As a general and positive statement, I’d say Forbidden Lands is one of the best fantasy games I’ve played, and I would pick it to play before playing Pathfinder or any mode of DnD.

It is not perfect, and it may not be for everyone, however.

We have played FL for a about a year, and what I find that I value most is how “efficiently” it plays. By this I mean that I feel like it is one of the rare systems that we seem to get a lot done with our few hours of game time rather than spending a lot of time flipping rule books. The mechanics are clear and task resolution via dice is fast. Combat is equally fast (usually) and endemically dangerous enough that players will quickly learn that perhaps combat is not always the best solution to a problem.

One of the very subtle things we value about FL is how it very purposely injects chaos into your game from unexpected quarters. This is hard to explain, but the advice in the rulebook to “prepare less, and let the rolls guide you” (paraphrased) is kind of true. I think it’s a great system to run a good sandbox game with (and, clearly, this is a design goal of the game and it provides you with the nerd knobs to do it fairly easily).

The provided world is detailed just enough to get you started, but intentionally mostly up to you. The wealth of published material, both official and by the community, is strong for a comparatively “small game”. If you only picked up the base box and Raven’s Purge (which you should), you have a complete game and massive campaign to run from the get-go.

This is not to say the game is universally adored even at my own table. One player is a little hide-bound by their experience (mostly with D&D games) and personality that causes some friction/cognitive dissonance with the rules. In particular, this person has trouble with the Push to gain Willpower mechanic (a mechanic I, as the GM, actually adore because it causes players to willingly inject that oh-so-tasty chaos into the game by their own choices).

I encourage you to play it long enough to direct your players through the first two (of three) sites in the GM Guide. Start them somewhere and nudge them towards The Hollows (causing them to explore the map a little). From there, move them towards Weatherstone with the idea of having them realize they can make it their stronghold. At this point, you’ve set them up to play in the Raven’s Purge sandbox and you’ve got months of play ahead of you.

Im running it on and off, between my Delta Green campaign. FL my favourite fantasy game if I get to play it online like in Foundry, so I don’t have to count three different dice and keep track of when banes count and not. But the setting and lore is amazing. Combat is the right amount of “crunch” and lethal enough to be tense. In person though, I felt there was just too many dice to keep track of. It slowed down the game so much players lost interest.

I’ve run a few FL campaigns and I love the system and its setting. I’d also suggest checking out Dragonbane as that’s a nice sweet spot between FL levels of punishment (Mages get a pretty raw deal in FL IMO) and D&D.

Dragonbane uses a simple d20 roll under system, character advancement is very organic - a result of its BRP roots, and characters recover Willpower by resting rather than having to find ways to push rolls and risk getting broken all the time. This makes spellcasters a lot more viable than in FL.

One thing I love about the Year Zero Engine games is that each one finds a way to use the engine to represent the theme of the game.

Mutant: Year Zero is about decay and this is represented mechanically by everything breaking down: The Ark, your gear, your body, etc.

Forbidden Lands transforms the system into one of the best exploration engines I’ve ever ran, coupled with a good resource management system to make everything flow together.

My only complaint with FL is the book layout is a bit clunky, and I don’t think the base-building rules are that good. I’d love a supplement where they cross-port the Mutant: Year Zero base building rules over to FL.