One thing that drew me to Harn was it's adult view on a RPG. There is complex rules where there needs to be and they do not avoid the hot topics of Drugs, sex and violance. Is there other systems that other people use out there that also follows this path?

Well, if criteria is topics of drugs, sex, and violence:
Call of Cthulhu
Artesia
Vampire, Mage: the Ascension

that's all I can think of at the moment...

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Ars Magica
Spycraft

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Michael - visit Tales of Chybisa.com.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

If the criterion is "all of sex, drugs and roc- sorry - violence" then the list is pretty long: C&S, D&D, Aftermath, Glorantha (RQ or HQ), Traveller, CoC, Ars Magica, all of the World of Darkness line, Serenity, Sorceror, Burning Wheel, Toon...

If one will do, the list is almost unending - violence is in just about all of them (OK, maybe not the 'My Little Pony' RPG), sex is in many (depending - just how graphic did you have in mind? the 'Erotic Fantasy' book for D&D3.5 is about the most graphic I have seen in print but still maintaining some good actual play ideas) and drugs are a commonplace (1st Ed. C&C even had "drug trancer" mages).

I think you need to define your terms; you seem to be using "adult" as a proxy for "stuff I like and/or respect". Try describing objectively what it is you are looking for using descriptive, specific and non-loaded terms.

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Balesir
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For my Harn campaign I use 3rd Edition Shadowrun, which already has built-in rules for drug addiction (in addition to violence, which as Balesir pointed out is nearly ubiquitous in RPG systems). Thematically, the world of Shadowrun is a pretty dark place, and adding disease, exploitation, and racism to the "adult" themse of sex, drugs, and violence.

I agree that the word 'adult' here, doesn't really tell us a lot here, particularly since the word, when used as an adjective, seems inexorably to be coming more to mean 'with sexual content' or 'pornographic'.

Then again, if the request is really for games with rules for sex, drugs and violence... I suppose one should probably mention FATAL... although I question how many adults, however lusty they may be in their approach to RPGs, really would consider rules for determining a character's anal circumference at rest, and under maximum stretching, as something that "needs to be" there. That seems to be something more 'juvenile' than 'adult', in my definition of the word.

P.S. Yeah, I mentioned "The Game That Must Not Be Named" by name. So sue me.

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

Boy, was I disappointed when I visited this new retailer in town, "Fantasy Knights", and discovered it was just a gaming store.

Adult to me would be considered a game that would have a "R" rating, or like a video game with a "mature" rating.
The Call of Cthulhu game was one I was also thinking about; and any of the World of Darkness stuff would fit into this column..
Not really looking for a "porno" game, but just thinking of games if you played at a con and a twelve year old kid walked up to the table, you would ask him to leave due to the mature content of the game. You don't want him going home and talking about a game where the book he found was covered in human skin.

D&D is a game I would think that pulls it punches (non adult).. I know a company made the "erotic fantasy" book... but it was bad...real bad..Like playing football on a baseball diamond... just don't work..

Never knew Shadowrun was so dark.. it was lost to me years ago because no one around me played the game; saw it in the shops a number of times but never messed with it... it was D&D meets cyberpunk and no one in my group would touch it.

I have never heard of FATAL; who makes it?? got a link for the game?
Artesia, Burning wheel and C&S are other games that don't ring a bell.. Details??

Shadowrun being described as D&D meets cyberpunk is like saying Cherry Coke is just like regular Coca Cola except with a cherry taste. It gives an idea but is wildly inaccurate at the same time. SR4 rules are nothing at all like D&D, and they are very playable and consistent. To my way of thinking, a rules set provide all the meat and about half of the flavour of a game. The setting has the other half. The setting for SR is a distopian future Earth where gargantuan corporations have as much or more power than national governments. Yes, there are orks, trolls, dwarves, elves and humans, magic and cybernetic (and biological) augmentation...but it this doesn't mean it's cheesy. Well, OK, that last bit is my own personal opinion.

And yes, it can be very VERY dark. After all, the primary occupation of the player characters are criminals who live outside normal society, and work as deniable assets for people and organisations that need something done or someone taken care of. I like how you can be contracted to provide support to a starving vampire philantropist one day, providing discrete protection for the illegitimate son of a Russian Mafia don while he goes trick or treating on Hallowe'en, and working to kidnap a nuclear scientist from her safe gated community and transporting her to another country (against her will) the next night.

Actually, SR4 can be as light or dark as your GM wants to make it.

I've used a modified set of SR rules to play on Harn, and it was my most successful campaign.

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Artesia and Burning Wheel are both "indie" games. Artesia's rules are paired with a specific setting that is outlined in detail (and based on Mark Smiley's Artesia comics). Burning Wheel is in theorgy setting-independent, but seems to assume a fairly traditional medievalish fantasy setting with Tolkienien elements (orcs, Elves, dwarves). I'm a big fan of BW-- and I think Artesia is both fascinating and beautiful, but I've not yet got a chance to try it out in actual play.

C&S, by contrast is one of the old grandaddies of RPGing-- first published back in 1977. It's beloved by many and has gone through a few editions; I'm not sure if it's currently available or not.

As for FATAL, well.... to be honest, I only know it through reputation.... a rather notorious reputation I've never heard anything good said about it by anyone-- except the writer. Maybe it's the best game ever and is wrongly vilified-- maybe. But from what I have heard about it, I'm not really inclined to take the chance and find out if everyone else is wrong on that.

You should be able to find reviews of all those at RPG.net-- and with a bit of search fu at Google or yahoo or your favorite search site-- elsewhere as well. I think most of them even have wikipedia entries.

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

In the end it depends mainly on the story the GM and the players want to develope regardless of the gamesystem or the world setting (even if some RPG could be considered 'more' adult).

Take in example the steampunk-meets-magic RPG Castle Falkenstein: You could play light-hearted adventures in the style of "The importance of being Earnest", fun and action adventures like "The Prisoner of Zenda" and "The great train robbery" or investigate the slums of the East End of London trying to stop Jack the Ripper.

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Michael - visit Tales of Chybisa.com.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

I was not trying to insult Shadowrun, but that is how my old group saw it. Now I will take the time and look into it more.. My current group is a little more open minded.
I found FATAL and it is a mature game, but looks very unplayable. Just wanting systems that don't pull any punches and I might actually be able to run. Where I am going with this is, I am a lazy GM at times, and if a player does something odd, like wanting to buy a pleasure slave in Harn. Right now I could go to the price list and look it up.. No problem. If this happened in D&D, I would just guess a price of the top of my head and that would be it (OK..Gladiator slave should be 1000gp and a labor slave is 100gp, so a pleasure slave should be around 500gp)... Sure enough a few weeks later I would be reading fluff some where and find out that it would be three times the amount of a gladiator slave... Not a game breaker, just frustrating. This could apply to buying things, to skills or about anything in the game. If it can happen good or bad... let me know.. I just don't like games that act like some things don't happen their RPG world that happens in every day life.

Absolutly, most deffinatly, it has to be the 'Dying Earth RPG'. If you have ever read the Vance books, you will know what I mean. And such a brilliant game that captures the feel of the books.
The violence is horrible.
The couching can be dangerous also.
And the narcotics will just finish the job.
Allan

I just saw this review of Vincet Baker's game "Poison'd" on RPGnet and thought it might be of interest in the context of this thread:

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14570.phtml

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

I would second Dying Earth. It is quite possibly at the top of the adult RPGs list, because of the way the mechanics handle "resting". I can't remember to terms exactly, but in order to replenish yourself, you had to do something pertinent to the ability you were trying to heal/recharge, like carouse.

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I remember some RPG magazine mixing up Harnmaster with:

Harness Master - an "Adult" RPG


LOL

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