Quote from: Pierce Inveraritya) AFMBE is this popular? How come?

Besides the inherant amusement most geeks derive from zombies, AFMBE is also the "generic" rulebook for the Unisystem, which is a pretty damn find generic system.  Not to the endless permutation levels of GURPS, but a solid game all the same.  The expansions for it can almost be seen as genre books with a zombie flavor.  Dungeons and Zombies is a fun look at anachronist undead, but it's also a generic fantasy guidebook for the Unisystem.


I was pretty happy that UA made runner up, and that games I've played came up on the 10.  Considering my taste tends toward swine, nice that I have some connection back to the old skool around here.

Quote from: CodexArcanumBesides the inherant amusement most geeks derive from zombies, AFMBE is also the "generic" rulebook for the Unisystem, which is a pretty damn find generic system.  Not to the endless permutation levels of GURPS, but a solid game all the same.  The expansions for it can almost be seen as genre books with a zombie flavor.  Dungeons and Zombies is a fun look at anachronist undead, but it's also a generic fantasy guidebook for the Unisystem.


I was pretty happy that UA made runner up, and that games I've played came up on the 10.  Considering my taste tends toward swine, nice that I have some connection back to the old skool around here.

I think it speaks to UA's quality that in a grognardy site like this one it still gets the love.

Good design is good design, it doesn't stop being so because of a change in fashion, nor does it fail to be so because it's relatively new.

About 10 years back the late, lamented Arcane magazine in the UK (a brief attempt to put an RPG magazine which isn't Dragon in newsagents) ran a "top 100 RPGs" article and compiled votes in much the same way as we've done with our top 10. Call of Cthulhu topped that list as well. ISTR that D&D came quite low - it was in the top 10, but I don't think it was #2 - but this was during the lowest point of 2nd edition, so that's no surprise.

Quote from: BalbinusIt's a joke, I think it is fairly evident that the quote has been changed for comic purposes (rather effectively in this case IMO).  Pundit already rebutted anyway, what's the issue?  Way to overreact, dude.

Even when done for comic purposes, fixing other people's typos just leads to confusion. It looks to people skimming the thread that RPG Pundit said something he didn't.

Seanchai

Quote from: Zachary The FirstI'd imagine Coyote Trail or Iron Gauntlets would be two of the more well-known ones for PIG...

I missed this post!  

Coyote Trail was #184 and Iron Gauntlets was #203.

This is out of 211 total games. Both only recieved one vote, Coyote Trail got one vote at #10 and Iron Gauntlets got one Honorable Mention.

The least voted for game was Traveller d20.  I think I goofed on that one and forgot to put the vote in, because it's on the list and has no votes!  I hope no one reconsiders my accuracy too much, I'm only human, I'm 90% certain of what I recorded.

Quote from: BalbinusI think it speaks to UA's quality that in a grognardy site like this one it still gets the love.

Good design is good design, it doesn't stop being so because of a change in fashion, nor does it fail to be so because it's relatively new.

Good design?  I just don't see it.  An interesting game in no mistake, but I saw nothing in the system that suggested good design.  Rather, quite a lot of rambly, self-indulgent prose, wrapped around a very simple and rather bland system.  And believe me, I really, really wanted to like the game.

Gotta agree with Tyberious Funk's assessment of Unknown Armies, though I would add that it has some good ideas, which with a good game group can make things fun and interesting. I think perhaps his and my experience of the game was tarnished by a bad group experience.

Still, overall quite sloppy and rambling. They spent 650 words explaining why they didn't have more skills listed; they could have listed 650 skills instead, or 65 with ten words of description each. They had overall 87 example skills, but 72 different firearms and 25 different types of ammunition. They then tried to claim that UA was not about shooting people. Their writing was all over the place - a couple of hundred words was dedicated to answering a question no-one outside the game design team would have asked - why are the magical arts called "-mancy" (epideromancy, pornomancy, etc) instead of "-eurgy", or similar.

But the "top ten" didn't ask about quality, it asked what people liked. I didn't participate because I like many things, for many different reasons - and if you ask my top ten today, it'll be different if you ask me an hour from now. There'd be four or five games which stayed there, but you might get GURPS at #3 at 2 o'clock, and then down at #6 at 3 o'clock. So really the poll is just a poll of, "what are the games on your mind at the moment?"

Quote from: JimBobOzBut the "top ten" didn't ask about quality, it asked what people liked. I didn't participate because I like many things, for many different reasons - and if you ask my top ten today, it'll be different if you ask me an hour from now. There'd be four or five games which stayed there, but you might get GURPS at #3 at 2 o'clock, and then down at #6 at 3 o'clock. So really the poll is just a poll of, "what are the games on your mind at the moment?"

I agree.  In fact, I could see that phenomenon while I was compiling the lists.  There was a big upturn in some games for a few posts.  Almost all the votes for In Harm's Way shot  up after someone put it on a list.  And some games (I don't have any specific examples right now) seemed to only pop up someone else had mentioned them.  Now that I think on it, Twilight 2000 was like that.

So I guess the only fair way to do it would be to look at John Kim's Bigass List of RPGs, and have people go down the list and note the ones they liked... that's 1,101 rpgs. But then, there's also the free rpgs, over 500 of them... Hmmm... Is anyone going to look at every one of 1,600+ rpgs for a simple survey?

It might be more worthwhile to ask people what rpgs they've played in the last (say) two years, and how many sessions. I mean, something might be a favourite game in principle, but in practice... sure, there'll be some people who'd play it if only someone else liked it, too (like me with BTRC's Timelords), but for every one of them, there'll be another one or two who only play their game because it's what their group's keen on. So "what we're playing" isn't necessarily a perfect guide to what people actually like - but it's the best guide there is.

Quote from: WarthurAbout 10 years back the late, lamented Arcane magazine in the UK (a brief attempt to put an RPG magazine which isn't Dragon in newsagents) ran a "top 100 RPGs" article and compiled votes in much the same way as we've done with our top 10. Call of Cthulhu topped that list as well. ISTR that D&D came quite low - it was in the top 10, but I don't think it was #2 - but this was during the lowest point of 2nd edition, so that's no surprise.

I think D&D was #3 or #2.  I have that issue, but I just got up.

Jimbob, that would be awesome to do as a list thread.  I would totally vote, but would probably not volunteer to compile the "votes."

We could see what "the most played RPG" at theRPGsite is.

Quote from: joewolzJimbob, that would be awesome to do as a list thread. I would totally vote, but would probably not volunteer to compile the "votes."
 
We could see what "the most played RPG" at theRPGsite is.

That would be an interesting list!  Don't have the time to count the votes, though.

I'll gladly share the template I made for the top ten.

Well, my set of currently preferred games has changed a bit from the last time I posted about it (back at the Purple Palace).

My hybrid of Mekton II and Z is still my number one favorite.  I'm playing a game inspired by the Mecha Versus Kaiju sample setting from the True 20 book.

I was tinkering with running Castles and Crusades a while back.  At the moment, C&C seems like a much better option for me to play/run than classic D&D, AD&D, Hackmaster, or D&D3.  It's less work, for one thing, and just seems more familiar while being new and improved.  I'll probably get back to running it soon.

My homebrew system is stalled out.  Circumstances conspire against me being able to playtest it.  Truthfully, my interest in pursuing it is waning.  I have about 100 other systems.  I might as well use them.

The D6 system is still on my list.  Recently I've been tinkering with my Star Wars toy collection and that made me want to play Star Wars again.  I have the beginnings of a campaign idea, but I'll see how it goes.

I'm finding myself a lot more interested in the Coda system (Decipher's Lord of the Rings and Star Trek RPGs).  I've even purchased a few new books.  My RPG buddy seems at least marginally interested in the game.  I might be playing Coda soon.  I'll at least be reading my books more thoroughly.

Recently I got BESM3 and have been eager to try it out.  Most of the changes seem positive.  I have hopes that the system is actually worth playing now, as opposed to being so severely flawed like the previous editions were.  Just making the system roll high seems to work wonders.

Quote from: JimBobOzIt might be more worthwhile to ask people what rpgs they've played in the last (say) two years, and how many sessions. I mean, something might be a favourite game in principle, but in practice... sure, there'll be some people who'd play it if only someone else liked it, too (like me with BTRC's Timelords), but for every one of them, there'll be another one or two who only play their game because it's what their group's keen on. So "what we're playing" isn't necessarily a perfect guide to what people actually like - but it's the best guide there is.

I think what we're playing would be quite interesting, and mine would not go to ten.  

Shall we start a thread, list the games we've played in the last 12 months say, and see if we can get someone to tabulate later?

We'd need to note if games played at cons counted, possibly a separate category?