Inspired by a post on RPG Blog II. Apparently, it's been a year since the last poll on this here. He expressed interest in seeing what people thought now; I think it's an interesting question myself.
I havn't played enough RPGs to make a top or bottom 10, but here's some picks:
Top 10
1) D&D 3e. Fun to play, fun to make characters in, fun all around with a good GM.
2) Risus. A beer and pretzels RPG which can run anything and is ridiculously easy to mod. You can also play it serious, even though it isn't recommended. :)
3) D&D 4e. Boring to make characters in. Fun to play. RP depends heavily on the GM and players. Giving all the characters powers is something I view as a good thing. Making them all the same basic format was not. Nerfing magic items was not. Getting rid of the wild and open feel was not. Turning it into a total game was not. Somewhere between 3e and 4e is what I'd like to see.
4) Wushu. It's basically a game for crazy action movies, but I had a GM who could run it seriously. Same person who introduced me to Risus - In a serious Forgotten Realms game. Unfortunately, RL killed both games.
5) No system. It's not actually an RPG, but pure RP is it's own kind of fun - No better, no worse, just different. I actually ran a RP where I GM'd based on what I thought would happen for a year and a half. Then I burnt out.
Unranked:
1) AD&D. Just started playing, so can't really comment.
2) Hero System. Would love to play, but already in games.
Bottom 10
1) Fatal. I have seen five excerpts from this. With luck, they will stay forgotten.
2) No system. What, twice? Yes, for one single thing - Social munchkins. I was interested in joining a forum RP...And then a player joined with a character whose sole thing was that they were just like two other PCs, Only Better. Completely borged the other two PCs backgrounds and turned them into amateurs in their own fields of study.
But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was when everybody else Allowed it!!! It was the most blatant display of munchkinism I'd ever seen (Although not heard of) and it illustrated to me, very clearly, the need for a GM - Even if the title is different, or the job is spread out, someone needs to do it, even if it's all the players being the GM. Someone needs to be able to step up and say 'Change that or leave'.
...Wow, bit of a rant there.
What the hell, why not.
TOP 10, AS OF RIGHT NOW, IN NO ORDER:
- Risus - Fun on a bun. Fast, easy, and goof-tastic -- but still solid and incredibly playable.
- D6 - Every game should be this uncomplicated.
- Hollow Earth Expedition - ...yeah, like thta!
- Castles & Crusades - I've heard it called "exactly how I misremember playing AD&D". That goes for me, too.
- StarSIEGE - The Millenium Falcon of SFRPGs, I swear.
- Classic Traveller - The SFRPG toolkit.
- Savage Worlds - One of these days I'll actually play it, and I know I won't be disaappointed. Another fast, uncomplicated game that goes right for the yeee-haws.
- Encounter Critical - Every game should love gaming this much.
- Basic Role-Playing - It's exactly what it says on the tin.
- Swords & Wizardry - Talk about uncomplicated!
MY BOTTOM TEN, IN NO ORDER EITHER:
- Vampire - Gross. No, thanks.
- Werewolf - No thanks.
- Exalted - It just doesn't inspire the hero in me.
- Wraith - No interest.
- D&D 3.x - I want to play a character, not build one.
- All Flesh Must Be Eaten - By no means a bad game, just one that...I dunno...didn't really grab me as much as I thought it could.
- Star Wars d20 - Again with the building versus the playing. I can't be a bounty hunter for how long?!
- Wushu - A petty good idea, actually, which I really do like -- but which manages to be so simple that it stops being a game.
- The Window - A good idea, and one which aims for the freedom and simplicity which I seek and admire in a game...rendered laughable by the pretentiousness of its presentation.
Yeah, The Window is actually a good rules-light system whose only problem is the designers acting like it's a Reinvention of Toast.
Cool. Do we wanna add points again and figure up totals, as sort of an update? In the meantime, I need to think about my list. :)
(For reference, here's my original post (http://www.rpgblog2.com/2008/11/top-and-bottom-10-rpg-rankings-of.html), with the Top/Bottom 10 of theRPGsite/RPGnet).
I dunno - I wasn't on here in 2007. :) I'm also not on here regularly and, well, I'm not up to counting. :)
Quote from: Narf the Mouse;266787I dunno - I wasn't on here in 2007. :) I'm also not on here regularly and, well, I'm not up to counting. :)
Well, math isn't my strong suit, but I'll try and gin up some sort of total at the end.
Here's mine as of now, 2008:
1)
Rules Cyclopedia D&D--
"The winner, and still champion..."2)
Classic Traveller--As above, but for sci-fi.
3)
Castles & Crusades--This year's big mover. We get each other.
4)
Amber--As much a work of art as anything. The Wuje abides.
5)
Rifts--And I don't care who knows it.
6)
Two-Fisted Tales--My favoritest Pulp RPG, ever.
7)
Risus--My go-to for one-shot beer n' pretzels gaming!
8)
In Harm's Way--My favorite RPG I never get to play.
9)
Epic Roleplaying--Love that Philtrology!
10)
Roma Imperious--Now in True20 flavor!
Honorable Mention--Thousand Suns, Palladium Fantasy, Rolemaster FRP (think I'm a little burned out), and Burning WheelI don't have a Bottom 10, but here's a Bottom 5 that I've tried and read and didn't like:
1)
Nobilis--I don't like saying "hate" about an RPG, but I hate the prose.
2)
Wushu--The game is too loosey-goosey for me, and packs of people recommending it for Action, Fantasy, Romance, Modern, Pulp, Sci-Fi and as a pumpkin pie filling substitute on RPGnet are like nails on a chalkboard.
3)
Star Wars d20--
4) Exalted--[SIZE=-1]"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.[/SIZE]
5) Vampire--I'm with Doc.
Dishonorable Mention--Blue Rose, saved from this list only by virtue of its system
Quote from: Dr Rotwang!;266783- Star Wars d20 - Again with the building versus the playing. I can't be a bounty hunter for how long?!
Amen brother, preach it!
I'm sure my list has changed let's see how much...
My top 10 RPGs, in no particular order:
Unknown Armies - The RPG that seems as if it was written for me.
WoD - After all these years, still one of the most flexible systems for Horror gaming.
Mongoose Traveller - I relally enjoyed my time playing this game. I also realy enjoyed not playing it! Prepping for the game was also a pretty good time.
TMNT&OS - A game that's an absolute blast to play!
New Robotech - One of my favorite shows/settings applied to the fast & furious ruleset of Palladium.
TOON - My favorite RPG as a kid, I still have memories of some of my best play experiences with this game.
Hunter: the Reckoning - One of my best and definately my longest campaign came from this game.
Hunter: the Vigil - I really like how White-Wolf opened up the toolbox on this one. It's like a well stocked fridge that you can make any kind of Monster Hunter game you'd ever want with all the ingredients available.
BESM 3rd - My favorite universal system.
Exalted 2nd - My second longest campaign ever was with this game. The truly epic and over the top Dragonball fantasy. Often imitated but never duplicated.
Honorable mentions - Two Fisted Tales, Dark Heresy, V:tR, M:tAw, Gurps 4e, CoC, Star Wars SAGA,
And my bottom 10, in no order:
AD&D 2nd edition - The first time D&D took a game I liked and wrecked it for me.
RIFTS - I wasn't twelve the first time I saw this game.
Palladium Fantasy - I wasn't twelve when I bought this game either.
D&D 4e - The second time D&D wrecked something that I enjoy. Just when I was starting to like it again too.
That's all I can really think of, as far as games that I just don't like that I've played. If I don't think I'll like it, I tend not to play it, so it's hard for me to fill this list out :)
These days:
1. Savage Worlds (of Soloman Kane)
2. True20
3. D&D 4
4. V&V
5. C. Traveller/ CoC
That's it for me. I have some other stuff, but I haven't spent enough time with it to love or hate it. I definitely didn't much like GURPS or HERO back and the old days, same with virtually every version of D&D before 4 (some I played a lot, some only a little) but I'd play just about anything given the right GM/setting. I'm not much of hater really.
My Top Ten, in No Particular Order:
Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play, 1st edition. King of one-book-is-all-you-need!
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, 2nd edition. Much less stuff than first ed (and the setting sucks), but great improvements to the system.
BECMI/RC Dungeons & Dragons. It's simple, it worked, it got me started roleplaying waydahellbackwhen.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st edition. Got more hours clocked in this game than any other.
Call of Cthulhu, any edition. Great system, awesome adventures, awesome game.
Deadlands, classic edition. Great (if crunchy) system, and the Weird West was a damn cool place before it suffered collectible-RPG-itis
Champions/Hero System, 4th edition. Bow before the king of playable crunch, but durn good super game. :)
Earthdawn, classic edition. Love the system, love the world. Magic has had a partial run through the Borgstromizer.
Dungeons & Dragons, 4th edition. The most fun with a new game I've had in years.
Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy. For the emperor, I melta you face.
And now, my Bottom 10 Again In No Particular Order:
Vampire, any edition. Never had fun playing or GM'ing it.
Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd edition. Too much detail for too little payoff.
Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd edition. Removed all that offended *anybody*, lost flavor.
Mythus. Your Game Translate skill [84%] is not high enough to translate the Gygax runes.
Star Wars d20. Too much d20, not enough Star Wars.
Exalted. Looked really cool, played like shit, Borgstromancy.
Traveller. Wanted to like it, but had a piss-poor GM.
Amber. Loved the novels, wanted to love it, hated the diceless system, hated the lack of detail.
Gamma World, latest edition. Sorry Bruce, but this is a steaming pile o' shit.
Deadlands: Hell On Earth. Wow, crippled rules out of the box AND a collectible RPG mentality. Marvelous!
Top 10:
1) D&D 4e - I'm currently playing a weekly campaign in it and have worked off and on for the past year or so on an independent setting for it.
2) Heavy Gear - More for nostalgia at this point, since I haven't run a game in years. It's a great system for modern and sci-fi games. I really loved the Terra Nova setting up until TN 1936-37.
3) Iron Heroes / Arcana Unearthed / D&D 3.5 - Tied because I like to mash up elements of all three together. For the record, I prefer the combination of the three to stock 3.x.
4) Unknown Armies - My go-to system for rules-light gaming. A few years ago, an RPG.net poster named voidstate published some simple additions to the rules for using it as a fantasy system that really caught my heart.
5) WFRP - Just bought a second copy of the book today to replace the first one that my buddy lost. Picked up Realms of Sorcery while I was at it, and am duly impressed. It and Unknown Armies are the two systems I consider it easiest to teach new gamers.
6) nWoD - Another generic system. While I loathed most of the old WoD (Hunter and Mage aside), the generic nWoD has one of cleanest and most interesting ways of structuring attributes that I've seen. Though not mentioned much, the system can handle "social combat" and "keeping your cool" incredibly simply, without overly complicated subsystems.
7) Dark Heresy - WFRP in space. I think I would rate this game much lower if the additional material in the Inquisitor's Handbook had not been released. As it stands, it's a little more difficult to teach folks than WFRP, but it's full of atmosphere and gun-porn.
8) Burning Wheel / Burning Empires - I wish it was easier to get games of these going, but the very things I like about it - the difficulty of the system and the demands it makes on PCs to develop system mastery - make player buy-in difficult.
9) TMNT and Other Strangeness - Once again for nostalgia. The first RPG I ever played, and the only Palladium game I still like.
10) Alternity - The game for which I possess the most extensive list of self-made material. Though I have since discarded most of it, I at one point owned several 100+ pg. notebooks full of equipment, psychic powers, alien species, etc. for it that I had written, most of it of admittedly poor quality. This was outside of my campaign notes or anything specifically intended for the PCs to encounter.
Bottom 10
10) Vampire - Power creep & unappealing aesthetic
9) Werewolf - Books seemed too preachy
8) SW SAGA - Less fun than 4e, less of a toolkit than 3.x, crappy setting post prequels
7) Wushu - Not actually an RPG
6) RIFTS - Grows increasingly less fun each year (depending) as more material of worse and worse quality is published for it.
5) Exalted - Broke my heart by turning the Iliad into weeaboo bullshit
4) Riddle of Steel - A combat system in search of a game
3) FATE - Used to like it, before I actually played it
2) Nobilis - Needs a resolution mechanic
1) FATAL - Unplayable, boring, and the sort of thing that besmirches the rest of the industry