What dead game would you resurrect?

[Reynard]

There probably are a ton on DTRPG, but what kind of exposure do they get and popularity do they have? I just checked DTRPG now, and for the top 20 selling best titles, only one of them is what I would consider mundane: Kids on Bikes (which is a kind of riff on Stranger Things).

I would bet real American dollars that a purely mundane RPG never sat on the top 20 list for very long, even back when Boot Hill appeared.

 

[RareBreed]

the whole Pulp 1930s genre

a revised Spirit of the Century (FATE) would be cool
Savage World did Thrilling Tales
GURPS did Cliffhangers many years ago

Theres also the Swashbuckler, Napoleanic and Victoriana (Steampunk) eras to explore

Ah yeah Spirit of the Century was pretty cool...though FATE is a bit odd for me. I like Victoriana a lot, although it borders on being more Edwardian than Victorian. But, it still centers around the fantastical (elves, beastmen, magic, etc).

I found a couple of very niche games on DTRPG and a couple of forgotten ones. None of these were very popular, but I do have a soft spot for Recon (both versions). I try to consider games that had at least two supplements for it, otherwise a lot of GURPs settings books would count.

• Duty and Honor: Napoleonic
• Colonial Gothic: Horror in late 1700s America...but the horror part is quite subtle actually
• Swashbuckler from FGU: Three Musketeers!
• Wooden Ships and Iron Men also from FGU: Age of Sail
• Behind Enemy Lines (FASA and later The Companions): WW2...no "Weird War"
• GURPs WW2
• Recon (originally from RPG Inc and later Palladium): Vietnam War
• Weird War 1 and 2 from Pinnacle

I am actually kind of amazed there hasn't been an American Civil War RPG made yet that I am aware of. I would also love an Edwardian or Victorian RPG minus the "punk". No ether ships, Martian canals, or Faeries (sorry Castle Falkenstein, Victoriana, and Space 1889). Give me adventures in the Crimea and a Charge of the Light Brigade or a last stand at Rourke's Drift.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I mean, there were mutants in Aftermath!. And later, they added a magic supplement (really? I guess they were going for a Thundarr the Barbarian apocalypse?).

"Magic returns" apocalypses are a thing; there was even a halfway-well-known series at the time. Included in the mutants were a psionics system. And there was some supertech to be found, too (laser weapons as I recall, and more if you got one of the two-part adventure series).

Bushido had a very basic system for Shugenja, and IIRC Sengoku did too.

I wouldn't call it at all basic, and the magic system was what two of the six classes (Shugenja and whatever the priests were called) was wrapped around. It also had extensive rules for ki usage.

We however didn't play either of those games with magic though.

Are you sure you're actually thinking of Bushido? As I said, that would have required ignoring two classes and the ki system (and of course all the supernatural monsters).

Daredevil I don't recall if it had psychic talents like Justice Inc did, but basically, I feel like all three games were very much grounded in the real world. Aftermath probably was the most open to the fantastic, as they had the possibility of the apocalypse by other means, including Alieans (ala War of the Worlds).

I'm seriously wondering if you're conflating Bushido with another game, as it was stuffed full of the fantastic; it'd have been much harder to play it without engaging with that than Aftermath. I'm not sure it'd have been any easier to do than D&D.

But yeah, sadly, there isn't a market for the mundane anymore. I have some theories why, mostly revolving around the real world becoming less and less something people want to deal with, so they want to escape into the more fantastic. The exception to this is the Horror genre, where characters are supposed to be vulnerable, so very little to no powers and typically grounded in a real Earth setting. In fact, it's typically a historical Earth period before smart phones become a thing and you can either video the horror or call for help (unless you're in the boondockiest of places).

I'm not sure there ever was much of one. It wasn't like any of the games focused on that were exactly big, widely played games in the market.

 

[RareBreed]

I would bet real American dollars that a purely mundane RPG never sat on the top 20 list for very long, even back when Boot Hill appeared.

Twilight 2000?

 

[RareBreed]

I'm seriously wondering if you're conflating Bushido with another game, as it was stuffed full of the fantastic; it'd have been much harder to play it without engaging with that than Aftermath. I'm not sure it'd have been any easier to do than D&D.

Possibly conflating it with Sengoku, as I played more of that than Bushido. To be honest, the Aftermath/Bushido/Daredevil game system was a kind of a mess to learn which is why I would like to see it cleaned up. Also Sengoku had amazing research done on it, especially for the Shinobi. I don't even recall if Bushido had rules for Shinobi (if it did, we didn't play any).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Possibly conflating it with Sengoku, as I played more of that than Bushido. To be honest, the Aftermath/Bushido/Daredevil game system was a kind of a mess to learn which is why I would like to see it cleaned up. Also Sengoku had amazing research done on it, especially for the Shinobi. I don't even recall if Bushido had rules for Shinobi (if it did, we didn't play any).

Okay, I'd buy that. I'm only vaguely aware of Sengoku, so I'm not qualified to talk about it.

 

[Reynard]

Twilight 2000?

You think twilight 2000 was in the top 20 of all RPG books sold in the late 80s and early 90s? I would be very surprised.

 

[RareBreed]

Okay, I'd buy that. I'm only vaguely aware of Sengoku, so I'm not qualified to talk about it.

If you liked Bushido, give Sengoku a try. It's a shame Gold Rush Games went out business. I guess I should put Sengoku on my "resurrection" list My only complaint is it used the Fuzion system.

IIRC, a lot of the research was done by a Japanese lady doing research for a thesis in school. The two Shinobi supplements are excellent. And they talk about what the historical Shinobi were, and the religious aspects around it too. One of the reasons we didn't do "ninja" in Bushido, was we didn't really know about them at the time We played Bushido almost 40 years ago before TMNT even came out.

I was actually hesitant to play "ninja" in Sengoku, but reading the supplements changed my mind.

• Sengoku Revised Edition
• Shinobi Shadows of Nihon
• Shinobi Ryu

 

[RareBreed]

You think twilight 2000 was in the top 20 of all RPG books sold in the late 80s and early 90s? I would be very surprised.

More like mid to late 80s. Twilight 2000 first came out in 1984. 2nd Edition came out 1990 IIRC. I think by 1990 it lost its steam. Germany had reunited, the coup in Russia to overthrow Yeltsin failed the next year, so I think the Cold War felt like it was over.

But Top 20 for somewhere between 1984 to 1990? Yeah, I think that's definitely possible.

 

[Reynard]

More like mid to late 80s. Twilight 2000 first came out in 1984. 2nd Edition came out 1990 IIRC. I think by 1990 it lost its steam. Germany had reunited, the coup in Russia to overthrow Yeltsin failed the next year, so I think the Cold War felt like it was over.

But Top 20 for somewhere between 1984 to 1990? Yeah, I think that's definitely possible.

We only ever played it in around 1990 and we only played it once.