Encounter Critical, Risus, Broadsword, Hollow Earth Expedition, Fudge.

Quote from: RPGPunditHere's where we talk about, as of the end of 2007, which five small press regular RPG books are your personal favourites, the ones you think are best?

What do you mean "regular"?

And for that matter, what qualifies as "small press"?

• Since Crafty Games will have their own printing of Spycraft 2.0 out by the end of the year, and they are a 4 man operation, I'll say Spycraft 2.0. Awesome modern action and espionage support.
  
• Spirit of the Century - Fun implementation of FUDGE, fun pulp action.
  

More as I am inspired to expand the list.

I can only assume we're not talking about, specifically, "Five Favorite Small press Regular RPG's of 2007" cause i see a lot of older titles in the lists.  i saw a similar thread on TBP and was like "wtf these are all mostly 3+ years old?!"

That being the case, I'd go for Risus, Encounter Critical, and that's it.  (Haven't read and played any others.)

Quote from: kregmosierI can only assume we're not talking about, specifically, "Five Favorite Small press Regular RPG's of 2007" cause i see a lot of older titles in the lists.

QuoteHere's where we talk about, as of the end of 2007, which five small press regular RPG books are your personal favourites, the ones you think are best?

I didn't read ones published in 2007, but ones that exist by the end of 2007.

I did think it was an odd way to phrase it though. But my list of just those published in 2007 would be even shorter. (And IMO, ridiculous, as I could never give that many recently published games a fair shot by now.)

Quote from: Caesar SlaadWhat do you mean "regular"?

And for that matter, what qualifies as "small press"?

By regular, I mean regular RPGs, that follow the landmarks of regular RPG design. Ie. not "storygames" or "collective story creation games" or other junk like that which uses the RPG label incorrectly.

By "small press" I mean self-published small operations that do not generally sell on the mass market.

RPGPundit

From the OP, I assume that "regular" means "No scary GM-less play, talky resolution mechanics, or strange randomizers."  So I edited my list of favourite indie games from the RPG.net thread to remove narr and GM-less games.  

Truth & Justice is a wonderfully flexible system to run super-powered adventures. I have run it with complete newbies (never played RPGs before) as well as veteran players, and a good time was had by all. It allows players to have the character they really want and for all types of abilities (combat, social, mental, etc.) to be of equivalent usefulness. A thorough discussion of the genre helps GMs get in the spirit of super-heroic games.

The Zorcerer of Zo is based on the same system as T&J above, but very, very streamlined and applied to fairytales. It has the same qualities and is even more newcomer-friendly. Perfect to play in Narnia, Oz, Never Never Land, Wonderland, etc. A detailed actual-play example shows the evolution of a campaign, from a two-line pitch to game notes to the finished campaign, including players' comments; this is very useful to new GMs.  Modest production values.  Good production values.

Full Light, Full Steam is basically Space: 1889 with a story-based approach: you play a crew of the Royal Astronomical Navy in a Victorian age that reached space travel through steampunk aether-based technology. The system is extremely well conceived and well explained, another great game for newcomers to the hobby. It's filled with helpful details, from the step-by-step guidance showing how the players' interests (including the GM's) can be woven together to design stories, to the character sheet that provides visual support to show how your character points are spent. Options are available to let the group decide how much of the narrative and story control goes to the GM and how much will go to the other players; you can play it as traditionally as your group likes.  Decent-to-good production values.

Hollow Earth Expedition is a medium-crunch traditional roll system with lots of fiddly little figured stats, yet it allows GMs and even players to go diceless whenever they please by opting to use the median value for their skill rather than rolling.  The production values are excellent, the setting is well written and exciting pulp, and the GM screen is a thing of awe and amazement.

Gunslingers and Gamblers is an oh-so-trad game of historical and quasi-historical Wild West adventure, yet manages to be informative, engaging, exciting, and streamlined.  It has lots of random-roll tables in the best old skool tradition, without shackling the story to them.  Lots of good advice, good insight on the genre, decent-to-good production values.

I could mention a number of small press games, but for the ones that see play most often are:

The Shadow of Yesterday- Love the weird setting. Love the simple, straightforward rules.
Reign- Already mentioned, completely agree with everything said here.
Wushu- Always good for a quick, fun session.

Do older small-press games count, if you still play them regularly? In that case I would add:
Kult (beats the stuffing out of frilly UA any day), Amber (for obvious reasons) and Feng Shui (very robust rules, great setting).

And because I don't believe you can explain away a popular game by some stupid landmarks:
Primetime Adventures (I could add others, but PTA is the game I "take out" most often to show to other gamers or even people playing for the first time, rather than just in my group).

I like Deep7's Arrowflight.  Bit crunchier than a 1PG, but a nice game of, more or less, standard fantasy fare.

The 1PG games rock.  I love Full Clip.

That's about the only "small press" stuff I've played.  Most of my gaming is through 2nd or 3rd tier (Pinnacle, DP9, Eden, etc...) products.

For the record, my list only included retail games.  Otherwise, Risus is near or at the top (though I guess Risus Deluxe would count...make that my 1A )

Quote from: The Evil DMNow that's a great idea!
Thanks for that tip.:duh:

Yeah, it beats using d6s.

I can't believe I'm saying this . . .

While I don't think it really matters much, and while it is way better than the d6 conversion gymnastics, HS dice don't give exactly the same results as Fudge dice. There aren't two each of the sides.

I'm such a nerd.

Same as on RPGnet, though I'll say why...

Active Exploits: Absolutely plain, essential, diceless play.  No frills.

Dogs in the Vineyard: For fallout, and not for "Say yes or roll the dice".  Throwing character change on the line as part of the conflict system is cool, to me.

Spirit of the Century: For the handling of aspects and of character creation that is actually fun in and of itself.

The Shadow of Yesterday: For nesting conflict systems.  That one flipped my lid as a stunning idea.

Wushu: Because it's an excellent at what it does do, and doesn't try to do other things in some odd way - it just doesn't bother with those things at all.

---

Runners-up for me are In Spaaace! (Token currencies and I get along very well indeed), F:tA (The simplicity of leveling up, among other tidbits), Rune (Point-build antagonists that work), and In Harms Way (Notice and Rank are very, very shiny).

I'm not listing anything by myself here, because of course I like my own games most of all; if I didn't, I wouldn't have written them.

Ok, I actually don't own a lot of small press games, just 'cuz I don't buy a lot of games in general. There's a TON of games I I'm drooling over, including many from this thread, but I'm not likely to acquire them terribly soon.

Which is to say, I don't have five SP games I'm super-gung-ho about, so I'm gonna do two lists: "Games I love," plus a wish list.

These are all the small press games I love, which follow the Pundit's guidelines:

Shadow of Yesterday for driving and supporting character goals with Keys, for enabling and supporting fun consequences with stake-setting, and just being a slick, streamlined joy to use.

Heroquest for managing to find away to mechanically represent damn near every aspect of a character while being simple and efficient to interpret and use, through the Augment system, which lets you code everything from combat skill to personality traits to drives and passions into a roll.

Dogs in the Vineyard, for it's super-cool raise-and-see resolution, combining gambling and strategy in a really fun way, and for fallout, which is about as cool a character growth system as I've ever seen.

Beast Hunters for handling all the over the top gonzo action-adventure badassitude I could ever wish for in a low-crunch, stylish way, clearing pages of rules and ability lists out of the way in favor of a focus on cool description and cunning strategy.

(Honorable mention, 'cuz it feels like Small Press but isn't: Over the Edge, for having an awesome wierd-shit dark humor setting, and the elegance of mechanically representing characters only by their most remarkable features. I guess if you include this one, it does make five. )

Now, the games that top my list of products to buy next:

Spirit of the Century, for it's Fudge-powered simplicity, combined with the beauty of Aspects--not only a great means in general to tag important qualities in a character for emphasis, benefit, and detriment, but specifically applied to combat advantage, they're--similar to Beast Hunters, above--the answer to my battle-tactics prayers(that RPGnet thread on SotC's tactica dimension got my pulse a-poundin').

Forward. . .to Adventure! for its Stunts, which sound like the perfect cure for the Feat-sickness of D&D. Again, this is a lot like Beast Hunters,which might make some of these purchases a bit redundant, but I'm probably willing to buy them all to check out each individual approach.

Burning Wheel,for Beliefs, Instincts, Traits--I'm all for games that incorporate driving goals and passions into resolution, e.g. Heroquest--for Circles tests, which sound like Gather Information and Diplomacy on crack, and for its purported Middle-Earth vibe. I'm also intensely curious about its combat system in actual practice.

Cold Space, 'cause frankly the mention in this thread piqued my interest. Sounds like a solid sci-fi game and I'd love to try it.

That's about it. If only I was made o' money and had unlimited gaming time. . .

Peace,
-Joel

I don't have five. I'm sure if I gave it more thought I could dig up more, but this is the  independent game getting played.

#1 Faery's Tale by Firefly Games. I bought this so there would be an RPG my daughter would enjoy. She loves the game. I love the game. (does this count anymore, seeing that 'Deluxe' is by Green Ronin?)

Edit: I mean played by me.

Quote from: architect.zeroThe 1PG games rock.  I love Full Clip.

I agree on wheels, but I felt that Full Clip's adventures were written maybe a little bit too stylishly for quick-and-on-the-fly interpretation.

That said, yes, I concur that yon 1PG games are swank.