"Favorite obscure/small press/strange/forgotten RPGs?" Topic

We just had the thread about favorite RPGs… and they were mostly what we'd expect… D&D, Call of Cthulhu, Savage Worlds, various iterations of BRP and Hero and Rolemaster…

But I'm guessing we've all tried the occasional 'weird' RPG… either mechanically odd, like the ones with no GM or dice, just a cardboard target and a Jenga tower… or thematically peculiar, such as the one where the PCs are bacteria… games that you mention and everyone says "huh?"

Three of my favorites:
The Whispering Vault… best described as "Clive Barker's Superfriends"… it's kind of like 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' if Buffy and friends were Cenobites. The rules were quirky in their day but seem fairly mainstream now.

Noumenon… PCs wake up as amnesiac insects in a surreal museum that seems ripe with meaning for them… if they can figure out what that meaning is they might even be able to leave. Oh, and it uses dominoes instead of dice.

Lacuna (full name: 'Lacuna Part I. The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl from Blue City')… kind of Matrix-ish with Film Noir elements… Dark City, The Cell, Naked Lunch all seem to have been influences.

So what are some others?

Jonathan Tweet's Over The Edge, the William S. Burroughs roleplaying game. Stats were made up as fitting for each character: 1 Advantage (4 dice), 2 Talents (3 dice), 1 Disadvantage (1 die); everything else was 2 dice. It was an opposed dice system, your dice pool versus the opposing trait.

But the world background was the coolest, everything written with a surreal feel and names full of deadpan ironic non sequiturs.

There was one called Space Quest IIRC that a friend of mine borrowed as lite reading an a flight New Zealand, and lost it.
There is another called Star Faring By Ken St Andre.

donrice beat me to it: Over The Edge

I never had the pleasure of playing or GMing it, but the setting was so well written, I picked up every supplement there was.

de Profundis. Long distance roll playing.

Dying Earth, from Pelgrane Press. Licensed Jack Vance fantasy roleplaying, from people who really get what makes him one of the finest authors in the genre – hell, in any genre. Went away briefly, the closeout sale made so much money they not only bought the license back, they picked up the rights to do a scifi game in Vance's Gaean Reach setting as well.

Nexus: the Infinite City, from Daedalus Games. Pretty much Cynosure from the old Grimjack comics as an RPG setting, with added cool stuff.

Realm of Yolmi. Ancient printed-on-a-copier style scifi RPG that made Gamma World look utterly plausible by comparison. The monsters were so flaky and far out that Space Gamer featured them in a Murphy's Rules strip.

World of Synnibarr. Perhaps not obscure enough for this list, as it's well-known enough to have its own wiki page. Almost legendarily awful science-fantasy setting with some really strange character archetypes. Power levels make Rifts look sedate.

Feng Shui. Silly name, amazing setting taking weird memes from every Hong Kong action movie ever made and mashing them together in a single time-jumping, reality-altering setting where cyborg monkey nihilists from the future fight eunuch sorcerors from 69AD China for the fate of the world. Much like Over The Edge had On The Edge, Feng Shui had Shadowfist, a rather cool CCG associated with it.

Monsters and Mazes. The original dungeon crawl computer game Rogue converted to pen and paper. Not a whole lot of depth. But man we used to spend hours working our way through those endless dungeons.
Not to be confused with Tom Hanks in Mazes and Monsters.

Legendary Lives was another one that we kept coming back to. I loved running it because all the dice were rolled by the players. The players had to roll to hit the monsters or roll to avoid being hit by them. With all the random character building charts you could spend hours making characters and never have the same one twice.

Another one that we got into heavily just before I moved was that Everway. Though I guess since they sold that one in Toys-R-Us it was probably not "small press".

We played the game Underground a ton when I was in high school. It involved genetically engineered soldiers that had returned from war to try to adjust to civilian life in a dystopian America in about 2021 or so.

They had big guns and all kinds of crazy super powers and they might be insane from adapting to their genetic engineering, the combat they saw or both.

Didn't really catch on though. I guess some of the game mechanics were a little clunky but it was a fun back ground and concept and there were some great pictures in the book.

We tried to like underground. The setting was awesome. But it suffered from that stepped rank system. Rank 2 is twice the value of Rank 1. Rank 3 is twice the value of Rank 2. Etc. The DC super hero game (which we had some fun with) suffered the same way.

Alma Mater. The Police RPG from Task Force Games. Macho Women with guns. Jorune. Ninjas and Superspies. Hunter planet (from Australia). Behind Enemy Lines. Privateers and Gentlemen.

Underground…"it is all about the unit"…tons of potential, except for the units

Whispering Vault…it was almost an exercise in psychology and self reflection…great game

Morrow Project…you are from the '80s, scientist/marine/or engineer, cryo-sealed for future freshness, you wake up to deal with and improve the world after an assumed nuke winter

Stalking the Night Fantastic…early game of supernatural gaming, Bureau 13 a secret government agency that stops and hides the things that bump in the night

Aftermath…post apocalypse setting of near after the fall, fairly detailed and more hard nosed than fantasy…I seem to remember if you got injured there was a chart that would find out exactly where you got hit and you better have some armor there…damage was deadly and the devil was looking to make a deal

Mecha…good system that allowed for use of robotech toys and others…good stuff…loads of steps to make anything you could think of…I had a favorite organic type with crustacean aliens within that had no guns, canon, etc. it didn't walk/run/or fly…it hopped and jumped…and while the average mech had 1-2 pods of 6 micro missiles these guys had 12-15 pods of 6…a great system if you like big bots/tanks/planes/etc. transforming or not (edit, sorry this last one was not a RPG)

Tales from the Floating Vagabond.

if you've played you know. if not, think every bad movie ever made and use those plot devices to create a rpg.

Melee and Wizard from damn I can't remember

Bunnies and Burrows from FGU

Metamorphosis Alpha (the precursor to Gamma World)

Aftermath (FGU), Flashing Blades (FGU), MERC (FGU), and Living Steel (LEG).

I agree that Aftermath! (never forget the exclamation mark: we always called the game Aftermathi) was a cracking RPG. Played a huge campaign over several years that began with the players having access to bows and arrows and ended up with them taking on Daleks in Harrier Jump Jets!

Flashing Blades was another fondly remembered game. The setting and background meant that players just couldn't help playing characters rather than a page of statistics. In my gaming circle, after a few drinks, we still reminisce over Sergeant LeRoc taking on the bear in the secret passage; the death of Nogmande de L'Amour (husbands cheered, wives mourned); and the argument that resulted from the fight on the jetty in Venice.

Not quite so obscure as many of those mentioned above, but Pendragon always gave a good game. And similarily Bushido. Same ethos, different setting!

Finally, an honourable mention for The Old West. I think that's what it was called: a skirmish game with an RPG element tacked on. Now that was a game where combat was lethal: a Serious Body Wound was, indeed, serious; and being on the receiving end of a Head Kill was really not a good place to be!

Millenniums End from Chameleon Eclectic, with it's funky overlay system for determining where gunshots went, and automatic fire rules that required you tracking where every shot from a burst went. You needed a math degree to understand character creation and combat, but, our group loved the technothriller genre and played loads of it. Ironic that the type of outfit described in it is so ubiquitous in the news today (Blackeagle/Blackeagle… Blackwater?)

Conspiracy X from NME then Eden Publishing – like the X files or Dark Skies. Had some cracking games of this. The system sucked big time, but the background was great.

G.

as 28mm man so eloquantly put it..

Stalking the Night Fantastic…early game of supernatural gaming, Bureau 13 a secret government agency that stops and hides the things that bump in the night

regards

jim

fringeworthy, and "for fairie queen and country"

Stalking the Night Fantastic!

There's a blast from the past… early '80s small-press game in a ring-bound cover.

THE most involved hit location system ever: each location had to be examined for what clothing was there, how many points of tissue damage you could take before a hit at that location would strike bone, how much damage could that bone take, what effect would it have if it were broken, etc.

That takes care of physical damage. NOW, time to calculate Shock…

We found it virtually unplayable.

It had a huge bestiary, with codes for the characteristics of the critters – like a 'Traveller' planetary code. In practice, that meant row after row of dense, unintelligible text that made you want to go and do just about anything else.

Sitting unevenly with the very detailed, formula-heavy game mechanics was a rather weak 'comedy' setting, in which the PC's worked for a shadowy government department investigating paranormal phenomena.
It couldn't make up it's mind whether it wanted to be funny or scary, and didn't carry off either element well.

We played Maelstrom extensively back in the 80s. It was a cheap paperback, usually alongside the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks in the shop but the rules were really nice – simple and quick. The setting was the Elizabethan age with swashbuckling, spying and the occult magic of John Dee to play with. If Blackadder II had been out then it would have been excellent background material. I really miss that kind of roleplaying, there seems to be a rule for every jot and tittle these days.

PS Apparently it's still available!

link

Favourite obscure system has to be Avalon Hill's "Lords of Creation"…

Object lesson in straightforward, workable mechanics and flexible background.

It was a multi-dimenional/time-travelling game, with no hard-&-fast explanation of why or how the PCs had the ability to travel through time & space.
Your characters had, or could develop special abilities, but they were relatively low-key: it wasn't power-gaming by any means.

The overall character arc was that the more your character progressed, the more control they could have over their "Quantum Leap"-ing.

The set provided some refreshingly different background gameworlds in the rulebook, (Victorianesque steampunk years before anyone else thought of it)and it was easy enough to construct your own settings.

Thoroughly good fun.

I'm not actually a role-playing gamer, but I couldn't help buying the (fairly recent) Mouse Guard RPG when I saw it in the store, and this thread seems a good place to mention it. Charming little setting, and the rules seem quite fun.

Fading Suns.
Chivalry & Sorcery.
-Kle.

Stalking the Night Fantastic…early game of supernatural gaming, Bureau 13 a secret government agency that stops and hides the things that bump in the night

Fans of the game, you have read the Bureau 13 novels, right?

iblist.com/series1433.htm

Conspiracy X from NME then Eden Publishing – like the X files or Dark Skies. Had some cracking games of this. The system sucked big time, but the background was great.

The local game store's owner publishes ConX. I look forward to telling him he's officially "obscure" these days. :)

The Mechanoid Trilogy – Palladium Press
Loved The Morrow Project…never got to play it as much as I wanted.

oop forgot En Garde a musketeeer rpg from GDW

Second Fading Suns. What a great setting. It's getting a 3rd edition sometime soon…

Damon.

milleniums ends from chamaleon electric…maybe i am wrong, but they used the system for the first oficial babylon five rpg, didnīt they?
I agree that the system was a hell for automatic weapons, but i liked it for martial arts combat. It was very different of other systems

Played – and ran – 'Mechanoids' a couple of times.

That was one thin setting.
You're part of an isolated colony… on a largely barren planet… some killer mechanoids land.

And you fight.

And that's pretty much it.

The scenarios added some wrinkles, like human-looking infiltrator mechs, and ancient alien artifacts, but it still wasn't much to base a campaign on.

I still have Hunter Planet, and supplements, autographed by the author even. (He was at the L.A. origins in 86 or 89.)
Still have En-Garde too.
Another one would be Crimson Cutlass by Doug(?)Rahm(?)
A pirate RPG that used 8 sided dice.

Legends of the Ancient World
Legends of Space and Time
Legends of the Old West

I'm not sure they are that obscure…
darkcitygames.com

Adventures are 12.95…

They are re-imaginings… if that is a word… of the old Melee/Wizard…

All are excellent.

Joe Collins

Fading Suns was cool, as was 2300AD.

But my favourite has to be Lace & Steel.

Fantasy 17th century setting, awesome.

Yeah, Nexus was cool, though I never got to play it. Newest for me is Wilderness of Mirrors, a Bond style spy game that gets progressively more difficult as each segment of time passes! Great fun.
M

Golden Heroes – the original edition, not the GW makeover which completely ruined what was the best superhero game I've ever played.

I'm glad someone mentioned Tales from the Floating Vagabond.

No one has mentioned the Ghostbusters RPG yet. Great system and hilarious.

Droids

link

Chris

I met the designers of Synnibar at Gen Con the year they released it. I was there helping to promote another obscure RPG, Adventure Maximum, authored by fellow Okie, Dennis McDonald. Adventure Maximum, or AdMax, as its die-hard fans call it, is a pretty slick game built around a single opposed values table. It was designed to play every bad action/revenge/kung fu movie you've ever seen or Mac Bolan book you've ever read and it actually did a pretty swell job of it.

FATE, a FUDGE based RPG is pretty excellent and its "Spirit of the Century" pulp edition is very cool.

I cut my teeth on Metamorphosis Alpha and still have my battered first edition copy. I've still got En Garde, too.

I'll also second Lace & Steel.

We had a lot of fun with Villains & Vigilantes, too.

Morrow Project, Aftermath!, Ring World, Yaquinto's(?) Pirates, we played everything that came down the pike.

Ghost Busters was a ball as was Floating Vagabond.

I LOVED Castle Falkenstein, too.

- Shawn.

Tales of the Floating Vagabond gets another vote!

Witch Hunter : The Invisible World -- It has become our weekly game! link

Blue Planet link

It Came From The Late, Late, Late Show link

Asylum rpggeek.com/rpgitem/45840/asylum This one was messed up!

Dark Continent link

Eclipse Phase link

Cold City link

Just to name a few…

Bushido is a Samurai role-playing game set in Feudal Japan.

Came out in the late 70's

Loved the sound of 'Blue Planet', but nobody I knew was remotely interested at the time…

'Asylum' and 'Cold City' are new to be, but I like the sound of them.

Bushido – was that Lee Gold's samurai RPG, or was that something else ?

Never got to play it, but "Lost Souls" always looked like fun.

You start off by dying….

Skyrealms of Jorune. Amazing world, crappy system (and my boxed set came with a completely different game system in a rules pamphlet – which in turn was completely different from the rules pamphlet in my friend's boxed set…)

Blue Planet. World-building at its best – consistent, realistic and detailed. Although why it was a game is beyond me – I'm sure the author could have got a fantastic series of hard-SF novels out of it.

Ghostbusters. First edition changed the way I thought about what RPGs could be, and what they were capable of. Second edition was Just Another Game.

Someone's bringing 2300AD back this year – based on the Mongoose Traveller rules. I'm REALLY looking forward to this one.

Shattered Dreams.
Hidden Invasion.

Still out there, not sure who made them…

I'll give a shout out to the only Palladium game I actually look back fondly on, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness. And by extension, After the Bomb. Palladium's system still sucks, but Erick Wujick (dice gods rest his soul) came up with a neat mechanic for mutating animals with the Bio-E system. I spent a lot of time as a social outcast teenager mutating animals and drawing them.

The local game store's owner publishes ConX. I look forward to telling him he's officially "obscure" these days. :)

Then tell him to hurry up and publish some more stuff for it!

milleniums ends from chamaleon electric…maybe i am wrong, but they used the system for the first oficial babylon five rpg, didnīt they?

A simplified version of the hit location and trauma rules – the skills and task resolution were very different – and autofire changed from 30 round bursts to 3 or 4 round bursts. Ironically you could roll a hit and then have random hit location roll move it away from the hit point to a miss. Cries of "But I HIT him!" were not uncommon.

One I forgot, and I own it but never played it, is Hol by Black Dog Games. A handwritten RPG about humans living in an intergalactic garbage dump (Hol = Human Occupied Landfill) that is deeply, deeply, deeply weird. It has a used nappy swamp.

G.

I love HoL. Nearly unplayable, but hilarious.

TWERPS? No I am not calling you names!

The Worlds Easiest Role Play System. Still available for $4. USD

link

It is a one stat beer and pretzels role play game. Lots of supplements. If you are a "completist", this one could set you back a few dollars!

"I cut my teeth on Metamorphosis Alpha and still have my battered first edition copy"

One up y'all…still have my original copy, in very good condition, bought with paper route money, my first game that was funded by my hip city national bank, signed by James Ward with a little robot drawing that he doodled along with the John Hancock :)

Cold City
Hot War
Lacuna
Escape from Tentacle City
Dead of Night