Not a d20 system game eh? And obscure? AND available...
First up, Talislanta. The 4th Edition book is still relatively easy to pick up. I like that one personally, as it's an all-in-one book. Done by Shooting Iron. 5th Ed is out and is easily bought from Amazon as well as DriveThru RPG/RPGNow. It made some modifications to the system but it's still quite functional. The 5th Ed split Talislanta into 3 books: Player, GM, World. The World book is effectively systemless so if you dig the setting but not the system, just pick that up and you're golden.
The overall rules are quite simple. A single d20 is rolled for everything. Modifiers are added to that and then you look at the result.
0 or less is a Mishap
1-5 is a Failure
6-10 is a Partial Success
11-19 is a Full Success
20+ is a Critical Success.
That's pretty much it. Attributes are ranked normally from -5 to +5 with 0 being average.
One of the ultra-cool things is the templates. Sorta like out of the old Star Wars (d6) game. Grab a template modify it a bit (or don't as you feel) and you're done. Total character creation time? However long it takes you to copy the relevant information. Templates are also helpfully marked as NPC in some cases, indicating that those aren't as suitable for PCs. All told there's 123 templates to pick from.
I came across Tal back in the popular "No Elves!" days, right around when WotC picked it up (3rd Ed). This was back before Magic: The Gathering had come out. 4th Ed came out back in 2001. 4th's system is just slick. The magic can be a bit fiddly, but this is relative to the rest of the system. the game has an intriguing blend of exploring as well as combat, while really avoiding the whole Dungeoncrawling thing that is so firmly entrenched in most fantasy rpgs these days.
Stepping up from there, we hit Hellas:
Hellas: Worlds of Sun and Stone
Hellas uses the Omni system which is what the system used in Talislanta 5th Ed was named. It modifies the system somewhat (character creation is done by a lifepath) and is actually interesting unlike most lifepath things I've come across.
Hellas is "greeks in space" and has some interesting things they've done. One thing is that it's known and understood upfront that your character _will_ die. All the great greek heroes did. But as your character goes along, they collect glory. When he/she dies, you can pass that glory to the _new_ character; you've got an incentive to go ahead and do big deeds and you as the player are rewarded for it instead of losing all your cool toys when your character eats it.
And you get bonuses for fighting naked.
Next up in the hit parade, Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies:
Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies
The system relies on player named traits; Spirit of the Century is another game that does this, and there's others. The power of the player named traits is that people decide explicitly what it is their character is _about_ and that's what's got mechanical influence on the game. Everything else is window dressing. The setting is inspired by all sorts of stuff including Dumas (Three Musketeers) as well as Brust (Vlad Taltos novels, but in this case it's The Khaavren Romances). Skyships, floating islands, pirates... it's groovy. The setting is nifty and the system kicks ass as well. Disclaimer/Disclosure: I was one of the playtesters for S7S.
Hands down, Swashbucklers is my #1 pick.
Let's see... Monsters & Other Childish Things:
Monsters and Other Childish Things - Arc Dream Publishing
The system used is called ORE (One Roll Engine). I like the game despite it. There's a bunch of love for the ORE system (powers Wild Talents, Reign, and you can download Nemesis for free) but it always left me a bit cold. It's one of those systems where you roll the dice and then look for matches. The number of matches you get as well as the number being matched determines how well you've done.
MaOCT simplifies down the base system somewhat to a level that I'm willing to deal with. It's relatively light and there's not too much to keep track of. What's great about the game is that it's really about managing relationships. Your character is a kid. He's got relationships with different things and/or people. One of them happens to be his monster.
The monster gets a bunch of cool abilities and all that. The thing is, the monster is also a major source of trouble. He's quite happy to eat that bully that keeps stuffing you into a locker.
Even if you're not into playing a kid, the game is pretty cool and useful. With a bit of tweaking you could do a Pokemon game with it, but think a bit broader.. like say, a D&D style game. The funky class abilities (magic, stealing, super magic swords, whatever) get done up as a Monster, and then the character has the relationship thing to juggle.
Now you've got something different. A character has to balance the needs/demands of the monster (killing stuff, ripping it off, casting fireballs) with all the other relationship demands. You could literally have a mage where his magic is talking to him, encouraging him to let it loos, and how it could make all the problems better.
Or a supers game for that matter. The Monster simply becomes the superhero identity. Bruce Wayne literally has Batman whispering about how this punk should just be dangled out a window until he confesses and Clark Kent... yeah, Superman takes on a much more interesting perspective. The Hulk is another obvious example of this sort of thing.
Last one...
Spite:
http://www.dread-rpg.com/
Spite is the second game, the first one being Dread. No, it's not the one with the jenga blocks.
Dread/Spite uses the "Disciple 12" system, which is d12s. Yeah, it's a pretty underutilized die normally, but you're using pools of d12s for these games. Again, the system is on the lighter end of things but it does the job it needs to do. Disclaimer/Disclosure: I'm one of a number of folks mentioned in the Dedication.
The game is a hardcore "monster hunt" sort of Action/Horror, featuring screwed up people trying to make a difference and save everyone else from the Demons and Angels that want to royally jack up everything. The themes are a bit different between Dread and Spite; Dread is about demons and the absolutely screwed up people that fight them, whereas Spite is a bit more about characters that have deliberately stepped up to fight that almost hopeless fight.
Both games can play together, but Spite is the newer one and as such it's got newer rules and some fixes. Either one is stellar though.
Note: This is _not_ a shiny, happy game. You're _not_ going to be sharing this with your 9 year old nephew. There's cursing and other inappropriate sorts of things in there and some of the art is not for kids. Really.
The game has some specific things that characters do (investigate, collect information, fight) and explains how to structure the sessions. It's not really a game about long drawn out story lines, instead it's more like episodes that happen one after another and a story emerges from these.
It's sorta like the tv show First Wave:
First Wave (TV series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in terms of the way things unfold, as opposed to something like Alias where you've got a pretty coherent storyline progressing along.
It's also seriously about action. Heck, one of the spells (Censure, pg 120) grabs the flesh and skulls of dead/fallen angels and demons and makes it into an EXOSKELETON for you to fight the really BIG bad Angels, and causes ordinary folks to have nightmares for days. Another (Vituperation, pg 121) causes the caster's arms and legs to temporarily fuse together into 2 pillars (with the body hanging between) and has a heavy weapon mounted on top of each pillar.
This isn't a "Tee hee hee, it's a shoggoth, oh no I better make a sanity check, oops I failed I guess I lose some sanity points..." horror game. It's in-your-face icky, with disgusting creatures, healing spells where you puke blood on the person to be healed, and your character temporarily looking like The Fly when you summon a swarm of insects to jack up your opponents.
It's not a pretty game and it's not for everyone one... but damn, it's fun, easy to run, and slick.
I bought 60d12 just so I could run the game and nobody would have to worry about doing anything more than showing up with a pencil and some paper. And of course I've got another 20 or so d12 for myself so I can run 6 people comfortably and have my own set of dice as well.
Oh and the dice cost? Not as bad as you might think, even though I bought them and shipped them to NZ. For example, if you're not picky about having everything match, you can get 8d12 for $6.38 and Free Shipping:
Lot 8 D12 RPG Die D&D 12 Twelve Sided Dice Game + bag - eBay (item 260458725354 end time Sep-04-09 03:01:12 PDT)
Of course... you could actually go cheaper and buy the same dice I did... 10d12 for $4.99 and free shipping:
10 x Yellow Dice RPG Gaming D12 tewlve Sided Die (1-12) - eBay (item 120455065872 end time Sep-01-09 18:07:42 PDT)
Obnoxious yellow, but you know that people aren't going to be stealing 'em from your table and they're easy to spot.
