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

En Garde is still available. engarde.co.uk/index.html It's a favorite of mine.

Obscurity is relative, and in the eye (and age) of the beholder. I come up with games I played the heck out of in college that my current group has never heard of. For them, Feng Shui and Twilight 2000 qualify as obscure, as do mainstays of my younger days such as d6 Star Wars.

For me, Droids is obscure (though I may have a copy floating around somewhere), ANY edition of Golden Heroes is obscure, Superhero 2044 is obscure, Realm of the Yolmi is obscure. Even some slick productions such as the original version of Universe, and Chaosium's Ringworld now qualify.

Then there are those I'm aware of that never quite made it to real publication. The Midkemia RPG, A.I., and Blackwatch.

Space Opera by FGU.

Some good ones for kids…
Cat link
Tales From The Wood link
Faery's Tale link

Hexenhammer's TMNT post reminded me of FGU's "Justifiers".

Bizarre, forgotten sci-fi in which the PCs were human/animal hybrids, created by unscrupulous corporations. Because you didn't have full human rights and were the property of the corporation, they could use you for hazardous missions, mainly space exploration IIRC.

It all seems a bit, erm… 'furry' now…

Norman D Landings, EXPENDABLES, possibly?There was a series of books in the 60's or 70's along the same theme, but without the furry aspect.

G.

They were indeed expendable… but undeniably furry!

link

Bushido – only RPG I play besides Traveller. Not a bad game, but could be tweaked a bit in places.

I'll 2nd Top Gun Ace with FGU's Space Opera, we played in a great sci-fi campaign link

Northern Crown was an enjoyable alternative 3ed DnD style RPG that we played until fairly recently.

Seven Seas, enjoyable, but it was so long ago that I can't really recollect what happened, but it was fun.

Odyssey (I think that was what it was called), a rpg set in heroic age Greece.

It all seems a bit, erm… 'furry' now…

No kidding. I had no idea what a "furry" was until…I dunno…the internet. I was horrified. And now that I've been to conventions and seen grown men walking around with fox ears on their heads and tails hanging out their pants…

*shudder*

i always liked arduin grimoire a old d&d add on

En Garde -- fabulous role playing game -- not entirely forgotten -- they still play it on line.

mjc

West End Games' "The Price of Freedom – roleplaying in Occupied America".

It was 'Invasion USA' & 'Red Dawn'… the RPG.

Decent game mechanics – very much a tabletop skirmish game when it came to combat, with hex-based movement, and a straightforward D20 roll for everything else.

What absolutely rocked about this game was how seriously it took itself… it established a mood of danger and urgency, and maintained it perfectly.
If PoF could speak, it would have the voice of Lloyd Bridges in 'Airplane'.

Crowning Moment of Awesomeness for our group was seizing control of a Soviet 'Zeus' anti-aircraft vehicle at a Socialist rally organized by the Occupying forces, and using it to hose down the bandstand crammed with 1980's D-list celebrity collaborators.

old d&d/arduin grimoire with the judges guild city state package

Rogue Trader with LBB Traveller for roleplaying

Empire of the Petal Throne

Talislanta

Qin: the Warring States. It's a french import, translated by Cubicle 7. You can buy it from Paizo, so it's not really small-press, but it's pretty obscure.

I really like the simple mechanics, but it is firmly set in the Far East (China or Japan, maybe Korea). The yin-yang stuff is throughout the rules.

I was fond of the Gammarauders RPG as published in the back of the comic book series. It was written by Zeb Cook, IIRC.

Other than that, pretty much any RPG by Richard Tucholka:

waynesbooks.com/tritac.html

(the list is missing a bunch of stuff, but it's better than the Wikipedia page)

Vincent Baker's Dogs In The Vineyard. Really like the western setting based on the Mormon state of Deseret and the themes of faith and morality.

I picked Ghostbusters 1st ed in the last poll so I'll go with all the TriTac games, Stalking the Night Fantastic, And Fringeworthy most of all.

My group also played Chill for years, it was sort of a Hammer horror rpg.

Dogs In The Vineyard

I was thinking of older stuff before, but would add my vote for Dogs. Great little game. Buy it on pdf.

Empire of the Petal Throne has my vote for being the greatest RPG that most folks just couldn't get into because it was so rich in detail but so alien to the average Joe. Truly well worth at least a read by starting with the novels.

I also enjoyed SPI's "Universe" which I still have but only played one or two times.

Translight, a very small web/bbs only release nearly 17 years ago. Bastard child of Traveller and the Hero System…

Oh, yeah… Blue planet was a cool setting, but character creation was a pain that I just couldn't wrap my brain around.

I have been know to unleash Poseidon onto some of my players when they get a bit uppity in their powergaming, though. Nothing like running into a Greater White to put the players back in their place (ie, not at the top of the food chain!).

Wow. I thought I was the only person with a copy of Droids.

Other obscure RPGS….

Zero, AKA Borg:The RPG.

Other Suns. This was an FGU game, but it used Chaosiums' BRP engine. Lots of furry stuff (lion men, bear men, chipmunk men…)

Albedo. Based on the SF 'furry' comic of the same name.

ElfQuest. Chaosiums' RPG based on the Pini's comic of the same name. Was an awesome chick magnet.

RingWorld. Another Chaosium title, based on Niven's Ringworld novels (and the only place you can find official game stats for kzinti…..)

Mekton/Mekton Zeta. One of R.Talsorians first games, was years ahead of the anime craze. While an RPG, is also good as a straight-up tactical Big Stompy Robot Game. Great mecha design rules. Also, Teenagers From Outer Space, another anime RPG before anime got big.

James Bond 007, by Victory Games (IIRC). Was great fun, used the game engine from the old Universe SPI game (I think…) and had lots of cool stuff if you were a Bond fan. I still consider it the best 'superspy' RPG ever made.

Not sure I'd call Mekton obscure, but then I used to bump into R.Talsorian at local conventions.

Mekton is certainly less well-known than cyberpunk, though.

Ohhh…

Also:
Operation: Fallen Reich fallen.se

Hunter planet was cool.
Space Opera was also good.

Don't own any copies of them nowadays though. They were lost in the great house-move purges of 1995 and 2006.

I bought a copy of "Battlelords of the 23rd Century" at GenCon back in the early 1990's. Great art and some interesting concepts as I recall… never played it.

The question was what is the most obscure game.

Tibet – The Role Playing Game is the most obscure one I've ever seen. I have it of course. Set in the 1950's in Tibet, you get to play one of several varieties of monks. Actually looks interesting (but then I'm a bit strange.)

Not sure if it counts as obscure, but a big big fan of Heroquest (by Stafford and Robin Laws) and Burning Wheel (by Luke Crane).

Don't get to play either a lot though, and Burning Wheel in particular really requires the players to get out of their comfort zone and get stuck in.

"James Bond 007" was indeed a superb game. And it's adventures set the gold standard in production values. But, if we're talking obscure and great, I have to point the finger at Paul Kidd's game of swashbuckling fantasy, "Land and Steel". Great setting, simple, but playable rules and some fantastic concepts (personal investment – if you state a devotion to (for instance) your younger sister that actually translated into a dice modifier for your rolls that affect her fate). To cap it all, the combat system is a dream. As a former competitive fencer it's the only rpg I've played that actually mimics rapier or sabre combat. You skill level dictates how large a hand or combat manoeuvre cards you hold and play proceeds back and forth as you try to land attacks, parry, dodge, disarm and even lock hilts (with obligatory witty banter). Just brilliant. And Donna Barr's art is inseparable from the game in my mind.

En Garde, Void Trek 3007 AD.

Paul Kidd's game of swashbuckling fantasy, "Land and Steel"

Lace and Steel, maybe?

James Bond 007 is only obscure *now*. In its day it was a front-runner for the genre. "Genre" in this case being Modern, not simply "Spy".

Sorry, I'm not sure HOW I got that wrong. I own three copies of the game! My girlfriend says I must have been tired, so I'll go with that excuse. It's still a fantastic game, anyway. And I agree entirely with Farstar's summary of the Bond rgp; I wouldn't be inclined to call it obscure either.

Runeslayers : I found as a free download RPG – a reviewer said as a spawn from the Runequest family cancelled when Avalon Hill folded its a game one should not mention in private company,

However there is alot I love about this game, its a very polished 200 page PDF with some bizzare quirks and very "unstable" factions, however there is some magic to its style and flavor…

Its right there with Steel Hero's – another good game that lost itself with to much detail,

They are both like super sweet sports cars that some meglomaniac went overboard adding way too many options n chrome and ruined an otherwise great underlyig system

Manhunter, horrid cover from a sales viewpoint. Brush & ink drawings inside were worth the price of admission. The premis was hunt galactic criminals.

Mugwump

Another vote for HoL (Human-occupied Landfill) – any game that offers up a 'Barrel-of-Monkeys Grenade' gets my interest. Interesting combined Damage-and-Angst format too – you can take minimal damage but the pain is sooooo bad!

Another of my obscure favourites for quicky RPG sessions 'Puppetland':
link

And 'Adventures of Baron Munchausen': link

Fantasy Wargaming – Barely playable but it did the trick until I saved up enough to start buying AD&D books. (Mom refused to "waste money" on anything but the first Basic Set – but she had no problem paying my SciFi Book club bill which is where I got FW) Fair amount of detail and ideas packed into a little book. I still reference the bestiary from time to time for my old school games.

link

We were playing Chivalry and Sorcery in the late seventies and at some point along in there got pretty heavy into Traveler – which are not obscure – but leads to the very obscure "Knights of the Round Table" by Phil Edgren, published in 1976. It was a little booklet with a red cover, stapled together along the spine. I recently saw an original copy go for nearly $200.00 USD on Ebay. It probably cost no more than five or six dollars back in '76, maybe less. The lead in from C&C and Traveler is the fact that we often played "Knights" when we felt like playing something a little less "heavy." The rules are simple and elegant, the combat fast and fun, and the setting is true to the somewhat mystical magical Arthurian milieu a la Malory. The one to one combat system (including jousts) is based on a set of cards and die roles. You choose the card that represented the attack or move you wish to use, cross reference it with your opponents card, and it gives you the die modifiers right there – no need to refer back to charts or DM's shields. I now play it with my six and ten year old sons.

Toon

Well not good, but I never saw anybody actual play Toon. One of those things that sound good for the five minutes it takes to buy it and then you wish you had your six buck back.

Mutant Chronicles the roleplaying game: Great fun at the time, but I have no idea what happened to my copy of the game.
Crimson Cutlass: The system sort of plays itself and I found that using Tarot cards in an RPG is a hoot. I'm extremely protective of this game.
Lace and Steel: Terrific dueling system with rules and special decks for duels with steel, words, and magic.
Amber Diceless roleplaying and the Shadow Knight addition: I took a lot of flack at times for really liking this product and it can be a real bear to GM, but oh so fun when it clicks and people get it.
Agone: I have it, it looks really great, but I've never played it.
Aria Role Playing and Worlds books: Looked like it should be cool with such extensive world building rules, but I only ever ended up using it to come up with settings for other game systems.

Castle Falkenstein: Victorian fantasy/SF, uses playing cards instead of dice

Star Frontiers: Old SF game produced by TSR

Big Eyes, Small Mouth: Anime-style rpg

Riddle of Steel was a crunchy Rpg with a solid physics and skill based combat system that usually lead to " oh…. This is going to suck" moments. Great combat system who first words of advice were avoid combat and don't get hit. The sorcery rules were really cool but could lead to some of the most bizarre effects I've ever witnessed in an RPG.
Another shout out to Fading Suns and BESM, two of my all time favorite small press RPGs, as a side note BESM did not have to be amime style play. I ran a really memorable game based on BladeRunner, using that system.
Wish I could remember the name, possibly "zero" where you played some kind of transhuman who was part of a hive mind controlled sociaty, then Suddenly found yourself cut off from the system and treated as a threat. Anyone remember that one?

SPI's UNIVERSE, still have my copy lying around somewhere.

Expendables, a Sci-fi game by Stellar Games (ripped off Traveler something wicked)

Morrow Project – though I just ported the combat rules into my contemporary game setting and added a skills system.

Owned, but never played, High Colonies, which had some proper hard sci-fi potential, and Maelstrom – for which I would now recommend obtaining a copy of the Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England (I'd also recommend the medieval guide for anyone who fancies running an RPG with a historical medieval or low fantasy setting).

Metamorphosis: Alpha--I, too, got my copy autographed by Jim Ward at one of the Philadelphia Origins held at Widener College in the late 70's, I believe. He added "Go Wolfoids!" on mine.

My copy of Hunter Planet got munched in a move sometime in the 80s.

Empire of the Petal Throne, which is indeed so background rich that people study M.A.R. Barker's Tsolyani language to get further into it. Sort of like a Middle Earth from a much different basis (SciFi with elements of extradimensional beings and magic).

Space Marines, by Mark A. Ratner, printed (I think) in 1978, which eventually morphed into Space Opera. Suck on that, GW!

Mechanoid Invasion by Palladium, the third book is the best iteration of their system before it got all cluttered and unplayable. And yeah, Cthulhu isn't scary anymore once the alien invaders strip mine your star.

Wizard's Realm was a neat little all in one book frpg with a Disneyesque vibe and lots of runic messages in the margins. I miss games in the hundred page range.

Duel Arcane was more of a wizard duel mini game about shape shifting wizards.

It's a shame there's so many little games that are limited to foot notes in the marginalia.

I miss games in the hundred page range.

Totally agree. Lots of gems out there – some complete garbage as well! Generally being penniless in my youth systems with endless £20.00 GBP-30 hardback source books always put me off!

Not sure it was a favourite, but also played Leading Edge's Aliens RPG.

I have some fond memories of Exalted by WhiteWolf. It used the same basic mechanics as the rest of their systems but the setting was really odd and cool. Is AARs Magica which looked great and was fun to read but I could not quite find a single person who actually played it.

I've been rereading Legacy: War of Ages, written by Brandon Blackmoor. It's basically Highlander with the serial numbers filed off. Also set in a "Techno Gothic" world with high tech and vampires.