What bespoke RPG is actually really good for other types of campaigns?

[Reynard]

Sometimes, a RPG designed for a very specific purpose will turn out to be quite versatile and usable for lotos of different kinds of games. The best example I can think of is All Flesh Must Be Eaten: with its simple core system, and phenomenal "build a zombie" rules, it is actually a really great multi-genre game. I have used it to great effect for both terminator and Fallout games.

What other games were built for the ground up for a specific genre or even property, but turned out to be much more broadly useful?

 

[jdrakeh]

Kreg Mosier's The Dead, while probably the best zombie apocalypse RPG I've ever played/read, is also (with a tiny bit of work) great for any setting where relationships, fear, and sociopathy as a result of seeing some naughty word go down (referred to as "cold" in the rules) are important features. I've used it for more traditional post-apoc games (notably a Morrow Project hack) and a Vietnam War campaign.

 

[loverdrive]

While nominally universal, I think Fate applies here: despite being geared towards storytelling it makes a very competent tactical skirmish. With guidelines on creating stunts and creating enemies from Adversary Toolkit it's very easy to create tense encounters.

And if you are willing to go further, aspects can be used as uhhm dynamic keywords when you "calcify" rules on how certain aspects can be invoked or compelled. Like, *Guard: can be invoked when protecting an ally; can be compelled to force an NPC in the zone to attack you., and then you can have a stunt like Royal Presence: when a friendly Guard attacks, they roll with +2 to create synergies between different characters.

 

[aramis erak]

Champions. The multiple variations pre-Champions 4th showed its broad applicabilities as adapted cores with setting. 4th just went whole hog into core plus setting splats.

AMSH does a decent job as a battlesuit troopers type game.

Alien's a good all round space opera game, that just happens to include the XX121 and derivatives.

 

[MGibster]

Sometimes, a RPG designed for a very specific purpose will turn out to be quite versatile and usable for lotos of different kinds of games. The best example I can think of is All Flesh Must Be Eaten: with its simple core system, and phenomenal "build a zombie" rules, it is actually a really great multi-genre game. I have used it to great effect for both terminator and Fallout games.

The same was true for their Angel & Buffy games. Which makes sense since they essentially use the same system. Angel in particular had a set of demon creation rules you could use to make almost any type of monster you wanted to make. It was also easy to adapt a lot of different character types from various genres with the character generation rules. Man, what happened to Eden Studios?

 

[aramis erak]

The same was true for their Angel & Buffy games. Which makes sense since they essentially use the same system. Angel in particular had a set of demon creation rules you could use to make almost any type of monster you wanted to make. It was also easy to adapt a lot of different character types from various genres with the character generation rules. Man, what happened to Eden Studios?

Not just BTVS and Angel - but also Army of Darkness and Ghosts of Albion. 4 games, 1 system...

And for those unfamiliar, Eden Studios pushed two game systems...
The four I listed above are Unisystem Light, aka "Cinematic Unisystem" - which is player facing rolls, and uses only 1d10 per player, damage by weapon and use action and margin of success...
And Unisystem, aka "Original Unisystem," "full Unisystem," or "Unisystem Heavy," Including All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Terra Primate, Witchcraft ... uses mostly d10's, but also needs a standard poly set for damages, and is mostly opposed rolls. There are more full unisystem games, but I'm not certain on which.
I don't know which version City of Heroes used.
Note that AFMBE, BTVS, Angel, AoD, GoA, TP, and Witchcraft are all still available on DTRPG. Apparently, Fox was very generous about PDFs being "remaining stock" as long as the per-copy royalty checks clear.

Oh, and there's an adaptation of BTVS to do a space cowboys setting... in one of the "Eden Studios Presents" volumes... it's clearly intended to be Firefly, but it would work just as well for a gritty version of Cowboy Bebop. (Makes me wonder, which Spike would win if the two faced off...)

 

[Laurefindel]

I’ve used The One Ring RPG’s system (1st edition) to make a homebrew version of Twilight Imperium RPG (faction-based epic space opera boardgame), and the 2nd edition for a homebrew Star Wars RPG. In the later case, I swapped the roles of cultures (species) and callings (classes).

Both worked surprisingly well. The One Ring, made for Tolkien-based fantasy, works very well for sci-fi.

 

[John Dallman]

I found the Dying Earth RPG worked well for playing a parody of modern politics. Since the game is about inflating your own importance and misleading your fellows, this wasn't a surprise.

 

[dbm]

The Pelgrane Press Dying Earth? It was reinterpreted as Skulduggery after they lost the license, and one of the included themes is politics.

 

[jdrakeh]

The Pelgrane Press Dying Earth? It was reinterpreted as Skulduggery after they lost the license, and one of the included themes is politics.

They still have the license to distribute The Dying Earth RPG.