Favorite Game Companies?

[edemaitre]

Favorite game companies

My favorite role-playing publishers include Wizards of the Coast and Paizo (for the official D&D3.5 line), Green Ronin (for its Mythic Vistas, Mutants & Masterminds, and True 20 lines), Necromancer Games (for its "third edition rules, first edition feel"), Sovereign Press (for its D20 Dragonlance), and Mongoose Publishing (for numerous D20 supplements, Conan, and Babylon 5). I agree that Steve Jackson's GURPS is the best non-D20, although support for fourth edition has been slow.

I would like to see published support for certain licensed worlds, such as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and the DC/Marvel universes, as well as more D20 adaptations of settings such as Mystara, Castle Falkenstein, and Star Frontiers...

 

[Aus_Snow]

which d20 games companies are you're current favorites?

(in no particular order)

Wizards of the Coast
Green Ronin Games
Inner Circle Games
Fantasy Flight Games
Bastion Press
Expeditious Retreat Press
RPGObjects
Ronin Arts
Adamant Entertainment
Guardians of Order (for A Game of Thrones)
Mongoose Publishing (for Conan, Cybernet, and - to some extent - Slaine)
Alderac Entertainment Group (for Spycraft)

Which ones that are gone or decided to stop producing d20 System products, are you sad to see go?

Too many to list here, but most of all Atlas Games and Monkey God Enterprises.

Which non-d2o game companies are your favorites?

Steve Jackson Games
Atlas Games
Green Ronin Games

formerly: R. Talsorian Games (who have.. fallen from grace.. of late).


Other than those, I'm more into non-d20 stuff that is OOP.

 

[Ghostwind]

Currently, the publishers that fall on my 'must buy' list are:
* Bastion Press (assuming anything actually comes out again from them)
* Green Ronin (although not as much anymore because of what I need for my games)
* Malhavoc (preordered Ptolus)
* Necromancer Games (consistent quality)
* Sword & Sorcery (World of Warcraft books only)

For pdf publishers:
* Blue Devil Games (Dawning Star rocks!)
* Expeditious Retreat Press (quality work every time)
* Green Ronin (Races Codex)
* Ronin Arts (always something good there)

 

[Yair]

I'm not being contentious here, but I've read a couple of similar comments over the past year or so about Malhavoc's OGC policy. What is it about their policy that you dislike? I speak from genuine ignorance here - I haven't seen anything that got my hackles up and am quite interested to hear what the issue is .

Essentially, Malhavoc's policy is to "cripple" OGC: they release only little and often incomplete material as OGC, and use vague declarations and, ehem, inventive interpretations as to what is or is not OGC. This makes it all but impossible for other companies, or a private person, to legally use their OGC. For example, in Iron Heroes Malhavoc released the text of the class features as OGC; it didn't release the class's HD and other essential information without which the class features make no sense. On the surface they gave you the class, but you can't really use it without being derivative of non-OGC material: the OGC is crippled, it cannot walk without the crutches of non-OGC content. (That "HD: 1d4" is not OGC is also an example of their inventive interpretations.)

I do not find myself wanting to sponsor such policies. Although to be honest, I do purchase some of their products and the worst OGC designation I saw recently was in "Advanced Races Codex : Dwarves" by Green Ronnin of all places

This is a tangent and often a flame-war bait. If the above answer does not satisfy you (or if anyone else wants to press some issues here), I suggest to open another thread.

 

[DMH]

d20: Genjitsu, ST Cooley, Bastion, Atlas, XRP, Silverthorne, Goodman, MEG, Ronin Arts.

Other: TSR (for Alternity and Gamma World), Biohazard/FFG, SJ Games, Steamlogic, Adept Press, Grey Ghost, Rogue Publishing, Ronin Arts.

 

[jinx crossbow]

So, which d20 games companies are you're current favorites?

Wizards for DnD
Feder und Schwert for Engel (German)
Malhavoc for Iron Kingdoms
Necromancer for Adventures
Green Ronin for d20Modern stuff

Which ones that are gone or decided to stop producing d20 System products, are you sad to see go?

Atlas for more Nyambe stuff

Which non-d2o game companies are your favorites?

Black Industries/Green Ronin for Warhammer/Warhammer40k
White Wolf for Exalted

Jinx

 

[Jupp]

Trolllord Games
Goodman Games
Necromancer
Paizo
Pied Piper Publishing

 

[francisca]

Who and why...

d20/OGL
Goodman - DCC
Green Ronin - Thieve's World, True 20, just all kinds of good stuff
Necromancer - Tome series, adventures, and Clark actually engaged in a pretty good conversation with me RE: DRM via e-mail
Expeditious Retreat - Still think Magical Medieval Society is lightning in a bottle
Troll Lord - I like the Gygax books, some adventures, though I've cooled on C&C as a system
Mongoose - OGL Conan, interested in what they do with Lankhmar and RuneQuest

non-d20
Kenzer - KoDT and Hackmaster
9th Level - Kobolds Ate My Baby!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Vaguely in order:

Troll Lord Games
Necromancer Games
Green Ronin
Goodman Games

As far as companies that are no longer around that I liked, isn't MonkeyGod Games out of the RPG Market? Frost & Fur was really cool, and I would've liked to see more from them in the future.

 

[Mark Hope]

Essentially, Malhavoc's policy is to "cripple" OGC: they release only little and often incomplete material as OGC, and use vague declarations and, ehem, inventive interpretations as to what is or is not OGC. This makes it all but impossible for other companies, or a private person, to legally use their OGC. For example, in Iron Heroes Malhavoc released the text of the class features as OGC; it didn't release the class's HD and other essential information without which the class features make no sense. On the surface they gave you the class, but you can't really use it without being derivative of non-OGC material: the OGC is crippled, it cannot walk without the crutches of non-OGC content. (That "HD: 1d4" is not OGC is also an example of their inventive interpretations.)

I do not find myself wanting to sponsor such policies. Although to be honest, I do purchase some of their products and the worst OGC designation I saw recently was in "Advanced Races Codex : Dwarves" by Green Ronnin of all places

This is a tangent and often a flame-war bait. If the above answer does not satisfy you (or if anyone else wants to press some issues here), I suggest to open another thread.

I hear what you are saying. I had always thought that the Hit Dice and Skills entries were already OGC by virtue of being directly derived from the SRD. Oh well - I'll indulge in no more tangency in this thread. I'm quite interested in this as a whole (it has relevance to our work at athas.org) so I'll head on over to the Malhavoc forums and see what I can raise there. Thanks for taking the time to answer

Back on topic, I note that I neglected to answer the bit about non-d20 companies. My favourite would have to be White Wolf back in the day of the OWoD and West End Games. Well, Torg really - I never played much other WEG stuff. I did just pick up AFMBE the other week, so maybe there's room for another fave on the list...