[mcv]

There are way too many options to give a simple answer to that question.

If you want to stick close to D&D, Pathfinder and 13th Age are obvious choices. If you prefer something a bit more raw, less polished maybe, deadlier, where survival is a goal in itself and combat may be better avoided, try one of the OSR systems, like DCC, LotFP, Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, etc. Lamentations of the Flame Princess is weird horror and explicitly 18+. If you want the feeling of D&D but with a system that focuses more on the story and the experience than on all the numbers in D&D, then try Dungeon World. A lot of people lauded Dungeon World for recreating the feeling they had when they first played D&D.

If you want to get further away from D&D, well, what direction do you want? Fantasy? SF? Cyberpunk? Historical? Martial arts? Horror? Steam punk? Espionage? Military? Old West? TV shows?

[SaulOfTheJungle]

> If you want to get further away from D&D, well, what direction do you want?

SF or Cyberpunk

[e12e]

R Talsorian Games' Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 is a nice retro (think William Gibson Neuromancer) game.

https://talsorianstore.com/collections/cyberpunk

But if I were to recommend a single (set of) games, it would be the classic World of Darkness games, like Mage: the Ascension 20th anniversary Ed:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/149562

For a game with some interesting mechanics, you might enjoy Underground:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/2873

And for something... Different, we've had a lot of fun with Microscope:

http://www.lamemage.com/microscope/

[saalweachter]

Shadowrun is the canonical cyberpunk RPG.

Starfinder is, I believe, Pathfinder in space.

GURPS is setting-agnostic.

[naravara]

>Shadowrun is the canonical cyberpunk RPG.

Aside from the dated and weird essentialization of Native American cultures, Shadowrun's setting is really good and fun.

Unfortunately it's hard to run a game with a decent narrative flow just because the combat system is so complicated. My group decided to shame people out of playing mages or riggers just because we didn't want to have to deal with simultaneously doing combat in cyberspace and the astral plane at once. It really puts a damper on having a fun game that flows. I wouldn't recommend it for someone new to pen&paper RPGs.

On the other hand, the tedium of combat gave us a strong incentive to talk our way out of problems instead of going the murder-hobo route.

[C1sc0cat]

GURPS works better in some eras trying to do modern you have dozens of skill's to keep track of.

[mcv]

If you want pure cyberpunk, take a look at R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2020.

If you like fantasy mixed in with your cyberpunk, Shadowrun is the gold standard. A word of warning: Shadowrun has a rather heavy, complex system, because it does absolutely everything. But I like it a lot.

Generic systems like GURPS and Savage Worlds can do cyberpunk of course, although I don't think GURPS Cyberpunk has been updated to the 4th edition. No doubt something exists for Savage Worlds, but I have no idea what.

There are other cyberpunk systems that I know very little about, but others are enthusiastic about, including Eclipse Phase (seems to include space and transhumanism, so it's probably not pure cyberpunk, but it might suit your taste), or Ex Machina.

Sprawl seems to be the Apocalypse World/Dungeon World adaptation for cyberpunk.

SF is much broader. The original SF RPG is of course Traveller, which is somewhat retro; the game predates computers and doesn't have many (any?) robots either. But if you want to travel around in a space ship, this is great.

Stars Without Number is an SF game that translates ideas from the OSR movement to the SciFi setting.

There are of course several different Star Wars games, including the original d6-based game by West End Games (recently republished by Fantasy Flight Games), the d20 (D&D-like) Saga Edition, and the Edge of the Empire-style games by Fantasy Flight.

GURPS is great at SciFi, and I'm sure Savage Worlds does it too.

Diaspora is a small but really cool hard SF game based on the Fate system. I love how you first generate the worlds together and then generate the party together. In space combat, dumping heat is a major concern.

Paranoia is weird dystopian funny SF. The Computer is your friend.

Starfinder is the SF version of Pathfinder. I assume the system is therefore D&D-related, but I honestly don't know.

Dark Heresy takes place in the Warhammer 40K universe.

But there are dozens if not hundreds of others.

[dmoy]

In addition to the three listed above, Alternity (if it's still in print?) is a reasonable SF system.

Oops, not in print since 2000... yep.