Over in the fanboy thread, there was line by Butcher that stood out to me (emphasis mine):
Quote from: The Butcher;824298My one experience with Hero (4e) was actually good, but like you've mentioned, timing is a big deal. I didn't really look into it until I was too old to dedicate the necessary time to learn and master the system. Pity that.
That got me thinking of games that I would loved to have tried back when I was younger and had more time, but wouldn't spend the time or effort to try and learn now.
Champions 4e BBB would probably be at the top of the list. Next in line would be Runequest ( I liked the art in the AH box the best).
What are some of yours?
Maybe Runequest? People seem to gush about it. T&T. Harn. Um...what else...Oh, Traveller. Yeah, Traveller.
In the mid-1990's when my friends and I were all ga-ga over Games Workshop we would have taken to a WH40K role-playing game like pigs to mud. By the time Dark Heresy finally came out, that fever had long passed and none of us cared anymore.
Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;824328In the mid-1990's when my friends and I were all ga-ga over Games Workshop we would have taken to a WH40K role-playing game like pigs to mud. By the time Dark Heresy finally came out, that fever had long passed and none of us cared anymore.
I'm in a similar position, only I find that universe too depressing to game in now. As a kid all that grimdark read as pure awesome, but now the random threat of cosmic horror feels too close.
Maybe
Only War, if I ran it like Black Adder, but those books are just so intimidatingly crunchy and, according to rumor, difficult to run in a balanced fashion.
Quote from: thedungeondelver;824322Maybe Runequest? People seem to gush about it. T&T. Harn. Um...what else...Oh, Traveller. Yeah, Traveller.
T&T is absurdly easy. Least my edition is.
Traveller is one for me that I keep wanting to look into. But have not yet had the urge to devote time into delving. I will eventually. Morrow Project is another.
More apt problem for me is. "Games that looked interesting back then. But I have a perfectly serviceable system that covers the same genre. So why bother?"
DC Heroes is an example of that. I have MSH. Traveller is another. I have Star Frontiers. etc.
Champions RPG was one I bought, and had in my college dorm. Then never read, sold and never played. Ahhh mermories
Quote from: rway218;824370Champions RPG was one I bought, and had in my college dorm. Then never read, sold and never played. Ahhh mermories
When the Champions MMO came out I looked up the current RPG rules out of curiosity. For some reason it just didnt click. I was asked way back to GM Champions Millineum, but never got into it really. I should take another try at it or the original.
I'm going through this roller-coaster of emotions now. I'm trying Eve Online with a trial account. There is a ton of crap to learn and much of it takes hours and hours of practice to figure out and get good at, not to mention all the time it takes to make enough money so you can feel comfortable about attempting things. Do I have the time and energy to devote that Eve requires? I don't know. If Eve had come out 20 or 30 years ago I would have been all over it in a heartbeat.
Rifts. My 12 year old self would have loved it (as would my friends), but it came out when I was 20 and in college and people were more into Call of Cthulhu and Shadowrun.
Probably Hero. The guys at the Gen Con booth were friendly, and I had always been a little curious about this Hero thing, so I went ahead and got the core books. Yeah, they broke it into 2 core books(I hear Champions Complete and Fantasy Hero Complete, which both came out a good bit later, are smaller single books that still manage to be complete).
Anyway, I got my books, began reading the first one, and . . . I dunno. It's just a lot of material. There was a time a decade or so ago that I enjoyed reading through rulebooks, and this made it easy for me to memorize the rules as I read. But nowadays, if there are too many rules, it feels like work. And when it feels like work, I have a harder time retaining the information. Hero isn't horribly written or anything, and it seems well organized for the most part, but it still felt like work.
Hypothetically,
- Exalted
- Pathfinder with all splatbooks to date
- etc ...
If 4E D&D was released today, I probably couldn't be bothered with it.
Quote from: Doughdee222;824383I'm going through this roller-coaster of emotions now. I'm trying Eve Online with a trial account. There is a ton of crap to learn and much of it takes hours and hours of practice to figure out and get good at, not to mention all the time it takes to make enough money so you can feel comfortable about attempting things. Do I have the time and energy to devote that Eve requires? I don't know. If Eve had come out 20 or 30 years ago I would have been all over it in a heartbeat.
Similar sentiments here, about mmos and video games in general.
Even back in the day, I couldn't be bothered with figuring out all the joystick + button(s) combinations to perform various moves on fighting video games (like Mortal Kombat, etc ...).
In more recent times, I couldn't be bothered with stuff like World of Warcraft, etc ...
(The only "recent" video game I spent any significant time on, was the pc version of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. But GTA: San Andreas and GTA4 completely fell flat for me).
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;824332...the random threat of cosmic horror feels too close.
The fuck? So much for a vacation in New York.
I have far more patience to learn a new system now than 20-some odd years ago. Lots of games died in character creation back when as being too much work if it took more than, say, an hour. We would give up, grab 4d6 and whip together some AD&D.
Much more tolerance for longer character creation and more detailed rules nowadays.
Champions/Hero and Shadowrun are the two that stick out to me. Maybe Rolemaster and MSH/FASERIP.
Quote from: RunningLaser;824321Next in line would be Runequest ( I liked the art in the AH box the best).
Quote from: thedungeondelver;824322Maybe Runequest? People seem to gush about it. T&T. Harn. Um...what else...Oh, Traveller. Yeah, Traveller.
Funnily enough, I'm a latecomer to both Runequest and Traveller.
With Runequest I tried RQ3 and MRQ1, but it was MRQ2 that really made everything click for me. RQ6 is even better. I do encourage everyone who ever wanted to give RQ a try to look into Runequest Essentials (http://www.thedesignmechanism.com/resources/RuneQuest%20Essentials.pdf). When it comes to fantasy RPG rulesets, I don't think there's a better balance between sturdiness and flexibility out there.
Traveller, well, I borrowed a friend's copy of Mongoose Traveller, was psyched and immediately ordered one of my own. But then my dad had entire shelves lined with old school SF and I grew up on Asimov and Clarke and Perry Rhodan. I like it so much I'm hard-pressed to articulate my enthusiasm, it immediately clicked with me.
Except for not being "back then" I'd have to say 5e. Because I like a great deal of what it does, and I'm happy to see it in print and people playing it, but I've got too many other games floating around my head, and too much prep done to run out and try to convert.
4th & 5th edition D&D if they'd come along in the late 90's.
Quote from: RunningLaser;824321Over in the fanboy thread, there was line by Butcher that stood out to me (emphasis mine):
That got me thinking of games that I would loved to have tried back when I was younger and had more time, but wouldn't spend the time or effort to try and learn now.
Champions 4e BBB would probably be at the top of the list. Next in line would be Runequest ( I liked the art in the AH box the best).
What are some of yours?
Runequest, D&D, Savage Worlds.
Yeah, Traveller.
Yeah, I'd probably add Traveler to that list as well.
I actually have played it off and on, but never ran it and didn't really pay that much attention to the game mechanics when I played.
At the time, for my Scifi RPG kick I was into Spacemaster.
More recently, Stars Without Number got my attention, so I just never got that drawn into Traveler and SWN now is my Scifi thing and I can't be bothered at this time to learn Traveler.
The "No real character progression" thing was a bit of a turn off for me anyway.
Still, I know a fair few people that really like it, so it I assume it's a pretty decent RPG and does what it designed to do well.
Quote from: danskmacabre;825023Yeah, I'd probably add Traveler to that list as well.
I actually have played it off and on, but never ran it and didn't really pay that much attention to the game mechanics when I played.
At the time, for my Scifi RPG kick I was into Spacemaster.
More recently, Stars Without Number got my attention, so I just never got that drawn into Traveler and SWN now is my Scifi thing and I can't be bothered at this time to learn Traveler.
The "No real character progression" thing was a bit of a turn off for me anyway.
Still, I know a fair few people that really like it, so it I assume it's a pretty decent RPG and does what it designed to do well.
Traveller is a terrible waste of time to learn really if one is accustomed to leveling up their characters and gaining XP. That's why SWN was made.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;824332I'm in a similar position, only I find that universe too depressing to game in now. As a kid all that grimdark read as pure awesome, but now the random threat of cosmic horror feels too close.
Maybe Only War, if I ran it like Black Adder, but those books are just so intimidatingly crunchy and, according to rumor, difficult to run in a balanced fashion.
If you ever run it as Blackadder and need players let me know. Heck, I'd settle for Baldrick.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;825032Traveller is a terrible waste of time to learn really if one is accustomed to leveling up their characters and gaining XP. That's why SWN was made.
I wouldn't say "accustomed to leveling up." I'd say something stronger than just "accustomed to." I'm accustomed to improving characters. After all that's what I started gaming doing. Its what 95% of my gaming has been. But I found playing a game in a very different genre made playing a game without leveling* acceptable and fun. For me that was FASA Star Trek. We played about 1500 hours of Star Trek with the same core group of PCs and in all that time any given PC had, at most, one opportunity to improve abilities. This sort of improvement is very comparable with any improvement that occurs post character generation in Traveller. I think if someone liked Traveller rules and setting, minimal improvement could be just fine as part of a different game experience.
* Here I am using "leveling" in the broad sense of improving characters over time not in the narrow sense of level based games like D&D. That way we can include games like Runequest which doesn't have levels, but which strongly includes an ability to improve characters.
Mutants & Masterminds, especially the super fiddly 3rd edition.
Quote from: Raven;825046Mutants & Masterminds, especially the super fiddly 3rd edition.
Yeah, that too. I did try.
Quote from: Raven;825046Mutants & Masterminds, especially the super fiddly 3rd edition.
I'm struggling with it too (3e). I think I'd be OK if I just said "fuck it" and run a one shot with one of the pre-made template characters. I think all I need to do is see it in action. But I just can't get myself over that hurdle.
Ninjas and Superspies. I would have loved to get into that, but, I'm too impatient now to learn all the fiddly bits.
//Panjumanju
The thing about traveller is that it is a ridiculously simple RPG system to learn. It's probably the easiest of all the old-school games, to be sure.