Hi
Question. You hate the Official RPG for a known Intellectual Property, but then you find a game that is clearly that setting. However, it is a knock-off copy that does it way better. What game is that?
Here are five examples, but feel free to post ANY genre or I.P. you like.
1. Star Wars. I dare say Pundit's own Star Adventurer book. I'll clarify that it's Fantasy Flight Games dice pool Star Wars it improved on. Old West End Games D6 system is still considered good by a lot of players.
2. Macross/Gundam. For me, and my love of rules lite, I'll go with Tiny-D6 Mecha vs Monsters. FYI, the 2nd Edition should be out this week. Hopefully.
3. Warhammer Fantasy RPG. I got recommended a small game called Warlock. I've never played it, but it looks good and fits the setting well.
4. Star Trek. Not sure on this one. I've found the most blatant copy-cat rules, but haven't played them
5. D&D. I'm just putting this in here for a complete list. The VAST majority of RPG's are clones that it boggles the mind that anybody still plays/pays for official RPGs at this point. I'm also hostile to D&D in general as I don't like the core system of fixed armor class, but more hit points per level (they're reversed IMHO).
So, time to brag. What games do you think do a setting better than the official/original game did?
Zozer Games' HOSTILE is a better Aliens than any of the licensed products.
Spooktacular - slim retro-clone of Ghostbusters that combines bits of first and second editions. Inexpensive and pretty good.
Mutants In The Now - re-working of TMNT and Other Strangeness. Not a clone, per se, but an obvious "spiritual successor". Several fixes/streamlined.
Zweihander - WFRP, obvs. I like it, YMMV.
Lords of Gossamer and Shadow - descendant of Amber Diceless.Expands the game beyond the confines of Amber (which is great, but still)
The Blood of Heroes - rose from the ashes of DC Heroes. Expands upon it.
Mythic D6 - rose from the ashes of DC Universe, a really nice set of fixes to a game that was pretty damn broken. MD6 is damn good, and delivers on the promises DCU made but failed to keep.
Classified - faithful retro-clone of James Bond 007, with nicely updated equipment lists.
Mutant Bastards - Gamma World 1e clone. Has a wacky, "western" feel.
FASERIP, G-Core, Astonishing Super Heroes - all clones of Marvel Super Heroes. G-Core in particular is very good.
Double pizzost
Well, it's a bit of a flip but X-Files is a pretty good Dark Conspiracy knock off.
Bug Hunters or Kryomek for Aliens.
Star Ace for Star Wars.
Champions for Marvel and DC.
For Macross/Gundam/All the Anime Robots = Mekton Zeta. Full Stop. The ONLY giant robot setting it doesn't do better than at its official game is Battletech and that is only because Battletech veered HARD away from the anime tropes (including humanoid robots; I suspect largely because of the Unseen/Harmony Gold debacle) which Mekton embraces so well.
Quote from: Tubesock Army on March 30, 2022, 08:03:24 PM
Spooktacular - slim retro-clone of Ghostbusters that combines bits of first and second editions. Inexpensive and pretty good.
Can't even say Spooktacular does it better (as it is a retro clone) but it DOES save you a hell of a lot of money if you just want to play a good game and don't need it as a collector's item.
My favorite is Monster of the Week for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a spot-on adaptation that outshines the licensed RPG, which is still good.
I haven't been favorably impressed by most retro-clones, though I haven't closely followed that many. I've always preferred the original RPG, which I find have better editing, layout, production values, and adventure material.
Age of Shadow (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/93513) from Crooked Staff. It's based on Runequest (or rather Openquest) and is not quite (but close to) Middle Earth with the serial number filed off. Very well done game.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 30, 2022, 09:10:46 PM
For Macross/Gundam/All the Anime Robots = Mekton Zeta. Full Stop. The ONLY giant robot setting it doesn't do better than at its official game is Battletech and that is only because Battletech veered HARD away from the anime tropes (including humanoid robots; I suspect largely because of the Unseen/Harmony Gold debacle) which Mekton embraces so well.
^^Quoted for truth.^^
Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, and Old School Essentials all do Dungeons and Dragons better than "Official" Dungeons and Dragons.
d6 Star Wars beats the fuck out of and steals the lunch money from d20 Star Wars and FFG Star Wars.
Cepheus Engine beats Traveller for the originality of its products.
This isn't a TTRPG, but it bears mentioning. Star Craft based on Warhammer 40K. Arguably the knockoff is bigger than the original now.
Silent Legions I think makes a good case for being better than Call of Cthulhu. Not necessarily because CoC is bad, but because the Mythos is so well known and understood now, that the random cult, god and alien generation in Silent Legions means you'll really have that feel.
Saga of the Space Barbarians for ZeFRS has given me a strong Chronicles of Riddick vibe, and I think could be good for that. I don't think it was meant to be a knockoff though.
All Flesh Must Be Eaten needs to be considered for a Dawn of the Dead knockoff.
If I may nominate a board game, "Fortune and Glory" from Flying Frog Games perfectly captures the spirit of Raiders of the Lost Ark-style 1930s serial cliffhangers. Every game we've ever played generates a story or two that gets re-lived every time my friends and I get together, just as our favorite old RPG adventures get recalled and re-lived.
Savage Worlds is the literal Knock-off *machine*. Its entire purpose is to generate knock-offs and do them in a cinematic pulpy way. Though lately most of their direct IP translations are very on the nose - this is certainly not a bad thing.
Savage Rifts is *better* than Rifts to me - because literally all the fluff that makes Rifts **spectacular** only fuels the much easier to run chassis of Savage Worlds, and I find that purchasing Palladium Rifts source material only makes my games better purely for the fluff (and so win/win for both companies).
Savage Pathfinder is better than Pathfinder on *every* level. Unironically I will make the claim it's better than D&D at D&D if you like your D&D fast n' furious with cinematic over-the-top scalable combat where PC's are heroes and feel badass all the time (until they get their shit pushed in... but that's how explodey-dice go).
Mekton - as mentioned above. Much like Savage Worlds, Mekton SOARS above all mecha-combat games because the system flows so well comparatively to any other. My brief stint with Battletech was *murderously* de-railed by Mekton... and I never went back.
Lacuna for "Inception". I ran three adventures written by me and we had a lot of fun.
The official Ghostbusters RPG was pretty cool. While it wasn't written anywhere, you could take any Call of Cthulhu adventure and run it under Ghostbusters (the original movie is already one of the best Lovecraftian stories ever).
Are we allowed to cite rpg heartbreakers?
EDIT: I'd say Nightlife, WitchCraft and Everlasting are superior implementations of the urban fantasy genre as far as 90s games go. Nightlife has really swingy mechanics and Everlasting is written in an insanely pretentious manner, but not both at the same time.
Space 1899 doesn't even try to disguise its John Carter of Mars
Alternity Dark Matter is very obviously the X Files
Quote from: weirdguy564 on March 30, 2022, 07:31:03 PM
5. D&D. I'm just putting this in here for a complete list. The VAST majority of RPG's are clones that it boggles the mind that anybody still plays/pays for official RPGs at this point. I'm also hostile to D&D in general as I don't like the core system of fixed armor class, but more hit points per level (they're reversed IMHO).
Ah, the Arneson school of thought.
I'd suggest "Against the Darkmaster," which is sort of a retroclone of MERP but is infinitely superior mechanically to the awful "The One Ring" from Free League, which is a glorified board game. Would play Vs. the Darkmaster over TOR any day.
Quote from: migo on March 31, 2022, 07:28:39 AM
This isn't a TTRPG, but it bears mentioning. Star Craft based on Warhammer 40K. Arguably the knockoff is bigger than the original now.
Starcraft 2 was a real disappointment to anyone who cared about Starcraft from the story perspective (and also gameplay). Starcraft 1 was lightning in the bottle. One of the best multiplayer games in the early era of multiplayer games will never happen again.
I suppose in the sense of raw people who have played SC it's bigger than 40k, but 40k has the benefit of being an actual living franchise. Whereas Starcraft is basically dead in the water.
Quote from: Zelen on March 31, 2022, 09:58:45 PM
Quote from: migo on March 31, 2022, 07:28:39 AM
This isn't a TTRPG, but it bears mentioning. Star Craft based on Warhammer 40K. Arguably the knockoff is bigger than the original now.
Starcraft 2 was a real disappointment to anyone who cared about Starcraft from the story perspective (and also gameplay). Starcraft 1 was lightning in the bottle. One of the best multiplayer games in the early era of multiplayer games will never happen again.
I suppose in the sense of raw people who have played SC it's bigger than 40k, but 40k has the benefit of being an actual living franchise. Whereas Starcraft is basically dead in the water.
That's true. It's all WoW now and DotA now from Blizzard.
I think I could treat Fading Suns as Dune rip-off at least in spirit of space anti-tech feudalism.
Quote from: Zelen on March 31, 2022, 09:58:45 PM
Quote from: migo on March 31, 2022, 07:28:39 AM
This isn't a TTRPG, but it bears mentioning. Star Craft based on Warhammer 40K. Arguably the knockoff is bigger than the original now.
Starcraft 2 was a real disappointment to anyone who cared about Starcraft from the story perspective (and also gameplay). Starcraft 1 was lightning in the bottle. One of the best multiplayer games in the early era of multiplayer games will never happen again.
I suppose in the sense of raw people who have played SC it's bigger than 40k, but 40k has the benefit of being an actual living franchise. Whereas Starcraft is basically dead in the water.
The story in SC1 isn't a great implementation of the premise either. The writers admit to making everything up as they went. So it's very meandering and the different aspects of the setting don't fit together. For example: two alien fleets invade the system and slaughter billions, but the main human plot is a generic rebellion against a generic evil empire. The evil empire are also incompetent morons for good measure. Then the aliens just leave the rebels alone after they take over and institute a new evil empire, because if they kept attacking then the remaining humans would all die. It gets worse from there. Most of it doesn't make sense unless you read the manual, but there are also big inconsistencies with the manual so that will cause just as much confusion.
Trying to point this out to the fans will get you mercilessly attacked. I speak from experience. Damn this franchise and damn this fandom. I hope M$ drives it even further into the ground.
I've moved on to a new RTS called
Immortal: Gates of Pyre. One of the selling points is that the writers put actual care into the world building, so reading about it doesn't melt your brain with inconsistencies, plot holes and bad romance. It's like an RPG campaign setting, but for RTS. I think they even have an actual RPG spin-off somewhere?
I wish there was a setting like SC but with better writing, tho. I can't get into 40k anymore for a variety of reasons. Altho SC is derivative as fuck of previous scifi stories like AVP, SST, etc, it did have a few novel ideas, like making the space bugs more introspective while still monstrous... at least until the idiot writers fucked it up. The tyranid campaigns in the 40k video games are so fucking boring even though they never got bastardized like the zerg did. The tyranids are just void of personality: either their dialogue is telepathic "on nom nom" (literally) or a voice over of a magos biologis talking about them. In SC1 OG, you had overmind speechifying about the zerg's plans to consume the universe and perfect themselves. Now that's all gone forever. Oh well.
Maybe if I invest in life extension I can one day accumulate enough money to fund development of the game I wish starcraft had been. Or more likely I'll die mad. Fuck Blizzard.
Palladium's Beyond the Supernatural is Ghostbusters... but better.
Beyond the Supernatural was Kolchak the Nightstalker meets Tomb of Dracula: the Game
Quote from: TheGlen on March 31, 2022, 03:00:52 PM
Best knock-off games based on big I.P. ???
I'm guessing there was probably a very popular superhero TTRPG that had all of the superhero names scratched off. Anyway, Marvel and DC characters are all ghey now.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 31, 2022, 12:40:55 PM
Are we allowed to cite rpg heartbreakers?
EDIT: I'd say Nightlife, WitchCraft and Everlasting are superior implementations of the urban fantasy genre as far as 90s games go. Nightlife has really swingy mechanics and Everlasting is written in an insanely pretentious manner, but not both at the same time.
NightLife predated White Wolf's Vampire. It seemed inspired by The Lost Boys & 1980s horror films, only you play the Lost Boys.
And does WitchCraft actually count as a heartbreaker? Eden Studios was a pretty successful publisher in its time, and CJ Carella was big enough to have his name on the cover.
Quote from: S'mon on April 02, 2022, 05:34:46 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 31, 2022, 12:40:55 PM
Are we allowed to cite rpg heartbreakers?
EDIT: I'd say Nightlife, WitchCraft and Everlasting are superior implementations of the urban fantasy genre as far as 90s games go. Nightlife has really swingy mechanics and Everlasting is written in an insanely pretentious manner, but not both at the same time.
NightLife predated White Wolf's Vampire. It seemed inspired by The Lost Boys & 1980s horror films, only you play the Lost Boys.
Yeah, but I think the setting is better than WW. The classes are simultaneously more distinguished than the WW high school cliques, but also have much better reasons for being part of cross-species cliques. The setting isn't bogged down in irrelevant lore bloat but focuses on how the kin survive in the modern day and how they feel about humanity. For example, the Complex and the Commune both believe in maintaining secrecy but have diametrically opposite views of the "herd" (their lingo for muggles). The Commune believes in a commensal relationship in which muggles are still respected as people, whereas the Complex believes they should be free to use and abuse muggles so long as they don't attract attention. One interesting aspect is that the kin can cultivate a sense of humanity even if they were never human to begin with. Also, you play all different types of kin (e.g. vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, warlocks) in the same setting with the same rules.
Quote from: migo on April 02, 2022, 06:07:49 AM
And does WitchCraft actually count as a heartbreaker? Eden Studios was a pretty successful publisher in its time, and CJ Carella was big enough to have his name on the cover.
I heard anecdotally that it was made in response to dissatisfaction with WW's idiosyncratic design, but I have no idea whether that's true. I think the setting is a pretty good implementation of urban fantasy and a lot better than WW's deranged counterculture propaganda, so I'm disappointed that it was cancelled after only a few books were published.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 30, 2022, 09:10:46 PM
For Macross/Gundam/All the Anime Robots = Mekton Zeta. Full Stop. The ONLY giant robot setting it doesn't do better than at its official game is Battletech and that is only because Battletech veered HARD away from the anime tropes (including humanoid robots; I suspect largely because of the Unseen/Harmony Gold debacle) which Mekton embraces so well.
Seconded.
Mekton Zeta is not just for robots, either. It can handle any space opera setting. I've given serious consideration to using it for oBSG.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 02, 2022, 06:19:53 PM
Quote from: migo on April 02, 2022, 06:07:49 AM
And does WitchCraft actually count as a heartbreaker? Eden Studios was a pretty successful publisher in its time, and CJ Carella was big enough to have his name on the cover.
I heard anecdotally that it was made in response to dissatisfaction with WW's idiosyncratic design, but I have no idea whether that's true. I think the setting is a pretty good implementation of urban fantasy and a lot better than WW's deranged counterculture propaganda, so I'm disappointed that it was cancelled after only a few books were published.
I think it probably has to do with All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Buffy and Angel. The early 2000s were more of a zombie era than a vampire era. I know I was hugely into vampires in the 90s and would watch every vampire movie I could get my hands on. Then it shifted to zombies and I'd watch every zombie movie I could get my hands on, and eventually I didn't care for either of them. That was probably the zeitgeist, and WitchCraft came a bit late. Meanwhile AFMBE came at exactly the right time, and Buffy and Angel were established IPs that hit the vampire itch perfectly.
If you're Eden Studios, and you have hot properties with AFMBE, Buffy and Angel, are you going to keep putting effort into WitchCraft that just doesn't have a huge fanbase? Rather than scrapping it entirely, releasing it for free was pretty cool.
Thank you for notion of this Battletech, while human-like mechs are utter meh for me (sic!) it seems setting has interesting space feudalism notions like Fading Suns, W40k and Dune, and I'm working on homebrew mesh of such settings - so this gonna be another element
I suppose I should include a good, little, general RPG called Mini-6: Bare Bones Edition. I mentioned it in the first post.
It is essentially Star Wars D6 rules, but simplified a bit, and written to be any and all genres. It is not just Sci-fi. It reduces character attributes from 6 to 4 types, reduces mystical or magical powers from 3 skills to just the 1, and has an optional change for the game from opposed combat dice rolls to using pre-calculated defenses roll averages. This is done to speed up gameplay by reducing the dice rolls needed by half. IE instead of rolling a 4D6 dodge every time you just have your dodge always be 14.
Why I am bringing it up is that in the back of the book are some sample worlds to play in. One is clearly the TV show Firefly, another is the fantasy movie Willow, and of course Star Wars. None of them say they're those things, but good grief are they not blatantly close.
Mini-Six is indeed my favourite game after 5e D&D. ;D I used it recently for a one year 28 session Primeval Thule campaign https://simonsprimevalthule.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-valley-of-scorn-palace-of-silver.html
Bug Hunters from the early 90s is a superior implementation of the Aliens universe. It doesn't have those shitty sequels and prequels
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 30, 2022, 09:10:46 PM
For Macross/Gundam/All the Anime Robots = Mekton Zeta. Full Stop.
I have an old copy of the Mekton Zeta rulebook lying around. Is this book complete? I noticed that there are several other books, including the oddly named "Tactical Display", but wasn't sure if any of these actually improved the game enough to warrant their eBay prices.
I ask because I have vague memories that they completely re-did the Mech building system at some point.
Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 04, 2022, 01:30:23 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 30, 2022, 09:10:46 PM
For Macross/Gundam/All the Anime Robots = Mekton Zeta. Full Stop.
I have an old copy of the Mekton Zeta rulebook lying around. Is this book complete? I noticed that there are several other books, including the oddly named "Tactical Display", but wasn't sure if any of these actually improved the game enough to warrant their eBay prices.
I ask because I have vague memories that they completely re-did the Mech building system at some point.
IIRC, it's complete, but the Mekton Z+ supplement has more construction options, including transforming 'mechs. Tactical Display is a GM screen/adventure, but it does have cinematic (simplified) rule options, that some prefer to use.
Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 04, 2022, 01:30:23 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 30, 2022, 09:10:46 PM
For Macross/Gundam/All the Anime Robots = Mekton Zeta. Full Stop.
I have an old copy of the Mekton Zeta rulebook lying around. Is this book complete? I noticed that there are several other books, including the oddly named "Tactical Display", but wasn't sure if any of these actually improved the game enough to warrant their eBay prices.
I ask because I have vague memories that they completely re-did the Mech building system at some point.
Zeta's main book has main rules and basic construction rules, while Zeta Plus is the advanced construction rules that allow you to build damned near anything (including an entire category labeled "Stupid Mekton Tricks" for things like mass/size changing and the like). Zeta Plus also has their psionics rules (and psionic amplifiers for mecha).
Their are really only two things to watch out for... first Reflex is THE stat for all things related to personal and mecha combat and in point buy has the same cost as any other stat. My personal recommendation is to either make it cost more per point (with a slight bump in overall points granted) or just set it at a fixed value for all PCs.
The second is, if you're allowing the PCs to build their own units, strongly consider limiting the number of maneuver verniers a unit is allowed to carry and how much weight efficiency is allowed, as both reduce the maneuver penalties of heavier units and can take them all the way to 0 and weight efficiency's costing is linear while the benefits are more geometric.
If the GM is building every unit themselves then it's less of an issue, and what limits you want to set will depend on the campaign you want. Mostly it's something you want to watch out for rather than a hard and fast "this is always broken" rule.