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Author Topic: Forgotten RPGs  (Read 30125 times)

Thornhammer

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #105 on: November 14, 2020, 11:47:23 PM »
Millennium's End?  Yeah, that probably counts.  Last time it was heard from was what, 1998?

SLA Industries, probably not since they did a Kickstarter relatively recently and tried a miniatures game. Damn I love that setting.

Omega

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #106 on: November 15, 2020, 05:34:30 PM »
I remember Enforcers and Heroes & Fortune but never had a chance to pick either up.

Another one comes to mind that seems mostly forgotten even by fans of the main series. The Fighting Fantasy RPG. I had this long ago but lost it along with most of my FF books. Been slowly rebuilding but that is one have not had a chance to replace. It felt a bit needlessly complex for what had been a pretty elegant system that was fairly versatile in its simplicity.


dungeon crawler

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #107 on: November 15, 2020, 06:50:35 PM »
FTL:2448 from Tri Tac games
Another one is Villains&Vigilantes from Fantasy Games Unlimited.
Aftermath from Fantasy Games Unlimited.
These were popular in my neck of the woods back in the early to mid 80's.

brettmb

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #108 on: November 27, 2020, 05:38:23 PM »
Part 8 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2846

Spike

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #109 on: November 27, 2020, 07:57:04 PM »
I forgot to include Wasteworld in my last post... is that in there?
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GeekEclectic

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #110 on: November 27, 2020, 08:21:54 PM »
NeverWorld

The core mechanic was fine. d100 + skill - a value reflecting the difficulty of the task, with the final result determining whether you succeed as well as level of success(A - H). But beyond that, things got super wonky.

There was already a mechanic in place to make tasks more difficult, but for some reason they'd sometimes require a certain level of success instead of just using this rather smooth mechanic they already had established.

There was a way to calculate your character's psychic potential, but then I could never find any rules on how to actually acquire and develop psychic powers. None. A big list of powers you could potentially use . . . if they'd bothered to include the rules to do so.

The Hourani and Neuonian sourcebooks were a mess of contradictory information. Neuonians were the humans of the city-states of Neuon, and Hourani were basically the werewolf people who also resided mostly in Neuon. Hourani were supposed to be rare to the point of being near-mythical, but then they were the majority population of at least one city-state and a sizable population of all the rest. Nowhere near rare enough for that to be even remotely believable. Then we're supposed to believe that almost all of the Hourani were male, with female Hourani being extra doubly mythical . . . so that's a lot of Neuonian women magically ignorant of the true nature of their husbands and male offspring.

There was a solid core, and I actually met one of the authors at Dragon Con back in the mid-90s and she bubbled over with enthusiasm. But upon actually getting and reading the books, there was just a ton of fantasy heartbreaker and missing pieces and SMH moments that an editor really should have caught.
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brettmb

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #111 on: December 10, 2020, 03:30:16 PM »
Part 9 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2847

Krugus

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #112 on: December 10, 2020, 06:35:04 PM »
FASA's Earthdawn was one of my favorite RPG's at the time.   Fantasy game with Horrors :)   Loved it.   I ran two linked campaigns one was in Earthdawn and depending on what happened there it would alter events in my Shadowrun setting since they were on the same world just 1000's of years apart :)
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brettmb

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #113 on: December 10, 2020, 07:56:22 PM »
Never really go into Earthdawn, although the FU version is not bad. I didn't like the original system. Doesn't really qualify as forgotten though.

JeffB

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #114 on: December 10, 2020, 08:28:19 PM »
Haven't read the whole thread so excuse any duplicates

Some I had way back when that never really took off

High Fantasy
KABAL
M.I.S.S.I.O.N.
Thieves Guild (Gamelords)
Lands of Adventure
Swords & Glory
MERC
Daredevils
Espionage!
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Simon W

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #115 on: December 11, 2020, 04:03:15 AM »
I've got a signed copy of Zero direct from Lester Smith himself. I must be one of the few who liked it then. I've still not run it though however many times I've intended to do so. I note there was a module for it. I'll have to see if I can find that anywhere.

Eric Diaz

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #116 on: December 11, 2020, 09:18:29 AM »
6. Zero (by Lester Smith and Steve Stone; published by Archangel Entertainment in 1997)

The characters are rebels who have been expelled from a telepathic hive. Think of it as waking up in the Matrix movie. Each character is part of a caste (or was): archivist, breeder, drone, soldier, or tech. Abilities are like skills, but separated into focus abilities (expert), prior abilities (rusty), and unfamiliar abilities (unskilled). The total number of focus abilities is the focus rating.


Interesting stuff... Matrix came out in 1999, like 13th floor; Dark city is from 1998.

Apparently, a common theme at the time. Curiously, the whole thing faded out... even as we get closer and closer to achieving instruments that might allow us to experience a simulation (and progressively stranger times, like 2020...).
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Greentongue

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #117 on: December 12, 2020, 09:19:09 AM »
Didn't see Rocketship Empires 1936 mentioned.
I guess it is more of a setting than an actual gaming system still, was an interesting take on a sci-fi setting and had multiple products for it.

Simon W

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #118 on: December 14, 2020, 05:07:52 AM »
I remember buying what seemed to be a self-published rpg called "Disc-Continuity". I think I bought it at a gaming convention. It was kind of styled on Discworld as far as I remember, maybe with Monty Python thrown in for good measure. It was notable for the miss-spelling of the name on the front cover ("Disc-Continity") but I guess because the cover artist had hand-drawn the lettering they decided to let it go. Never played it, don't remember much about the system but I think there were one or two interesting setting elements.

Omega

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Re: Forgotten RPGs
« Reply #119 on: January 02, 2021, 08:30:11 PM »
FTL:2448 from Tri Tac games
Another one is Villains&Vigilantes from Fantasy Games Unlimited.
Aftermath from Fantasy Games Unlimited.
These were popular in my neck of the woods back in the early to mid 80's.

Think I have FTL somewhere, or had it.

As for V&V. This is far from forgotten. Its just been in limbo due to Fantasy Flight stonewalling the designers for a long long time. I was just going through some old stuff and its pretty good overall, if a bit spartan sometimes. Which for me is a bonus usually. It gets talked about as a viable alternative to other superhero RPGs and I know several who prefer it over MSH or Hero/Champions.

What does though seem to have been forgotten is the old DC Heroes RPG. This got alot of acclaim for a bit, and then poof, silence.

As for the list itself. I remember way back when Twilight Imperium was in development as I knew the FF folk back when they were more comic book distributors than game makers.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2021, 08:34:38 PM by Omega »