Quote from: Dumarest;964750I've never seen it, I only know the name. What makes it great? Would it be useful for a Sinbad sailing around the Islamic world campaign? Does it use Islam or a stand-in monotheistic religion so as not to offend? I know just about zilch about it aside from it's pseudo-Arabian.

Someone already answered regarding religion, there is a prophet like figure but being D&D the focus is hardly on that aspect. And yes it has a Sinbad-like supplement. It has a very distinctive flavour, some unique twists on magic. A setting that was clearly designed by one person (Jeff Grubb) from the ground up. I'm sure it is as historically flawed for an Arabic expert as the pseduo-medieval settings of D&D but  there's lots to like I think.

Quote from: AsenRG;964807Well, I'd say Spellbound Kingdoms. It's a setting where magic actually can go wild on you, because it responds to strong emotions, like in most stories, and sometimes that leads to magical catastrophes.

Sounds great thanks for the heads up.

Pretty much any old setting held together still by nostalgia, that new RPG players have never heard of. See Tekumel - The World of the Petal Throne.

Pretty much anything by me...

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;964838Pretty much any old setting held together still by nostalgia, that new RPG players have never heard of. See Tekumel - The World of the Petal Throne.

New players, by definition, have not heard of much.

I only ran it once, a long time ago, and only for one session, so I don't remember the rules enough to comment on them.  However, I always really like the setting for The Morrow Project and the idea at its heart.

Also on the post-apocalyptic side of things, the mood GDW managed to capture with the initial entries in the Twilight: 2000 line was pretty unique.  It went to a place that not a lot of roleplaying games attempt to get to.  A kind of quiet melancholy, I guess.  It never found an audience and the Cold War thawed, so they kept trying to reinvent it.  (I think they even tried to spin off a supernatural horror game?)  It's obviously dated now and the world is too different to really recapture, but it was a great attempt.

Big Eyes Small Mouth, and in particular the First Edition and its licensed settings (most notably Sailor Moon)

Quote from: TrippyHippy;964741I don't know if it's strictly 'unpopular' as such, but I do think that Steve Jackson Games dropped a baby with In Nomine which should have been bigger than Vampire in the 90s. The French game actually predates Vampire, but it captures the same dark satirical elements and in some ways has more immediate playability. Unfortunately, they took way too long to bring out the US-targetted version and could never quite get the tone of the game right, while the actual organisation of the core rules is all over the place.

I kind of liked the way that it allowed you to skew the game to be dark or humorous, but the rules were kind of a mess, and even when you understood them, the still felt wonky. They weren't really any wonkier than what White Wolf was doing, but I think I resented it more because I expected better from SJG. I'd consider it an almost-classic.

QuoteAnther thing, for me, of note is Something Rotten in Kislev the much maligned 4th part in WFRP's Enemy Within campaign. It never really fitted into the whole campaign, being more of a diversion to get characters away from The Empire while it starts to fall, and it even encourages the use of original characters. The lighter tone is somewhat different to the darker earlier episodes too. All that said, it's written by Ken Rolsten (of Paranoia fame) and it's quite hilarious to play. Our group actually had more fun with Something Rotten in Kislev more than any other part of The Enemy within campaign.

I seem to recall it was not written as part of TEW, but someone had the bright idea to tweak it to make it part of the series. I think that is the root of it bad reputation. It has some really deadly adventures, and TPKd the group I had been running through TEW. Long-running PCs being sent into almost certain death on a mission that had absolutely nothing to do with the main campaign left a bitter aftertaste with everyone in the group. The mission-based nature also felt coercive given the more sandboxy nature of previous installments.

If that book had been released as a stand-alone Kislev supplement, I believe it would be fondly remembered. The Paranoia-esque deadliness would have worked better if players had begun the campaign with that context. [/QUOTE]

Quote from: DavetheLost;964747Wraith: The Oblivion was IMO the best of the original WoD games.  The setting depth of Wraith was fantastic.  Coinage made of souls...

That had a fantastic setting and there was a good game in there. It took a lot of work to get that out of the core book though. The fantastical nature of the game wasn't really apparent until the supplements.

Quote from: Omega;964792Star Frontiers gets some derision, mainly because of the stupid Zebulons Guide which might as well be a separate setting.

My Star Frontiers stuff turned up in a box in my parent's attic about ten years ago, so I took it out for a spin. It was an impressively clean, simple system. My only complaint was one that was apparent when I first played it decades ago; The average person has 50 hit points, and laser pistol does something like 1d10 damage. Shootouts are gruelling attrition matches.

It works better if you apply mook rules, reserving the standard hit point rules for PCs and major opposition, with mooks all having less than 20 HP.

QuoteBeyond the Supernatural: Some morons dismiss it because its from Palladium. But its a pretty good pre-Rifts/Megadamage setting and system. Same with After the Bomb.

I guess we are getting into the question of whether we are talking about current popularity or popularity at the time, as Palladium was pretty damn popular. While they could be wonky in places, pre-MDC Palladium games were enormous fun.

Quote from: Voros;964813Someone already answered regarding religion, there is a prophet like figure but being D&D the focus is hardly on that aspect. And yes it has a Sinbad-like supplement. It has a very distinctive flavour, some unique twists on magic. A setting that was clearly designed by one person (Jeff Grubb) from the ground up. I'm sure it is as historically flawed for an Arabic expert as the pseduo-medieval settings of D&D but  there's lots to like I think.

I don't really have that big an issue with an Arabian Nights setting being polytheistic. Islam isn't that old a religion, and the Middle Eastern civilization goes back a long time before it. The Arabian Nights seems like a way to smuggle pre-Islamic mythology into the Islamic era. Playing polytheistic Arabian Nights is kind of like playing pagans in an Arthurian setting. You are just digging into the pagan mythology it uses as a basis.

Quote from: The Scythian;964853Also on the post-apocalyptic side of things, the mood GDW managed to capture with the initial entries in the Twilight: 2000 line was pretty unique.  It went to a place that not a lot of roleplaying games attempt to get to.  A kind of quiet melancholy, I guess.  It never found an audience and the Cold War thawed, so they kept trying to reinvent it.  (I think they even tried to spin off a supernatural horror game?)  It's obviously dated now and the world is too different to really recapture, but it was a great attempt.

I ran a campaign of that, and it did have an amazing tone. The rules supported it well too. Scavenging for food, and hiding out while trying to distill fuel for vehicles. The players eventually made a costly raid on the base of some Soviet deserters to steal enough fuel to make it to Krakow, where the complex web of espionage was waiting for them.

I could see it going over well the kind of of OSR players that really get into the resource management and risk element of RPGs, assuming they could get into the Cold War mindset.

Star Frontiers suffered from being presented as a kid's game, not a serious sci-fi-fi RPG. Zeb's just made it worse.  The base Star Frontiers mechanics were a sound enough system and the setting had a lot of potential. Look at what the fan community has done with it.

Beyond the Supernatural 1e is a fantastic game, it handles varrying sorts of horror. At the time it was new our group loved it. That was back in the days when Palladium Books games were still good, before the insane k3wl pow3rz creep started to set in. The early books of Palladium Fantasy were also good fun.

Quote from: Baulderstone;964857My Star Frontiers stuff turned up in a box in my parent's attic about ten years ago, so I took it out for a spin. It was an impressively clean, simple system. My only complaint was one that was apparent when I first played it decades ago; The average person has 50 hit points, and laser pistol does something like 1d10 damage. Shootouts are grueling attrition matches.

No, that's not accurate. You've overlooked something.

At their lowest power setting, a laser pistol does 1D10 damage and uses 1 SEU of power. But, it can be 'dialed' to use from 1 to 10 SEU, dealing xD10 based on what you set it to. So at 10 SEU deals 10D10 damage on a successful hit, and the pistol can be fired twice in a round. Sure, it depletes the hell out of a power source, but without appropriate armor or a screen, you'll quickly reduce a PC to slag.

A laser rifle can be set from 1-20 SEU (yes, dealing up to 20D10 damage on a hit). Autopistols and rifles can be fired in burst mode. Gyrojet weapons do less damage, but can be fired repeatedly. Sonic weapons can put out some decent damage. And, we're not even getting into heavy weapons. Archaic melee/missile weapons suck for damage - if you're stuck using them, then it will be a grind in combat. Modern melee weapons can deal out some decent damage.

SF can be quite deadly actually.

Quote from: K Peterson;964878No, that's not accurate. You've overlooked something.

At their lowest power setting, a laser pistol does 1D10 damage and uses 1 SEU of power. But, it can be 'dialed' to use from 1 to 10 SEU, dealing xD10 based on what you set it to. So at 10 SEU deals 10D10 damage on a successful hit, and the pistol can be fired twice in a round. Sure, it depletes the hell out of a power source, but without appropriate armor or a screen, you'll quickly reduce a PC to slag.

A laser rifle can be set from 1-20 SEU (yes, dealing up to 20D10 damage on a hit). Autopistols and rifles can be fired in burst mode. Gyrojet weapons do less damage, but can be fired repeatedly. Sonic weapons can put out some decent damage. And, we're not even getting into heavy weapons. Archaic melee/missile weapons suck for damage - if you're stuck using them, then it will be a grind in combat. Modern melee weapons can deal out some decent damage.

SF can be quite deadly actually.

Yeah, I figured there would be "Civilian Weapons" that came with lower settings and then "Police/Security" and finally "Military" class weapons, so that the bog standard laser pistol wouldn't on average, vaporize the average person.  

Then players can illegally modify their pistol like Han Solo. :cool:

Quote from: TrippyHippy;964793Bit defensive here really, and you are confusing 'taste' for popularity. Shadowrun, for example, is an extremely popular rpg regardless of it's critics.

To hear some people talk. No its not popular. Despite outlasting Cyberpunk 2020 for a good while.

Quote from: Baulderstone;964857My only complaint was one that was apparent when I first played it decades ago; The average person has 50 hit points, and laser pistol does something like 1d10 damage. Shootouts are gruelling attrition matches.

Average was more like 45 the average as the stat bell curve peaked at 40-50. A human PC could of course bump that 45 to a 50.
er? Didnt anyone ever use the sliders on the lasers??? A laser pistol has a slider that goes to 10d10. The rifle can crank out a 20d10. Course that would drain a standard 20 SEU clip in one or 2 shots. But hook those babies up to a power pack and watch em fry! The other weapons werent too bad either. Sonic Sword doing 5d10, Electrostunner 4d10, Disruptor doing 6d10(and less at longer ranges) and so on.

Combats tended to be over fairly quick even with defensive suits on. Screens though did drag out a battle. Even at setting 2 on a laser a battle could be over in about 5 rounds. Auto pistols on burst were popular too. A 50 STA opponent could go down in just 2 rounds. (usually 3 from my experience)

You guys are making me want to roll up some Vrusks and Drasalites...I still have the Star Frontiers books, though the box and maps and counters are long gone. Wasn't there a space fighter combat boxed set that came out after the roleplaying boxed set?

Quote from: K Peterson;964878No, that's not accurate. You've overlooked something.

Huh. Objection retracted. I have no issues with the game.