What is your favorite RPG that you've ever played that is now out of print? Maybe you'd play it again if it came out as a d20 game?
I'll start off:
SPACEMASTER BY I.C.E. (very cool Starship combat system)
--played this game a lot in the early 90's--
Star Trek the RPG by FASA (everything S.T. since then has sucked)
Top Secret (D20 modern is pretty good, but the original Top Secret Boxed set with the "Sprechenhaltestelle" module has a place dear to my heart)
Space Opera (first RPG I tried other than AD&D back in my sophomore year in high school (1982)) Kind of corny, but it had dogs and cats as alien races and a hellaciously complicated combat system. I still liked running a space marine though.
Gangbusters by TSR (only played this a few times, but the setting was fun--first game I played a bad guy in)
and my all time favorite OOP RPG:
Twilight: 2000 by GDW (this game kicked butt, we played it almost exclusively in 1985-86--Pirates of the Vistula and the Free City of Krakow were two of the most fun adventures I ever played. The combat system and coolness under fire ratings were pretty good. I would most certainly buy this game--could be put out as an extension of d20 modern. But please, re-design the vehicle combat rules a la Twilight 2000. Oh, I forgot the module--Lone Star, Red Star where San Antonio is occupied by a Soviet airborne division. We spent the entire summer of '86 refighting the Texas Revolution and kicking the Russkies off the Riverwalk!!
Moldvay/Cook D&D
Marvel Super Heroes
DC Heroes
Twilight 2000
Rifts
Definitely Marvel Super-Heroes. Man, I loved that system.
And I'd have to second the Fasa Star Trek system. Although, we always had to fudge starship combat since we weren't ever able to track down the legit rules for starship combat for this system.
I'd also add West End's Star Wars system. I just can't seem to get into the latest incarnation of Star Wars, but the West End system has a place near and dear to my heart.
Marvel Super-Heroes Adventure Game (yes I mean the SAGA system game from 1998). This is unequivocally the best super-hero RPG I've ever played (and I've played the 1980's Marvel game, Mayfair's DC Heroes, Champions, GURPS Supers, Mutants & Masterminds, etc.)
Honorable mention goes to the Dark Matter setting for the Alternity Science Fiction Role-Playing game. Conspiracies and the paranormal with just the right amount of lethality in the system to make the players very afraid.
What is your favorite RPG that you've ever played that is now out of print? Maybe you'd play it again if it came out as a d20 game?
I'll start off:
SPACEMASTER BY I.C.E. (very cool Starship combat system)
--played this game a lot in the early 90's--Star Trek the RPG by FASA (everything S.T. since then has sucked)
Top Secret (D20 modern is pretty good, but the original Top Secret Boxed set with the "Sprechenhaltestelle" module has a place dear to my heart)
Space Opera (first RPG I tried other than AD&D back in my sophomore year in high school (1982)) Kind of corny, but it had dogs and cats as alien races and a hellaciously complicated combat system. I still liked running a space marine though.
Gangbusters by TSR (only played this a few times, but the setting was fun--first game I played a bad guy in)
and my all time favorite OOP RPG:
Twilight: 2000 by GDW (this game kicked butt, we played it almost exclusively in 1985-86--Pirates of the Vistula and the Free City of Krakow were two of the most fun adventures I ever played. The combat system and coolness under fire ratings were pretty good. I would most certainly buy this game--could be put out as an extension of d20 modern. But please, re-design the vehicle combat rules a la Twilight 2000. Oh, I forgot the module--Lone Star, Red Star where San Antonio is occupied by a Soviet airborne division. We spent the entire summer of '86 refighting the Texas Revolution and kicking the Russkies off the Riverwalk!!
Runequest
Star FrontiersSpace Opera was a blast
Dark Conspirisy by GDW
Tunnels and Trolls - This is coming back out soon.
Powers and Perials
Twilight 2000 was really good
Bushido
Star Trek by Fasa
Boothill
Justice Inc.
So many games are gone but not forgotten.
Where the heck is Doctor Who? The FASA game had great content but the mechanics were a nightmare. How about someone release a D20 version. I mean, what the heck, there is only about 30 years worth of source material.
Okay somehow this ended up on a whole other thread (though it sorta kinda fits there well) so here it is again...
Top Secret. Man, I loved that game.
Don't get mad, I actually bought the old Top Secret for $5 bucks used. The premise of a spy game was and is cool, but the combat system was- well it had me rolling on the floor laughing, which pretty much spoiled the rest of it.
"Let's see I'm playing a 5'3" tall bald guy who is left-handed and using a 2.25 inch long knife and am fighting a guy on a 10'x3' balcony. The sun is setting so I'm getting some glare in my glasses (forgot to mention I was facing northwest and that I had glasses on on that are .125 inches thick and tinted dark pink). That takes care of me now my opponant is a 7'2" mongolian with a tire iron (10" long). Is he right or left handed?...."
It was just plain hillarious. At the time it was only slightly funnier than Paladium's MDC system. Rolemaster should have so many charts. It just seemed very awkward to me and I never went back to see if it improved in later editions.
Speaking of Rolemaster, Middle-Earth Role Playing was my first game, and yes it had a lot of charts, but my God, what great source books. Just throw an Angus McBride cover on it and I'm there. I actually like it more than 3.x D&D. You never get adventurers retiring from D&D because they've lost a leg to a war troll's axe, but you do in MERP. Oh, yeah and none of that fighting at full-strength-until-you-die crap when you get hit bad here you feel it.
"Classic" D&D also holds some great memories for me. A game where dwarves were dwarves and elves could wear armor and hurl lightning bolts. Color-coded box sets and better yet -the D&D rules Cyclopedia (one book fits all). Simple, innocent and complete.
DC Heroes. I'm going to back track for a moment and say I like the Rifts world as well as the Paladium version of Robotech, but the system just doesn't work. You can't blow a damn thing up with one missile, let alone your gun pod, but you can now that I've gone and translated it all to DC Heroes, and better yet it doesn't take you all day to run an in-game minute-long combat. DC Heroes makes superhero math easier than any other supers game I've seen and is adaptable enough to allow you to have your own custom heroes fight fifty-foot tall mecha, alien monsters, dinosaurs, sentient viruses and timelords and have it seem balanced and natural.
TMNT. before the advent of Mega-Damage, Erik Wujcik did some incredible things with the unweildy Paladium system and this was the best. Followed up by After the Bomb, a game for the times; when twelve-year-olds everywhere slept in shadow of the bomb.
Doctor Who/Time Lord. Two different games same great taste. When playing a Doctor Who game most of the time you really don't need the rules (nor do you want to ever get into a firefight), but both games give you mechanics for operating and sabotaging an ever cranky TARDIS as well as building alien menaces.
World of Darkness (old skool). The most brilliant thing White Wolf ever did was dropping a bahzillion hints as to what's going on and then never actually giving you a straight answer (well at least until they decided to reboot it). First and Second Edition Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Changeling and the incredibly edgy Wraith put the "role" back in role-playing. The systems for dealing with things like loss of humanity, level of enlightenment, distance from mundanity/bedlam and personal angst only see a mass-market match in Call of Cthulhu's sanity rules. Even better every book (sourcebook, adventure, what-have-you) had a mood and a theme which in some way reflected a core priciple of the line it was a part of.
Before there was d6, before there was Star Wars RPG, there was Ghostbusters (followed by Ghostbusters International). Simple fast, easy and damn funny. If you own it or can get it, drag it out for Holloween you will be glad you did. You may never go back to your battle map again....
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Steve Stone's Zero RPG
yeah, I loved a lot of these games; Space Master was the only game I gmed that was a total flop only due to one pc that didnt want to play a space game and he was the pilot so everyone was stuck; sigh, I really had some great scenarios planned.
Anyone remember James Bond; I like that one; was 003.
Villans and Vigilanties; like this one, Marvel Supers not so much; we just played marvel adventures with Champions characters.
Twilight 2000; like that one. Used to play shadow run and some game I don't remember the name of; you played a classical monster was a bit dark twisted and humourous.
Like Riffs a lot, but it is definately still in print; sheesh they have a lot of books; am glad I am not a gm for this game.
Played many of the posted games, have most of them in my game room on the shelf, so many games; so little time.
Nowadays our group pretty much sticks to D&D, but we used to be a lot more diverse:
I haven't looked into Paranoia XP, but olde skoole Paranoia (1st edition) has been a long-time favorite. Favorite part: our groups always had to write (and then read aloud) mission reports at the end.
Bushido - had a lot of fun with this one as well.
The Fantasy Trip - barely counts as an RPG, but we played some pretty extensive campaigns using those rules.
Bunnies & Burrows - Don't laugh, I've actually run a game of it. Rabbits had to rescue their brethren from the animal testing lab, ended up actually killing a janitor!
Another vote for Fasa Star Trek, especially the Klingon expansion. Many, many hours of gaming goodness.
A few games that I own and have read, but never played:
Bureau 13 - Game system looks INSANEly complicated, but a very fun read.
Duck Troopers - A very goofy game with a stripped-down version of the above.
Attack of the Humans - Yet another monster-hunting game. Mildly amusing.
It Came from the Late Late Late Show - I absolutely loved the premise of this and the scene breaking mechanics of this. Bought the game and all the supps, never got a chance to try it out.
NightLife - I had the same idea for a game, those dirty so-and-so's did it firest.
I liked villains and vigilantes as well.
It was very simple, and easy to make a cool superhero/villain quickly.
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Speaking of Rolemaster, Middle-Earth Role Playing was my first game, and yes it had a lot of charts, but my God, what great source books. Just throw an Angus McBride cover on it and I'm there. I actually like it more than 3.x D&D. You never get adventurers retiring from D&D because they've lost a leg to a war troll's axe, but you do in MERP. Oh, yeah and none of that fighting at full-strength-until-you-die crap when you get hit bad here you feel it.
Right on. However, even as a Rolemaster/MERP devotee, I can't honestly say that the later editions got any better; I actually think the earlier versions were easier to plasy and understand, especially as we just ditched the ridiculously differentiated perception rules and just went with "Spot". Still, the sourcebooks were the best - I still have them all out on the shelf, even though noboby plays RM anymore. As for the unfortunate side effects of combat - well, that's what we have the Black Company Setting's horrible injury chart for.
Other old faves - Runequest and Twillight 2000. We still occasionally play Twillight. The setting feels a little off now, but it was great when it came out, and we're old enough to remember it.
Spacemaster isn't out of print anymore. It is set in a different universe in the new edition, though.
Mongoose is coming out with a new edition of Runequest this summer. And Chaosium is releasing Basic Roleplaying, which is based on the old Runequest system.
What is your favorite RPG that you've ever played that is now out of print? Maybe you'd play it again if it came out as a d20 game?
I'll start off:
SPACEMASTER BY I.C.E. (very cool Starship combat system)
--played this game a lot in the early 90's--Star Trek the RPG by FASA (everything S.T. since then has sucked)
Top Secret (D20 modern is pretty good, but the original Top Secret Boxed set with the "Sprechenhaltestelle" module has a place dear to my heart)
Space Opera (first RPG I tried other than AD&D back in my sophomore year in high school (1982)) Kind of corny, but it had dogs and cats as alien races and a hellaciously complicated combat system. I still liked running a space marine though.
Gangbusters by TSR (only played this a few times, but the setting was fun--first game I played a bad guy in)
and my all time favorite OOP RPG:
Twilight: 2000 by GDW (this game kicked butt, we played it almost exclusively in 1985-86--Pirates of the Vistula and the Free City of Krakow were two of the most fun adventures I ever played. The combat system and coolness under fire ratings were pretty good. I would most certainly buy this game--could be put out as an extension of d20 modern. But please, re-design the vehicle combat rules a la Twilight 2000. Oh, I forgot the module--Lone Star, Red Star where San Antonio is occupied by a Soviet airborne division. We spent the entire summer of '86 refighting the Texas Revolution and kicking the Russkies off the Riverwalk!!
My favorites of the bygone days:
<b>Ghostbusters</b> (West End Games) - The few games I played were fantastic! Maybe it could show up as a d20 Modern/Future add on?
<b>Indiana Jones RPG</b> (TSR) - That was a fun game! The later version by West End Games looked like it would have been cool, but I never had the chance to play it. I suppose this one could be resurrected as a d20 Past/Modern series?
And I'm sure that the next one could be a d20 Future mega seller: <b>Star Frontiers</b> (TSR)- Yazirians and Dralasites. 'Nuff Said!
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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My favorite out-of-print RPG?
White Wolf's entire Trinity Universe.
Adventure, Aberrant, Trinity.
R.I.P.
I still run a Trinity game every Friday for my friends. I have all the stuff for it and we love it. Too bad the line never got finished. A few key sourcebooks never quite got to the printers before they canned the whole series. A damn shame, too. Awesome game.
Cyberpunk (and Cybergeneration!)
Trinity (and Aberrant--own Adventure too, but don't quite get it)
Alternity (specifically Tangents and Star*Drive--so glad their back out at least in some form in D20 Future, still have my old books though and the extra detail is wonderful!)
Mechwarrior
Hmmmm, definately Alternity, I still use the rules for certain modern games with the Dark Matter rules.
Villains and Vigilantes, an utter classic.
Basic D&D, wear I got my start, an oldie but a goodie.
The old White Wolf systems, before they made the WoD all hokey.
And old school Shadowrun :)
Star Frontiers, Top Secret, Marvel Super Heroes, Mechwarrior (okay, I know a version exists now, but I don't know if I could get back into it), Ghostbusters (I thought I would be the only one that mentioned that one), Alternity (Star*Drive and Dark Matter both) . . .
Now what did we try to play that just left my group cold? DC Heroes (which is ironic because I was always more of a DC person growing up than a Marvel person) and MERP (ah, the charts, they burns us . . . )
Shadowrun 3e (4e wireless matrix? What in the NINE were they thinking?!), Earthdawn, WEG star wars, the old werewolf (loved gurahl, still do), Wraith (it was just sooooo wierd it was cool).
2e D&D Planescape, loved it, still do (have most great wheel planes memorized still).
/thread necromancy
/d