What are your all time favorite rpg games, and why?
- Thread starter EarthsShadow
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Desdichado
Hero
For mechanics, d20 and The Window are the only two that I really like. In general, I don't like mechanics much -- I find them almost a necessary evil. I can't think of any game I've owned or read that has mechanics better than these two, though. Although The Window certainly has a ceiling on abilities.
For setting, I like Werewolf, Earthdawn, Middle-earth role-playing, Dark*Matter (I know, not really a game) and Traveller. Within D&D, I really only like the Planescape setting. Really, I like homebrewing more than using canned settings anyway.
My favorite game to run or play in would probably be a d20 game using d20 Modern rules (with a few tweaks) set in a darker fantasy setting.
For setting, I like Werewolf, Earthdawn, Middle-earth role-playing, Dark*Matter (I know, not really a game) and Traveller. Within D&D, I really only like the Planescape setting. Really, I like homebrewing more than using canned settings anyway.
My favorite game to run or play in would probably be a d20 game using d20 Modern rules (with a few tweaks) set in a darker fantasy setting.
Ars Magica The best fantasy system ever created! The Magic system rocks! Tried to adopt it to D&D, but it's too hard to do. I like the medieval atmosphere, and the fact that the world is built on real europe! But then, I'm european!
D&D 3rd Great game, I started with the original D&D, got tired of lousy rules in AD&D, but it was a major comeback with 3rd edition, that relaunched my roleplaying career.
Shadowrun Tons of fun, good for one shot adventures..
Gurps Is good, but it ain't got that nostalgic atmosphere as D&D
Morgion
D&D 3rd Great game, I started with the original D&D, got tired of lousy rules in AD&D, but it was a major comeback with 3rd edition, that relaunched my roleplaying career.
Shadowrun Tons of fun, good for one shot adventures..
Gurps Is good, but it ain't got that nostalgic atmosphere as D&D
Morgion
Holy Bovine
First Post
3E D&D simply because it is the game that has launched a thousand ships - and not all of them belong to WotC. It seems to me that 3E has brought about a resurgence in RPG publishing and companies - hell even I got a small bit published in Relics & Rituals 2 from Sword & Sorcery Studios!
Classic/Black Book Traveller - played this for years during junior and senior high school. Blasting aliens and Imperial Dog Soldiers (ever read Micronauts from the 70's/80's? those Dog Soldiers) while exploring new planets (and inevitably crashing on them) was never so much fun. i have more Traveller books than any other game except D&D (all editions combined however, taken individually I probably have more Classic Traveller)
Call of Cthulhu - 4th & 5th edition. I played 3rd edtion once or twice but it was a little too bare bones for my taste 4th and 5th really fleshed out the game and made it a viable campaign based RPG.
Shadowrun 3E - played 2E but didn't care for it much - the streamlining and rule fixes make 3E the edition to get - the fact that it is fully compatible with all 2E Shadowrun stuff is a nice touch.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - second only to D&D (and a very close second at that). A great atmosphere that is fully complimented by the ruleset (PCs are tough as nails in their later careers but there is still the small chance that a lowly goblin can kill them with a hand thrown rock - makes combat the last resort in many cases). Oh yeah there is only one edition becasue that's all it ever needed
Thieves World - thanks to Corthian for reminding me of this one. While I have over the years lost my Thieves World rule book it was always a huge favourite of mine. I love thieves and have used ideas from TW in all-thief campaigns I have run in the past.
Those are about my all time favs. I may have left out some but these are the ones that I'll drop any other game to get a chance at playing.
Classic/Black Book Traveller - played this for years during junior and senior high school. Blasting aliens and Imperial Dog Soldiers (ever read Micronauts from the 70's/80's? those Dog Soldiers) while exploring new planets (and inevitably crashing on them) was never so much fun. i have more Traveller books than any other game except D&D (all editions combined however, taken individually I probably have more Classic Traveller)
Call of Cthulhu - 4th & 5th edition. I played 3rd edtion once or twice but it was a little too bare bones for my taste 4th and 5th really fleshed out the game and made it a viable campaign based RPG.
Shadowrun 3E - played 2E but didn't care for it much - the streamlining and rule fixes make 3E the edition to get - the fact that it is fully compatible with all 2E Shadowrun stuff is a nice touch.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - second only to D&D (and a very close second at that). A great atmosphere that is fully complimented by the ruleset (PCs are tough as nails in their later careers but there is still the small chance that a lowly goblin can kill them with a hand thrown rock - makes combat the last resort in many cases). Oh yeah there is only one edition becasue that's all it ever needed
Thieves World - thanks to Corthian for reminding me of this one. While I have over the years lost my Thieves World rule book it was always a huge favourite of mine. I love thieves and have used ideas from TW in all-thief campaigns I have run in the past.
Those are about my all time favs. I may have left out some but these are the ones that I'll drop any other game to get a chance at playing.
HellHound
ENnies winner and NOT Scrappy Doo
CyberPunk
The BlackHammer CyberPunk Project
Grit and Tech. The dehumanizing effect of technology vs the humanization of technology. I also ran the biggest CyberPunk fansite on the net for many a year, only abandoning it when I went into publishing. Honestly, if Mike Pondsmith ever releases third edition, I'll be on the phone RIGHT AWAY asking to write material / books for him now that I have a solid portfolio and a grasp of how to handle the publishing business.
Gamma World
Where we go to relax. A fun game for roleplayers to pretend they don't know anything again. It's light but serious - we don't play wild and wahoo, but we do enjoy the sense of bewilderment that the average mutant experiences every day as an adventurer on Gamma Terra.
Vampire: the Masquerade
Dark Paths (incomplete site)
Some of my best and most intense RPG moments were playing Vampire, and we still run games of it on occasion. It is by far my fave WoD game, only approached by Wraith for moodiness and great gameplay (but my players hate wraith).
HeroQuest
BlackHammer HeroQuest (incomplete site)
How I introduced my daughter to gaming. A lot of fun for an afternoon of game, and a source of almost half my fantasy miniatures.
Star Frontiers
Starbase HellHound
I'm actually a huge Traveller fan too, but for some reason, Star Frontiers caught me. I run it a lot more "Traveller" in setting, but at the same time with a space opera feel. This was one of the first games to REALLY pull me away from D&D as a kid.
deadEarth
THANOterra
The game system sucks... Character generation is screwed up... but wow. This is Gamma World on CRACK. Hardcore crack cocaine for post-apocalyptic mutants. This setting is my fave post-apocalyptic game setting, so much so that deadEarth was the first game I attempted to port to the d20 system. Heck I even secured the license to publish the d20 version one of these days.
The BlackHammer CyberPunk Project
Grit and Tech. The dehumanizing effect of technology vs the humanization of technology. I also ran the biggest CyberPunk fansite on the net for many a year, only abandoning it when I went into publishing. Honestly, if Mike Pondsmith ever releases third edition, I'll be on the phone RIGHT AWAY asking to write material / books for him now that I have a solid portfolio and a grasp of how to handle the publishing business.
Gamma World
Where we go to relax. A fun game for roleplayers to pretend they don't know anything again. It's light but serious - we don't play wild and wahoo, but we do enjoy the sense of bewilderment that the average mutant experiences every day as an adventurer on Gamma Terra.
Vampire: the Masquerade
Dark Paths (incomplete site)
Some of my best and most intense RPG moments were playing Vampire, and we still run games of it on occasion. It is by far my fave WoD game, only approached by Wraith for moodiness and great gameplay (but my players hate wraith).
HeroQuest
BlackHammer HeroQuest (incomplete site)
How I introduced my daughter to gaming. A lot of fun for an afternoon of game, and a source of almost half my fantasy miniatures.
Star Frontiers
Starbase HellHound
I'm actually a huge Traveller fan too, but for some reason, Star Frontiers caught me. I run it a lot more "Traveller" in setting, but at the same time with a space opera feel. This was one of the first games to REALLY pull me away from D&D as a kid.
deadEarth
THANOterra
The game system sucks... Character generation is screwed up... but wow. This is Gamma World on CRACK. Hardcore crack cocaine for post-apocalyptic mutants. This setting is my fave post-apocalyptic game setting, so much so that deadEarth was the first game I attempted to port to the d20 system. Heck I even secured the license to publish the d20 version one of these days.
Wow. My favorite RPG's, eh?
Well, let's see.
1. I have to say that the AD&D Planescape game tops my list. It's possibly the best written gaming line I've ever seen. Granted, AD&D is a lousy game system, but Planescape itself makes up for it.
2. Second place probably goes to Mage: the Ascension. Talk about conflict - the struggle to define reality is about as fundamental as it gets.
3. Third place belongs to GURPS: Illuminati University. This game really appeals to my oddball streak. In terms of lighthearted gaming, it's perfect. Where else can a black cat who talks with a Cambridge British accent and is studying to be a professional familiar share a dorm suite with a genetic engineering student from a technologically advanced alternate dimension who happens to be a 5' tall anthropomorphic mouse and a vampire pre-med student? Like few other games, it allows for a party composed of characters as fundamentally divergent as you can think of and still enables everything to work in a smooth, if bizarre manner. It can be silly, dark, simply out there, or some combination, and it all works somehow.
4. Foruth place goes to Little Fears, simply because it's the only RPG I've played in a long time that actually managed to creep out my entire group. The guys at Key20 REALLY managed to put together a game that blends supernatural horror with evil that is entirely too real and deals with a very sensitive subject in a mature manner.
5. Fifth place belongs to Powerkill (http://www.hogshead.demon.co.uk/NS_Puppetland-Power-Kill.htm). This is the most unique RPG concept I've ever seen. Described as "a meta-RPG of psychological upset," Powerkill is designed to be played after your group finishes a normal RPG. The premise is that the events of your previous session were a delusion that you must now deal with. When you thought you were hacking Orcs in a dungeon with your vorpal sword, you were actually killing teenagers in a mall with a chainsaw.
Well, let's see.
1. I have to say that the AD&D Planescape game tops my list. It's possibly the best written gaming line I've ever seen. Granted, AD&D is a lousy game system, but Planescape itself makes up for it.
2. Second place probably goes to Mage: the Ascension. Talk about conflict - the struggle to define reality is about as fundamental as it gets.
3. Third place belongs to GURPS: Illuminati University. This game really appeals to my oddball streak. In terms of lighthearted gaming, it's perfect. Where else can a black cat who talks with a Cambridge British accent and is studying to be a professional familiar share a dorm suite with a genetic engineering student from a technologically advanced alternate dimension who happens to be a 5' tall anthropomorphic mouse and a vampire pre-med student? Like few other games, it allows for a party composed of characters as fundamentally divergent as you can think of and still enables everything to work in a smooth, if bizarre manner. It can be silly, dark, simply out there, or some combination, and it all works somehow.
4. Foruth place goes to Little Fears, simply because it's the only RPG I've played in a long time that actually managed to creep out my entire group. The guys at Key20 REALLY managed to put together a game that blends supernatural horror with evil that is entirely too real and deals with a very sensitive subject in a mature manner.
5. Fifth place belongs to Powerkill (http://www.hogshead.demon.co.uk/NS_Puppetland-Power-Kill.htm). This is the most unique RPG concept I've ever seen. Described as "a meta-RPG of psychological upset," Powerkill is designed to be played after your group finishes a normal RPG. The premise is that the events of your previous session were a delusion that you must now deal with. When you thought you were hacking Orcs in a dungeon with your vorpal sword, you were actually killing teenagers in a mall with a chainsaw.
EarthsShadow
First Post
i was wondering...What is Thieves World? I have never heard of it before this thread but many of you have listed it. Where can I find some information about it?
oh... bump.
oh... bump.
KnowTheToe
First Post
ColonelHardisson said:
Another shout out to Boot Hill. Simplicity at its best.
Almost all of my early gaming was home brew Amber, MERP was a Blast and Gamma World was fun for great Once-over adventures.
Boot Hill dominated my High School years primarily because you NEVER needed to prep as DM and you could easily memorize all of the charts making the rule book optional.
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