Here's where we talk about, as of the end of 2007, which five small press regular RPG books are your personal favourites, the ones you think are best?

My own choices are these, in no particular order:
Two Fisted Tales
Coyote Trail
Starcluster
In Harm's Way
Forward... to Adventure! (hey, a guy's gotta shill)

And shit, what a mix they are.  With those five little small press games you get a Pulp hero game, a Western, a Travelleresque hard scifi game, a historical napoleonic game, and a classic (slightly gonzo) fantasy game.  Pretty much everything one could wish for!

So what are your top five?

RPGPundit

Bash Fantasy - fun, inexpensive, and great for kids

Hero force- another fast paced system for four color super hero fun. Great value (Deep 7's 1 PG system has every genre from Space opera to WWII squad level RPG's covered)

Broadsword - of course I have to pimp my own entry in the 1PG system.

another awesome value are all the RPG's from Precis (Earth AD, Hard Nova, Coyote trail).

Quote from: The Evil DMBash Fantasy - fun, inexpensive, and great for kids

Hero force- another fast paced system for four color super hero fun. Great value (Deep 7's 1 PG system has every genre from Space opera to WWII squad level RPG's covered)

Broadsword - of course I have to pimp my own entry in the 1PG system.

another awesome value are all the RPG's from Precis (Earth AD, Hard Nova, Coyote trail).

1) I have to second the 1PG games - a lot of fun packed into a very few pages. In particular, I like those with a historical flavour; Battleforce Bravo, Medieval Mysteries and Pax Gladius (not forgetting the forthcoming Mad Dogs & Englishmen).

2) Coyote Trail is a fantastic game (I particularly like the Colonial Record add-on).

3) I picked up Clash's In Harm's Way recently and it looks great - just gotta work it into the gaming schedule now.

4) Aces & Eights is a quality product full of detail and gaming potential.

5) Witch Hunter is my last choice - not long out, so as yet unplayed but I am preparing a campaign as we speak.

1PGs - particularly Broadsword and Idyll. Idyll is romantic fantasy done right & lite - The Princess Bride and Stardust. Broadsword is ol' skool sword and sorcery - Hawk the Slayer, Beastmaster and Conan. Lemme hear ya say BEOWULF!

1PGs Star Legion edges out Hardnova II as my fave SCI-FI of the year.

best till last:

Forward To Adventure - Lurvin' it LARGE ! - not too crunchy, not too lite - the good bits of the best fantasy rpg's distilled into an easily-managed package.

Difficult, difficult.
I´ll be back after some onderation.

Well, I can probably think of many, and I'll doubtless revise my picks, but my knee-jerk reaction is:

Epic RPG, from Dark Matter Studios
Iron Gauntlets, Precis Intermedia
Roma Imperious, Hinterwelt
In Harm's Way, Flying Mice
Truth & Justice, Atomic Sock Monkey

But man...I could add a LOT more.

Quote from: Simon W4) Aces & Eights is a quality product full of detail and gaming potential.

Dude, Aces & Eights isn't even slightly small press. I'd rank Kenzer & Co amongst the second tier of game companies (especially considering that they've started popping up in the "top companies by market share" charts from C&GR).

My favourites:

- REIGN. Greg Stolze finally managed to iron the kinks out of the One Roll Engine, and tries to cover something which (to my knowledge) no game since Birthright has attempted. (I also love the way that he makes the occasional nod towards GNS theory, as if pointing out that he's heard of it... and then giving advice for how to make the game work with just about any creative agenda, indicating his rejection of the Forge model.)

- FtA. Bringing simple stunting rules into an old-school dungeon crawl game is an awesome feature; even if I never use the FtA rules themselves, I may well translate the stunting rules to my next Tunnels & Trolls or 1E AD&D/RCD&D game.

- A|State. One of the most well-realised settings I've seen in a recent RPG; you can pretty much run this straight out of the book, with no prep other than giving the book a read-through - it provides so many cool locations and organisations (all with appropriate NPCs associated with them) that it's an improviser's dream. Even better, the publishers have an explicit policy of not explaining the backstory of the game and leaving "the Truth" up to the GM. They even don't provide stats for the Shifted (strange entities that are connected to the setting's mysterious past), leaving the GM to decide whether they are powerful guardians of an ancient secret or feeble remnants of a ruined world.

- Burning Wheel/Burning Empires. Burning Wheel is, in the end, a very traditional RPG with a thin veneer of Forgeisms. Tear off the Forge-y wrapper and you don't even have to deal with those (very mild) elements of narrativist ideas. I like the way Burning Empires structures its campaigns as well; if you wanted to run the default campaign (the PCs defending against their homeworld against an invasion of brainworms) it's insanely helpful, but at the same time it's nigh-trivial to ignore.

- Heaven and Earth. It's Twin Peaks: the RPG!

Quote- REIGN. Greg Stolze finally managed to iron the kinks out of the One Roll Engine, and tries to cover something which (to my knowledge) no game since Birthright has attempted. (I also love the way that he makes the occasional nod towards GNS theory, as if pointing out that he's heard of it... and then giving advice for how to make the game work with just about any creative agenda, indicating his rejection of the Forge model.)

Hmm. Curious, I hadn't heard anyone claim that before, and pretty well everyone who'd been praising this game were Swine.
Unfortunately, I don't have the game so I can't make any definite statement regarding this.  Maybe Greg Stolze might feel like sending me a review copy?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditHmm. Curious, I hadn't heard anyone claim that before, and pretty well everyone who'd been praising this game were Swine.
Unfortunately, I don't have the game so I can't make any definite statement regarding this.  Maybe Greg Stolze might feel like sending me a review copy?

I'm at work right now, so I can't give any verbatim quotes, but but at points Greg says things like "Hey, here's some rules for Passions (think Beliefs and Instincts and whatnot in Burning Wheel, or the various personality rules in Riddle of Steel) - people who like a story-focused game might enjoy them, but if that's not your bag the game works just fine if you ignore them."

EDIT: It's no surprise that the people you've pegged as Swine love it on RPG.net - it's a Greg Stolze game, and Stolze is beloved by White Wolf fans for his work on various WW games and especially for Unknown Armies, which does the postmodern magic thing even better than Mage. Then again, he's also loved for Unknown Armies by people who don't like White Wolf because a) it's potentially very sandboxy, unlike any other WW game, and b) it's the modern-day occult horror game that avoids all of the modern-day occult horror cliches, as proved by the RPG Cliche List.

Let's define "small press" because I am stupid.

These are games I play or have played, not games I have read and would like to play. My top five small press games are (in no specific order):

Cold Space (by Flying Mice) - this is a great sci-fi game, probably one of the best regardless of the size of the press run. It follows an alternate time line and takes the Cold War into space. Like all Flying Mice sci-fi games the science in this game is sound. I ran a Soviet campaign and we had loads of fun.

Jags Wonderland (by JAGS) - a really cool concept that pushes the edge of in-game madness. In terms of scope and production I'd put this RPG up against any RPG. I like the way the author (Marco Chacun) writes. His stuff is always interesting. I ran a brief series of games with this game and we had a great time. The players played themselves in the game. I am thinking about using this to run a Silent Hill type of game and possibly a Dark Tower game. We'll see. Time is limited.

Jags Have Not (by JAGS) - another great game by Marco. This is a post-apocalyptic game. I played in a one-shot. It was pure gonzo fun based loosely in Fear and Loathing in LA.

Coyote Trail Expanded Edition (by PIG) - the best and most thorough western RPG out there*. Whenever my playing group wants to play pure western, Coyote Trail is the game we turn to.

Spirit of the Century (by Evil Hat) - I purchased the PDF because a lot of people were raving about it. I had no assumptions. I liked the way it was written and presented. I also liked some of its ideas but was apprehensive about how they would translate to the gaming table. I have no fudge dice so we used my son's HeroScape dice instead. We played a series of three games and it was a lot of fun.

There are a lot of great small press games that I have read and would like to play, including, but not limited to: In Harms Way, In Harms Way - Aces & Spades, Dog Town, Forward to Adventure, C-13, and Blood Games II.  

*No, I haven't read Aces & Eights - and at its current price I never will.

I understand that Reign is selling pretty well at Lulu. The hardcover is #28 at the moment.

Quote from: JohnnyWannabeI have no fudge dice so we used my son's HeroScape dice instead. We played a series of three games and it was a lot of fun.

Now that's a great idea!
Thanks for that tip.:duh:

Here are my favorite small press games of recent vintage.

1) Encounter Critical
2) Risus
3) Broadsword
4) Aces in Spades
5) Forward... to Adventure!

Slot number 6 would go to Mazes & Minotaurs.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Let's define "small press" because I am stupid.

Small press is pretty much any thing not put out by the big dogs. Bigs dogs being WotC, Steve Jackson, and so on. I'm sure you could put tpogether your own list of big players. Small press is games like Sorcerer, or FtA. PDF and limited print stuff stuff like Broad Sword, Mean Streets, or Risus. Put out by small outfits like Precis, Flying Mice, or Deep 7.