Heyas!
I was wondering if anyone has ever tried Flashing Blades?
What exactly is Harn master? I have seen the books but no one I know plays it.

A BibleMan RPG would be cool.

Let's see... Story and atmosphere... L5R is my fantasy setting while SR is my prefered post-modern RPG with WOD as my present day material.

I liked L5R for it's lethal gameplay (I was surprised when we tried running a combat heavy sesson. Almost half the party didn't make it. And were fully armed and armored), it really captured the feel of a fuedal empire.

I also liked BESM for it's easy to jump into and we could go over the top if we wanted and it would still be in character.

And I've learned not to despise D20 anymore. Mainly due to Star Wars, both Xbox/PC and tabletop (never played D6, but D20 material is much easier to find), and Icewind Dale 2 with Neverwinter Nights. Now I just mearly dislike D20.

Just throwing out my thoughts here:

Best combat system : For me, this has to be Torg. Nothing beats the 1 die roll task resolution combined with the card based and possibility point system. It's not realistic, it's dramatic, but so are the stories I like to tell.

Best Magic System: As others have said, Ars Magica is undoubtedly the best, with Mage The Ascenscion as a close second. OTOH, those games *have* to have the best magic systems. Non-magic using characters are supposed to suck in comparison.

Most customizable: GURPS. There's well over 100 different world books to select from, all of which are balanced on the same point system. No other system begins to have the customization options that GURPS has. But, not other systems has really *tried* to have the customization options that GURPS has. It's generic and universal by design.

Best Story Line: Shadowrun. I've never been crazy about the mechanics, but the world setting and its development has alwasy been what's sucked me into Shadowrun.

Character creation : Amber Diceless. Most game systems have character creation that revolves around blind luck or around endless min-maxing. Amber starts off with an auction run by the GM, where the players bid character points for their PC's attributes. The interaction that this kind of a kick off provides for the campaign is priceless.

Learnability: Star Wars d6. For a someone new to RPGs, this game beats everything else. No funky dice, and a world setting that everyone knows. Task resolution is just a matter of grabbing all the dice listed on your character sheet, then adding up the total. It doesn't get any easier than this.

For my overall general purpose game system, I like Torg the best. The built in cross genre capabilities combined with the dramatic nature of the game engine suit my style of GMing perfectly.

For my humble opinion;

Best Combat system; the original MSH RPG. It was smooth, but not without it's bumps in the road.

Best Magic System; Shadowrun, all incarnations. There is a price for Magick, and this is never felt more than by all SR mages.

Most Customizable: GURPS. How else can you have a Lensman, a Wild Card ace, a vampire and a Discworld mage be put through the mind games of The Prisoner?

Best Storyline: Shadowrun. I'm counting the days until The Awakening....

Character Creation: Tied--SR & GURPS.

Learnability: the original MSH. What other RPG can spell an anagram of it's stats? (for MSH, it's FASERIP.. "face-rip", LOL)

Best combat System: EON - a swedish fantasy game, which I am told is being translated into english at the moment. Regardless of your skill, you have to watch yourself. There are rules for taunts that are based on roleplaying them. Any halfass punk with a dagger can kill a superior fighter if he's lucky or devious enough. Being severely injured almost always results in unconsciousness before death, but you can stay conscious up until the moment of death too, if you are (un?)lucky. Most realistic combat rules I've ever seen, and they're not all that hard to learn either.

Best magic system: I like Shadowrun the best, I think. Simple yet flexible and useable.

Most customizable (from GM's point of view): GURPS? Something for everyone...

Best Story Line: Shadowrun for it's metaplot, or possibly KULT for it's world view idea.

Character creation: Two winners: Shadowrun (for planning your character out) and EON (for random creation - it has tons of tables to create your characters background, family situation, special abilities, etc. Our gaming group agrees it is the most fun character creation we've seen since Marvel Second Edition, and we've spent hours just creating characters for fun.

Ongoing Character Development: This one's tricky... I am almost tempted to say the original Star Wars. Shadowrun I find ca get abit unbalanced at high levels, whether you use the basic rules(pay karma and raise, no questions asked) or Companion alternative rules (chances are you'll sit on a stockpile of karma you never roll high enough to use).

Learnability: Marvel Superheroes. Then again I haven't played any of the games designed to be easy. Red Dwarf looks quite easy to learn and use, but I haven't played it so I don't know.