A thread to spread the love about RPGs that get little attention/are out of print/didn't deserve to be forgotten.
My pick: SPACE:1889, a brilliant little RPG about victorian adventurers travelling in rockets to Mars and Venus and setting up colonies! It had everything: imperialism, skyships, wierd aliens, mad scientists, moon men, dinosaurs, anarchists, canals on mars, the whole deal.
And contrary to what people say, its rules system was remarkably good for late-80s RPGs.
RPGPundit
I'll go with one of the ones I've been trumpeting most of the year: Epic RPG, by Dark Matter Studios. A fantastic, flexible character generation that goes with guilds instead of classes, and has some of the best, most unique paths of magic I've seen in a good long while. I did a full review (http://www.rpgblog.org/rpg_blog/2006/02/the_epic_rpg_re.html) on it a while back here. For a company's first release, it's really great. And at least one of the designers (Reimdall) posts on this board! ;)
Well, around here anything any of us can name probably already has a dozen vocal fans :)
I think the Thrilling Locations supplement for JB007 deserves to be eternally enshrined as an educational example of brilliant book design.
I think it, like a lot of supplements for licensed RPGs, don't get the attention they deserve in the broader gaming community because they're tied not only to a specific game (a curse all by itself) but to a specific license (which polarizes interest and insures that OOP titles stay that way due to legal entanglements when the license expires). My TOS Narrator's Toolkit is similarly doomed to Trek-specific niches, even though it's a very nice guide to adventure design in general, IMO.
Phoenix Command, FGU:
Red Dawn/Fortress America style RPG/Campaign, which let's you kick Commie butt, or contemplate the merits of real Communism in the USA.
Best combined with elements from Freedom Fighters and the likes.
Quote from: RPGPunditMy pick: SPACE:1889, a brilliant little RPG about victorian adventurers travelling in rockets to Mars and Venus and setting up colonies! It had everything: imperialism, skyships, wierd aliens, mad scientists, moon men, dinosaurs, anarchists, canals on mars, the whole deal.
I'll back that pick. A good choice.
Thanks, Zach! We're honored.
As for me, it's old, not exactly little-known, and might not stand up under my own twenty-years later jadedness, but man, I loved my Star Frontiers.
Quote from: ReimdallThanks, Zach! We're honored.
As for me, it's old, not exactly little-known, and might not stand up under my own twenty-years later jadedness, but man, I loved my Star Frontiers.
My younger brother is a massive fan of Star Frontiers.
Me, it never did that much for.
RPGPundit
Aquelarre.
Gritty rules like you don't see these days (you can die from cholera or a badly treated wound). The setting is the Iberian peninsula in the Middle Ages. Castillians, Basques, Moors, Portuguese and Jews live side by side, and all those weird mythological monsters from Iberian folklore exist. You can be an alchemist, a peasant, a scholar, a knight or a witch, among some "classes."
(Ok, so it's a Spanish game. Sue me!)
Lost Souls. It's kind of like White Wolf's Wraith: the Oblivion with a sense of humor. The random tables for how your new ghost character died are hilarious, as are the potential results of the reincarnation roll when he "dies" again. 1991.
Pixie. An extremely bare-bones 20-page game of tiny pixies that want to take over a human house. Avoid the peril of the garbage disposal and huck fireballs at the fearsome giant (to a pixie) housecat. Instantly-accessable, goofy fun. 1992.
"Tales from the Floating Vagabond."
Nice and light with system that supported the humour. Good early example of how to allow the players to influence/shift the plot without taking over. Gadgets like the "Buzzzt!" and the "Zo you vant to be a mad scientist?" set encouraged the players to come up with creative solutions to their problems and encouraged the GM to accept or tailor them to his/her plot
Plus it had Space Nazis
Living steel.
Ok, I know the game system was complex, but the production values were top notch and most modern games don't have PV this high, plus the setting was wonderful and original, as were the antagonists.
Production values and originality were A+, the game system was just too complex for most people.
Dream Park.
Not really so much for it's claim to fame, which is a genre-mixing game-within-a-game (It's based on the niven/barnes book, in which Dream Park is a virtual reality gaming amusement park.)
No, what really did it for me was is that it's my ideal for a light yet complete game. It supports all sorts of genres, and you can swap parts in and out. But the basic framework is very simple.
Legendary Lives 2nd Edition, by Joe and Kathleen Williams. It uses the same 'Action Results Table' system as Lost Souls, which Yamo mentioned. It' s fast, without sacrificing depth of results or relying overmuch on GM fiat. Character creation is fun, and generates plot hooks for each Pc, to boot. The magic syatem is free-form and flexible, with enough rules structure that you're not left in the dark. It covers mass combat, world background, all the usual fantasy races plus a few new ones, and comes complete in one big softcover.
Quote from: RPGPunditA thread to spread the love about RPGs that get little attention/are out of print/didn't deserve to be forgotten.
My pick: SPACE:1889, a brilliant little RPG about victorian adventurers travelling in rockets to Mars and Venus and setting up colonies! It had everything: imperialism, skyships, wierd aliens, mad scientists, moon men, dinosaurs, anarchists, canals on mars, the whole deal.
And contrary to what people say, its rules system was remarkably good for late-80s RPGs.
RPGPundit
Bugger, that was going to be my choice. Great game, I run it pretty much by the rules as written. Easily one of my favourite rpgs and certainly in my top 5.
Ill second Star Frontiers
but add
The Price of Freedom - a smart "modern" RPG that managed to have a contemporary setting with effective weapon rules.
Dragon Warriors
Mechanical Dream
Erm...
Well, there's a lot of gems really.
Quote from: GRIMDragon Warriors
Mechanical Dream
Erm...
Well, there's a lot of gems really.
Did you manage to play Mechanical Dream? I thought most folk rather struggled with it.
Theatrix. It's like Advanced GM Techniques Boot Camp.
The Court of Ardor[/u] by Terry Amthor.
Although technically part of ICE's old 'Middle-earth' line of campaign modules, this setting does not really fit into Middle-earth well. It is, however, a truly inspired setting in its own right. It is set in an unusual location (a southern jungle region), has interesting cultures (the evil remnants of a Numenorean colony, a culturally sophisticated African-flavoured republic, and a kingdom of transplanted Nordic hedonists), and a really cool evil organisation (a cabal of powerful elves who communicate via Amber-like tarot cards, and who plot the destruction of the sun).
It provides enough information to get one's imagination going, but is open enough to let a GM put his/her own mark on the setting. It has an implicit 'epic quest' that can be used or ignored by the GM. Especially noteworthy: it includes an absolutely gorgeous colour map by Peter Fenlon (and three nice colour city maps). This slim campaign setting (only 64 pages, although often with super-small font; it would probably be around 120 pages using 'eye-friendly' font) has inspired me since I purchased it in 1982. (While I greatly admire Amthor's later 'Shadow World' setting for ICE, it never inspired me quite as much as his Ardor.)
Pete Fenlon's maps are always a whole lotta awesome. His work with MERP is second to none.
Quote from: Zachary The FirstPete Fenlon's maps are always a whole lotta awesome. His work with MERP is second to none.
100 percent agreement. :)
It's a real pity he's not still producing maps.
Quote from: Caesar SlaadDream Park.
I'll second that one.
Ghostbusters, 1st edition. A breezy, fun RPG that was the first to use what would become WEG's d6 house system. The game was light and funny, used a lot of pics from the movie as illustrations, the line art used was pretty good and featured dead-on caricatures of the movie's characters, and the main premise was solid - the Ghostbusters franchised out the GB name, and your PCs run one of those franchises. It didn't take itself too seriously and had a smart-assed attitude. The second edition, which came out at the time of the release of the second movie, was larded down with more game mechanics and took itself a little too seriously. The result was dull and listeless, much as the 2nd movie was.
Dark Continent - hard to find game about leadinhg an expedition of Victorian explorers into darkest Africa.
I'll also ditto Space 1889, which I thought was a splendid game.
Otherwise some french stuff like Miles Christi, Retrofutur (though not for the godawful game system) and a game whose name currently escapes me but it was essentially Men In Black in the era of the musketeers.
Does The Morrrow Project qualify as lesser known?
It's my pick. Pretty hard science, frighteningly real post-apocalypse (Mutation: Leukemia!), excellent militarized feel with weapons-damage tables straight from medical studies. And it had rules for dropping a nuke on your home town and calculating the damage!
-Marco
Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalDark Continent - hard to find game about leadinhg an expedition of Victorian explorers into darkest Africa.
I own that, good pick, interesting game and very well put together.
Battlestations (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/12350)- sort of an RPG/boardgame crossover with a geomorph-generated starship and individual characters.
(fixed link, sorry)
Lejendary Adventures
Epic power-gaming RPG with quick chargen, and skills elegantly tied to traits. For instance, if your character's Physical is 40, no skill tied to the physical trait can be higher than 40.
A magic system that fits the setting and the feel of the game helps too.
The feel?
Epic adventure against epic foes with a large leavening of 30's and 40's era action/adventure. And since it's designed for power-gaming, you can let your power-gaming tendencies run wild.