Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;966862Hmm. I'd say Flashing Blades and Bushido both qualify as good RPGs that aren't popular. Morrow Project is nifty, too.

Right on. Both Flashing Blades and Bushido hold up extremely well. I played both for years, and now that I think about it, I used almost no house rules for either game - something very unusual in my experience.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;966862Hmm. I'd say Flashing Blades and Bushido both qualify as good RPGs that aren't popular. Morrow Project is nifty, too.

Morrow Project used to be fairly well known. Moreso than Gamma World sometimes. I would not say its unpopular. Just that it faded from public perception as I assume production stopped at some point? I never saw product for it in the 90s?

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;966862Hmm. I'd say Flashing Blades and Bushido both qualify as good RPGs that aren't popular. Morrow Project is nifty, too.

I'd agree on Flashing Blades, but would replace Bushido with Sengoku Revised.

Do things like Rocketship Empires 1936 count as ever being popular?
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Quote from: Omega;966866Morrow Project used to be fairly well known. Moreso than Gamma World sometimes. I would not say its unpopular. Just that it faded from public perception as I assume production stopped at some point? I never saw product for it in the 90s?

I really liked the more realistic take of Morrow Project. It also did that rare thing in RPGs of explaining why the players/characters don't know much about the world they inhabit. There is a (2013) 4th edition available.

Okay, some of these are going to be really qualified, either in terms of good or in terms of unpopular, but here goes.

GURPS has a non-FTL sci-fi setting called Transhuman Space. It seems to be well regarded, but it's joked about on GURPS forums how everyone acknowledges its' value, but could never figure out what to do in the universe.

Another, not so much unpopular as forgotten. Immortal, if remembered at all is usually remembered for horrible early-mid 90s photoshop art, janky rules, or that that actress from Babylon 5 posed for one of the character groups. While not great, the game world qualifies to me as about as good a mashup of Vampire: the Masquerade and Highlander as I'd ever hope to see. Faint praise I know.

Would Mystara count as unpopular? Because I think that one is pretty good.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;966862Hmm. I'd say Flashing Blades and Bushido both qualify as good RPGs that aren't popular.

They're extremely popular in my house. But I always liked FGU better than TSR.

Quote from: AsenRG;966871I'd agree on Flashing Blades, but would replace Bushido with Sengoku Revised.

Why on earth would you do that?! :eek:

Quote from: Omega;966866Morrow Project used to be fairly well known. Moreso than Gamma World sometimes. I would not say its unpopular. Just that it faded from public perception as I assume production stopped at some point? I never saw product for it in the 90s?

There was a kickstarter for a 4th edition 4 years ago - I backed for the pdf.  I haven't been paying close attention, but my impression is that further rewards have been slow to be produced.  But you can buy the pdf on drivethrurpg.

Quote from: Dumarest;966911Why on earth would you do that?! :eek:

Sengoku has a better system and better treatment of the setting, of course.

Quote from: AsenRG;967017Sengoku has a better system and better treatment of the setting, of course.

Now pull the other one!:p

Quote from: AsenRG;967017Sengoku has a better system and better treatment of the setting, of course.

Senguko uses the fusion system, so named because it fused together aspects of Champion's Hero system with that of Cyberpunk's Interlock system. In practice it meant that there are way too many stats to track your character and some confusion over whether roll 3D6 or D10 on any given task. That said, the physical quality of the book was good, and the writers had clearly done their research.

Bushido, which is less familiar to me, was a Runequest-inspired percentile game I think. The production standards are what they are for an early 80s game and there is possibly less meat in terms of the background material presented. That said, it was more seminal and consequently people will still prefer it as an original idea.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;967028Bushido, which is less familiar to me, was a Runequest-inspired percentile game I think.

"The Bushido system is dice-based, most important rolls being made with a twenty-sided (d20) die."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido_(role-playing_game)

I think the thing that caused resistance to playing was:
"Each character is randomly assigned at birth to a class in the strict feudal hierarchy of Nippon"
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Quote from: TrippyHippy;967028Senguko uses the fusion system, so named because it fused together aspects of Champion's Hero system with that of Cyberpunk's Interlock system. In practice it meant that there are way too many stats to track your character and some confusion over whether roll 3D6 or D10 on any given task. That said, the physical quality of the book was good, and the writers had clearly done their research.

I loved the Sengoku setting material, but thought Fuzion was trash. For a while, I spun together Fantasy Hero and Ninja Hero and ran it in the Sengoku setting.

QuoteBushido, which is less familiar to me, was a Runequest-inspired percentile game I think. The production standards are what they are for an early 80s game and there is possibly less meat in terms of the background material presented. That said, it was more seminal and consequently people will still prefer it as an original idea

Bushido was a thing of beauty that spun lots of cultural tidbits into the system, but a lot of the really cool little features were ahead of their time and sort of flew under the radar, like a system for having your singular PC participate in a mass battle, and a skill system modeling complex tasks.

I honestly think what doomed it is that it wasn't easy to minmax in it when most of the fantasy gaming world at the time were all about the next bit of kickass. But the Japanophile-Sim section of the Venn digram loved it.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;966907Would Mystara count as unpopular? Because I think that one is pretty good.

It is the one system that WoTC seems to have no interest in mentioning so I would guess although it is popular in the OSR it has a tiny audience overall.