Totally Obscure Game of the Day

[Deng]

The Great Khan Game by TSR.

Others hate it for a high amount of randomness, but several of my group love it.

Yay, gotta love the Great Khan Game!

I really like Wiz-War as well.

 

[Nomad4life]

For obscure, does anyone here remember "Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles" I don't mean the cartoon/toys/video games. The RPG T.M.N.T. Never played it myself but I started to order it out of Dragon magazine.

Wow. I didn't know that the TMNT RPG was all that "obscure." I though everyone and their brother had a copy?

 

[Wystan]

I have the following semi-obscure games:

1. Virus, talking board game where you need to determine where the virus is before the station shuts down
2. Spaceship Zero - Interesting, would have liked to see an actual show like the one they made up
3. Talisman (2nd Edition) - Yes, I know it is not really obscure, but it is less common Every Day

 

[heirodule]

This game did some things very well. Each 2-second round was broken into 5 segments. Each player got a deck of action cards that he would use to plot his gunfighter's turn. Each card had a segment cost. So you might ADVANCE (1), SPIN AROUND (2), and /AIM/SHOOT (2) in one round. You put these cards face down before you and played them in planned order to call your actions. This card business extended also to action resolution. You drew from a deck of cards to see if you hit your target.
And the counters and boards were well done. Heavy cardboard layouts of saloons, corrals, and banks helped you to imagine you were in a wild west shootout.

I liked the way there was a special counter that represented the gunfighter's head when he poked it around a corner.

My obscure faves are WarpWar and Everway. Planet Buster too, which is back now

 

[FolcoTook]

Here's one that my brother and I picked up at a garage sale when we were but wee lads...

Landslide (1971 version).

It's a game of presidential politics and the goal is to win the presidency. As social studies activity as it sounds, it was actually a fun game. I think my brother actually still has it and we may have to bust it out next time we're together.

-FT

 

[tonym]

Anyone remember Starfire, the stripped down precursor to Star Fleet Battles?

Starfire! Oh, the hours I spent moving those beloved chits.

That game had the perfect blend of randomness and strategy: a small portion of randomness so my friends could entertain a hope of winning, and a large portion of strategy so I could annihilate their fleet of spaceships and crush that hope.

Crush crush crush!

Good times.

Tony M

 

[Lorgrom]

For obscure, does anyone here remember "Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles" I don't mean the cartoon/toys/video games. The RPG T.M.N.T. Never played it myself but I started to order it out of Dragon magazine.

Yes it was released by Pallidum Books (RIFTS). But they eventualy lost the rights to produce the game. I still have several of the books around somewhere. The bio system is still in use in a few of the RIFTS supliments.

Anyone remember Toon. The game where you play a cartoon character.

 

[Erratic K]

I'll go for a hat trick

Battle of the Bands:

http://www.thirdworldgames.com/html/

super fun game where you try to get your band to be the first one to stardom. Dice rolling, some randomness, corny jokes. Takes about 20 minutes start to finish. In fact most of the Smif games from them are similar mechanics (portable adventures etc). The original BoB is the one I know, I haven't played the "Encore Edition" linked.

Arkham Horror:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/arkhamhorror.html

Has a cool co-op version where you try to stop some big Cthulhoid monster (or even the Great Old one himself) from destroying the world. The coop is as good or better than the coop in The Lord of the Rings boardgame (which is to say, quite good). Besides what is better than great old ones?

Chrononauts:

http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Chrononauts/

Don't let the cheesy webpage fool you. This is the best mechanic for a time travel game I've seen. Can be fun to save the world (or blow it up with the expansion). I haven't played the early American version, the original is fabulous.

 

[Uder]

Intruder, a game that tried to cash in on the movie Alien. It's sort of a semi-serious version of Awful Green Things in Outer Space. The two-player game feels a bit scripted (you don't get to make a lot of meaningful choices if you're the aliens). It offers a "solo" version of the game which is actually more fun to play with another player - you cooperate (or not!) to defeat the script-controlled aliens.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Awful Green Things from Outer Space?

Dangit!

Why didn't Tom Wham games break big?