Sleeper RPG's

[Lancelot]

Dragon Warriors.

It was first released as a series of six regular-sized paperbacks in the 80's (and mostly in Commonwealth countries like Australia and NZ, rather than the USA). Mongoose is currently re-releasing it in slightly updated form.

The rules system had its own unique charm as a lightweight alternative to BECMI D&D. Some features were quite novel for the time, such as relatively frail PCs (e.g. high-level characters had low hit points and were very vulnerable), non-Vancian magic (most PCs used "magic points", and mystics had a novel "spell fatigue" mechanism which made their powers very unpredictable), and the use of armor (armor didn't make you harder to hit, but it could completely negate blows from inferior weapons).

...but where it really came into its own was the setting. The World of Legend was a gritty alternate-reality version of medieval Earth. Ruthless (and soul-less) elves, downtrodden peasants, arrogant knights and lords, brutal justice, the Crusades (with no "good guys"), corrupt churches taking advantage of the gullible, and barely-hidden demon worship infesting every level of society.

 

[scourger]

Gamma World. I had it back in the 80s but lost it along the way. It was a very neat take on post-apocalyptic gaming with all sorts of weird stuff in it. I wouldn't want to go backwards in the rules, though. I picked up Alternity Gamma World just as it was going out of print. I really liked the story, adventures and setting; but the rules didn't do it for me. Then, along came Omega World d20. Brilliant, really. Concise but packed with fun. I used it to run the little campaign in AGW. Great fun. OW is one of a very few d20 games that I would still run or play.

So, I would like to see it come back. Ideally, it would be an Omega World re-release. Of course, adventure modules and pre-printed minis of all the cool Gamma World monsters would be awesome.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Since the days when Jorune was still in print, I've had stacks of games on my shelves that I never got the chance to play--or play enough.

For a number of years, my gaming group back in Blacksburg had a pretty good solution: Monday Night Gaming. This was a game night that wasn't dedicated to a particular campaign--instead, one of us ran a standalone adventure for some game that we really wanted to try out or play more of (or get the chance to GM, if we'd only ever played it). Once that adventure was over (often a few sessions), someone else would GM and we'd move on to something new.

We got to try lots of new things--often a dozen new games a year--and no single GM had to deal with prepping more than a couple times a year. (Many of us had ongoing campaigns, so that was significant.)

Of course, several members of the group were designers, so "trying something new" often meant trying an idea one of us had been kicking around in our heads for some time. For example, the first-ever session of what would eventually become Deadlands was played as a Monday Night Gaming adventure. (We always kept that name, even though the actual night of the week changed over the years.)

I'd love to do it again, but with two ongoing D&D campaigns and running Ars Magica(ish), I just can't take on another evening of gaming. Maybe when the kids are in college and I'm retired . . . .