Favorite System that Never Caught On

[Driddle]

The Hero System.
It had so much potential.

 

[bowbe]

I second the James Bond game. Outside D&D it was all I played or sought out original source material for. At one time I had it all...now I have none of it *sniffles*. Great game, simple, easy to play, but as an old friend says "When everyone else is playing D&D, it doesn't matter how good the game is, your playing D&D or your playing with yourself."

C&C is available in print AND pdf. Great game or I wouldn't create and contribute for it.

Case

 

[Glyfair]

I second the James Bond game.

Wait, I take back my previous comments. While I do think James Bond did catch on, I wish it had caught on more.

I played in at least one long term game and ran a series of very popular "World's Greatest Spies" scenarios at Origins/Atlanticon for a few years in a row (until Origins screwed up my game the last year I tried to run it).

It is, by far, my favorite game system for spies and general modern gaming.

 

[Fishbone]

By the Hero system do you mean HERO? Because how the hell isn't this game going gangbusters? I loves me my FRed.
I'm going to toss Murphy's World out here but that is much more of a setting thing than a system thing. Some games have awesome systems with lousy settings, Murphy's World had an awesome setting with a bland, middle of the road, 5 out of 10 uninspired system. If the system was just a teeny bit easier and more polished and detailed it would have been a huge hit. As it is if you can find Murphy's World and Bob:Lord of Evil they're well worth a material raping at under 10 or 15 bucks if you want a fantasy comedy setting.

 

[Rob Toth]

A second vote for the original Top Secret. We never used anything but the combat rules, but wow, was there a mechanic. I remember the to-hit chances starting at roughly 200% and working their way down to zero with recoil effects. So much for my teenage years.

 

[rgard]

SPI Dragonquest, (well it caught on a bit) till bought out and buried by those TSR scamps

excellent character creation, combat, spells and xp system

I second that!

Edit: Come to think about it...it wouldn't be too difficult to adapt Dragonquest to D20 (low magic world) using the classless system somebody published. I did buy it, read it over once and now it's somewhere on one of my computers' hard drives.

 

[Kishin]

Fireborn. GREAT mechanics, good ideas. Good game. Too bad it never caught on.

I was wondering if someone other than me was going to say this. Fireborn is awesome. Great, stylish premise and innovative mechanics. Its too bad FFG had to kill all their RPGs that weren't Midnight (Which I love dearly) to cut losses.

I'll throw my vote behind Alternity. Friends of mine ran a two year campaign in college which I made a few guest appearances in. It was a blast.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mayfair Games' Underground had one of the coolest dystopic superhero settings I've ever seen- in an RPG of comic book.

SPI's Universe was a sci-fi game that could have been a real contender against Traveller, but the company went under before the first supplement could be released. As I recall, it had some sweet planetary system generation rules, and it used RW physics for space combat...

RIFTS. Yeah- I know how popular it is/was. If it had had better mechanics and playtesting, it could have been HUGE. Every campaign I participated in, either as a player or GM, was completely cool...but mechanics and obviously broken sections eventually wore people down.

 

[Bagpuss]

Conspiracy X

 

[Acid_crash]

Alterntiy, hands down. I think the system designed for Alternity is one of the best ever. Simple, straightforward, and a blend of profession and level based experience with character points. I liked it.

I wish another company would buy the rights for it and put it out again. It deserves a second shot at life.