Underrated RPGs

[Bedrockgames]

I’ve always felt OG (the caveman rpg)has been underrated. I have noticed some games locking up the concept more seriously in recent years but I remember buying the little booklet back when it first came out and thinking it was such a gameable concept (and the way it approached language worked beautifully in actual play).

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Sentinels Comics, a super hero rpg that really captured the flavor of comic-book action more so than a lot of other supers rpgs, which tend to focus more on modeling individual super powers. To its detriment, I think it suffers from a cumbersome character creation system that most of my own group bounced off of (and I, as the GM had to create most the characters for them), and I think the sections on creating Environments and Villains were difficult for me (again, as GM) to grok. And there’s been very little support for the engine since its release.

The ongoing lack of publisher support and failure to fulfill the KS promises after six years has badly hurt this otherwise excellent game's community. They can't even manage a FAQ/Errata page in all that time. It's interesting that you dislike the chargen system. Not that I disagree, I think it's needlessly convoluted and full of weird restrictions myself, but many people seem to love it, particularly the "Guided" randomized method. Villain generation is pretty simple by comparison, at least once you realize that there's no balance between combinations of Approach and Archetype and some will just plain be better than others. Environments are more art than science, and could definitely have used more explanation - but sadly, I doubt we'll ever see a 2nd edition or even a revised version to help with any of that.

I'm going to put Atlas Games' Pandemonium tabloid reporter game out as worth a look if you can find it. It's an absurdist comedy game that enormously outdoes its main (sole?) competitor (Amazing Engine's Tabloid) on every level, and I'm baffled why Atlas can't get their act together enough to get a pdf or even a scan up on DTRPG. Maybe it's some rights/royalties issue, but they're really leaving a great game to rot - especially since its aesthetic essentially presages the oh-so-popular artsy look championed by Mork Borg by decades.

 

[PhD20]

I had an absolute blast playing The Mecha Hack. Super easy and fun.

 

[sevenbastard]

I'm voting for Peril and Plunder. It's my D&D Heartbreaker writen when I realized 4e wasn't for me and wanted a old school game less complex than 3e but a little more robust than 1e/2e.

It still uses levels, but I built it so players build their characters by choosing building blocks, called proficiencies, to represent what their character is good at instead of choosing a traditional class. For example a character may be proficient in melee combat and defense, or melee combat and ranged combat, or melee combat and divine magic. Plus I have spell retention for arcane casters and ( in my humble opinion) a pretty slick spell point system for divine casters.

I built it for my home game and ran the heck out of it for years, but never did anything the to market it. Then 5e came along and that's all my players wanted to play so it's sat gathering dust for years.

Yup my weird homebrew rules are clearly the work of a genius and thus criminal underrated.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I had an absolute blast playing The Mecha Hack. Super easy and fun.

You should give Aether Nexus a try. It's quite different, but you can still see the Black Hack/Mecha hack roots and I think many of the changes are much for the better. AN's Armor Dice mechanic in particular is a big improvement on MH's Armor Points, and you've a got a lot more customization options than MH does even with the Mission Manual in use. MH still has plenty of appeal, but the games are different enough from one another that they're different experiences even beyond the obvious scifi versus anime mecha fantasy divide.

 

[dbolack]

I'm going to put Atlas Games' Pandemonium tabloid reporter game out as worth a look if you can find it. It's an absurdist comedy game that enormously outdoes its main (sole?) competitor (Amazing Engine's Tabloid) on every level, and I'm baffled why Atlas can't get their act together enough to get a pdf or even a scan up on DTRPG. Maybe it's some rights/royalties issue, but they're really leaving a great game to rot - especially since its aesthetic essentially presages the oh-so-popular artsy look championed by Mork Borg by decades.

I may be mixing up games, but I believe SMS owns that property.

 

[TheHand]

The ongoing lack of publisher support and failure to fulfill the KS promises after six years has badly hurt this otherwise excellent game's community. They can't even manage a FAQ/Errata page in all that time. It's interesting that you dislike the chargen system. Not that I disagree, I think it's needlessly convoluted and full of weird restrictions myself, but many people seem to love it, particularly the "Guided" randomized method. Villain generation is pretty simple by comparison, at least once you realize that there's no balance between combinations of Approach and Archetype and some will just plain be better than others. Environments are more art than science, and could definitely have used more explanation - but sadly, I doubt we'll ever see a 2nd edition or even a revised version to help with any of that…

Yeah it’s unfortunate that a cool game with a lot of potential was practically dead on arrival.

And to further elaborate on the character creation… I thought it was fine for helping a new player make a character for the first time, particularly if you had no preconceived notions. But a lot of us who have played supers games before usually have a concept already in mind, and it would have been nice to have a quick build system as a go to. It was odd that it was either use the convoluted creation system or just go straight to “eh, just make something up then” with nothing in between.

 

[chuckdee]

Operators RPG. It is one of the most unique hacks of Fate with some BitD goodness and systems for CQB and Chases to make them more cinematic

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

It was odd that it was either use the convoluted creation system or just go straight to “eh, just make something up then” with nothing in between.

Method 2 ("Constructed") is the in-between step, and is nowhere near as convoluted as that mess of a random system once you get a firm grasp on which Power Sources and Archetypes offer which combinations of die spreads and abilities. It's still much, much less fluid than point-buy systems are but it bypasses the of the bizarre restrictions randomizing coughs up. You'll still hit times when you just can't manage to get your hands on some abilities but it's not hopeless, just clunky until you've spent a lot of time with it.

And for all its faults, it has fewer inherent analysis paralysis issues than wide-open point buy games tend to. Your options are fairly limited at four of the five main decision points, and the fifth (picking Red abilities) showcases how much overload you could have with more freedom of choice back in Power Source and Archetype.

 

[TheHand]

Method 2 ("Constructed") is the in-between step, and is nowhere near as convoluted as that mess of a random system once you get a firm grasp on which Power Sources and Archetypes offer which combinations of die spreads and abilities. It's still much, much less fluid than point-buy systems are but it bypasses the of the bizarre restrictions randomizing coughs up. You'll still hit times when you just can't manage to get your hands on some abilities but it's not hopeless, just clunky until you've spent a lot of time with it.

And for all its faults, it has fewer inherent analysis paralysis issues than wide-open point buy games tend to. Your options are fairly limited at four of the five main decision points, and the fifth (picking Red abilities) showcases how much overload you could have with more freedom of choice back in Power Source and Archetype.

Right… and we used Method 2 for the few games we played. I think I just wanted “point buy” and even tried to hack one in but decided it wasn’t worth it.