What’s your favorite ttrpg system?

I’m sure this has been asked before, but a discussion on the Discord channel got me wondering what everyone’s favorite system is. I’ve been playing for 37 years, so my favorites have changed quite a bit from the start of my gaming career until now. I’ve settled on D&D (whatever iteration is current) to introduce new players to the game, and Fate as my system of choice. What’s yours?

I like 5th edition, which might be a pretty Basic choice but it's a pretty solid system I think.

At least compared to previous editions, 5th is vastly streamlined and I think the advantage/disadvantage system works really well in practice compared to doing tons of arithmetic with modifiers.

I think D&D's Armor Class mechanic is unintuitive, but otherwise it's been fun to play and to DM.

If you think the AC system is counter intuitive now, you would have hated THAC0.

Oooh
Those were the days.

I've got AC -5 try to hit me!

I unfortunatelly haven't played TTRPGs on table top since D&D 3.0.

I guess I would say 5E now. For I love playing that by voice/video.

It depends on what story and tone you want to achieve.
Horror, investigation, being a kid, heroic epic tales, superheroes, silly, funny, complex, light... The list goes on

Pathfinder 2e has a lot of complexity for a fantasy game. 13Age has just enough in the combat area and the goes rules ligth on the rest. And I have a soft spot for Dracka och demoner (english version called Dragonbane) just out of kickstarter

For modern-day games, I would look to FATE, Kids on brooms and similar. World of darkness Werewolf and Mage lives in the complex rules conor.
For Sci-Fy games, I like Fantasy Flights Star Wars games, with their narrative dice pools

My favorite system is the system for which I can find people to play.

This is why I play so much D&D even though it's not my favorite system.

Since I'm relatively new to the entire TTRPG world I don't have the breadth of experience that most of you here have and my taste is ever evolving.

I have learned lately that I prefer rules light and RP heavy systems. There is still one crunchy game I enjoy and it can do well here and that's Pathfinder 2e. Savage Worlds especially Deadlands is a go to favorite of mine because I like the system and the Deadlands lore is deep and evocative. Savage Worlds has such a huge number of supplements and it works for just about any genre, horror being one of my favorites.

Tales From the Loop and Things From The Flood are favorites of mine. I like the Blue Rose and Dragon Age RPG's but the book organization is annoying.

Kult and Symbaroum are favorites and I also like quirky oddball games like Mork Borg, Into the Odd, etc.

I really like the Smallville RPG and I have been meaning to run another game for it (either as is or slightly modified) on this site for ages. I will, eventually.

I'd also love that opportunity to give it another look to see if it holds up after having tried a ton of other games since originally discovering it.

It's a tossup between Pathfinder 1e and Savage Worlds (big surprise for anyone who knows me on the boards). I actually prefer Savage Worlds for most play, but I have a homebrewed campaign world in PF1 that I keep returning to.

People who know me might not be surprised when I say Vampire: the Masquerade. It's an awful game in many ways, but everyone I've played with at the table leans into it so hard, it just turns into amazing RP. Changeling: the Lost follows quickly for the same reason, then D&D 3.5 -- playing D&D 5e live has been underwhelming but that was not necessarily the fault of the system.

However, these choices would not be my choices for play by post. Instead, I'd say The Strange has been my favorite, followed by Savage Worlds.

I'm enjoying this thread so much because it's informing me of games I should check out for the first time or revisit.

It kinda depends...

For fantasy/mideval games, I do like the OSR titles but the game I'd go back to in a heartbeat is Ars Magica. The system is rough and brutal but it handles magic in an elegant manner that no other game has replicated and it has a communal focus that other fantasy gabes don't. The players all have a vested interest in generating a home base, a Covenant, that acts as a center point for the Saga and behaves in a lot of ways like a character unto itself.

For modern day RPGs, I still enjoy GURPS primarily because it's as simple or complex as you want it to be. That and there's a resource book for just about anything you'd want to play. Cops, space, horror, superheroes, Old West, ice age, Star Trek, military, etc... there's a book that covers it in excruciating detail.

**I second Qralloq's take on the White Wolf system. As terrible as the system might be, it draws people in to the RP side of play like few other games can.

For PbP games: 2400 or 24XX one page games or Questworlds (see this post just today on using Questworlds for PbP games).

For Narrative games: Fate Condensed.

For D&D style games: Old-School Essentials / BX D&D (for simplicity, theater of the mind, and exploration or kingdom building games), 13th Age (for high-level feel and gonzo games using relative positioning (like playing a Pixie Chaos Mage), and lastly D&D 5e (for popularity and for 'games as sport' where people want balanced, wargame style encounters on a grid).

For Hard Science Sci Fi Games: FrontierSpace or Mongoose Traveller.

There's absolutely no way for me to answer with a single system here -- but that seems to be okay, because others generally aren't answering that way either. :)

I'll list some huge influences: GDW Judge Dredd, WEG Star Wars, Marvel Super Heroes, GURPS, HERO, Underground, Feng Shui 1e, Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, Fudge, Fate, Supers!, Barbarians of Lemuria, Masks, Blades in the Dark, Ironsworn, John Harper designs generally.

And some current favorites: Fate (fading, needs a new edition), various Neo-OSR Non-Retroclones (The Black Hack, Knave, Into the Odd, Cairn, Electric Bastionland, Mausritter, Warlock!, Mork Borg), EZD6, Supers! 1e, Barbarians of Lemuria, virtually all the Free League YZE games, but especially Vaesen, Symbaroum (though not the mechanics), Delta Green, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Operation White Box, Breakers.

Games that have great themes and mechanics that bug the shit out of me: Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Retroclones, many, many PbtA games.

Games I need to play / play more of: Agon, Troubleshooters, Dune, Pendragon, Jackals, ICRPG, Cortex, Against the Dark Master.

Once upon a time I would have said Hero System/Champions but I can't do the crunch anymore, especially since I play PbP exclusively.

Really enjoying the 2d20 games, playing Conan, Fallout currently and previously had a lot of fun with a John Carter of Mars I ran.

Savage Worlds 2nd or the Year Zero Engine games like Mutant Year Zero or Forbidden Lands (looking forward to Blade Runner's release)

It'll be impossible to pick a favorite, so here's a Top 5 (not in any particular order):

1. Dungeon Crawl Classics
2. Apocalypse World (and most PbtA games)
3. Burning Wheel
4. Shadow of the Demon Lord
5. Iron Kingdoms

Honorable mention to Shadowrun for having probably my favorite setting but such cumbersome rules I dread running or playing it lol.

I second this as well. I have to credit ShadowRun (and the Native representation within it) for me still being in the TTRPG hobby today.
Amazing setting, absolutely terrible rules system. The worst part is that it just doesn't feel the same using different rules. See: ShadowRun - Anarchy
**That said, I'm working on a Unisystem port for ShadowRun I may try and run later this year.

I think 2400 / 24XX are top of my list.

After that, it varies a lot, but the Tiny Dungeons / Tiny Frontier pairing are really pretty good!

There are a lot of settings that I like better without their associated systems.

I have written a bunch of different games, at one time or another each was my favorite ... many of them are 24XX derivatives, it is a very, very easy system to write for. Much like Tiny D6. Really those are my top two contenders.

I mean it's not mechanically difficult to work with, it's just kinda silly because in real life armor doesn't make you harder to hit.