. . .I also enjoyed the "Dungeon Siege" series, by Gas Powered Games. Admittedly, the first one, by Microsoft, was very linear, but the second had a lot of variation. You started with two party members, and could decide during the first few minutes whether to specialize in sword, sorcery, or archery, or a mixture of all. Other various party members became available as you went, with different specialties. Best of all, the treasures were highly randomized. There were also sets of armor, with perks that were enhanced by the number of pieces of the set that you acquired. (And like many games of that era, you could adjust the difficulty--and hence the quality of the sets. Only by playing at the most difficult level could you acquire all the pieces of the most powerful sets.)My personal favorite non-M&M, non-Elder Scrolls, and non-Wizardry RPG was Ascaron's "Sacred II." ("Sacred I" was good too, but more linear.) In it, you chose a race first, with different abilities and weapon preferences, which also determined your starting place. For me, the satire within the game was a real hoot. Germany (I believe)'s heavy metal rock group, Blind Guardian, supplied both the background music and
a quest/reward within the game that resulted in an excellent send-up of rock concerts of the day--including a hilarious take-off of Robert Plant's signature hair-tossing. The game was at least replayable four times: once for each of the basic types of hero: magical angel, primitive blowpipe-wielder, gladiator, or robot. Even the victory conditions differed for the various characters.
It's available on Steam, but I couldn't get it to run in Win 10.
