Simple.  Just post one or two RPG's you like that you're sure most people don't know about. 

1.  Kogarashi.   This won a post I made about RPGs set in Japan.  It's a small game that uses 1D6, roll equal or under your stats (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4 assigned by the player), spells are skill checks, and armor is a saving throw.  It's great.

2.  Pocket Fantasy.  It's super rules light, but with the optional characters you have 14 classes to chose from.  It's also free on DT-RPG.

I'll post some more later. 

EABA
The logical conclusion of GURPS. Barely even a game, more a toolset for making games, but has an elegant way of quantifying basically anything you can think of and scaling it all together, and one of my favorite dice systems of all time, where you roll a number of dice based on your attribute and skill and keep the top three so that as you improve rather than getting higher and higher rolls, you just skew your distribution upward. I need to get a game in one of the published settings going, since with a supplement like that it's actually a full game.

Quote from: Zenoguy3 on May 23, 2024, 01:43:59 AMEABA
The logical conclusion of GURPS. Barely even a game, more a toolset for making games, but has an elegant way of quantifying basically anything you can think of and scaling it all together, and one of my favorite dice systems of all time, where you roll a number of dice based on your attribute and skill and keep the top three so that as you improve rather than getting higher and higher rolls, you just skew your distribution upward. I need to get a game in one of the published settings going, since with a supplement like that it's actually a full game.

Welp, I came in to say this but whatever! EABA is by far one of the best designed RPGs I've ever seen and it plays exceptionally well. Unfortunately, games like GURPS and HERO overshadow it, even with stuff like the CORPS supplement (which is easily the best X-Files style RPG setting ever). Anyway, I kinda feel bad for Greg Porter because he's an exceptional designer but never seemed to get the traction you'd expect. Contrast the BTRC catalog with the numerous trash takeoffs of PBtA...

Just to add something else, and I don't even know if this counts as "little known", but Atlantis Second Age seems to have just dropped off the map, even while having good writing, high production values, and excellent playability. I just don't get it.

Quote from: Brad on May 23, 2024, 09:14:57 AMEABA is by far one of the best designed RPGs I've ever seen and it plays exceptionally well. Unfortunately, games like GURPS and HERO overshadow it, even with stuff like the CORPS supplement (which is easily the best X-Files style RPG setting ever). Anyway, I kinda feel bad for Greg Porter because he's an exceptional designer but never seemed to get the traction you'd expect.

Yeah. I've been curious about EABA since I liked Greg Porter's other designs, but it just doesn't have the support that other universal systems do, so I never invested in it.

Any thoughts on how EABA compares to, say, Savage Worlds (which is my current go-to universal system)?

The system I think is a good fit for universal system is Tiny-D6.  It covers a lot of genres:

1.  Dungeon = Fantasy
2.  Frontiers = Star Trek
3.  Supers
4.  Pirates
5.  Wastelands = post apocalypse
6.  Gunfighters = old west
7.  Living Dead
8.  Mecha vs Monsters = Anime robots and/or Kaiju.
9.  Cthulhu
10.  Gods
11.  Beach Patrol = Baywatch or Hawaii 5.0 or Magnum P.I.
12.  Taverns.  An oddball game about being fantasy barkeeps. 

EABA is very much like D6. You have abilities like D6, rated by numbers which are just dice to roll.  Like 6 is 2d, 7 2d+1, up to 20 (6d+2) and then skills add to it, just like D6.

The real difference is you only add up the 3 highest rolls, and so the difficulty goes from 5 to 21. But while it might be easier to add only 3 dice, the odds are trickier to calculate as opposed to regular D6

Paranoia, its a classic.  Fucking hard to get in conventions.

Quote from: Brad on May 23, 2024, 09:14:57 AMWelp, I came in to say this but whatever! EABA is by far one of the best designed RPGs I've ever seen and it plays exceptionally well. Unfortunately, games like GURPS and HERO overshadow it, even with stuff like the CORPS supplement (which is easily the best X-Files style RPG setting ever). Anyway, I kinda feel bad for Greg Porter because he's an exceptional designer but never seemed to get the traction you'd expect. Contrast the BTRC catalog with the numerous trash takeoffs of PBtA...

I know right? One of these days I'm going to force a bunch of locals into a CORPS one shot just so I can make them see how good of a baseline EABA is. I've tried a couple times, but I never understood the rules well enough myself to get my players into it. I will say, I tried once to make a Jojo game using EABA, and it worked better than I expected, and way better than any other Jojo implementation I'd seen before.

Quote from: Brad on May 23, 2024, 09:14:57 AMJust to add something else, and I don't even know if this counts as "little known", but Atlantis Second Age seems to have just dropped off the map, even while having good writing, high production values, and excellent playability. I just don't get it.

I certainly hadn't heard of it. Looks interesting at first glance, a d20 scaled S&W is a bit of a saturated market though. What makes it stand out over its contemporaries?

Quote from: weirdguy564 on May 23, 2024, 10:01:53 PMThe system I think is a good fit for universal system is Tiny-D6.

I looked into tiny d6 a while back, the spy one I think, but I failed to get really grabbed by it. seemed a little too airy. Have you played it and gotten good games out of it?

Cairn v1. easy, fast.

ICRPG.(my fav)  fantasy, sci-fi, weird west, superheros, early man settings.
community;  Xenos(aliens), Predators, and Star Wars

Maze Rats.  simple and fast.

Quote from: Zenoguy3 on May 24, 2024, 12:15:56 AMI've tried a couple times, but I never understood the rules well enough myself to get my players into it.

And there's my major problem with it. Tried reading it a number of times, and bounced off it each time.

Don't know why but I just can't read it.

Quote from: Zenoguy3 on May 24, 2024, 12:21:35 AM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on May 23, 2024, 10:01:53 PMThe system I think is a good fit for universal system is Tiny-D6.

I looked into tiny d6 a while back, the spy one I think, but I failed to get really grabbed by it. seemed a little too airy. Have you played it and gotten good games out of it?

Cold Shadows isn't part of the Tiny d6 line. It is definitely more rules lite than the d6 games. I've run Tiny Supers and Beach Patrol and both went really well. Beach Patrol was more of a one off, while the Tiny Supers went several games (6 I think) and more or less covered a typical comic book arc type of storyline.

Quote from: Zenoguy3 on May 24, 2024, 12:21:35 AM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on May 23, 2024, 10:01:53 PMThe system I think is a good fit for universal system is Tiny-D6.

I looked into tiny d6 a while back, the spy one I think, but I failed to get really grabbed by it. seemed a little too airy. Have you played it and gotten good games out of it?

Yup.  My Kindergarten age son and I played the Supers game.  He was an Iron-man type of hero, with an intelligent monkey sidekick working with S.H.I.E.L.D. to track down and stop North Korean pirates in a stolen German submarine. 

It seems simple at first because the dice rules are just three difficulties.  Roll 1D6 if it's hard, 2D6 for medium tasks, and 3D6 if it's easy.  You don't add the dice.   You just succeed if any of them are a 5 or 6.   Aka 33%, 55%, or 70% odds to succeed. 

1-handed weapons do 1 damage, and 2-handed weapons do 2 damage.  Hit points are in the single digits, typically 5-8. 

It's meant to be simple.  That's the point.  It's also easy for kids to play.  There isn't a lot of math, none of which is hard. 

Games like this live or die based on GM skill and enthusiasm.  I know my son reacted strongly to my colorful narration of what happened. 

It's not for everyone.  I prefer rules light, and Tiny-D6 is that in spades. 

Lost Souls.

"In most RPGs, you want to avoid death. In this one, you start out dead."

The character creation tables were hilarious and the system removed the need for the GM to make the rolls that are usual in other games, allowing to focus on managing the adventure and NPCs.