Favorite System that Never Caught On

[an_idol_mind]

Alternity was a very well-designed game that never got its fair shake. I wish WotC would sell it off to another company that would give it a new home.

I like the concept behind SAGA, but I ran into some problems with mechanics in that game, especially with the Dragonlance line. Two reasonably competent combatants could fight for hours on end without scoring a single hit because of the combat difficulty system. Also, some monsters were literally unbeatable. Older dragons, for example, just could not be hurt without some amazing combination of trump cards and/or a dragonlance.

The other problem that I had with SAGA is that there was no way to replace lost cards. If I lose some dice, I can buy some new ones. If a handful of cards falls into a mud puddle, then I've just wrecked my game.

 

[librarius_arcana]

Which is???

Okay,
Ruleslite games are designed lite in an attempt to reduce the amount of attention the system take away from the focus of the game (role playing)

But sometimes when done badly they end up taking more time to run because the system doesn't support the things you need to do, so the Gm struggles to find a way to make things stretch, and make do, and ends up taking even more time away than a non lite game would do,

SAGA is a bad version of this

Marvel is a great verion of this (as rules lite should be)

 

[Lazarous]

I'll add my vote for fireborn. Crappy editing aside, the system is damned nice.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

My votes have already been mentioned...
James Bond
Amazing Engine (though in my case the settings would be For Fairie, Queen and Country and Tabloid.
Millenium's End

And I will add 2300 A.D. Spaceship combat was likened at least once to Hide & Seek with bazookas...

The Auld Grump

 

[Fishbone]

Dawnforge, think it was said already, though.

 

[HeinorNY]

Storyteller. I really liked it, unfortunately it never caught on. It\'s dead, buried and forgotten now, so long dear friend.

 

[AdamBomb]

+1 for d6 Star Wars - the gateway drug for introducing people to RPG's.
I was a big fan of Dark Conspiracy - and wish it had caught on, for the setting if nothing else. The rules were basically Twilight 2000 with some Psionic and future tech thrown in. My all time favorite character creation rules too.

 

[painandgreed]

About The Morrow Project:

Great setting but I can't remember squat about the mechanics. What did you like?

TPM came up in my mind. It has a realativle similar sytem to 1E D&D with stats and d20 to hit. It had some realativly good system for modern combat (being created by ex-military IIRC) dealing with hit location, % chance of death due to hit location, rules for blood loss, and exhaustion. However, so many rules, even if realativly easy to use draw out the game and rarely get used. Of course, it was Morrow Project, and if you combats weren't short and one sided, PCs tended to die.

One of my favorite systems, after Storyteller, would be the one used for Twilight 2000. % skill system where only skills you used got better. Character gen was highly specific to the setting and the system had some issues, but it was fairly complex but easy to use.

 

[WmRAllen67]

Here's a couple of oddballs for you all to consider:

PsiWorld from FGU: I never actually got a chance to play this one, but it's a percentile-based system. I was especially intrigued by the mechanic for "learning by doing" where you got a chance to increase your skills relative to the number of times you used them during the game...

The edition of Gamma World with the results table (third, I think)...

 

[Quickleaf]

But if you get rid of extended contests, then you end up with combats requiring one roll to adjudicate. That's not very satisfying in my opinion.

You'd have to replace it, or come up with a system for combat using many simple contests.

(Note, I haven't actually picked up the Heroquest version. My group was turned off by HW, and $40 is a bit much for a game I know I won't run anytime soon.)

HeroQuest is a phenomenal game save for it's lack of support for tactical play. Every contest is contested with several degrees of success and failure, characters are strongly defined by personality and relationships, culture/religion play a prominent role, and the mythic journey of the hero is incorporated into the game. Pretty sweet.

I am hoping QuestWorlds - an upcoming Issaries publication which strips the Glorantha setting specifics - will provide a better answer than extended contests. I'd also hope for improved examples, more clearly articulated magic, and clearer guidelines for creating templates. I'm fairly certain this will come to pass (the team working on it seems awesome from what I've gathered on the Net).