"what's your favorite RPG?" Topic

Classic Traveller and RQ2

With honourable mentions to WHFRP 1st, AD&D 1st and Gamma World

Traveller with the LBBs.

Spirit of the Century: the character creation process is some of the most fun I have had in an RPG.

The new Warhammer Fantasy RPG: interesting system with some unique mechanics, and no grid for combat.

"Mythic". Let's you game in any setting and on the fly. Using either the game's combat rules or more often one our THW sets for fighting miniatures games.

RUNEQUEST!!!!! In all it's forms from classic Runequest, Mongoose Runequest II, BRP, Call of Cthulhu, Ringworld, Elric!, Stormbringer, Other Suns, Superworld, & more.

Call of Cthulhu and WFRP 1st ed…
Though lately I've been intrigued by a lot of the Retro-clone stuff… such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess… which is original D&D with an emphasis on weird fantasy… playing off my love for Arduin and Empire of the Petal Throne.

Pathfinder and Legend of the Five Rings for fantasy, Cyberpunk 2020 and Call of Cthulhu for modern.

7 will always be the classic, although the 16 has its uses….

Twilight 2000 2.2, 3.5 D&D.

Traveller: The New Era and Twilight 2000 v.2.2. Both using GDW's fantastic, flexible House Rules System.

Toss-up between AD&D 1E and Classic Traveller. CoC a close third. There are many more, but these three brought countless hours of excitement and hilarity.

Had I known them at the time, Palladium Fantasy, early Rolemaster, T2K and 2300AD would have been up there as well.

And of course Privateers & Gentlemen.

Well, and En Garde.

Also, Space 1889.

Another vote for Empire of the Petal Throne. I also enjoy Mongoose Traveller (really looking forward for 2300 AD supplement) and Savage Worlds especially for "Space 1889" and "The Day After Ragnarok."

Original D&D plus many 3rd party supplements (like Arduin Grimore).

1st Edition Tunnels and Trolls

GDW's En Garde

Metagaming's The Fantasy Trip. It was pretty much after playing a lot of this that I decided that what I liked most about RPG's was a good detailed combat system – I wasn't interested in actually "role-playing" (I always saw the "role-playing" part as a scenario generator for combat). So I dropped the RPG and went straight into miniatures gaming.

Space:1889
GURPS
Traveller (CT, MT, and MongTrav)
FASATrek
CP2020
Chaosium (CoC, Pendragon, etc)

Atomic Highway
Hollow Earth Expedition
Regime Diabolique: All For One
2nd Edition WFRP
Star Frontiers
Boot Hill
Wild West Cinema RPG
Stormbringer

Wow, it's crazy. There are 67 answers and 90 different games…
at the moment, I am giving a try to pathfinder because it looks like a safe norm, but my group is turning to old school style for the freedom of action and narrative

Pathfinder
Call of Cthulhu
Pendragon & Space Opera (although it's been many moons since I last played these, but we had 2 cracking campaigns).

Right now Savage Worlds. Fast easy simple, relatively robust across multiple genres. Supports skirmish level combats smoothly.

Used to be a toss up between Gurps and Hero depending on the power level and technical aspects of the game being played.

In Turn before them Traveller.

But I have truly found I will play anything as long as it is fun. In the darkest history we had a blast playing Dragonlance using the Chivalry and Sorcery rules set.

1. D&D 4E
2. Feng Shui
3. Tunnels & Trolls / Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes (solo)
4. The Fantasy Trip (solo)

Twilight 2000 and Top Secret.

1st: Call of Cthulhu hands down

2nd: Tie… TSR Marvel Superheroes Advanced Boxed Set Mechanics not so good with the wonky chart, but great supplements and you got to play your favorite comic characters.

… Gamma World (1st to 3rd Ed.) Terrible mechanics but the best RPG setting ever in my opinion.

Tunnels & Trolls followed by Runequest…Happy Days :0)

Two favourite RPG, that's a tough one.

Tunnels & Trolls 5ed (the first one available in the UK) it was the first RPG I bought. Chosen over D&D because you only needed the one book and could get solo adventures for it. Though it turned out I needn't have worried about the solo adventures as I soon persuaded a couple of schoolmates to give it a go. We had a lot of fun until our characters got to higher levels where the combat system didn't work as well. Although I haven't played any RPG in years I still have a copy (not my original one) of the rules on my shelf to bring back happy memories.

West End Games Star Wars 1st Edition is my other choice. It is the game I most enjoyed being DM for. Fun, not too complicated, and Ewoks too! It was perfect for what the group of people I played with at the time used it for, as an occasional bit of fun between more "serious" campaigns using Rolemaster.

And that brings me to the point so many others have made. It's not the system it's the DM. Rolemaster is not my favourite RPG, I doubt it would make my top ten in fact. But the best RPG experiences I ever had were playing Rolemaster, because Tony, the DM, was brilliant.

Fantasy trip
AD&D

I like the fact that OSRIC has giving a way for new rulebooks to exist and keep AD&D going. I wonder if enough interst could be gathered to do rewrite of the Fantasy Trip? GURPS is close, but it seems to have become a bit overcomplicated. GURPS still a fun play, but it just doesn't have the same feel.

LLC aka Ron

Savage Worlds.

In no particular order:

Gamma World (from 2nd edition forward including Alternity and the current D&D 4e variant)
D&D 4e
Alternity
Star Frontiers

Traveller (LBB edition) & RQ2. Honourable mentions to AD&D 1st ed, Paranoia & CoC.

I've been a big fan of GURPS and Traveller for years now.

Of course, for other choices: Boot Hill for western gaming, Marvel for Superheroes, so I'm easily entertained. :)

Either Cyberpunk '2.5' (ie, CP3 rules with 2020 setting) or Shadowrun 4 for modern/scifi.

Exalted 2e (yes, 2e is worth the upgrade!) for super-high fantasy.

Qin is cool, but limited stylistically to the far east, and D&D4 needs a very good dm to get any decent rp.

Cold City / Hot War for an excellent setting and probably the most elegent rules I've ever seen.

Call of Cthulhu & Traveller for the setting.

Witch Hunter : The Invisible World
Weird War 2
Tales of the Floating Vagabond
Dark Continent
Classic Deadlands

GURPS WW2 with a mix of Weird War
D&D
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Ed.

So far:

16 Call of Cthulhu
14 Classic (LBB) Traveller (with other editions getting eight more)
11 WFRP (combined 1e and 2e)
10 AD&D 1e

7 GURPS
7 Runequest (with other BRP games getting six more)
6 AD&D 2e
6 Pathfinder
6 Paranoia
6 Gamma World (various editions)
6 Twilight 2000
5 D&D (non-specific)
5 Cyperpunk 2020

4 D&D 3.5, D&D4, Tunnels & Trolls, Savage Worlds, Star Wars d6, Star Frontiers, and TFT

3 Palladium Fantasy, Hero System/Champions, Marvel Super Heroes, Rolemaster, and EPT.

2 Amber Diceless, TMNT, Boot Hill, D&D Basic, Arduin, En Garde, Vampire (gen), Space 1889, Mutant Chronicles, Top Secret, DP9 Silhouette (gen), DP9 Heavy Gear, Space Opera, Star Trek RPG (FASA)

And a whole raft of singletons.

To GM:
Champions. I loved how the disad system got even my least inclined roleplayers to come up with some kind of backstory. Wish to God I could have played it with comic fans.

Star Wars D6 R&E. In some ways the antithesis to Champions, light and fast and everyone knew the backstory allready. It was also the first birthday my then girlfriend now wife baught me.

To Play:
Call of Cthulhu/CoC Delta Green, As with others who have already sounded off, this was the game I played with the best GMs, best co-players and with the best source material.

Ghostbusters 1st ed, I played this through one summer with a bunch of guys into Python, SCTV and SNL. I've never laughed so hard during a game. I can still incapacitate myself laughing when I reminisce about those games from two and a half decades ago.

Savage Worlds is my current game of choice with Pathfinder being a far back 2nd place.

Call of Cthulhu is my all time favourite RPG, it's so easily adaptable and not really tied down to any specific era/genre. We have added a few specific skills and played it in sci-fi, fantasy, mundane detective, napoleonic and ancient greek settings.

Labyrinth Lord, a D&D retro-clone is my current game of choice, mainly because I detest Pathfinder and D&D 4e. LL does everything I want, comes in two cheap volumes and it is easy to add my own monsters, magic and other things.

Tunnels and trolls I haven't played for a long time but I always liked the abstraction for playability tradeoff. I like rules that allow all the thinking to be about the story not the mechanics.

OD&D (white box plus supplements (GH, BM, etc.,) – rules lite, player character heavy.

AD&D 1st – when I stopped.

Well, I actually ran a few games 2nd edition but hardly counts versus "multiple years" of the OD&D and several years of AD&D 1st.

Gracias,

Glenn

Considered Traveller and Metamorphasis Alpha but, like 2nd edition AD&D, not enough actual GM'ing to be seriously considered.

Savage Worlds

AD&D + Basic D&D

Rules are not important. I think people are probably voting for rules they played their most enjoyable games with. For me that would be Fighting Fantasy, a system based on the FF pick your own adventure books, and then heavily tweaked by my mate. The story made the game, the rules were just something to hang it on.

Rules are important. Some games by the nature of their grit, style, or detail were one shot wonders (I wonder why I played them.)

Players/GM/DM/genre are much more important I would agree with but the rules are important, IMO.

Gracias,

Glenn

Savage Worlds (Deadlands setting in particular)

WHFRP 2nd ed

Scion (White Wolf storyteller system)

Sengoku – The single most detailed Samurai Historical RPG ever. Essentially Bushido Mark 2.

Space Opera – FGU A really great world to run

Privateers and Gentlemen & Heart of Oak – Napoleonic Naval RPG

That will date me to pre-computer times

Two games ? Thats impossible.

If i had to pick, I guess Runequest (for actually making some damn sense) and Rolemaster (because it puts characters at the forefront).

But picking just two ? Nyeh

Glad to see so many Traveller fans out there. One of my all time favorites! Haven't played since the Army, but I always liked the character development method. It could almost be a game in itself!

Another favorite is MERP/Rolemaster (modified and added to of course) which I have been playing for years. I am running a campaign right now in pre-War of the Ring Middle Earth with four ex D&D players and two new players. They (me too) especially like the combat system with its critical results tables.

Original D&D. I use it for almost everything, as there are versions of it now for almost everything:

High Fantasy / Sword & Sorcery: Many clones exist, my favorite is Labyrinth Lord. Other good ones include Castles & Crusades and Swords & Wizardry.

Sword & Planet: Warriors of Mars

Space Opera: Star Blades

Superhero: Hideouts & Hoodlums

VSF: Age of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and my own newly published White Rajah of Venus.

I know the system, and, even if it isn't the best, lots of people play it, so you can usually get a game up (even 4eders will play if you tell them that it's D&D, only simpler). Also, simplicity is a major benefit.

Well for a while it was Hero, then it became GURPs, but now it is Savage Worlds.

It was all about flexibility Hero and GURPS are great for it, but very complex if you let them get away from you. Now it is Savage Worlds as it is a good generic system but very streamlined, and you can relatively large games (on the scale 40k:RogueTrader) It allows one to combine both miniatures gaming and Roleplaying.

Oh and of course Traveller in all its flavors. CT/MgT editions preferred. Nearly 20 years of regular play with the same people…. Can't be a bad thing.

I'd say the CONAN boxed set by TSR using a (D%) system. It was easy to pick up and play and character creation was simple and open ended.

Or that LARP game that all little kids play with their toy guns. You know the "Ok,Ok Just pretend I shot you…" No dice, table or paper needed!

First ever RPG – Classic Traveller (LBBs) – and it may sit in it's box unused, but it often ends up being re-visited. And great source material for Full Thrust Fifth Frontier War!

Other well-loved RPG – Kult (early editions). Very adult. Very dark. Very disturbing. Completely suits the darker parts of my mind. I've run scenarios where several of the players have had some 'disturbing' moments after the games sessions. It's also been the one game where some of my friends have genuinely surprised me with their back-story creativity!