(get it... "roll" call... oh, forget it!)
What's the most obscure RPG you've played?
And no the World of Esaene doesn't count, b/c unless you're Chris, I know you're lying ;D
Me?
I've got a few oddities under my belt
Swordbearer (http://rpggeek.com/rpg/1199/swordbearer-1st-edition)
Barony (http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/46393/barony)
Rogue Swords of the Empire (http://rpggeek.com/rpgissue/58402/space-gamerfantasy-gamer-vol-2-issue-2)
Tekumel (http://rpggeek.com/rpg/567/empire-of-the-petal-throne)
Universe (http://rpggeek.com/rpg/810/universe-1st-2nd-editions)
Justifiers (http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/53666/justifiers)
Oh, and the World of Esaene (http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/79959/esaene)
Okay, I'm nowhere in the same league as you. I've only ever even heard of one of them (Barony), much less actually played any of them.
About the most obscure RPG I've played was Shadowrun (which ain't very obscure, I know).
Oh yeah, I also forgot the original Ysgarth (http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/109078/ysgarth-rule-system)!
Haven't heard of any of these. I must live a sheltered life.
Slasher Flick (http://spectrum-games.com/slasherflick.aspx)
Hollowpoint (http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint/)
I've got a few others, but they haven't been played yet.
http://www.waynesbooks.com/boothill.html
Played this quite a bit in middle school. Somehow along the way I tossed all this stuff and regret it to this day!
Tough call...how does one define obscure versus niche-interest?
mine would be:
Gamma World (TSR)
Metamorphis Alpha (TSR)
Bushido (FGU)
Skull and Crossbones (FGU)
Paranoia (can't remember publisher...or can I?)
Twilight 2000 (hardly obscure, but very niche...)
Quote from: Jack Nastyface on February 24, 2012, 03:44:06 PM
Tough call...how does one define obscure versus niche-interest?
mine would be:
Bushido (FGU)
Bushido. Excellent game. Had days of good fun with that one. Nearly bought it again recently. No-one to play with :(
Obscure: you couldn't find it in over 50% of the game stores you wandered through at the time it was published.
Yes it's hard to find things from FGU these days, but back in '84, any game store worth their salt carried them. Ditto most TSR products (Gamma World, Alternity, Boot Hill, Star Frontiers, etc)
But when you can track down RPGs from Heritage, or Raganarok, now you're talking obscure :P
Well, back in the day, there were only 4 game stores in Calgary AB three of them carried RPGs and wargames. I suppose my definition of obscure meant..."when I got to high school / university, how many other gamers knew or had played the games i had?"
I guess I've had the advantage of a LOT of traveling back in the 80s. From 1980-'89, I lived in Oklahoma, North Carolina, California, Virginia, 3 different places in Germany, and Oklahoma again. In between, we did a lot of traveling to visit a lot of friends and family, so I had many, many of opportunities to explore game stores outside my local ones. I've picked up games as far afield as Paris, Abilene, San Francisco, Memphis, London, Slidell LA, Charlotte, El Paso, Tucson, OKC, Pensacola, and others. And that's just the 80s.
So of all the obscure RPGs you've played, which one would you most like to see back in print?
Me? Rogue Swords of the Empire. Barony was very similar, but a little too complex. I liked Rogue Swords much better :)
Justifiers was a neat concept/game world, but I think the rules could've been a variation on Star Frontiers, with a bunch of worldbooks instead of a whole new game system.
I'd have to go with HarnWorld, (was obscure in the areas I was in) and not sure how much shelf space it got overall especially HarnMaster (the actual RPG system). I think Harn World got the bulk of visibility and I believe it was mainly mail order back then too. I do remember seeing numerous ads for it in Dragon magazine, gain mostly HarnWorld. It is still in print however.
Columbia Games does HarnWorld if I remember correctly.
yep, it's still out there, but I have no idea how well it sells or what it's distro is these days. I know a lot of people that picked up Harn products just b/c they enjoyed reading the background material.
These were all cool:
The Morrow Project
http://rpggeek.com/rpg/420/the-morrow-project
The Lords of Creation
http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/44593/lords-of-creation
Paranoia
http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/44031/paranoia
Judge Dredd
http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/45072/judge-dredd-the-role-playing-game
.
Quote from: eyebiter on March 05, 2012, 02:39:05 PM
Cyberpunk 2020
http://rpggeek.com/rpg/337/cyberpunk-2020
One of those games with mediocre system but excellent background materials. Recall we lifted the setting and used this with ICE Rolemaster SpaceMaster system.
I still have two boxes of Cyberpunk 2020 upstairs. You're right - the background material is excellent.
I remember Beyond the Supernatural. We had a lot of fun with that one, but overall preferred Chill and Call of Cthulhu.
Let's see.....some of the more obscure ones we played......
Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes (the original Wasteland CRPG used the game system from MSPE). Loved the cover art.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.funagain.com%2Fcover%2Fhuge%2F07721.jpg&hash=a73f10a35c09ea7b080691ea64003082ba3f519a)
Freedom Fighters from FGU (OK, we never actually got past character creation. It took 6+ hours per character. Madness.)
Privateers and Gentlemen from FGU (RPG based heavily on the Patrick O'Brian novels about the Brit Navy during the Napoleonic wars.)
Delta Force from Task Force Games (makers of Star Fleet Battles. Special Forces/Counter Terror RPG with tonnes of info on tactics, weapons, and surveillance toys)
Chill, the horror RPG. Great modules.
Privateers and Gentlemen was one of my favorite themes, but I had no-one to play with....I was the only one in my peer group who was reading the Hornblower novels. We did play some Skull and Crossbones, but it just wasn't the same.
There was another age-of-sail RPG recently released - In Harm's Way - where each player has three characters. Also looks interesting.
Amber based on works of Roger Zelazny.
It was a diceless RPG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Diceless_Roleplaying_Game
What do you do in a diceless RPG? I mean how does the GM do an all dice act of god damage attack on the jerk in the corner ruining the game?
Quote from: airboy on April 05, 2012, 12:55:28 PM
Amber based on works of Roger Zelazny.
It was a diceless RPG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Diceless_Roleplaying_Game
Nine Princes in Amber - been years since I read those - great books.
I've got you all beat. In the early 80's I played an obscure FRPG called High Fantasy. It came in two small hardcover books, one of which included a solo adventure that played like a which-way book. All I remember of the adventure was that there were elephant headed gods involved (I think).
Here's the main book on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0835928268/ref=nosim/waynesworldof-20
I remember seeing High Fantasy at a used store somewhere, and sadly lacked the $5 or so to pick it up. Never saw it again after that....
.
The Morrow Project was awesome, but the obscure game that I got the most mileage out of was The Mechanoid Invasion, a little 64-page booklet that retailed for $4.95 (follow-ons, Journey and Homeworld cost $5.95 and $8.95respectively, then it got repackaged as The Mechanoid Invasion that sold for $14.95.
You played colonists on a far-flung planet trying to stave off a massive alien invasion. It was created by Kevin Simbieda, who went on to produce Palladium Games (including The Palladium RPG) and had great flavor.
.
From the box art, I'm assuming Price of Freedom is the story of several brave members of various street gangs featured in The Warriors traveling through time to punch a hole through Lenin? ;)
Quote from: Arctic Blast on July 12, 2012, 01:51:41 AM
From the box art, I'm assuming Price of Freedom is the story of several brave members of various street gangs featured in The Warriors traveling through time to punch a hole through Lenin? ;)
And here I thought that it was Michael Dorn in a suit...
Quote from: bayonetbrant on February 29, 2012, 10:35:23 AM
Justifiers was a neat concept/game world, but I think the rules could've been a variation on Star Frontiers, with a bunch of worldbooks instead of a whole new game system.
the creator of Justifiers is apparently pretty active on FB in some of the RPG groups
one of the worst fantasy RPG books of all time
https://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Wargaming-Highest-Level-All/dp/0812828623/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506099899&sr=1-1&keywords=fantasy+wargaming
no idea how to actually play the game that was in there!
I actually had this one once upon a time
https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/54772/adventures-fantasy
I need to go thru my game boxes and see if I still have the books or not, of if it went in one of the purges during the college years.
I have a lot of off-the-wall RPG stuff tucked into the magazine-sized boxes where I keep my Dragon magazines. I gotta dig those out some time and see what's in there.
I was in Toy Traders last week and saw that they had a bunch of RPGs from the 80s on the shelf. Tonnes of Runequest stuff from AH and even a copy of Gygax's Cyborg Commando. I remember my friend bought that when it was first released. We played two sessions and all came to the conclusion that it was kind of crap.
Then I went out and bought Gygax's Dangerous Journeys because I also wanted to waste money.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on September 22, 2017, 12:27:16 PMeven a copy of Gygax's Cyborg Commando.
God that game was such crap
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on September 22, 2017, 12:27:16 PM
Then I went out and bought Gygax's Dangerous Journeys because I also wanted to waste money.
some of the setting info was OK, but a lot of the rulebook seemed to me to be "I'm going to make it different from D&D just b/c they pissed me off" and not for any game-related reason.
I thought the setting was a bit weak. Then again, we had been playing a lot of Warhammer at the time and that game was pretty great, setting-wise.
I think the one strength of the game was the depth and variety you got when it came to character creation and levelling.
I think what killed the game for me was that there was complexity where it wasn't needed (keeping track of NPCs was a nightmare as they all had to be designed like PCs and character creation in that game was quite involved), and not enough complexity where more would have been welcome (the combat system had a silly hit location system that consisted of only 4 zones non-vital to ultra-vital or somesuch). It also had a ridiculous number of acronyms crammed into the game and a lot of them were cutesy puns that made me want to punch kittens in the face. We played it for about 4-5 months but I found GMing it to be a chore and it kind of fizzled out. I also recall that the one big module that they did release for the game was set in Egypt and I've never been much of a fan of Egyptian mythology.
Saw Paranoia posted many times. I never could find the right group to play that game. Straight-laced D&Ders don't get the humor nor the approach.
Tales From The Floating Vagabond (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Floating_Vagabond) was a favorite of mine, much in the same vein as Paranoia. I was able to find a decent group for that but only got a couple of games in of it, unfortunately. I just noticed there's a kickstarter for a 2nd edition but that was back in 2013; no idea if it's a thing. Guess I'll do some checking.
My favorite, yet not exceedingly not well known, old rpg wasDream Park by R. Talsorian.
Taking the premise from the books, you could play nearly anything in nearly any genre due to the way they did powers/magic/etc. in the rules. The rules themselves were simple enough using d6s and nothing else (iirc). The character sheet could fit on an index card. Very fond memories of this one.
I have the:
Monster Hunters RPG
Gamma World
Traveller (including most of the Judges Guild Traveller stuff)
Amber Diceless
Paranoia (including most of the modules)
Trail of Cthulhu
Top Secret
A couple of obscure Turn of the Century setting Adventure games
Tekumel
Champions
Several other more obscure Super Hero games.
and lord knows what else.
They're re-releasing Empire of the Petal Throne in the next few months
^nice!
I'm not sure how obscure these are, but I have Chivalry & Sorcery, plus a huge number of D&D clones:
Adventure Fantasy Game (Very good, buy naow http://lostpages.storenvy.com/collections/220059-adventure-fantasy-game)
Dragons at Dawn
Full Metal Plate Mail
Tekumel (the old D&D version)
and like 60 more that are free PDFs on the interwebs.
I also have a whole lot of custom-made PDFs on medieval Europe and the ancient world that I pasted together from Ars Magica, Cthulhu Dark Ages and the Runequest/d100 medieval books.