Looking to start a dark fantasy game

It is no secret I love my RPGs grim, so I'm mulling over a few ideas and I'd like to see if there's any interest

Option 1: Midnight
To put it very briefly, Midnight is a Middle Earth where the bad guys have won. Elves are contained in their big forest, dwarves are defending their last strongholds and a few humans try to mount some kind of resistance against their orcish overlords. Books and literacy are banned, magic is only weilded by the dark god's traitorous clerics and the economy functions on a basis of trading good and services directly. To make up for the tight spot players are in however, they choose Heroic Paths upon creation, which gradually grant them spell-like abilities.
System: Midnight has its own two rulebook versions, corresponding to D&d 3 and 3,5 so I'm considering a Pathfinder conversion

Option 2: Dark Sun
Dark Sun is a 2nd ed D&d setting about a world where magic spells drain nearby life. Centuries of war, genocide and reckless spellcasting have resulted in a desert world ruled by sorcerer-kings. Arcane spellcasters, known as defilers, are hated by the masses and hunted by the sorcerer-kings who view them as a potential threat. A minority whose spellcasting isn't as destructive, the so-called preservers, have it even worse. No gods answer prayers, which means there is no such thing as a cleric or paladin. The brutal climate and the oppressive rule of the sorcerer-kings have created a corrupt, blood thirsty, and desperate culture that leaves little room for chivalric virtues common to fantasy settings. Slavery is wide spread, the people are violent, and monsters roam the wastes beyond the safe havens of the city-states and villages. Psionics are extremely common with nearly every living thing having at least a modicum of psionic ability. Due to a scarcity of metal weapons and armor are made from natural materials such as bone, stone, wood, carapace or obsidian.
System: There have been conversions for 3,5 and 4 D&d. If there is interest, I could look into a potential 5e conversion

Option 3: Warhammer Fantasy
Perhaps the most well known setting and the one I'm most familiar/experienced with.
System: WFRP 2nd edition

Any interest to play or GM either? Any other games/settings you'd like to suggest?

I wanna play this so bad! I've been really good at keeping my promise to not join any more games but I've always wanted to try Dark Sun!

If you're looking for suggestions, there's a couple Dungeon World settings that are pretty cool. There's Grim World, which has some pretty powerful character classes whose hot button schtick is grounded in a very Dark Souls you're-still-gonna-die philosophy (though I've heard the Skirmisher playbook is a little lame). Also, Last Days of Anglekite is an awesome, The-End-Is-Not-Nigh-It-Is-HERE setting that gives characters some world shaking abilities because, hey, why not, it's Apocalypse Now.

There's a Savage Worlds setting called Sundered Skies that I love because it is the floating island remains of a world post apocalypse (not post apocalyptic - that came and went, and now folks are living in the relatively f-ed up but stable aftermath) with flying ships to travel between them, Nazi plant elves who bioengineer slaves, and an everpresent glow from the sky that drives sky-sailors literally insane (assuming it doesn't mutate them into some sort of raging monster).

But your 3 options are also great. I've run and run 2 & 3, and enjoyed the heck out of both. Midnight has a cheesey movie that's worth tracking down for a viewing.

I'll look into the stuff you mentioned Taej, but right now there's no time or mental capacity to deal with learning a new world/system well enough to DM it. If I do another game here, it's probably going to be one of the three I mentioned.

The Midnight movie wasn't half bad. Considering the cheesiness of most non-blockbuster fantasy movies out there, it was actually pretty decent (and way better than the D&d movies :D )

Lol, that's true! Though the D&D movies left a pretty low bar....

*bump* :-)

Thanks for the bumb, Jabes :D

Midnight has its own special flavor, meaning a conversion to 5e loses much of that. Haven't got the time to do it myself and some I've found are so complicated it's like learning a new world/system, something I can't do right now. If I go ahead with it, I'll just be using the vanilla 2nd edition (a.k.a. D&d 3,5)

Dark Sun has similar issues. I'll have to rule out certain 5e class paths and other stuff to have things correspond to the setting, plus it's psionic-heavy and I'm not sure any psionics rules are out for 5e just yet.

Warhammer Fantasy is always the final fall-back plan, but since I ended up as a player in an actual tabletop WH Fantasy RPG, I got that part pretty much covered and would like to do something different.

New ideas
- Conan (the Mongoose Publishing version): This one uses the d20 OGL, so players familiar with 3,5 D&d and Pathfinder should be able to handle it
- Fantasy AGE: A quite nice, simple and versatile game system. Used for the DragonAge and Titansgrave:Ashes of Valkana games, I'm looking into how it could be used for a dark fantasy world

Thoughts/ideas/suggestions/interest?

• Unearthed Arcana: Psionics & the Mystic
•Dark Sun 5th Edition Player's Handbook V2.0

Personally I don't really have the time to learn a new system but Conan sounds exciting!

I love Dungeon World, so interested in The Last Days of Anglekite as mentioned by Taej.

But that's me. :-)

What about Stormbringer? Once again the problem for me is not having the time an headspace for an unfamiliar system but I do so love the books/game setting!

By the title, I'm guessing "Stormbringer" is set in Michael Moorcock's universe of Elric. Only recently did I take a swing at those books and while fascinating, I am in no position able to run a game in a world I know so little. I'm in the same predicament as you Jabes, haven't got the time and headspace for new systems or settings.

Took a quick look at that Dark Sun 5e rulebook, saving it for a better examination in due time. Looks... doable.

Like I said, Conan only has a few modifications from the traditional 3,5 D&d and there really isn't much of a "greater picture" or history in that world, so it's easy for everyone to just pick up and play.

I re-checked Last Days of Anglekite, thought it was a game of its own Powered by the Apocalypse, but it's more of an alternate take on DungeonWorld so I dug deeper. Not that versed in DW, but I love the simplicity of its mechanics and its co-creative nature. LDoA apparently requires some reading, but is sufficiently grim and weird for me.

To sum up, options are
- Midnight 2nd (3,5 D&d based)
- Dark Sun (5e D&d, using the rulebook Jabes provided above)
- Conan (3,5 D&d based)
- Fantasy AGE
- Last Days of Anglekite (Dungeon World based)

Of those, top 3 in popularity seem to be
- Dark Sun
- Conan
- Last Days of Anglekite

Comments
Dark Sun: Heavily based on mere survival (finding food, water, fending off beasts and exhaustion) so it might not appeal to some. Could get a little heavy on the rolls during combat and since combat is not uncommon, that might slow down the game. Requires reading of the conversion handbook. Requires quite a bit of knowledge/explaining about what's different from a standard fantasy world.

Conan: Requires some reading to grasp the altered classes, new feats etc. Combat is usually short and brutal (think all D&d weapons turned up a die type and at the same time the Hit Die of all classes turned down a die type) but since this is Play by Post, I'm willing to introduce plenty of exploration, dungeon crawling and Lovecraftian horror. Not a lot of pre-made adventures here, meaning I gotta put in some extra work though.

Last Days of Anglekite: Some reading about the world is required, but otherwise the game is pretty lite on rolling and it's co-storytelling system takes a huge load of work off my shoulders.

I'd say based on the above, my priorities are LDoA first, Conan second and Dark Sun last.

Anyone?

I currently have a Warhammer 2nd edition game running and have been pestering Keleth to get a sheet up for us.

Minor update:

I've looked a little more into Last Days of Anglekite and while it's a wonderful concept, my little experience with games Powered by the Apocalypse (TM) tells me they're best enjoyed live around the table. The co-creating concept requires a lot of back and forth brainstorming and I'm not so sure it would work well in a Play by post environment.

Conan's books are a little hard to come by, meaning both I got trouble finding pre-made adventures to run and I'm sure players will have trouble finding the rulebook.

Warhammer is still on the table, though becoming a little more specific. I'm thinking of a sandbox-style game in a randomly generated area of the Border Princes. Allows for a much broader character concept and lets players choose whether they'd like to explore ruins, fight raiding monsters or get involved in the local power play.

Last but not least, there's a very slim chance I'd be willing to run a 3rd edition Shadowrun game. Lots of dice and rules and tables and book keeping, but at least I'm more familiar with the "oldschool" rules and setting of 3rd rather than 5th edition.