What would like to play?

How about some surrealism - Invisible Sun (has anyone ever actually played this monster of a game?) or Itras By?

From the website: "Our Last Best Hope is tabletop roleplaying game about a crew of people on a mission to save humanity from a terrible crisis. During the game, you and your friends will play through a classic disaster movie, like Sunshine, Deep Impact, The Core, or Armageddon, where your characters are the stars. Each game is unique, as your group confronts a new crisis with a new set of characters and a new plan to save the earth."

From the website: "Our Last Best Hope is tabletop roleplaying game about a crew of people on a mission to save humanity from a terrible crisis. During the game, you and your friends will play through a classic disaster movie, like Sunshine, Deep Impact, The Core, or Armageddon, where your characters are the stars. Each game is unique, as your group confronts a new crisis with a new set of characters and a new plan to save the earth."

It just seems like a fun "we're not all going to make it through this" kind of game that has the potential to explore themes like sacrifice, perseverance, facing your own mortality and leaving a legacy, moral dilemmas, hope vs despair, and other fun themes :)
It does seem like a lot of work. I'm hoping the new Ahu Tiiko will give me more to build upon.

I've been in 3 or 4 Amber Diceless games on PbP and they worked really well but, frankly, I don't like the actual Amber universe with elder Amberites, Amber, and the Courts. It just feels played out to some degree.

I'd love to play the system but play the Elder or Poetic Ettas (Ragnarok), or Mallorean King Arthur, or something not Amber that fits well with the rules.

I'd also love a system or game set in South Asia using historic South Asian folklore rather the European based but don't feel I am comfortable enough culturally to get it to feel right if I try to GM it.

You should take a look at Lords of Gossamer & Shadow, a spiritual successor to Amber without all the messy mythology and politics of Amber.

Fate, Fate, Fate. Coming up with characters in that system is just a lot of fun. And I still haven't had the chance to play a proper session of it... it's enough to make a guy want to GM it himself.

What I want to play in Fate: something superheroic, something pulpy, something cyberpunkish, something with martial arts, definitely something with intrigue, and perhaps even plain old fantasy. Perhaps all of that at once. Oh! And Romance in the Air! It's such a great concept...

Other than Fate RPG, I also have an interest in Mouse Guard, although I think that that system is kind of too rigid in its story possibilities. Playing the setting with another system (cough cough, Fate) might be better, but I also want to play it in its own system at least once.

When I finally got to play Fate I disliked the +/- dice mechanics, but that's just me. The magic system from the original Dresden Files took some getting used to but is still one of my favorite ways to represent the non-Vancian kind of magic I prefer for stories/characters. I still use a lot of the ideas from there when developing my Cortex games though (that ended up being my go-to generic system, but ymmv)- especially the High Concept/Trouble aspects because those are just too rich. The skill list seems more generically appropriate as well.

There are a few other non-Vancian I have toyed with, but I give you that the Dresden Files approach is very good. Its defently something I would like to play with again some time.

I briefly tried Mage here on GP, but the games never really got off the ground.
But improvised magi is my preferred kind of magic.

Draka och demoner, the forefather to dragonbane, had a improvised magic system that I still love. It was a 3 part system thing - action - target with a list of things and actions like create, fire, goblin would set a goblin on fire. Adding more tings or actions would increase the potency create + throw, fire+magic fire + explosion, goblin would cast a exploding fireball on the goblin.

**USING IMPROVISED MAGIC**

The casting of improvised magic is based on a simple template. All improvised spells follow the same template, even if they have vastly different effects. The magician begins by deciding what will happen in the spell, what the purpose is; should something be created, protected, or perhaps concealed? After that, they determine which medium is used to achieve the purpose: fire, ice, water, or something else suitable. Finally, the magician specifies who or what the spell will affect: a person or an object. If they want to burn down a door, they choose *Create - Fire - Door*. After that, the door catches fire.

The template has three simple building blocks:

1. What happens (The Purpose)
2. The element, or equivalent, used (The Medium)
3. The object or person affected by the spell (The Object)

There is a limited number of building blocks in the first two groups—purpose and medium—that are used in improvised magic. The number of objects that are affected is only limited by the magician's imagination. An improvised spell is constructed from one or more purposes, one or more mediums, and one object.

A complex improvised spell with two purposes and two mediums, for example, could be to create and throw magical fire with a violent bang at an evil paladin. This would be written as *Create; Throw - Magical Fire; Sound - Evil Paladin.*

### Examples of building blocks in wild magic

1. **What happens (The Purpose)**
- Create
- Destroy
- Protect
- Throw
- Retrieve
- Fly
- Find
- Hide
- Weaken
- Strengthen
- Repair
- Lift
- Move

2. **Elements that are affected (The Medium)**
- Fire
- Ice
- Magical Fire
- Magical Ice
- Cold
- Heat
- Water
- Thunder
- Air
- Wood
- Stone
- Sound
- Light

3. **Receiving object (The Object)**
- The magician themselves
- Another person
- Book
- Cloak
- Door
- Castle
- Troll
- Sword
- Army
- Crowd
- House
- Air
- And so on...

Reminds me a little of Ars Magica, though that only has a two-word system (if I recall a simple cause and effect). Which could probably work relatively well here as well!