What is the Best Licensed RPG?

[Kannik]

Not a revision, a total rewrite from scratch... and very worthy. But getting hard to find, and the electronic editions pulled by MWP, despite the approach of Fox to continue to extract income from old games post-license until someone else wants the license... Buffy, Angel, and Army of Darkness are still for sale at DTRPG, even tho' the licenses ended a decade ago.

I have both Serenity and Firefly, and indeed Cortex classic was not all that notable of a system. Cortex Plus however was an almost entirely different animal, revving into a more narrative-type system that has evolved even further into Cortex Prime (which now occupies one of the top spots for my go-to/favourite systems to run/play in). Also, while I never played it, I would say that the Cortex Plus Marvel Super Heroes probably also worked well, and I've heard that the Cortex powered Smallville was excellent.

That said, I too will crown WEG's Star Wars as the best licensed RPG I've played thus far. The system (especially at the time) and the sourcebooks combined well to create a rich playing field and some very SWian action/adventure moments.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Alien is my favorite licensed RPG. The stress mechanic is so elegant, and really captures the feel of being in a horror movie.

I haven't actually played Alien, so I can't vote for it, but I own it and really want to. As a player, though.

 

[Laurefindel]

Hard to pass on WEG's Star Wars. Not my favourite system for Star Wars but as others said, it supported the whole franchise for me until the Star Wars revival more than a decade later.

Honorable mention to TOR (1st ed) coming as a very close second. It was the first time I really thought a RPG really captured a licensed universe, as opposed to a licensed universe slapped onto some existing rules (no matter how fitting). It has a few flaws as a system, many of which were corrected in TOR2, but I really felt like the rules were engineered around the work of Tolkien. Free League's system is a perfect fit for their Aliens RPG, but The One Ring was made specifically for LotR with rules pivoting on the core aspects of the lore.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There are a lot of old men posting on this thread!

 

[Reynard]

There are a lot of old men posting on this thread!

Welcome to ENWorld, home of the cantankerous GenXer.

 

[DammitVictor]

There are a lot of obvious picks here that... by all rights should be remembered here: Star Wars, MERP, TMNT, pretty much any MWP Cortex game.

I'm going to throw out Street Fighter: the Storytelling Game.

 

[Divine2021]

Star Trek Adventures is absolutely fantastic, highly recommend.

 

[Thauramarth]

Call of Cthulhu, I'd say. The BRP is one of the best engines around, and Masks of Nyarlathotep is one of the all-time great supplements. Also, more personal, I played in a three-year-long holebrew Delta Green adventure that, for me, is still the most fun I ever had (so, yes, personal bias).

 

[mrm1138]

FFG Star Wars for me. I really love its dice pool system, funny symbols and all. (Honestly I'd use Genesys more often if it were better supported for VTTs.) I ran an Edge of the Empire campaign for a couple years, and my group and I had a great time with it.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Besides some of those very good games already meantioned (Call of Ctthulhu + WEG Star Wars), I would go with 2 of Evil hats games:

The Dresden Files rpg + Atomic Robo.
Both were very good game just ruleswise, but also very well presented.