Is there one RPG to rule them all? What version?

[innerdude]

Broadway.

If you can even make it. The game is even getting there, much less being able to make a living there...

Also a stand-up Gargoyle.

As one surely knows, you can't succeed on Broadway if you don't have any . . . Grus.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Hero system if I had to have just one. If you're willing and time rich you can put in the work to can run almost any style of campaign.

That being said, I wouldn't use it to re-invent something that already works just fine as it is. For example: I wouldn't try to do Hero versions of Ars Magica and Call of Cthulu. The existing systems do what they do just fine, no re-do's needed. In fact I think both these examples have very specific feels that would be lost if moved to another system.

On the other hand something like Shadowrun, a fun setting with a poor system, would benefit from a Hero conversion. There even is one, called Shadowpunk, available in pdf from Hero Games.

But re. Hero - everything that Thomas Shey, Dannyalcatraz, and Lord Mhoram have said.

 

[Aldarc]

Cortex is great if you like dice manipulation - upgrading, downgrading dice size - as you create the dice pool. Which I don't.

What you call "dice manipulation" is what I call "engaging the fiction."

 

[Thomas Shey]

What you call "dice manipulation" is what I call "engaging the fiction."

Its both, really. The dice manipulation is the mechanic for how you engage with fiction. Its not intrinsically better or worse than a lot of other mechanics, but there are always mechanics that don't suit some people.

 

[infinityman]

Lasers and Feelings.

Never heard of it

 

[aramis erak]

I can't believe nobody has put forward HoL (Human Occupied Landfill).

The only reason they stopped printing it was to let the rest of the RPG ecosystem recover. Bless their souls.

With my reading disabilities, HOL was completely illegible.

 

[Jer]

Never heard of it

One page pick up and play RPG inspired by Star Trek (and the song) that I find is excellent for one-off adventures. And there are so many derivatives of it out there that you can almost pick a genre and find someone who has done a lasers and feelings hack for it.

Lasers & Feelings

 

[infinityman]

One page pick up and play RPG inspired by Star Trek (and the song) that I find is excellent for one-off adventures. And there are so many derivatives of it out there that you can almost pick a genre and find someone who has done a lasers and feelings hack for it.

Lasers & Feelings

Will check it out! Thanks.

 

[Bill Zebub]

With my reading disabilities, HOL was completely illegible.

Well, it is completely illegible.

 

[aramis erak]

Well, it is completely illegible.

So you're saying my roommate who ran it had delusions of its readability?


it's one of the best "laid out for a particular look" layouts... that of mad scientist. But it put a burden on the would be reader that put it out of reach for many who might enjoy it.