#or maybe GURPS

[doctorofrestoration]

If I had a nickel for every time today I saw someone call PBtA a perfect system, I'd have 2 nickels. That's not a lot buts it's weird that it happened twice.

THINGS I AM UNREASONABLY ANNOYED ABOUT BY GAME SYSTEM

D&D: Please put a disclaimer that you are not a universal system. Every time I see someone try to do a political mystery game in D&D, I take 3d10 psychic damage and have to make a death saving throw.

Pathfinder: Look. If i wanted to play a game about fighting Cthulhu there is an extremely famous game specifically designed around doing that. Literally no-one is ever going to say "Wow, I want to play a Cthulhu themed game! Time to stat up a musical halfling from a magical fantasy land!".

Chronicles Of Darkness: Just admit no-one uses any of your rules. You have Social Door Rules and Integrity Conditions and Corruption Levels and I bet at most 50% of COD players could tell me which of those I made up. Just admit people aren't dressing up as Alucard The Bringer Of Shadows because they want to sit down and do calculus.

World Of Darkness: You know that old guy who's still doing his job even though he is way too old to do it any more, but he's now an institution so you can't get rid of him? Like that. The 90s called and they want literally everything about this back.

Call Of Cthulhu: I appreciate the commitment to authenticity, but maybe stop hiring actual disgraced mental asylum directors from the 1920s to design your sanity system?

GURPS: Look. Look. Listen. We both know that you just want to write history textbooks. These are history textbooks with a few stat blocks begrudgingly put in. If you just give me a book on early Chinese history I will read it and go "ah, very interesting!". You don't need to put in a list of character choices. We're all nerds. We'll read them. Live your best life.

Powered By The Apocalypse: I actually can't think of anything wrong with PBTA. That's not a bit, this is literally the perfect system. Take notes everyone else.

Mutants and Masterminds/Heroes System: Your systems have probably the most customizable character creation in the world and you both just make reskins of the Justice League over and over again. Maybe we only need one "thinly veiled copyrighted characters" setting? You can fight over it once you decipher your combat mechanics.

FATE: Ok I won't lie, I have no idea how the fuck FATE works. I have read the rules repeatedly and played three games and I still have no idea what invoking an aspect means. I don't know why. I grasped the rules of fucking Nobilis but this one just psychologically eludes me. This is more a problem with me I guess, but I'm still annoyed.

Warhammer 40k: Have you considered spending less on avocado toast? Then you might be able to afford to charge less for things?

Exalted: Apart from the lore, the setting, the mechanics, the metaplot, the character creation and the dodgy narrative implications, I can't think of anything to improve here.

[laundrybiscuits]

“It’s happening,” crows Dustin. “Eddie, it’s happening, it’s happening, she said yes!”

Eddie blinks up at him from the blankets. “Is…this about your little girlfriend, Henderson?” Is there a school dance coming up or something? Wait, it’s the summer, school’s not happening.

In a just world, Eddie Munson would never have to think about high school again; in a just world, Dustin Henderson would not have woken him up by breaking into his trailer at ass o’clock in the morning.

“No, man, Erica! Erica Sinclair! She’s gonna run a My Little Pony game for us!”

“Okay.” Eddie turns over to bury his face in his pillow. “Lock up when you leave,” he says, muffled.

———

He honest-to-god thinks it’s just a weird dream for the next few days. He’s almost completely forgotten about it when Mike corners him at work.

“You have to make her stop,” Mike says.

“Okay, Wheeler, two things. First: who am I making stop what? Second: I’m not making anyone stop anything. Really not my style, and also, I don’t wanna get involved in whatever this is.”

“You’re already involved! We’re all involved! We’re all, like, liable.”

“Right.” Eddie wipes his hands on a rag and ambles over. “Kid, you have got to start giving me some context here. What are we talking about?”

Mike gives him just the absolute bitchiest eyeroll any human being has ever mustered in the history of the world, and sighs noisily. “Erica wants to run a stupid game, and Dustin keeps encouraging her. Tell Erica and Dustin that we play Dungeons and Dragons with like, cool monsters and shit. Not some stupid game about ponies. It’s not even D&D, it’s a whole new stupid system that she’s making us learn.”

“Oh, shit.” There’s—a few things to unpack in that little speech, but Eddie can’t help the delighted grin spreading over his face. “That’s for real? The pony game? Shit, this is going to be the best thing ever. What system is she planning to run the campaign in?”

“Oh my god,” says Mike, and storms out of the garage.

———

“GURPS: Generic Universal Role-Playing System,” announces Erica, slamming the books down on Steve’s kitchen table. “A flexible, multi-purpose, setting-agnostic system that can accommodate any conceivable type of story or play style. This is the future of role-playing games, not your broke-ass fantasy bullcrap.”

Eddie wonders how complicated it is to file paperwork for adoption.

“Some of us like D&D,” says Will.

“Yeah, we don’t want your stupid generic whatever. We’re not playing,” Mike snaps.

“That’s not what I said.” Will looks annoyed with Mike, which has been happening a lot lately. Eddie’s glad the kid seems to be growing more of a spine; you can’t just let your tragic heterosexual crushes walk all over you, but that’s the kind of lesson every young gay needs to learn the hard way. “I’m fine with trying something new. I’m just saying, the next campaign after this should be D&D.”

“Sure, what-ever, nerds,” drawls Erica. “We’ll see how you feel after you experience the magic of Ponyland.”

Lucas puts his face in his hands when she says the magic of Ponyland and lets out a pitiful groan.

“Whoo!” cheers Dustin. “Let’s get started!”

———

It takes them a solid two hours to make their characters. Even Eddie, who’s been vaguely aware of GURPS since it was released a couple years ago, is struggling a little to adapt. It’s just been a while since he played anything but D&D, but he’s enjoying the change of pace. He likes this kind of challenge; it’s like figuring out how to play a familiar song in an unfamiliar genre.

Erica is not especially patient with them, but she’s clearly done her prep work, so Eddie thinks they all manage to get through the character creation process more or less the way it’s supposed to be done.

Steve gets back from work right when they’re putting the finishing touches on their characters. The way he blinks all sweetly confused makes Eddie think that Dustin was definitely lying about having permission to play here, and also that Dustin probably has a very troubling stash of keys to all their homes squirreled away somewhere.

“If I may, Lady Sinclair, I’d like to humbly suggest a ten-minute break?” Eddie says, before Steve can decide whether or not to be mad about this whole thing.

“Sure, go ahead and rest up while you still can,” says Erica. “Steve, I hope you got good snacks around here.” She makes a beeline for the kitchen, and the boys trip over themselves to follow her.

“I would die for that child,” says Eddie.

Steve laughs, low and a little tired. “Yeah. Um, me too.”

“So, I’m gonna go ahead and guess that Henderson didn’t actually clear this with you?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure.” Steve runs a hand through his hair. “He might’ve said something last week? Sometimes when he’s on a tear, I just kinda let him talk.”

“Y’know, we’re at a pretty good stopping point for today, if you want us to clear out so you can get some rest.” Eddie can see the smudgy shadows under Steve’s eyes from halfway across the room.

“No, it’s fine.” Steve peels off his vest. He’s wearing an entire perfectly normal shirt underneath, so there’s no reason for Eddie to hastily avert his eyes like Steve’s doing a damn striptease. “I might go take a nap, though. Gonna trust you not to let them burn down the place, got it?”

Eddie does a silly little salute. “Aye aye, cap’n. No hint of flame shall breach these walls.”

Steve laughs again, a gravelly chuckle, and musses Eddie’s hair on his way to the stairs.

“Why do you have that dumb look on your face,” says Erica suspiciously, standing in the kitchen doorway and clutching the biggest bowl of ice cream Eddie’s seen in his life.

“What look, there’s no look,” says Eddie. “Let’s play some GURPS.”

Edit: now a complete fic on AO3!

[owlbear33]

so yeah, Dresden Files werewolves, there're at least 4 different types and I'm thinking about how you would handle that in a ttrpg

and like sure you could handwave a lot of it, but you know what I'm like

I want a decently granular (point costed) monster creation tool, and a similarly granular (point costed) power and magic item creation tool

so you can build up your werewolf form stats, reduce the cost by adding weaknesses, limitations on how you can enter the werewolf form, and how much control you have over your werewolf form, so you know how much XP/CP(character points) you need to spend to get that

the three/four different Dresden Files werewolves will have differences in all three of those categories the Alphas get a lot of control and can activate not quite at will, but have maybe the least powerful wolf form, the hexenwolves have better wolf forms, but have less control, and their transformation is tied to a magic belt (can be taken away), the Loup-garou has the beefiest werewolf form, it auto activates on a full moon and otherwise can't be used, the person inflicted with the curse has no control over the wolf form (and is probably treating this way of being a werewolf as a flaw)

there's probably a GURPS book for this isn't there

[swxrdie]

I should use this Tumblr more to write down the dumb ideas that've been sticking with me for a while, so... here we go!

Dramatical Murder (DMMD), but it's a tabletop campaign and the people who play Aoba and the main love interests have no idea what DMMD is (they can name the characters and give them personalities based on their appearance alone). The people who do know what DMMD is play the NPCs, and try to guide the main players through the plot while sticking closely to canon events as much as possible.

...With that in mind, it's going to be chaotic and practically not DMMD as a result, but I'd love to just see how it'd all go. I'm a newbie GM, I've GMed a short SPELL: The RPG one-shot, am currently running a Rings & Running Shoes short campaign, and am currently also learning to run the Jojo's Bizarre Tabletop system. The things I would do to make this dumb idea work LMAO!

(As a player, I've been playing in 2 D&D campaigns that have been going for more than a year, so also take that what you will.)

[thefalloutwiki]

Were you previously aware...

That Fallout isn't the only franchise to use the SPECIAL system? It was also used by Black Isle in Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader.

You can read more about the SPECIAL system here

You can also check out Lionheart on Steam here

[orion-disease]

ok mx. my wife is 30 feet tall and we fuck [have never held hands]

[euronymous4e]

I'm begging you to play a better game.

The fact that there are D&D 5e players who don’t know how the rules work is so absurd to me. Like, they’ve had the basic rules up for free since before the rulebooks were even in stores, so even not having the rulebook is no excuse. At that point you’re doing it on purpose.

[oldestenemy]

still thinking about gulag session from yesterday

and about antonella doing a full 180 from offering to help a guard bandage up his tiger-bitten-arm to slitting his gd throat.

[white-weasel]

Realizing I could just run a GURPS campaign that’s set up with the same rules as the nonary game and it could feasibly work

[indierpgnewsletter]

The Tom Bloom Phenomenon and Sub-cultures Generally

For the first time ever (as far as I can tell anyway), there are 5 games in the top 10 of itch.io that are from the same creator.

Tom Bloom is an artist probably best known for his comic, Kill 6 Billion Demons. He’s also one-half of Massif Press and co-creator of the tactical mecha game, Lancer. And recently, he’s been publishing games under his own solo label, Chasm.

So far, under Chasm, he’s put out three products, which are all in the Top 4. Magnagothica: Maleghast is a miniatures war game without the miniatures. The assumption is that you’ll play it online using his stylish art. Cain is a dark investigation game where trained supersoldiers hunt down monsters created by trauma. And then there’s Games for Freaks, which is a little magazine that contains supplementary material for his other games.

As far as lineage goes, my understanding is that Bloom’s primary touchstone for narrative games is Blades in the Dark (oh, look, a new supplement is out). He tends to combine that with various degrees of crunchy combat, stunning art, shonen anime aesthetics, and angst. They sound interesting but I don’t know if I’ll ever get to play them. Lancer was definitely too rules-y for me.

I’m talking about this because I think it’s interesting that more and more, the huge diversity of RPG clusters are becoming apparent to me. This newsletter tries to take a wide view of the gaming scene but because I’m writing it, there’s a focus on storygames. There’s thriving groups and sub-groups that I almost never talk about – those around World of Darkness or GURPS or the 2d20 games from Modiphius or all the new Osprey Games or Jenna K Moran’s work or even solo games or larps or lyric games. And of course, there’s geographies and technologies and on on.

It’s not about the absolute number of the population of these various sub-groups – that’s not where their notability comes from. The point for me is that there is a huge diversity in the breadth of “who is playing tabletop RPGs”. There is a huge variation in what is considered approachable, fun, interesting, life-affirming, comforting, and so on. Anyone still talking about what games are or should be (without the requisite nuance) is just wasting their time.

We don’t all share the same context anymore. The games that you know aren’t the games I know. The way you play isn’t the way other people play. And this is a part of broader cultural trends – globalism, the rise and fall of mass culture, consumerism, monopolization – all of which I’m not smart enough to explain in 600 words. But it was also always the case – maybe it was just a little harder to see.

I think there are a lot of people who, like me, have a curiosity that exceeds their grasp. Thanks to Rascal, I get to do some spelunking into these communities. But I really can’t do them all. And I really shouldn’t. I’m excited for folks from all these groups to speak for themselves to others – to articulate their own contexts and speak passionately about what brings them together. That’s not easy honestly. It’s hard to talk about games without some critical language and some broader sense of the landscape and so on. But at the same time, we can figure that out along the way. I’d definitely like to help.

This first appeared on the Indie RPG Newsletter: https://ttrpg.in/2024/11/03/the-tom-bloom-phenomenon-and-sub-cultures-generally/

[tiredfoxtf]

GURPS stands for Generic Universal Role-Playing System, which is basically what it's says on the tin. It's a tabletop RPG system which you can play with your friends.

People really overestimate how complex gurps is as a system. There's only 3 types of rolls and one of them is totally optional. Most of the math is either already done For You or it's written on your character sheet. And you do not need anything more than 3 6 sideded dice to play the game.

[txttletale]

TBQH most of popular "alternatives" to D&D are either Pathfinder or both very different and rules heavy. Like maybe if you directly ask someone who knows things you would get proper recommendations (I sure as hell know systems that allow me to do fantasy better, both very different and D&D-but-simpler), but not simply from osmosis. From osmosis you would know GURPS, World of Darkness, Dark Heresy, Savage Worlds, and a bunch of PbtA games, and half of that is more complicated than D&D and most also more setting-specific.

(Yeah there is probably a PbtA game for everything but like you still have to find specific games)

i cannot imagine any possible metric by which 'd&d' or 'pathfinder' are games that aren't insanely, overwhelmingly, rules-heavy and setting-specific

[laundrybiscuits]

(continuing the MLP GURPS snippet)

“You what,” says Erica flatly.

“I said…Jester the Pegasus slits the chief Seapony’s throat. You said he was letting me pin the bronze seashell to his mane, right? So I shouldn’t have to roll for it, I can just use the edge of the seashell ‘cause his neck’s right there.” Dustin leans back with a shit-eating grin.

Eddie has to cover his own smile, because he recognizes the panicked look that Erica’s trying to hide. She’s the same kind of DM as Eddie is: she’s got a massive binder and detailed scripts for every possible way the story could go, because she likes to be prepared for anything. She just hasn’t learned yet that players are always, always going to try something you never saw coming because you assumed they were reasonable human beings and not chaos gremlins from a nightmare dimension.

She rallies like a champ. “Uh, sure, I guess. The hundreds of Seaponies around you go wild, because that was a super dumb thing to do. They’re gonna tear you apart if you don’t do something right now.”

Lucas leans in, eyes all lit up. “Okay, but, did the blood get onto the altar? I mean, the Moonlight Circle?”

Erica’s starting to grin too, lacing her fingers together as she catches on to what they’re after. “It sure did. Um, so…Jester the Pegasus Pony is standing over the fallen chief with a bloody shell in his teeth. The crowd of Seaponies is screaming at you, but the blood is already dripping onto the Moonlight Circle. It’s turning black as it reaches the salt water, and you can hear something real big coming up from the deep sea, wa-a-ay far down below.”

She’s pivoting with barely a stumble, going off-book to follow the story, and Eddie can’t keep from doing a thrilled little wriggle in his seat. A familiar laugh sounds from behind him, and he startles, flushing.

“Having fun?” Steve asks, resting his folded arms on the back of Eddie’s chair. Eddie has to tip his head all the way back to look at Steve.

“Hell yeah,” he says. “The Lady Sinclair is a demon incarnate.”

Erica beams. “Maybe you could keep up if you weren’t such a senior citizen. Need to get your walker from the nursing home, grandpa?”

“Youth of today have no respect.” Eddie wags a finger at her. “Keep that up and Steve’s going to swoop into the game like an avenging undead Seapony.”

“Steve is not involved in any of this,” says Steve. “Steve is a very generous and patient guy who lets unholy terrors take over his kitchen table and eat all his food.”

Eddie stretches up to pat his cheek. He misses slightly and ends up basically smacking Steve in the face. “Thank you, Steve,” he coos. “Say thank you, unholy terrors.”

“Thank you, Steve,” chorus Will and Lucas, who are precious angels too good for this world. Dustin and Mike pull grotesque faces that may or may not be based on faces Eddie has pulled in the past; Erica just sniffs in an unimpressed way. Eddie is going to keep these kids forever.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt…whatever this is.” Steve waves a hand at the piles of paper and dice and empty ice cream bowls. “I’m just gonna heat up some pizzas for dinner. Everyone okay with four-cheese and supreme?”

“Sounds great,” says Eddie. “We’re about ready to wrap up this session, I think.”

“What, no we’re not,” says Mike. “We’re about to kick the Seapony god’s ass.”

Erica wrinkles her nose. “As much as it might pain me to admit it…the senior citizen’s right. Fighting the Seapony god would be way too complicated a battle for your puny minds to handle right now. You dweebs don’t even know the insane twists I have planned.”

“Plus,” says Steve, “You dorks have been playing since before I got home like three hours ago. Give Erica a break, huh? You can pick this up another day.”

“I don’t need a break, you need a break, old man,” Erica says immediately, but she’s already starting to pack up her notes.

———

With the game mostly packed away, Eddie gets up to stretch; maybe he really is getting old, because he’s suddenly feeling the effects of sitting in a dining room chair for five hours all through his back. He’s gonna just keep blaming the bat venom for any aches and pains, though.

The boys are already busy trying to strategize for the battle ahead, even though Eddie would bet good money that Erica’s listening in and adjusting her own plans based on theirs. He thinks about saying something, but Erica’s earned this, and the little shitheads will never learn to keep their mouths shut if they don’t get burned once in a while. Instead, he wanders into the kitchen to help Steve out with the pizzas.

Steve’s staring thoughtfully into the freezer. “Think four’s enough?”

“Better make it five,” says Eddie. “Six if you got ‘em. I think Will grew another eight inches since yesterday.”

Steve groans. “Okay, but one of them’s going to be mushroom. Maybe if I do that one in the first batch, they’ll be hungry enough not to complain.”

“What are you talking about, Steve, mushrooms are the crowning glory of the forest. They are the simple food of the common man, yet rich and complex enough to adorn the plate of a king.” Eddie hops up to perch on the kitchen counter, narrowly avoiding smacking his head on the cabinets.

“Of course you like mushrooms, freak,” grumbles Steve. He freezes, looking pained. “I didn’t mean—”

Eddie scoots along the counter to kick him lightly. “Yeah, I know, Steve, don’t spin out. Just put the mushroom one in the oven for me and we’ll call it square.”

Steve smiles up at Eddie as he goes to do just that, dropping his hand to Eddie’s knee for a moment.

“I’m—gonna go make sure the kids aren’t murdering each other yet,” says Eddie.

[least-evil-resident]

medieval resident evil au where Umbrella is a cabal of dark mages trying to unlock the secrets to lichdom and go mad learning secrets from the undead eldritch horror outside of space and time

Chris and Jill are Knights in service of the Order of Stars, Leon is a beginning town guard, Ada is still a spy, honestly not much is different

If you give them ttrpg character sheets then it's even more fun

Would guns be wands, badass Crossbows, or straight up magic, or different based on the game? They could also just be guns but that wouldn't be nearly as interesting.

Consider pistol=dagger, rifle=longsword, shotgun=axe? Grenades could be hand bombs or magic.

Or pistol=hand crossbow, rifle=light crossbow, shotgun is either special bolt or a spell

Beneath the cobblestone streets of raccoon city, where gaslamps and auto-carriages ramble, is the lair of an evil sect of mages developing spells in secret to transform humans into beasts

Could be very bloodborne-esque. Lots of fire and brimstone. Maybe STARS are more like paladins, and the bsaa is an order of Templar type organization.

If we go dnd 5e rules, Chris is a fighter for sure, Jill is like a rogue I guess? Leon could go either. It could be fun to make Claire like a sorcerer since she gets the grenade launcher

In later games I think Chris definitely fits either paladin or barbarian, where Leon goes for more rogue/maybe ranger vibes. Jill seems more rogue+fighter but magic rogue is cool, maybe artificer. Claire would be sorcerer multiclass I think. Keep any mages low powered that way.

Sherry in 6 is maybe warlock or aasimar instead of Cleric? Blood hunter would be cool. Rebecca starts as a Cleric in 0 for sure. For a low magic setting where research and Rituals are matched by quick, small combat spells, how high of a DC do you think enemies would go?

Of course, in a classless system like gurps or all flesh, this would be a lot less restrictive. What would be the best system for resident evil normally? What would be the best one for its fantasy au?

Wesker very much fits the low-fantasy vampire theme. He has a reflection and can step in he sunlight but wow it hurts his eyes. Chris rolls a 20 to punch a boulder to death.

Leon has the lucky feat or 20 in dex or something to pull off his stunts. Chris also gets Charisma as a leader for the bsaa, so paladin is up his alley. Leon's secret service requires more rogue skills, but his time in operation javier trains his skills as a Ranger under Krauser maybe?

Jill and Claire both get grenade launchers, but Jill is more Rogue with her lockpicking so it makes sense for them to switch level ups later on as claire learns more professional skills for rogue training.

Barry definitely hits fighter/barbarian with his heavy weapons. Jake is maybe more monk/barbarian but with something like a dhampir ancestry feature? Sheva is maybe rogue/fighter or paladin fighter since thats when chris starts taking paladin levels. Billy has to be rogue/fighter I think, or maybe fighter/rogue, if he even gets a second class. It would almost make sense for him to be pure rogue and rebecca be cure cleric, since she retires to become a researcher and hes never heard from again. Helena is I guess just plain rogue, hinting at her role in 6, while Leon has his ranger levels. Piers is more rogue/Ranger (or fighter archer). A lot of the one off teammates just don't get super interesting classes as a consequence of their limited appearance. Carlos... Fighter? Just fighter is fine.

Now, the problem here is that each game starts off with little to no equipment for various reasons. In the case of our spell casters like claire and jill, we can't just de-level them between adventures in the resident evil campaign. But we could give them more limited access to spell components to match the resource management of survival horror.

This is more complicated outside of dnd 5e, where a game like All Flesh Must Be Eaten has very different spellcasting rules, so you'd need to stray from a low-magic to a straight low-fantasy setting. Alchemist tools and one use spell scrolls replace your grenades and spell casting maybe? That's the issue you'd run into with treating the setting as one campaign instead of each game as an individual campaign though.

The easiest one to do is RE8. It's literally the same. Ethan starts 7 as a human Commoner, takes levels in artificer as the game goes on, since that one introduced crafting, and comes back very subtly as a human variant with a few new levels in fighter from chris' tutoring. Hey that means we can give Hiesenburg an artificer friend! Class buddies ♡ hiesenburg is probably artificer/sorcerer, giving him charisma and intelligence. Dimetrescu is maybe barbarian if she even gets class levels.

I don't think we can justifiably say Rose is a variant human, I think she gets her own custom ancestry features for this. Sorcerer also feels better than Druid for her, but a couple levels in - you guessed it, rogue! Cover her gun and Stealth skills. You get a lot or rogues and fighters in low powered/low fantasy settings, who knew lol

[thydungeongal]

Hi, same anon obsessed with morality.

Okay, I admit that my ask was a bit too emotional because non-evil original roleplaying games exist even in sword and sorcery style (World of Dungeons and Oracle are some I would recommend), and existence of Gondal setting testifies that it's not a male thing in any way.

However, my probably naive concern goes a little further - I don't play D&D, but I use it for monsters and settings. It's hard to invent absolutely everything from a scratch, you know? But this leads to an ethical concern I have - doing this is still feeding into D&D hegemony and embracing Gygax's and Arneson's rotten legacy (though I am starting to think that Gygax was a lesser evil, holy fuck). And let's not fool ourselves here - derivative games like Pathfinder or Knave are still their legacy (though maybe Cairn isn't, I am not sure).

So like, what are options of games that are generic fantasy that have a lot of monsters and settings to steal and that are also both not "D&D but different" and aren't objectively evil?

I know literally a handful of candidates, so I am asking your followers to share. And no, Warhammer isn't such game.

What I remember is:

Fantasy Age is not without a sin, but it's presented as "you can depict these demi-humans as equal people or you can be a hitler, it's up to you", so progress I guess?

Jackals is built on OpenQuest and is pretty generic if you exclude it being about bronze age, but I remember some potentially creepy details of how it treats demi-humans

Blue Rose looks the most morally fine, but it's not exactly generic

Lightmaster is ugh, because it doesn't have inherently evil demi-humans, but it has inherently different demi-humans who are always savages, so it's a thin ice (though otherwise it's a blast)

D6 Fantasy doesn't really have monsters in core book, but there are probably third-party bestiaries that may even not be vile

GURPS does have bestiaries of fantasy creatures, but I don't know anything about their morality

IDK about rolemaster, but you said that it's not good.

So like, which extremely ethical non-OSR heartbreaker that was published ever am I missing? Should I look into Das Schwarze Auge, or does it suck the same way?

Ultimately I think you're thinking about this too much to your own detriment. It's good to be aware of the fact that lots of (especially older) fantasy stuff does carry some fucked up expectations and approach it with a critical eye so you don't end up replicating it, but if you become single-minded in your pursuit of the perfect, unproblematic fantasy RPG you're not only setting yourself up for disappointment but also denying yourself a lot of stuff that's good but flawed.

Anyway, not a game but a supplement for OSR games, but Skerples' Monster Overhaul is pretty good in this regard and does this via simply accepting the revolutionary paradigm of "orcs are just some guys."

Another game out of the left field, Chivalry & Sorcery is really surprising in this regard, because it's the sort of game that gives off vibes of being written by "the presence of women in a medieval setting is extremely inaccurate" types, but the authors actually make a point of saying that player enjoyment and comfort should always take precedence over adherence to historicity when it comes to issues like players wanting to play women or queer characters. But it's in its treatment of orcs and trolls (and as far as I've understood, dwarves and elves too, but I haven't read that supplement yet) where it gets really cooking. Chivalry & Sorcery is a game written by medieval history nerds and they wanted their game's worldbuilding to adhere to a medieval European paradigm. So when it came to adding orcs into the game the authors asked "how would orcs fit into the worldview of a medieval Christian?"

The answer is that just as medieval Christian philosophers mused that if cynocephali or those guys who only had one big foot were to exist then surely they must be just some guys, orcs would also have to be just some guys. This means that they would be human in terms of having been created by God and tracing descent to Adam and Eve and also could receive the eucharist and be saved.

Anyway, all of which is to say that the middle ages were woke,

[duckduckbear]

“Well, I better go. Everyone seems to be gone.” They announced to the only other person in the room.

“Thanks for coming it…*Hig* was good to see you. I didn’t know you weren’t *burp* drinking anymore, I wouldn’t have gotten so *urp* drunk. “

“No problem, It was good seeing ya. I had fun. Maybe I’ll stop by in a few weeks and we can hang and watch a movie?”

“Sure!”

Next week

“Hey, how are ya?”

“Oh, hey *burp* I wasn’t expecting ya. I’m a little drunk, hope that’s like, ok?”

“No problem, It doesn’t bother me, I’ve been in control a while.”

*stumbles* “I’m gonna get another few beers, be right back”

*Puts two beers down on the coffee table*

*Slurring a bit* “Go ahead and have that other beer *gurp*. I’m full. One beer won’t knock you off the wagon”

Just the one.

(Well…)

*crack* *sip*

TO BE CONTINUED