Underrated RPGs

[jian]

At some point I need to get Tiny Taverns, it looks amazing! I am a big fan of cozy fantasy stories.
I would be more excited by Tiny Dungeons except I don’t really know how it’s different from Dungeon World and other Dungeon Themed rules light games.
Ironsworn looks amazing! I love the idea of a PbtA adjacent solo rpg. Ironsworn : Starforged I know less about.
Through Sunken Lands has a slight edge over Beyond the Wall for me. But I want to get into the rules of both soon.

Tiny Taverns is indeed amazing, my favourite of the Tiny D6 games.

Another underrated or less known RPG group is the Stalwart superhero RPGs by Michael Desing (Splintered Realms Publishing).

Pretty much everything Simon Washburne does at Beyond Belief Games is excellent. Supers! is one of my favourite superhero games (he sold the game, and it’s now out as Supers! Revised Edition), and there’s also Triumphant. He also wrote Barbarians of Lemuria, but that one and all its descendants (Honor and Intrigue etc) are well-known and loved, I think.

I also have a soft spot for most of what Simon Burley (writer of Golden Heroes and Squadron U.K.) produces, such as The Comics Code (and its fantasy and sci-fi versions), The Supers Hack, and The d6 Hack.

 

[jian]

This is a hobby horse of mine and pedantic as hell, but I would say the original yellow box for the Marvel Superheroes RPG (1984). A lot of people think of it as the basic version of the more widely known (and loved) Advanced rules (1986), but they're quite different beasts and play at the table very differently.

I've written about it pretty extensively over at rpg.net. The TL;DR version is that the way Karma functions (and more crucially, how much of it is in circulation) in the yellow box set (compared to what it does in Advanced) really distinguishes it from most RPGs. The determining factor of your success (or your opponents' failure) is really about how much Karma you have. That is, with most "luck" or "action point" systems, the dice are still the determining factor in success. With "basic" Marvel, the dice are really simply a means of determining how much Karma is deployed in success.

This gets even more interesting in combats. Each side is basically gambling, bluffing, and calling against the others' pools of Karma, weighing if it's worth paying Karma to mitigate the other sides' successes or blow through what they have.

It's a much more complex play experience informed by pretty simple, elegant rules than it's given credit for.

Yeah, I generally prefer MSH Basic to Advanced. The later Basic book is a slightly halfway house but retains the simplicity of the original.

 

[aramis erak]

Yeah, I generally prefer MSH Basic to Advanced. The later Basic book is a slightly halfway house but retains the simplicity of the original.

Funny, i was coming to say just the opposite: I prefer AMSH over MSH. I like the intermediate steps, the revised resources rules, and the extra combat options and additional ratings (ShY ShZ, C3K C5K).

 

[Jd Smith1]

Kenzer's Hackmaster 5e. A d100 system that is a refined version of their Aces & Eights Old West RPG, HM5 is low-magic, combat-intense, and skill-based. Kenzer still limps along, but it doesn't get the love it deserves. Foryunately, it gets solid support from Roll20.

 

[Evaniel]

I'll post this here, as it's a Let's Read of the MSHRPG

Yeah, I generally prefer MSH Basic to Advanced. The later Basic book is a slightly halfway house but retains the simplicity of the original.

I'll post this forum link here as it's a Let's Read of the MSHRPG that's really more of a comparison between the Original and the Advanced MSHRPG.

📖 Let's Read! - Marvel SHRPG Advanced Set (1986) | Tabletop Roleplaying Open

This is a bit of thread necromancy in that I'm hoping to continue the conversation from the Let's Read thread for the 1984 Original Set for the Marvel Superheroes RPG. I picked up the Original Set back in '88 and wasn't there long before switching over to Advanced. When I wanted to get back into...

forum.rpg.net

The TL;DR version is that they're two very different game experiences because of a few seemingly small changes--in particular to how Body Armor and Karma work, but in some other areas, as well.

A close reading of the three really reveals the Revised Basic edition to be a somewhat scaled back version of Advanced rather than an upscaled version of the Original. Revised still has a lot of the unwanted (for me) baggage of Advanced without any of the merits that distinguish play in Original.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Two that pretty much jump out at me are the two Sabre RPG games, especially Fantasy; they aren't for the low crunch fan, but the hybrid of Mythras with some D&D elements works better than I'd have thought. I think the author used to have an account here but it isn't what I thought it was or I'd ping him.

The other is Wicked Pacts, which is a mage-centric game of urban fantasy with some clever ideas. While not really lightweight, its moreso than Sabre.

I could probably rattle off another dozen, but those two come to mind.

 

[Theory of Games]

Pretty much everything Simon Washburne does at Beyond Belief Games is excellent. Supers! is one of my favourite superhero games (he sold the game, and it’s now out as Supers! Revised Edition), and there’s also Triumphant. He also wrote Barbarians of Lemuria, but that one and all its descendants (Honor and Intrigue etc) are well-known and loved, I think.

I bought all of Simon's stuff. They're so much fun to play and run. He's got a new supers game, Watchdogs of Killcade. Looks like the game's emulating The Boys and I was waiting for someone to do that (minor superheroes vs. major supervillains masquerading as superheroes). All Simon does is make fun games

 

[Arilyn]

DM Scotty's EZ D6 is a fun, easy to learn system. It's light but characters have interesting abilities. It's a great game for players new to the hobby and veterans. DM Scotty also put out an adventure book for it and a Gamma Worldish version as well.

My other pick is Wild Sea. It's kind of PbtAish but with a much more detailed character creation system. The setting is awesome. Post Appocalyptic world where the plant life has taken over the planet. Player characters are a crew in a ship that cuts its way across the canopy (which rapidly regrows.) Fantastic character options like being a spider colony, a cactus person, or a being formed from junk and spare parts. Amazing game!

 

[jian]

DM Scotty's EZ D6 is a fun, easy to learn system. It's light but characters have interesting abilities. It's a great game for players new to the hobby and veterans. DM Scotty also put out an adventure book for it and a Gamma Worldish version as well.

My other pick is Wild Sea. It's kind of PbtAish but with a much more detailed character creation system. The setting is awesome. Post Appocalyptic world where the plant life has taken over the planet. Player characters are a crew in a ship that cuts its way across the canopy (which rapidly regrows.) Fantastic character options like being a spider colony, a cactus person, or a being formed from junk and spare parts. Amazing game!

A similar game by the same team is Index Card RPG (ICRPG) which is a light tactical action game with various genre settings (fantasy, sci-fi, supers etc) written up. I really like the sci-fi one (Warp Shell) which is very flavourful and has AI FTL ships you and your party run around in, kinda like Farscape.

 

[jian]

I bought all of Simon's stuff. They're so much fun to play and run. He's got a new supers game, Watchdogs of Killcade. Looks like the game's emulating The Boys and I was waiting for someone to do that (minor superheroes vs. major supervillains masquerading as superheroes). All Simon does is make fun games

Ooh, that looks good, I’ll have a gander.