What game system have you tried that made you go WOW!

[Jhaelen]

Well, all of my personal favorites have already been mentioned, even the obscure ones - damn you!

Anyhow, I'll just restate them in no particular order without further comments to give them some more weight:
- Runequest
- Pendragon
- Call of Cthulhu
- Ars Magica
- Mage (oWoD)
- Wraith (oWoD)
- Over the Edge
- Aria

I have a feeling there's been something else but it eludes me right now, hmm...

 

[kitsune9]

Some of you mentioned Runequest. I haven't played a Runequest game or ran one as of yet, but I've really enjoyed reading the books put out from Mongoose and I do have an old blue box set.

 

[Thanael]

FASA was good like that. You'd likely be similarly wow'ed by Earthdawn.

They released a "monster manual" for Earthdawn where each entry was written as if it was a reference book written by a dwarf that interviewed a dragon to get all his info. For one of the entries, the dragon starts to explain how to deal with whatever monster they're discussing and says something like, "just fly over them and breathe fire...oh. hmmm..." Brilliant!

I'll second Shadowrun for the great fluff and story. The Cybertechnology sourcebook read like a novel and changed my perspective on getting cyber enhancements forever. And the style, slang and format of the sourcebooks was amazing.

The Ancient Files sheds some light on the imo great crossover between Shadowrun and Earthdawn meta story/history. For an example of the Earthdawn monster book style mentioend by tyrlaan above check out the downloads at the bottom esp. the Dragons pdf.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Guess I should include Ars Magica's The Races After Dark! Very WOW!

 

[Nightstorm]

The Storytelling System (New world of darkness) by white wolf hands down.
Simple.
To the point,
yet having just enough complexity to keep it interested.

 

[jdrakeh]

You just made me go, "Wow!"

Glad to be of service!

I've been looking for a good rules light game I could play with my grade school kids. the Window would be perfect for it.

It's very simple at its core, yes. It only starts to get complex when you get into the options like Shebang! (and even then, not noticeably so).

 

[pawsplay]

Silver Age Sentinels (Tri-Stat). Great game, easy to use and play, top notch house setting.

 

[jdrakeh]

Silver Age Sentinels (Tri-Stat). Great game, easy to use and play, top notch house setting.

Good call. As a rule I loathe supers games and am generally unimpressed with any edition of Tri-Stat post-BEMS 1e. This having been said, I liked Silver Age Sentinels (Tri-Stat). I can't tell you why exactly; it just seemed to hit all of the right buttons.

 

[Nylanfs]

I would have to second all the votes for ShadowRun. I love the setting, the dice pools, and only counting 1's 5's and 6's (I have two sets of dice specifically for SR that I colored in all the other pips to make it quicker to count).

Plus the spellcasting drain system it's pretty darn awesome.