"What RPG set is best for "create as you go" campaigning?" Topic

Inspired by this quote:

We may start a campaign shortly (The Traveller Adventure), but for the last 42 sessions have just enjoyed the vast amount of possibilities in the Spinward Marches.

(From this thread: TMP link )

Here's the scenario: Your gaming group wants to do some role-playing, but nobody has any campaign, adventures or scenarios prepped. "Never mind," you think, "We can wing it with a randomly created adventure!"

What RPG system would be your "goto" game for this situation (regardless of genre)?

Traveller (LBB editions)
D&D (Classic versions)
AD&D 1st Ed
AD&D 2nd Ed
D&D 3rd Ed/3.5
D&D 4e
D&D 5e
Pathfinder
Marvel Super Heroes
DC Heroes

Please, suggest your own below!

Two Hour Wargames fantasy or scifi RPG lite games have very good adventure/mission generator and campaign rules; or use a setting like Harn with tons of background info, maps and well developed settings you can roam through.

Savage Worlds.

Gamma World!
QILS Shadows of Koshmar
Hol
AD&D 1st Ed

I am not very familiar with RPGs: which one would be most suitable to historical or semi-historical campaigns?

Chaisiums Basic RPG ( stripped down C OF C, Runequest) You can bolt on anything you need without 100's of supplements.

Swords & Wizardry White Box for fantasy

Classic Traveller for sci-fi

Any of them. You don't need an elaborate campaign to enjoy an rpg. It's up to the game master and how creative he/she is. When I started playing AD&D as a kid with my brother, and dad as DM, we made it up as we went along.

GURPS seems to be the obvious one, but +1 for Savage Worlds (which also makes a not too bad skirmish system) and Chaosium BRP.

Traveller has always had a lot of solo play value for me, as designing ships, planets and sectors has always been an activity I have enjoyed.

Apocalypse World (and related powered by the apocalypse games). The links between characters can inspire a lot of ideas.

Any of the Fate games that has setting creation as part of the game (Dresden Files, Diaspora).

AD&D 1e has a random dungeon maker in the back of the DM Guide. It was horrible and stupid. I tried using it once.

I disliked random dungeons because they felt random and pointless. So, 40 years ago, often I would just pull an adventure out of a Dragon or White Dwarf magazine and go to it with little prep. Halls of Tizune Thane anyone? Dang that was a fun scenario! I was a young man then. I DMed a group once a week for a decade, all through my 20s. Great times. Great times.

Today, I would download something free from a reputable place. Paizo and Fantasy Flight Games are good for that.

I haven't run a game in nearly 20 years (I did a WotC Star Wars game once with my son when he was little) but I've kept buying RPGs all along. I imagine running them in my mind as I read the adventures and even draw up characters. My own personal novels. Is that weird, especially for someone who is almost 60? (I can't believe I'm actually having to say I'm that old!)

Many good points above regarding a good group and creative GM but I' d vote for Savage Worlds cause its universal and its easy to generate new mobsters/villains which just a few stats and skills to personalize them.

Melee as part of the fantasy trip

I am not very familiar with RPGs: which one would be most suitable to historical or semi-historical campaigns?

Depends on the period, but really, any of them.

D&D was created by adding magic to the Chainmail wargame rules (and a lot after that, too…). Basically, all fantasy and scifi RPGs contain "mundane" elements and "fantastic" ones. Find one where the "mundane" elements cover the forces and arms for the historical period and leave out the "fantastic" elements.

Pretty much any fantasy RPG would cover pre-gunpowder and and modern or scifi one post-gunpowder. That kind of leaves a seam for the 19th Century as you transition from the extreme late end of one to the extreme early end of the other. Fortunately, there are VSF RPGs!

Also, GURPS has a lot of historical settings.

GURPS seems to be the obvious one

I love GURPS, but I think it would be hard to do in a random fashion without planning and prepped material. That could be the way I play, though, and not an inherent property of GURPS.

Traveller. Followed by Traveller, Traveller and AD&D 1st Edition.