Favorite System that Never Caught On


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Gargoyle

Adventurer
reel_big_gish said:
Can I cast an anti-vote for Masterbook? While it had some interesting concepts (Masterdeck, FX creation), I found the whole thing to be poorly done, and the bonus system was atrocious. Quite an oddity coming from the makers of Torg & D6 Star Wars...

I have a suspicion that WEG was much more skilled designing RPG systems that supported a specific setting. Torg and Star Wars d6 (and Ghostbusters and Paranoia) featured rule systems that directly supported particular settings...the rules evoked a certain tone. While Torg was cross-genre, it wasn't a universal system like Masterbook was designed to be. I think they had a hard time creating something compelling that was also inherently generic, even with its Torg roots. I didn't care for Shatterzone either.
 

CarlZog

Explorer
Bagpuss said:
It's dice mechanic at the core of the system wasn't simple and seemed like just and excuse to use all the polyhedral dice available.

The dice mechanic is simple, but definitely not intuitive; it takes some getting used to.

I like it. It reflects the additional uncertainty in how the circumstances will cumulatively affect your task, while still allowing the character's skill to be at the heart of the test.

Carl
 

Dire_Pug

First Post
Here's another vote for Alternity (even though I never got a chance to play it). At the time my group thought this is what D&D 3.0 was going to look like. The SAGA system seemed interesting but died a premature death. I played Tunnels and Trolls with a small group and had a lot fo fun with it.

As far as setting goes, my vote is Birthright. Luckily there were a lot of releases for it, so I'll have plenty of material for a campaign.

I also hope that Iron Heroes gets some support in the way of another sourcebook.
 

librarius_arcana

First Post
Dire_Pug said:
Here's another vote for Alternity (even though I never got a chance to play it). At the time my group thought this is what D&D 3.0 was going to look like. The SAGA system seemed interesting but died a premature death. I played Tunnels and Trolls with a small group and had a lot fo fun with it.

As far as setting goes, my vote is Birthright. Luckily there were a lot of releases for it, so I'll have plenty of material for a campaign.

I also hope that Iron Heroes gets some support in the way of another sourcebook.

SAGA isn't that good, believe me you're not missing much, when I first saw this I thought it would have been a fresh and inventive idea, to play a fully rounded rpg with cards, it wasn't, and suffers from what is common in poorly design rule lite games,

And believe me I know, I bought the whole line of box sets, all but one, :\
 

loki44

Explorer
Rob Toth said:
A second vote for the original Top Secret.

Thirded. We abused the hell out of truth serum and the rules but had a blast.

I'll also add Thieves' Guild (Gamelords rpg, not the boardgame). An all rogue, humancentric, nearly zero magic game. So bland it's almost comfort food.
 



jaerdaph

#UkraineStrong
Alternity (especially Dark*Matter) and Masque of the Red Death (which was just different enough from AD&D/Ravenloft to count as separate.
 

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