Greetings,
Came across this old gem of a game called IronHedge. In it, Players control a party of Adventurers as opposed to controlling a single character. It was designed to be a small pick up game that was simple in comparison the D&D that existed in 1980. That being said, the source material is probably too offensive to make a comeback. It's the system though, that's what I want to discuss.
This game offers something I only see in a few places that I'm aware of. An adventure grit and glory. Your characters and all but the anomalous of creatures can receive mortal blows, which kill that Adventurer/Creature instantly. This made for gameplay that always left Players and GM (known as Referee in IronHedge) on edge. It added a real sense of risk vs. reward in gameplay. Now these rules can certainly be modded to be more friendly sure, but I think that misses the point. To boot, the game is extremely easy to adapt and make your own. And since it no longer exists in anything except obscurity, almost no one can find any resources to seek out and find other people to play this with. (I'm hitting walls here!)
Is there anything else out there that is similar? Am I dreaming bigger than I'm seeing? Almost everywhere I look features detailed, on the rails, extensively story driven content. I'm trying to appeal to the hack and slashers out there.
-Why this thread-
Trying to brain storm here. More minds/perspectives=good. Thanks in advance.
-Update-
I think I figured out what my deal is. I'm trying to find players in an environment that is rich with players seeking some grand adventure, some deep lore dive of some kind. D&D and other systems more or less do this in lot's of different ways. What IronHedge is, and always was supposed to be, a quick roll up and go RPG. So I shouldn't deter from that. Thanks for the insights everyone!