OK, you've probably seen this sort of question before: which 5 RPGs would you bring with you on a desert island? Essentially, you'll have no internet, no outside communication, just a big bag of dice, plenty of pencils and scrap paper, all the character sheets you need, and an extremely captive group of friends.

For our purposes, we'll say an RPG selection here can consist of two or three "core" books. So if you picked Pathfinder, for example, you could bring the Core Rulebook and Bestiary. If you picked D&D 3.5, you could bring the PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual as one selection.

Bear in mind, though, this isn't about flavor of the week, or what's the current darling. These are the five RPGs you'll be playing from now until that coconut-fueled motorboat you're building gets you off that island, or a typhoon claims your party. So just list 5 games you're bringing with you...

Yes, I know you could "write your own" RPGs with the scrap paper and the like. Let's just take that as granted and move it off to the side for the purposes of this.

I'll let this thread go for about a week, and then count responses, to see what our overall Top 5 might look like as a site.

AD&D - Monster Manual, Dungeon Masters Guide, Players Handbook
Hero System V - just need the one book
d20 Star Wars main book (v2)
Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play v1
Call of Cthulhu 4th Edition

Five? That's rather generous...

AD&D 2nd Edition (I know, but that's "my" AD&D)
Savage Worlds
Skyrealms of Jorune
TORG
Space 1889

Warhammer Fantasy role-play (2nd ed)
Advanced Fighting Fantasy (any edition that gets me Blacksand)
Call of Cthulhu (3rd ed)
Pirates of the Spanish Main (Savage Worlds system)
Castle Falkenstien (assuming I can have 2 decks of cards to go with it)

1.) D&D Rules Cyclopedia
2.) Savage Worlds Deluxe
3.) Hellfrost Setting (Player's Guide, Gazetteer, Bestiary) - although this uses Savage Worlds, it has 3 core books of it's own, so it seemed it should count separate
4.) Feng Shui (Core Book plus Golden Comeback)
5.) Hellas (either 2nd Edition or Core Book plus Princes of the Universe)

Quote from: jadrax;586727Castle Falkenstien (assuming I can have 2 decks of cards to go with it)

Yep. Let's clarify to say if a game requires special cards or out-of-the-ordinary dice (DCC) to play, you can have the basics included, too.

1. B/X
2. AD&D
3. WFRP 1e
4. RIFTS
5. Twilight 2000



Assuming I couldn't bring my own

1) Classic Traveller
2) Mongoose Traveller
3) Pathfinder
4) d6 Star Wars, Revised and Expanded
5) Mekton Zeta

Pencils and paper only last so long...I assume most paper-heavy games would have to mutate over time into character sheets that could be scratched into sandbanks, or perhaps use a simple pre-determined system of runes scratched into pebbles.

In which case, I would go for games of smaller rules or easier to adapt to a desert island setting, and games without heavy pop culture overtones. Wouldn't you become really sick and resentful of some pop culture content, like Star Wars? What good is playing Star Wars if you can never see it again? Is that still valid for most people?

And what about the generations that follow you on the desert island - assuming you all don't die off, of young people that would continue the greatest tradition of your tribe, roleplaying? Would Star Wars really capture their imagination?

I'm twisting the question from "what would you bring" to "what would be appropriate for", I realise.

//Panjumanju

Cyberpunk 2020
Rifts
D&D 3.5
Star Wars 2e R&E
Hero System (the thinner brownish book, i don't remember what edition that was)

I was considering pulling CP2020 off the list, since if I have paper and dice I can pretty much write all the rules for it, but I'll leave it on for the exercise

OD&D
AD&D
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
Call of Cthulhu 30th French
Vampire the Masquerade 20th

That was easy.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;5867491. B/X
2. AD&D
3. WFRP 1e
4. RIFTS
5. Twilight 2000



Assuming I couldn't bring my own

Man I thought about T2k but I dunno, being trapped on a desert island in scarcity might not make it that much fun...!

AD&D
OD&D
Empire of the Petal Throne + Swords & Glory vol I
Runequest 2e + Griffin Mountain + Cults of Prax
Dragon Warriors 1e

Mongoose Runequest 2
AD&D 1st Edition (PHB, DMG, MM)
BASH Ultimate Edition
Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition
Call of Cthulhu

Heavy Gear - Heavy Gear 2nd Edition, Life on Terra Nova 2nd Edition, and Into the Badlands. Probably my favourite RPG, and one I'm always happy to go back to, as it's open to so many wildly different styles of campaign.

ICONS - ICONS, Villainomicon, and Team-Up (hopefully it's released before I get stranded!). A game that became my go-to supers system the first time I played it. Found out this game existed from a thread on this very site.

Bughunters - Bughunters, and Amazing Engine System Guide. Yes, that Amazing Engine game. The line may have been a dismal failure for TSR, but this small book provides enough material and ideas to keep me going for a loooong time.

Witch Hunter: the Invisible World - Witch Hunter, Enemies and Adversaries, and Blessed and the Damned. A somewhat clunky game that I still find charming. It fills the "Cthulhuesque" genre for me, although I'd go for the French version of Cthulhu 30th if my players could read French.

D&D 3.0 - PHB, DMG, MM. Struggled the longest with this one...my first choice would've been the Rule Cyclopedia, as it is probably the best single-volume version, but it lacks some of the variation I like. AD&D2E was also a contender, but only with a bunch of the Complete Player's Handbooks and some of the campaign setting material. I tend to actually use D&D3.5 (or occasionally Pathfinder) these days as it jives with setting and module material I've been using, but I ultimately prefer a lot of unaltered 3.0