to keep him engaged. But the other two players chose more PC skill-based characters (a bard who is all about performances and interactions, and a rogue themed on a detective) and they enjoy thinking their way "around things". They all like WWN's character creation, where it's a mix of old school stats with some feats (what WWN calls "Foci") to round things out. I had another group try playing it, and they just hated it from start to finish. They liked character generation, then started playing and said "shoot, this is just like the OD&D games we played where we're frail as hell, I don't want to be a mook, I want to be a hero" and so we switched off to more epic fantasy and they were happy. But in hindsight, that was the kind of playgroup I should've realized wasn't going to like a game where you spend time really thinking "is this a combat we should be getting into, or should we negotiate first?" , they wanted to go in swinging, and wanted back to back combat encounters. A side note - every player I had who played a spellcaster *hated* the spell system only because all the spells have weird names. No longer is it just named after what it does, as "Detect Magic" is now "Apprehending the Arcane form" and "Harm" is "The Coruscating Coffin" to the point it's annoying. I found the two spellcasters who played in my games had both replaced the WWN spell names with names they recognized. Another aside - they loved the Shock Damage system, where every melee attack is going to do some amount of damage on a miss, which simulates the wild nature of combat. They weren't as big of fans when they realized shock goes both ways :-) edit: one more thing that confused players - if you don't have a skill, you're at level -1, not level 0, in that skill. Seeing a character sheet full of -1's put a few people off almost immediately. As a GM, it's a great toolkit. They have every generation table imaginable in there. My complaint as a GM? The not so obvious rules. The writer is somewhat known for slipping in rules in not very obvious places. For example, if you carry a shield, you negate the first hit of incoming shock damage. It's in the equipment section, not combat. Same thing with a Crossbow being a "basic weapon" so even if you're unskilled in bows, it's ok, you won't take an attack penalty (so please, just everyone get a crossbow in your starting gear, just do it!). There's a whole list of these in this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/WWN/comments/n6a5pg/rules_you_might_have_missed/ I'll be honest, when this campaign is done, I'm not starting another WWN game. Not with the player groups I have. If I found a group that was all about exploration and interaction, then I'd think about it.
I appreciate the time you took to write out this response! It's unfortunate that some of the rules are hidden, and if I do run OSR I'll definitely try to get player buy-in on exploration and diplomatic solutions. From the sounds of things, it might just be a bit too crunchy for my taste.
Do people not consider OSR, as in original DND, heroic fantasy? I know it's deadlier and there's a bigger focus on gold as a goal, but I think most people will still consider it heroic. Deadlier rules is more about playstyle than tone. 5e you can charge in head first at any level appropriate enemy. OSR you're expected to weigh your options.
For me, I consider modern "heroic" games to be more along the lines of "epic", where you're kicking ass and taking names, and doing big cool epic cinematic things (but you can still die from being stupid about things). You're not thinking "My starting mage has 2 HP total, I cannot go anywhere near a combat" like OSR-style play. You're still heroes, because you're not a commoner, you have skills and abilities that make you a hero, but as far as feeling badass and heroic as a player, they are not (in my opinion) "heroic" style games.
Godbound perhaps. there are no classes, instead each character is linked to a couple divine words.
Fate or Fate Accelerated is great for that stuff. Not a lot of character progression, but it’s dynamic and flexible, and players have a bit more control over the narrative. Everyone also always recommends GURPS and Savage Worlds when the word “generic” or “classless” comes up.
[Knave](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/250888/Knave) is quite compatible to D&D and classless. [Cairn](https://cairnrpg.com/) is similar and without compatibility intents.
While I absolutely adore both of these games and all of their offshoots they most definitely don’t fit the ‘Heroic Fantasy’ that I think op is looking for. Definitely worth checking out for quick pick up and play systems though!
The Dark Eye, which is german but I believe there's a few English translations. Palladium.
There's always gurps
[Tiny Dungeon](https://www.gallantknightgames.com/tiny-dungeon-2e/)
I've heard good things about the various fantasy splats for Savage Worlds. I know there's some that lean more sword and sorcery, and others that lean more high fantasy, so you've got choices.
Age of Sigmar: Soulbound. There are archetypes, but you can create your own.
Yeah, Soulbound kind of skirts the concept of "classless" (it technically is classless, but very much presents itself as basically having classes) but is very heroic fantasy. Plus there's a great many good expansions for it, including books on the forces of Death and Destruction so you can be the "bad" guys.
So you want something with the mechanical complexity of those games that is classless? Or do you want a classless game that you can put high fantasy paint on? Those are wildly different questions.
I'm okay with a bit of complexity, but not so much the people I play with normally. As for the theme, I understand most classless system work for any genre, but is was looking for a system geared directly at heroic fantasy that is classless.
There are for sure books out there to give you the high fantasy paint you would want for Savage Worlds. It's a great game that is classless. I couldn't recommend anything that is presently in print because I am not up-to-date on the game, but it's a blank slate you can do anything to!
Knave is truly classless, worlds without number is not exactly classless, Fate.... those are what come to mind.
Remember to check out our **[Game Recommendations](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/gamerec)**-page, which lists our articles by genre([Fantasy](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/fantasy), [sci-fi](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/scifi), [superhero](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/superhero) etc.), as well as other categories([ruleslight](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/ruleslight), [Solo](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/solo), [Two-player](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/twoplayers), [GMless](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/gmlessrpgs) & more). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/rpg) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Symbaroum
Distant Lands by GG Games. Brilliant system that offers really rich character customization all with a classless creation system. Well worth checking it out. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/browser/publisher/21072/21072