Has Coreplay considered doing a very downbeat/depressing high/dark-fantasy setting, nothing funny or folk-ish, just serious business death and suffering?
I'm rather reminded of Disciples 2, which possibly has the most simplistic (mechanics wise) combat of any turn-based strategy, yet somehow the game manages to save itself and even be enjoyable due to amazing art-direction and dark setting. The combat is about as complex as watching paint dry, yet when you see the portraits and hear that music, you can't help but feel immersed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A66pQIkpEOs
Just saying, game design shouldn't be neglected in favor of mechanics, both come together to make a good roleplaying experience.
Dark fantasy is its own genre, underserviced in games, but hard to combine with high fantasy just because if magic is common, you wonder why they don't just magically solve their health and food problems, etc. In dark fantasy, magic comes with either a physical or moral price, and is hence primarily restricted to the villains, with heroes who are at a disadvantage in that they can only push their powers so far without seriously harming themselves etc. You could certainly build mechanics to represent that - it isn't that different to the current idea of mana etc - could be something as simple as spells using up hitpoints, along with a few small changes like 'heal' being a health transfer from one character to another (yes, I watched Carnivale). Gives a reason why the heroes have to focus on just solving one problem, rather than raising the issue of why they don't solve the entire setting's problems (can't cure famine because it would just swap which farms are failing, can't cure plagues because taking the illness from one guy just gives it to someone else).
Chaotic parties would use powers in a vampiric sense (so heal would be a power drain from the enemies), whereas 'good' parties would either need to limit themselves to transferring health between the characters or taking it from nearby animals AND would have access to the vampiric heal in return for Geneforge-style corruption.
Actually, if you haven't played the Geneforge series, and you're interested in dark fantasy settings, then play it. It doesn't start dark - early games are basically high fantasy except with tech explanations for the 'magic'. The theme of the series is tech proliferation - you have a well-deserved rebellion and in early games it's easy to think 'surely the rebels are just the good guys and that's it'. But even though the games aren't strictly linked (except in timeline), the shapers (who start off controlling all the magic/tech) are correct in their initial worries: by the last game where every subfaction has shaping tech the world's basically collapsing.
More the point, they have a very neat 'corruption' mechanic, though one that will seriously annoy those who hate hidden stats. It's done better in later Geneforge games (early ones are basically 'use x cannisters and you go chaotic and certain endings are changed (as you're now an abomination in the eyes of some factions)' (cannisters give you abilities for free in a game where exp and abilities are rare, and often faction-specific if you don't use cannisters). Later on, you might use a few cannisters without changing much at all. Use a few more and you'll start getting different descriptions (a friendly farmer might be described as a threat) as your character starts getting bouts of paranoia. Occasionally it will force you into combat. Use more, and that happens more and more.
That would be a great mechanic for a 'dark fantasy' setting - allow the party to use 'magic with a physical cost' (health transfers instead of heals, fireball in return for appropriate ingredients, etc) OR the same 'magic with no cost' that the more powerful villains can spam, except that each time you use it is has the same effect as the cannisters in Geneforge, changing the descriptions so they get more paranoid and lead to unnecessary killings, making it occasionally seem like everyone is hostile etc.
. Mondblut won't care for it still, but again, if you ARE going to do that stuff, that's they way - give the characters logical conflicts (Jagged Alliance 2 and that Russian-based game on the Silent Storm engine come to mind as well), let the player know their personality, choose occasional times for them to act contrary to player instructions (in a wasteland-style game, that should be a key difference between the player party and NPCs that join them), and force the player to consider how the party will get on and make that a strategic/tactical consideration. Either drop the party interaction bullshit altogether, or force the player to think about whether a team will actually work together (i.e. emphasising the 'strategic leader' gameplay, rather than the 'I romanced Felicia Hardy' cutscene non-gameplay).
