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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: brettmb on September 22, 2020, 06:44:01 PM

Title: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 22, 2020, 06:44:01 PM
I've started a new series on my blog about forgotten RPGs. I kicked it off with 6 fantasy games that I bet most people never knew existed: Dawnfire, GateWar, Of Gods and Men, Quest of the Ancients, Shades of Heroes, and The Essential Fantasy Earth. I'll probably focus on sci-fi games for the next entry. Have you heard of these games? Have you ever played them? What did you think of them? Any favorites?




Here's the link: https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2828
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Steven Mitchell on September 22, 2020, 09:37:33 PM
I saw Quests of the Ancients in a used bookstore once and noticed it enough to remember the title.  That's the extent of my exposure to your list. :)
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: lordmalachdrim on September 22, 2020, 09:57:26 PM
Owned a copy of Dawnfire, never ran it, can't even remember anything about it beyond having a copy that I sold off years ago.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Joey2k on September 22, 2020, 10:06:31 PM
Pretty sure I used to have Shades of Heroes. In fact, I started a thread on it right here 14 years ago (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/shades-of-heroes-rpg/) asking if anyone had heard of it, but apparently no one had :D
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Thornhammer on September 22, 2020, 10:18:47 PM
Damn...printed on newsprint.  That rings a bell.  There was something else.


A DC Comics game, I think.



Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 22, 2020, 11:49:29 PM
Damn...printed on newsprint.  That rings a bell.  There was something else.


A DC Comics game, I think.
I think you’re right. West End Games’ DC Heroes.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 23, 2020, 10:07:30 AM
Pretty sure I used to have Shades of Heroes. In fact, I started a thread on it right here 14 years ago (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/shades-of-heroes-rpg/) asking if anyone had heard of it, but apparently no one had :D
It’s amazing how many games are really out there.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Marchand on September 23, 2020, 10:21:10 PM
Not sure if it counts as "forgotten" but I noticed Albedo is now available again on drivethru. I only know it vaguely by reputation as a weird mix of military hard scifi and furry.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: RandyB on September 23, 2020, 10:51:18 PM
Sci-fi: Legionnaire, by FASA, set in the same universe as their Renegade Legion board games.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Razor 007 on September 23, 2020, 11:15:10 PM
Forgotten, would be a great name for an RPG.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 23, 2020, 11:36:13 PM
Sci-fi: Legionnaire, by FASA, set in the same universe as their Renegade Legion board games.
I didn't know they did one.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on September 24, 2020, 05:31:52 AM
Dragonroar: a rather obscure RPG that had berserker hedgehog people in it.
(https://66.media.tumblr.com/f69f66883651fb4ac6ee9b97c157690c/tumblr_ov00i6JnD81u3vseto1_640.jpg)
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 24, 2020, 08:14:58 AM
I've been trying to get a copy of Dragonroar, but it's very hard.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Panzerkraken on September 24, 2020, 09:46:28 AM
Brett, you inspired me to poke through my collection for what I'd consider "forgotten."


I have Hahlmabrea, Ravenstar, Periphery, Spacetime, and Journeyman that I'd suggest for future posts on the blog. Brief summaries:


Hahlmabrea: By Daniel A. Fox (not Daniel D. Fox of Zweihander) is a pretty generic fantasy game published by Sutton Hoo Games in 1991. Percentile skills. No classes. Different spell lists for Mages, Sorcerers, Wizards, and Witches. Playable Centaurs and Two-Headed Ettins. The Dread Pigasus. I've never touched it, not even to mine ideas from. Just doesn't click with me.


Ravenstar: By A. Siddiqui is a space-based cyberpunk type game by Raven Star Game Design in 1994.  (I think I picked my copy up at GenCon '94). Uses a d20 for skills, but d6s for damage. Thinly veiled fantasy races as aliens, including Bear People. Lots of cybernetics. Lots of gear. This game appealed a lot to 18-year old me, and reminded me of CP2020 at the time. I haven't opened it in a while, but the production quality for 1994 small press seems pretty good. The art is a serious mashup of some pretty decent pieces and some of those mid-90's "I want to be a comic book artist when I grow up and learn to draw hands" characters, as well as some early "futuristic" 3d digital pieces. I don't regret having it.


Periphery: science fiction roleplaying on the edge. (sic) by Gareth-Michael Skarka and published in 1993 by Epitaph Studios. This was apparently (based on the dedication) his first work. "Gritty" sci fi that seems to include wizards and people in lots of cloaks. Percentile skills, but calculated from 1-10 stats and low skill number ratings multiplied by difficulty to determine the skill rating for that task. Wound-based damage system in combat. The art...across 3 pages you get early computer line-art (think MS Paint), a photo of an unpainted mini, and a scan of someone's hand-drawn art that looks like something out of early HoL or Battlelords. Lots of tables. Not much use, tbh.


Spacetime: 1988 by Greg Porter/BTRC. Greg Porter's Guns! Guns! Guns! gets a lot of love in the hard-numbers crowd, but this is the only version of the TimeLords rules I've ever seen in the wild. A time-travelling sci-fi game with BTRC's classic unified weapons and technology theories. Stats are 1-20. Skills the same range. There's a table for calculating modifiers, and you use a d20 for success rolls, but everything translates to nice percentages and he says "Use those if you like." Point-based character design, single interior artist (Thomas Darrell Midgette) that leads to a nice, clean and unified late-80's line-art scheme that's always appealed to me. BTRC's stuff is phenomenal to the people who like that sort of thing (engineers and mathematicians... think about Traveller Fire, Fusion, and Steel. If you're not having a PTSD-like reaction, you'll like this).


Journeyman: 1989 by Frederick Goff, Infinity Games. A Traveller/Space Opera clone Sci-Fi Heartbreaker with a different skill system. Much more succinct than either of the inspirations, but it has some wonky effects like die-based skill levels (as in "roll for your starting level in the skill") and hit-point based damage with a d10+skill task system. Quite a bit of effort went into his planet and alien generation systems, though, and I've had occasion to pull the results of those for translation to Traveller before. The art is.. small press. It's the same two guys throughout, and their styles are very similar,  but there's aspect ratio issues and a general graininess that puts me off it. The real gem is in the back of the book, where there's simplified formulas for just about everything sci-fi related. Need to know the orbital period of a given planet?  Right there (T= sqrt(15,750(R+(d/2)^3/d^2g)/3600 ...isn't that simple!) Equation to determine payments when financing? Also there! Theory on the Nature of Hyperspace, complete with Einstein and the author's own formulas? Boom. (essentially, his theory is "Take the complement of our universe" which means 1/x for all rules and formulas. I won't scare the normies with more math though...) So I both love and hate the book.


Anyway, my quick recommendations if you're wandering through your stacks thinking about what to pick next, Brett.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Armchair Gamer on September 24, 2020, 09:53:59 AM
This thread reminds me: Does anyone know anything about the Dreamtime game Iron Crown was advertising in Dragon in 1991? I'm quite sure it never saw the light of day, at least from ICE.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 24, 2020, 10:34:11 AM
Panzerkraken, I have all of them. I will discuss Hahlmabrea in a future entry, but Journeyman is coming up in the sci-fi post (probably next week). Thanks.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Marchand on September 24, 2020, 12:32:45 PM
Panzerkraken, I have all of them. I will discuss Hahlmabrea in a future entry, but Journeyman is coming up in the sci-fi post (probably next week). Thanks.


Steven Goff did a follow-up to Journeyman called Stellar Wind, with more of a d20-ish system. Has an amazing hard scifi ship construction and space combat system (heat management is a key element). Or is that not forgotten enough?!


I have a game on my hard drive called Core-7 by VisioNation Studios. Scanning it for the first time in years, it used a percentile system, seemed more geared to modern/future games (rules for firearms and vehicles), and is written in such a way that it's pretty clear the authors thought it was shit hot. Tagline: "the system is on_". Marketing spiel: "for those who want a medium between storygames and trad games", although it doesn't seem to have many storygame elements. There is discussion of diceless play (basically just allow the action if the GM-assigned difficulty is less than the PC's skill level). The GM is called a Visionary. I usually hate it when games introduce some new term for the GM and... I hate this.


Again not sure if this counts as forgotten, but there was the Hinterwelt output. As an inveterate collector of SF RPGs I picked up Nebuleon. Great setting (humans the underdogs in a space opera empire dominated by aliens), system kind of a mashup of rolemaster and d20 - certainly that part is forgettable.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 24, 2020, 12:39:47 PM
That's a little too new.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on September 24, 2020, 01:06:25 PM
I have Ravenstar. Setting seemed a little... odd. Reminds me in a way of how Anarchy Online's setting is presented. An anomolous planet where magic-like powers are possible and everyones trying to take advantage of that.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on September 24, 2020, 02:03:41 PM
I came across an advert for Dreamtime in issue 172. But it was just short of the most uninformative advert ever. Did mention a planned UK release so maybe it gets more mention in White Dwarf, but I am betting probably not as WD was phasing out reviews of other company stuff by then. But aside from that one advert in Dragon, seems it was never produced?

Issue 171 has a little advert for a game called RÜS from an Australian publisher by the same name about "role playing in heathen Russia" and set in the 900s. Unfortunately for a historical themed RPG it is sorely lacking in history.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Jaeger on September 24, 2020, 03:05:14 PM
I've always wanted to get my hands on a copy of  Cutthroat, The Shadow wars...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutthroat:_The_Shadow_Wars

The set up is very much in a thieves world vein. Lots of premise similarities to Blades in the dark.

Evidently it had a kind of proto d20 system. I read on another internet forum that WOTC went around and bought out a few games before 3e was released...

Disappeared - and I think highly unlikely to ever see the light of day again.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: VisionStorm on September 24, 2020, 08:14:13 PM
MetaScape

I believe I ordered this from a Dragon Magazine ad or something in the 90s. The company isn’t even around anymore and the guy still kept posting poorly edited updates in a website somewhere (not sure if still around). The game was basically a fantasy sci-fi game that ripped off Star Wars and a dozen space opera tropes. It had a race of cat people with psychic matriarchs, cyborg lizard people, male-only warrior-monk race that looked like Dark Sun Muls on steroids and a mysterious hooded robe-wearing race of magic users who no one had ever seen without their robes (all you could see was darkness if you tried to peek through their hoods), had laser swords and could command magic by harnessing the power of the Source (not to be confused with the Force...but basically the same thing).

I’m not sure if I still have the books somewhere cuz I lost a bunch of stuff to a termite infestation years ago, but the game came in a boxset with a couple of manuals (maybe three or four, can’t recall), a couple of miniatures and its own patented 16-sided dice (I lost to time). They system used some sort of esoteric math were you multiplied the result of the 16-die by another die roll (don’t remember which other dice it used) to determine a potentially infinite result (I believe the system also used some sort of exploting dice or something). It was sort of race/class/skill-based, were your race and your class determined your starting abilities as a sort of package deal, but you could take off from there in a more freeform progression approach.

Don’t really remember details about the setting, but it was basically a far future spacefaring society, predominantly human (or at least a more advanced version of humanity) with a hodgepodge of other allied races, settled around a space sector close to where they made contact with the robe-wearing race of magic users.

As I recall it, the whole thing (setting and system) was a combination of interesting and innovative, with tropey, weird and overly specialized.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 24, 2020, 09:54:25 PM
Very complicated if I remember correctly.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Lurkndog on September 25, 2020, 05:35:30 PM
I'm curious to see your list of sci fi games. Please keep us posted!
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brad on September 25, 2020, 08:26:05 PM
I gave Quests of the Ancients, bought it at Half Priced Books a couple years ago. A couple I have that aren't exactly obscure, but maybe not too well-known:

Darkurthe Legends
MEGA
Ysgarth
Bifrost

Most of my stuff is in boxes right now due to getting new carpeting, so I cannot verify, but there was one book I have that I also got at HPB that I've never heard of or seen before I bought it. Looks like possibly a one-off, self-published RPG. I'll need to dig it out sometime to see if anyone has ever heard of it. Spoiler: it's basically a mediocre D&D knock-off...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 25, 2020, 08:52:09 PM
While Ysgarth is too complicated, there is something about it. Darkurthe is pretty good. Pretty sure I have MEGA, but don’t remember it. I have heard of but have never seen Bifrost (very rare).
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Trond on September 26, 2020, 07:53:12 PM
Powers & Perils? Too mainstream?
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 26, 2020, 07:57:42 PM
Powers & Perils? Too mainstream?
I always want to like that, but it's so complex.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Trond on September 26, 2020, 08:55:48 PM
Powers & Perils? Too mainstream?
I always want to like that, but it's so complex.


The rpg.net review of the game is pretty hilarious. It always cracks me up that the women characters have lower INT according to the rules, and something about (unintentional?) homoerotic art. Sounds like a bit of a mess, don’t know if it’s a fun mess at the table though 😊
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Marchand on September 26, 2020, 10:01:49 PM
Never heard of Powers and Perils. This would appear to be the game's website: https://powersandperils.org/rules.htm#Skills . Seems quite extensive.





Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: shuddemell on September 27, 2020, 09:43:56 AM
Powers & Perils? Too mainstream?
I always want to like that, but it's so complex.


The rpg.net review of the game is pretty hilarious. It always cracks me up that the women characters have lower INT according to the rules, and something about (unintentional?) homoerotic art. Sounds like a bit of a mess, don’t know if it’s a fun mess at the table though 😊


I actually liked Powers & Perils as a system. Tower of the Dead wasn't a bad adventure to start with... Ysgarth on the other hand is a hot mess. Never could get anyone to even give it a try.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on September 27, 2020, 10:50:54 AM
Universe from SPI.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Ravenswing on September 28, 2020, 07:08:31 AM
Huh.  Ysgarth's the only game mentioned so far I ever owned -- pretty much because I was a contributor to Alarums & Excursions for a few years in the early 80s, and I was collecting ideas for my ever-more-variant homebrew.  That being said, other than homebrews, what's the most obscure forgotten game you ever played, other than homebrews?  As far as I can recall, being on a playtest of Lee Gold's Lands of Adventure was likely it. 
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Lurkndog on September 29, 2020, 10:07:41 AM
That being said, other than homebrews, what's the most obscure forgotten game you ever played, other than homebrews?
I did play Phoenix Command once in the 90's, with a GM from my HERO system group who was fixated on The Terminator. To his credit, he knew the byzantine system well enough to walk us through it in a reasonable amount of time.

Looking back on it now, I would describe it as "very tacticool." ;)
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Abraxus on September 29, 2020, 10:32:25 AM
Dangerous Journeys where Gary Gygax showed me at least he tried to learn nothing about modern gaming design of the time. While continuing his obsessions with CHARTS! and more CHARTS!.


I had bought a copy and just found it utter lacking in any innovation and sold it. Other than TSR suing to get GDW to cease production of the rpg I don't remember anything besides the overabundance of charts.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: rgalex on September 29, 2020, 10:40:34 AM
That being said, other than homebrews, what's the most obscure forgotten game you ever played, other than homebrews?  As far as I can recall, being on a playtest of Lee Gold's Lands of Adventure was likely it. 


I think that would probably be Empire of Dust.  I picked up the box set at GenCon back in... 2009 I think.  Only played it a handful of times but it was good fun.  IPR has the pdf (https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Empire-of-Dust-PDF.html), but I'm not sure how many physical copies ever got made.  I've never seen another one.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Bren on September 29, 2020, 11:03:33 AM
Huh.  Ysgarth's the only game mentioned so far I ever owned -- pretty much because I was a contributor to Alarums & Excursions for a few years in the early 80s, and I was collecting ideas for my ever-more-variant homebrew.  That being said, other than homebrews, what's the most obscure forgotten game you ever played, other than homebrews?  As far as I can recall, being on a playtest of Lee Gold's Lands of Adventure was likely it. 
Published? Beast, Men & Gods by Bill Underwood.

Unpublished? A play-test draft of Milton Bradley's Star Wars RPG from the early 1980s that preceded West End Game's D6 version by several years. It had a unique starfighter combat aid that determined and visually displayed effect based on your chosen maneuver vs. the opponent's chosen maneuver.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 29, 2020, 03:44:16 PM
Here's Part 2 in the series (https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2830)
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Lurkndog on September 30, 2020, 07:49:49 AM
Huh.  Ysgarth's the only game mentioned so far I ever owned -- pretty much because I was a contributor to Alarums & Excursions for a few years in the early 80s, and I was collecting ideas for my ever-more-variant homebrew.  That being said, other than homebrews, what's the most obscure forgotten game you ever played, other than homebrews?  As far as I can recall, being on a playtest of Lee Gold's Lands of Adventure was likely it. 
Published? Beast, Men & Gods by Bill Underwood.

Unpublished? A play-test draft of Milton Bradley's Star Wars RPG from the early 1980s that preceded West End Game's D6 version by several years. It had a unique starfighter combat aid that determined and visually displayed effect based on your chosen maneuver vs. the opponent's chosen maneuver.
Was it like Ace of Aces (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Aces_%28picture_book_game%29), where each player has a flip-book that shows the view out of the cockpit, and you go to a different page depending on which maneuver you choose?
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Lurkndog on September 30, 2020, 07:59:29 AM
Here's Part 2 in the series (https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2830)
Wow. I was expecting to encounter at least one game I had seen or bought on speculation, but I've barely even heard of any of these.
Was there such a thing as regional game distribution back in the day? I guess I'm just used to getting word of mouth via the internet.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: hedgehobbit on September 30, 2020, 09:13:28 AM
Here's one I found at a used book store


(https://i.imgur.com/WXseEaC.jpg)


It's a fairly standard D&D knock off from the time with a light hearted cartoony aesthetic. It was written and illustrated by Cheryl Duval back in 1981. Considering the date, this might be the first RPG written by a woman [or at least written by a woman who identified as a woman at the the time she wrote it because it's 2020 and I have to clarify such things]
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Ravenswing on September 30, 2020, 09:44:50 AM
It's a fairly standard D&D knock off from the time with a light hearted cartoony aesthetic. It was written and illustrated by Cheryl Duval back in 1981. Considering the date, this might be the first RPG written by a woman [or at least written by a woman who identified as a woman at the the time she wrote it because it's 2020 and I have to clarify such things]

It wouldn't be.  Lee Gold's Land of the Rising Sun (essentially, Sengoku-era Japan on C&S mechanics) was published the year before, and that was the earliest by JH Kim's list ...

Huh.  His list cites "Niels Erickson, C. Polite, W.G. Murphy" as the authors of Wizard's Realm.  Sounds like either Duval was "Polite," solely the artist, or someone's in error.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: hedgehobbit on September 30, 2020, 10:20:46 AM
Huh.  His list cites "Niels Erickson, C. Polite, W.G. Murphy" as the authors of Wizard's Realm.  Sounds like either Duval was "Polite," solely the artist, or someone's in error.
I'm not sure who JH Kim is but here's the credits from the first page:


Edited by Niels Erickson
Original concept by Cheryl Duval
Written by Cheryl Duval, Niels Erickson, Willian Murphy, and Clifford Polite.


Duval, Erickson and Polite are also listed under illustrators.

I see no reason to think that these credits are not accurate.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on September 30, 2020, 10:25:16 AM
I’ve actually tried contacting a few people involved in Wizards Realm to no avail. It’s pretty good for the era. Pretty sure there was mixed roles for writing and illustrating. Seems like Cheryl Duval was the lead on it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Null42 on September 30, 2020, 10:44:36 AM
From what I read Powers & Perils was still too stuck to wargame-style simulationism (makes sense since it came from Avalon Hill) and failed to compete with D&D 1e. Kind of like TSR blowing themselves up with Spellcraft trying to compete with Magic...


I rather enjoyed reading Synnibarr, oddly enough. The dude had a fertile imagination, even if it didn't work as a system.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Ravenswing on September 30, 2020, 11:56:52 AM
I'm not sure who JH Kim is

A guy well-versed in RPG history who put together, and maintained through 2015 anyway, an encyclopedic list of every RPG anyone had ever heard of.  Kinda surprised you haven't heard of him, seeing as he's currently active on this board and has something like 8000 posts.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Bren on September 30, 2020, 01:22:07 PM
Was it like Ace of Aces (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Aces_%28picture_book_game%29), where each player has a flip-book that shows the view out of the cockpit, and you go to a different page depending on which maneuver you choose?
Not the same, but a similar idea. Rather than a flip book, there was a cardboard cockpit device. It had a slide that depicted your maneuvers. You used the slide to select your maneuver, the device had cutouts that would then display the bonus or penalty for the various maneuvers your opponent might. So you lined up your maneuver on your device while the opponent did the same on his device. You both revealed your choices and rolls to hit were made using the appropriate bonus or penalty. It was fun for solo dog fighting, but have been a bit unwieldy for many ships and possibly less fun for the characters on a freighter who weren't picking the maneuver.

The cockpit device may have been inspired by Ace of Aces. I know the designer played aerial war games like Foxbat - Phantom before Ace of Aces was published. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he had seen Ace of Aces.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Bren on September 30, 2020, 01:26:06 PM
I'll echo others. I'm a bit surprised how many of these games I've never even heard of. I guess I did miss something not going to all those gaming conventions over the years.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2020, 02:35:39 PM
From what I read Powers & Perils was still too stuck to wargame-style simulationism (makes sense since it came from Avalon Hill) and failed to compete with D&D 1e. Kind of like TSR blowing themselves up with Spellcraft trying to compete with Magic...

In my teenage years, I didn't have a lot of funds to get games. I had to be very picky about what I ran.  A relative started loaning me games to try before I bought.  That's how I got to experience Runequest in all its glory, for example. Anyway, Powers and Perils was one of the loans.  I ran an adventure with it for friends.   Keep in mind this was a group that played multiple RPGs and a lot of Avalon Hill board games (Titan, Kingmaker, etc.). At the time, we thought P&P was just off somehow and not worth pursuing.  Maybe we didn't get it and I'd feel different now.  I can't remember it well enough to know why we didn't like it, but I remember quite clearly it was one of the few unanimous, "No way in hell are we playing that anymore" votes.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: hedgehobbit on September 30, 2020, 03:46:29 PM
Maybe we didn't get it and I'd feel different now.  I can't remember it well enough to know why we didn't like it, but I remember quite clearly it was one of the few unanimous, "No way in hell are we playing that anymore" votes.
My interest in Powers & Perils is because it was written by Richard Snider who was influential in early D&D. He was responsible for how dragons worked in AD&D, gaining fixed hit points per hit die, and for the dragon subdual rules (although they were originally rules that let the dragons subdue the PCs!). He also worked on Arneson's Adventures in Fantasy. I suspect that he was incredibly good at doing math in his head as both games have you comparing multiple numbers in order to generate a chance to hit.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Bren on September 30, 2020, 03:49:15 PM
Is Powers and Perils the game with the killer penguins?
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Bren on September 30, 2020, 03:52:14 PM

In my teenage years, I didn't have a lot of funds to get games. I had to be very picky about what I ran.  A relative started loaning me games to try before I bought.One of my best friends in my youth was a self-professed game collector. He used to like reading game rules. I have a fair number of RPGs, but he had many more.We teased him because he collected game after game for over ten years before he ever ran a session. I miss him.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brad on September 30, 2020, 05:47:29 PM
Here's Part 2 in the series (https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2830)
I have a lot of obscure games and have read Heroic Worlds cover-to-cover multiple times, but these are totally off-the-wall...learn something new every day!

RE: Powers and Perils, I own everything published for it, even had a POD printing of the new version made. Honestly, I love that game, even with its impenetrable rules. It's like the Mirror Universe version of Chivalry and Sorcery.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Hakdov on September 30, 2020, 11:28:30 PM
The most obscure rpg I still own is High Fantasy published in 1981.  The system is kind of weird but it has my favorite solo module of all time in the back.  I recently found out that the author (Jeffrey Dillow who is some kind of scientist) has recently started publishing his own fantasy novels on Amazon.  It's pretty cool that he is still writing after taking like 30 years off. 


https://www.amazon.com/Jeffrey-C-Dillow/e/B001KI4SEK/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: David Johansen on October 01, 2020, 12:11:22 AM
huh...I've owned and played Wizard's Realm, Powers And Perils, and High Fantasy.  I've even played the miniatures rules from Martin Hackett's Fantasy Wargaming (as opposed to Galloway's).  I've always felt Wizard's Realm was pretty neat with it's runic alphabet and coded messages in the margins.  It had some good ideas in there.  The town locations list is often funny (his wife is the real bare knuckles champion in town).  Really, a second edition could have been fantastic.  Powers and Perils wasn't as bad as people say it was but it didn't really bring much new to the table.  High Fantasy had some great ideas on downtime activities by character class.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Ravenswing on October 01, 2020, 05:22:41 AM
The most obscure rpg I still own is High Fantasy published in 1981.  The system is kind of weird but it has my favorite solo module of all time in the back.

Huh, I had a copy of that at one time: it was a Christmas present from one of my players.  The first (and for all I know the only) attempt by a major book publishing company -- I believe a subsidiary of Prentice-Hall -- to come out with an RPG.  I remember nothing about the rules, but it did come with an interesting scenario about an underground temple separated from the world for many years, with warring factions for the PCs to sort out.  Filed off the serial numbers and used the scenario.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brad on October 01, 2020, 10:45:16 AM
I, too, have a copy of High Fantasy, along with Adventures in High Fantasy, got them both for $5 at a model train store in Austin circa 2000. Same store also had all the GURPS Conan books, but I passed them up for some stupid reason.


No idea how obscure these are, but I was digging around and found Ninja Burger, Ork, Aria, and Reich Star. Gonna go through all those boxes soon...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on October 01, 2020, 09:38:09 PM
I was going to mention a seventh game in Part 2 of the Forgotten Games series, but the timing didn't work out. This has been a personal favorite of mine for some time. I did not get it back in the day, but found it on eBay several years ago. I have secured the rights to Worlds Beyond (1989), so there will be a classic reprint of it in the near future.

(https://www.pigames.net/worldsbeyond_p/wb_cover_l.jpg)

http://rpg.deals/wb
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on October 01, 2020, 09:39:56 PM
I like High Fantasy, but never played it. Not sure how the system holds up.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Mercurius on October 02, 2020, 12:50:05 PM
The game that came to mind when I read the title was Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth. It got some attention back in the early 90s - great idea and very high concept, but I'm not sure how playable it was. I think it had a bit of a cult following for awhile.

Wasn't Bushido kind of big in the 80s? That disappeared, afaik.

Jorune is well-remembered by setting enthusiasts, but also disappeared.

There are literally hundreds of games that game and went with no fanfare, from "fantasy heartbreakers" to countless indie and self-published games. I wouldn't call them forgotten, though, because that implies that they were ever known. Check, for instance, Noble Knight's fall clearance - lots of games there.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on October 03, 2020, 06:14:39 AM
Heres one got before my accident...

Thieves Island: A Riddle Rooms Adventure. Cloud City Games 1996. Its a self contained adventure with a basic system geared to solving puzzles. And its jam packed with all manner of puzzles and riddles.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Abraxus on October 03, 2020, 09:38:55 AM
Not so much forgotten so much as licensed and then horribly mismanaged By Margaret Weis Productions:  Firefly and Leverage.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Ravenswing on October 03, 2020, 12:02:58 PM
Hell, the Serenity RPG was botched from the start: it had savage omissions from the start (trading rules, space combat rules, character sheets, an INDEX ...), although they were also under heavy constraints not to use elements out of the TV series and from Universal itself.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Joey2k on October 04, 2020, 03:35:31 PM
Legend of Yore (https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Yore-Role-Playing-Game/dp/1887920005) is another one (although I don't know if you can call it "forgotten" since I don't think anyone ever knew about it to begin with).  I used to own it, I honestly didn't read the rules, but it did have what seemed like a decent setting attached to it (one part that impressed me was that trolls, goblins, and other humanoids had their own kingdoms/lands rather than just being monsters that roamed around the countryside, which seemed pretty novel at the time).

Same can be said of Battle Axe RPG (http://www.16cbh.net/Battleaxe/), another that I kept just for the setting and never actually paid much attention to the rules.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brad on October 05, 2020, 09:14:33 AM
Legend of Yore (https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Yore-Role-Playing-Game/dp/1887920005) is another one (although I don't know if you can call it "forgotten" since I don't think anyone ever knew about it to begin with).  I used to own it, I honestly didn't read the rules, but it did have what seemed like a decent setting attached to it (one part that impressed me was that trolls, goblins, and other humanoids had their own kingdoms/lands rather than just being monsters that roamed around the countryside, which seemed pretty novel at the time).

Same can be said of Battle Axe RPG (http://www.16cbh.net/Battleaxe/), another that I kept just for the setting and never actually paid much attention to the rules.

I have Legend of Yore; just another fantasy heartbreaker. Lots of good ideas, but as is typical with these sorts of games, someone published their own version of D&D.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Pat on October 05, 2020, 09:42:38 AM
Same can be said of Battle Axe RPG (http://www.16cbh.net/Battleaxe/), another that I kept just for the setting and never actually paid much attention to the rules.
I remember downloading the free PDF in the early aughts, being impressed by the sheer effort that must have been put into such a massive PDF, and then ignoring it. Never knew there was a print edition.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on October 08, 2020, 12:50:41 PM
Here's Part 3 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2832
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: VisionStorm on October 08, 2020, 01:08:38 PM
Here's Part 3 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2832

I actually had Lost Souls (not sure if the book is still around). I tried to get a game going once, but not sure we ever got around playing it. I do remember making some characters, but it was so long ago I barely remember the rules, though, they didn’t seem too complicated and the book itself wasn’t very long (just little over a hundred pages, IIRC).

The game seemed to have an interesting premise, though, I agree that the skills felt a bit too mundane for a game that was supposed to be set entirely on the afterlife with limited (if any) interaction with the physical world. IIRC, your character would pass beyond once they resolved whatever issue was keeping them bound to the world, so unlike most RPGs the objective of the game was to truly die and leave the mortal world behind.

Not familiar with any of the others, but I do recognize Brom’s cover art in Abyss.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brendan on October 08, 2020, 01:42:38 PM
Here's Part 3 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2832

Oh wow, Lost Souls.  I had forgotten about that one entirely.  A friend of mine had a copy.  I think we played one game. 

Forgotten RPGs I have are probably not so much "forgotten" as just not terribly popular. I have a copy of Jake Norwood's Riddle of Steel.  It had some interesting dueling mechanics and spiritual attributes.  It's been described as "blood opera" as the spiritual attributes tend to drive the characters to final violent deeds that end badly for everyone.   Never got a chance to play or run it.   
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Thornhammer on October 09, 2020, 12:51:44 PM
Here's Part 3 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2832

You pick some good shit.

Bureau 13's setting was close to what we got with the original run of Delta Green - cell structured government anti-weird agency, lost a lot of members after one specific incident, lot of "do what you can, here's some equipment, good luck."  I thought Delta Green did it a little better, but that was mostly through presentation and subject license - the Bureau 13 art was a little on the cartoony side, Delta Green's was not and had the "this is a Call of Cthulhu product" gravitas.

Nick Pollotta wrote a set of novels based on his own version of Bureau 13, which turned the outfit into a group with access to unspeakable amounts of resources and they were not afraid to use those resources. Real gung-ho and kick ass, which is sometimes exactly what you want.

On Abyss, it was an RPG extension of a miniatures game also done by Global Games.  The miniatures game was called Inferno: Battles of the Abyss. A buddy and I made an abortive attempt to get into the miniatures game for a bit - there were little horde footsoldiers that fit five on the old-style square Epic bases, then sergeant units that were slightly bigger, lieutenants bigger yet, and archfiends that were enormous.  The boxed set came with a small background book that was fairly interesting too.  I bought the RPG book years later, flipped through it, couldn't really get any of my normal players enthused about it.  Global Games did something else.  Legions of Steel?  Space Hulk knockoff with some more bells and whistles, if I'm thinking right. Did play a few games of that because we were apeshit crazy for Space Hulk (1st edition).  It was fun.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Steven Mitchell on October 09, 2020, 01:49:32 PM

Oh wow, Lost Souls.  I had forgotten about that one entirely.  A friend of mine had a copy.  I think we played one game. 

Forgotten RPGs I have are probably not so much "forgotten" as just not terribly popular. I have a copy of Jake Norwood's Riddle of Steel.  It had some interesting dueling mechanics and spiritual attributes.  It's been described as "blood opera" as the spiritual attributes tend to drive the characters to final violent deeds that end badly for everyone.   Never got a chance to play or run it.

I've got almost all the books on RoS.  I'd run it with the right group of players for a short campaign.  It's one of the few games that would get me to run a mostly historically-based Dumas-style campaign.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Lurkndog on October 13, 2020, 06:17:26 PM
Bureau 13's setting was close to what we got with the original run of Delta Green - cell structured government anti-weird agency, lost a lot of members after one specific incident, lot of "do what you can, here's some equipment, good luck."  I thought Delta Green did it a little better, but that was mostly through presentation and subject license - the Bureau 13 art was a little on the cartoony side, Delta Green's was not and had the "this is a Call of Cthulhu product" gravitas.

Nick Pollotta wrote a set of novels based on his own version of Bureau 13, which turned the outfit into a group with access to unspeakable amounts of resources and they were not afraid to use those resources. Real gung-ho and kick ass, which is sometimes exactly what you want.

I really enjoyed those books, though I don't think I ever owned the game.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Eric Diaz on October 13, 2020, 06:40:00 PM
I have a couple of games I bought out of curiosity... Not sure if anyone has ever played them:

- World Tree RPG.
- Eoris RPg.

Also The Secret Fire RPG and Noumenom... all quite strange.

Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on October 13, 2020, 11:05:09 PM
Bureau 13 I remember as Phil Phoglio did the cover art.

Speaking of 13s

Theres aso the obscure Agent 13 supplement for Top Secret converting the RPG into a 1920s pulp hero adventure. Had a graphic novel and I am pretty sure at least two novel. Since this had the Dille name on it it was allmost certainly another royalty scam by Loraine to milk TSR of more money.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: David Johansen on October 14, 2020, 09:21:19 AM
Here's Part 3 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2832

Global Games has risen from the dead and successfully kickstarted Legions of Steel.  So, Abyss might get a reprint or at least a pdf release in the near future.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Bren on October 14, 2020, 04:14:14 PM
Speaking of 13s

Theres aso the obscure Agent 13 supplement for Top Secret converting the RPG into a 1920s pulp hero adventure. Had a graphic novel and I am pretty sure at least two novel. Since this had the Dille name on it it was allmost certainly another royalty scam by Loraine to milk TSR of more money.
Agent 13 is one I have. I think I read two of the novels. It seemed like there were more, but they were already obscure even 25 years ago.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Batjon on October 14, 2020, 04:27:39 PM
Hercules & Xena RPG by WEG.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Pat on October 14, 2020, 06:30:28 PM
Agent 13 is one I have. I think I read two of the novels. It seemed like there were more, but they were already obscure even 25 years ago.
I liked the Agent 13 novels, they were good basic pulp stories. Whatever else was going on, Frank Dille was a decent writer.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: VisionStorm on October 14, 2020, 06:40:57 PM
Hercules & Xena RPG by WEG.

I actually had that. Don’t know what became of the book. Never got around playing it, but seemed playable enough. Anything d6 system probably is.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Bren on October 14, 2020, 07:59:46 PM
We've gone through pages of games I've never heard of, then we hit two in a row that I own. Coincidence is kind of surprising sometimes.

I liked the Agent 13 novels, they were good basic pulp stories. Whatever else was going on, Frank Dille was a decent writer.
Not as entertaining as the original Shadow and Spider pulps, but they were good enough that I wish I'd found the other novels to read. The nice part about them being obscure is that you could probably steal elements without even needing to file off the serial numbers.

re: the Hercules & Xena RPG, I have that one too. I didn't like the folksy/jokey writing style and it counts successes instead of just totaling up the dice - which I don't like, but I can see how it would appeal to people who don't like adding up the totals of 6 or 10 d6s.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on October 16, 2020, 10:21:49 AM
Part 4 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2836
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: GameDaddy on October 16, 2020, 11:07:52 AM
Thieves Guild. Was a percentile based add-on that was actually compatible with D&D. At one time I had modules I-V. Phenomenal addition for thieves and rogues for D&D
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brad on October 16, 2020, 02:23:39 PM
Part 4 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2836

World Action and Adventure

Been trying to buy that for about ten years now...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on October 22, 2020, 07:57:37 PM
Part 5 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2837
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Aglondir on October 22, 2020, 10:20:14 PM
Theres aso the obscure Agent 13 supplement for Top Secret converting the RPG into a 1920s pulp hero adventure. Had a graphic novel and I am pretty sure at least two novel. Since this had the Dille name on it it was allmost certainly another royalty scam by Loraine to milk TSR of more money.
I have the Agent 13 supplement. It's actually not bad. Not the best pulp game out there, but it works. I also have the FREELancers supplement, which is sort of Top Secret meets cybernetics and special powers. Let's just say it didn't age well.   

The one book in my collection which might count as forgotten is Robin Hood for Rolemaster. Never played it.

At one time I owned White Wolf's Sorcerer (1st edition) which might fall under the category of best forgotten. It had magical Mormons on motorcycles that were written out of the second edition. Also had an awful WoD book called Blood-dimmed Tides, with nautical options for every splat.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Pat on October 22, 2020, 11:08:36 PM
I also have the FREELancers supplement, which is sort of Top Secret meets cybernetics and special powers. Let's just say it didn't age well.   
There's also a FREEAmerica supplement to the FREELancers supplement, which is purely setting and describes the US region by region. I picked up a copy just a couple years ago, and it's as odd and outdated as you'd expect for a history of a future that's now 20 years past. It says more about expectations and worries of the late-1980s than anything else.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: RPGPundit on October 24, 2020, 10:57:19 PM
I've started a new series on my blog about forgotten RPGs. I kicked it off with 6 fantasy games that I bet most people never knew existed: Dawnfire, GateWar, Of Gods and Men, Quest of the Ancients, Shades of Heroes, and The Essential Fantasy Earth. I'll probably focus on sci-fi games for the next entry. Have you heard of these games? Have you ever played them? What did you think of them? Any favorites?




Here's the link: https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2828

Pretty sure I never read a single one of those.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on October 25, 2020, 08:04:52 PM
High Colonies from 85 by Eric Hotz through Waterford Publishing. A semi-hard SF setting within the solar system and various colonies throughout. There is one alien race present, but no FTL drive, yet, and no artificial gravity that I recall. Nor any psi. I think. Its been a long time.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on October 25, 2020, 08:08:27 PM
High Colonies from 85 by Eric Hotz through Waterford Publishing. A semi-hard SF setting within the solar system and various colonies throughout. There is one alien race present, but no FTL drive, yet, and no artificial gravity that I recall. Nor any psi. I think. Its been a long time.
That's in part 2.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: GameDaddy on October 26, 2020, 12:06:51 AM
Part 5 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2837

Well, I looked through your list and a few I recognize, QAGS, Dallas, from SPI Games, of course. World Action & Adventure from 1985. Revelation from 1999 - Saw this for the first time at Origins in 2001 at the Indygames booth.

I want to say Abyss too, However I can't quite recall where I have seen it. maybe the Forge booth???... Been so long.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Lurkndog on October 26, 2020, 09:30:11 AM
Wow, there was a Dallas roleplaying game. I wonder if they were trying to recapture the RPG-as-a-mainstream-party-game market? That was definitely a thing in the early 80's.

Later on it kind of came back with the "How to Host a Murder" games, which were essentially parlour mystery LARPs.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on October 26, 2020, 10:45:57 AM
Ones on the list I have heard of or have.

Quest of the Ancients: Heard of and pretty sure have met the designer. Never seen the game though.
Shades of the Ancients: Saw at a con but never got to actually look at.
Lost Souls: I recall a review on this one way back and at least one discussion. Never saw at a con though.

Expendables: This one oddly got discussed in a few gaming magazines but never seen.
Stalking the Night Fantastic: For a while this was talked about fairly often. Probably because Richard Tucholka and Tri Tac were involved.
Mutazoids: Another one that got discussed for a while. Its fairly well known on the Gamma World mailing list.

Dallas: This one is not forgotten at all. It usually makes the list of oddball RPG ideas or about any list of IP related RPGs.

High Colonies: This I had. But was stolen with a bunch of other gaming material over a decade ago and have not been able to replace yet.
Nightlife: This and the expansion I have as a gift from one of my players. Id say this one is not forgotten as it comes up in about any discussion of WOD alternatives.
Attack of the Humans: I know the artist for this one.
World Tree: Playtested this one with the designers and know the artist.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on October 26, 2020, 11:07:57 AM
Oddly forgotten one.

The Nights Edge setting and adventures for CP2020. By IANUS games before they became Dream Pod 9. This is a rather well done attempt to present a supernatural and techno-horror setting for Cyberpunk2020. Grimms Cybertales is a great one for playing with various problems and maladies in the CP2020 and NE settings.

Comes up semi-often in discussions for alternatives to Shadowrun and I've mentioned it fairly often here.

Oh and of course the oft forgotten, which is totally fitting for this game, is. Creeks & Crawdads. Where you play the most intelligent life form left on earth after a nuclear war. Crawdads! Intelligent being a rather generous term here as your characters have a hard time remebering what they were supposed to be doing.
This one used to be fairly well known way bac as a joke RPG. But aside from the GW mailing list seems to have been forgotten.

Superhero 2044: An oddly obscure one from Gamescience wayyy the hell back in 77. I had it but its another one that was stolen. Odd system and odder setting which, oddly, reminded me a bit of Captain Canuk.

Starships & Spacemen: A pretty obscure one from 77 and published by FGU. Pretty much Star Trek with the serial numbers allmost filed off. The focus is more ship oriented and the game actually plugs in well with its board game counterpart Star Explorer. Good rules and some rather nice GM tips from the dawn-o-RPG-time. I have both from when Goblinoid Games acquired it and released it in PDF format. GG also has a new edition of it and a friend of mine and former player wrote at least one of the expansions.


Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Simon W on October 26, 2020, 07:08:43 PM
The follow up to Ysgarth was a science fiction rpg called To Challenge Tomorrow by Ragnarok Enterprises. I had both - they were fanzine-style in zip-lock bags. We played Ysgarth once (I liked it but I'm not sure my players did! Maybe it's how I ran it...) but never got to play TCT. I also remember a time travel rpg called Time and Time Again by the Morrow Project people (Timeline). I think they had two editions - I had the first edition. I'm guessing that one is pretty much forgotten. I think we played that maybe twice.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: spon on October 27, 2020, 06:25:30 AM
I played an online game of Nightlife only a month ago! System was typical D100 with some nice ideas and some messy ones. NPC stats seemed to follow no logical rules (you could drain more HPs from a model than an off-duty cop. Really?) and he had some really odd ideas about drugs (Just say "no" guys & gals). But I enjoyed the game. Not sure I'd recommend it for today's audience, however.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: spon on October 27, 2020, 06:28:33 AM
Oh, and I owned Mutazoids, 2nd edition which I picked up for 50p at some bring & buy. Never played it though.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on November 05, 2020, 03:52:46 PM
Part 6 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog, with a bonus.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2840
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brad on November 05, 2020, 04:31:19 PM
Part 6 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog, with a bonus.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2840

The Legend of Yore...I picked that up a while back. It's a decent D&D knock-off. Same with Pelicar, bought that brand new. Got Darkurthe Legends new when the local gaming store was clearing stock, it is actually a badass game, would highly recommend to everyone. The system is alright, magic is sort of fiat, but the setting in fantastic.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: thedungeondelver on November 05, 2020, 06:09:13 PM
Realm of Yolmi.  Someday, I shall have it.  Someday...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on November 05, 2020, 07:48:16 PM
Realm of Yolmi.  Someday, I shall have it.  Someday...
There's a bunch of games I'd like to get, but HAAAARRRRDDDD to find, especially at a reasonable price.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: myleftnut on November 05, 2020, 10:15:32 PM
Vampire the Dark Ages.  I love that shit.  I would like to see more alt-history games.  There is a game called Lex Arcana coming out soon that looks really good.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on November 05, 2020, 11:06:26 PM
Realm of the Gateway seen ads for but never seen in a store.

Was going to mention Pelicar as I still have an old ad for it handed out at a con. But never knew if it saw publication.

Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on November 13, 2020, 03:30:02 PM
Part 7 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2842
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: VisionStorm on November 13, 2020, 04:19:11 PM
Part 7 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2842

I actually saw Heroes & Heroines at my local hobby store back in the day (the (90s), but I never got around getting it. That's the only one that seems familiar to me, though.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Spike on November 14, 2020, 07:44:22 PM
I'll start with a review of the games I've seen mentioned...

I never owned but I recall seeing Dawnfire in game stores.
Quest of the Ancients is on my shelf, but I've never even finished reading it.  I am reminded of a game I used to own that was a D&D-ish game with a black cover with a pentagram on it... got me in trouble with family one vacation as a lad. I swear I replaced my old lost copy years ago, but no idea where it is, or what it was called.
Legionaire: have. Recall having had it in the past as well.  Something about aliens that are 'not-human' but still mostly human and mechanically superior to humans... also the  dual purpose sci-fi guns. Good times.
Ravenstar: I'm drawing a blank, but it is a maddening blank full of vague notions that I had this once upon a time.
Nightlife: Was going to do a thread on this one actually, having recently found an online supplement from the original author of the game that details some behind the scenes shennanigans he seems to think cost him his chance to make it big... white wolf style...  I think he's wrong, sadly.  Normie gamers don't want to learn actual rules with statistically modeled numbers, they want pretty tokens. ..

Now for my own contributions, with apologies to our host but I'm not going to his blog to read seven pages of lists in addition to reading this thread...

Maurader 2107, my favorite obscure cyberpunk offering. I used to have every book (all three of them), but I long ago lost my Akuma book and sadly finding a replacement is unlikely.

Does SLA Industries count as obscure? Probably not. Forget I mentioned it.

Valiant Universe RPG? I've seen books on the shelf of the friendly local game store, but honestly I feel like one of the only people that even remember Valiant Comics existed...

StarChilde Publications games: A twofer:  Guardians (superheros) and Justifiers (Pre-Furry, antro sci-fi planetary exploration).

Is Millenium's End obscure?

Rather than mention every other mildly uncommon and frequently quite new-ish game I have, I'll close off with the HDL books: Basic Rules, Demongate High, and Perfect Horizon.

If I start digging through boxes, and have a decently objective view of what counts and what doesnt (who has that, anyways?), I could probably be at this all day....
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Thornhammer 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.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega 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.

Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: dungeon crawler 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.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb 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
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Spike on November 27, 2020, 07:57:04 PM
I forgot to include Wasteworld in my last post... is that in there?
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: GeekEclectic 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.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb 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
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Krugus 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 :)
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb 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.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: JeffB 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!
Ysgarth






Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Simon W 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.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Eric Diaz 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...).
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Greentongue 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.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Simon W 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.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega 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.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Aglondir on January 02, 2021, 09:36:47 PM
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...).

I was compiling a list of "alternate reality" movies last week. For some reason, it was a popular theme in the late 90s. In addition to the ones you mention above, Existenz (1999), The Truman Show (1998), and Strange Days (1995) all deal with reality as a vast simulation, in different ways.

In the "But I was promised a flying car!" category, Strange Days was strangely ambitious with its prediction that we'd have total sensory VR by the turn of the millennium. At the time I felt like the movie would have made more sense if it had been set in 2020. Even now, VR is still pretty primitive.

Funny that it is such a popular theme in movies, but not as much in RPGs. I recall years ago there was a fan-made "D6 Matrix" game on the web, but that's about it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: soundchaser on January 02, 2021, 09:50:00 PM
V&V 2.1 was pub'd in 2010; then the "upgrade" came, called Mighty Protectors (touted as V&V 3.0) came in 2017. So, yes an old game yet not forgotten.

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.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Two Crows on January 03, 2021, 02:02:09 PM
Already mentioned:
I remember seeing Nightlife & Abyss on shelves for YEARS in the 90's.

I owned Twilight Imperium with some supplements.


Not mentioned:

I still have the core and the only supplement for "It Came From the Late, Late, Late Show".

I formerly owned:

The boxset for 2300 A.D.
Beyond the Supernatural
The Arcanum
Blood of Heroes

and probably a lot more that I can't remember right now.

Edit:

RECON.  Pallidum had a series of these games before they started doing RIFTS.  Beyond the Supernatural and Recon are the only two I remember owning off the top of my head.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on January 03, 2021, 11:30:38 PM
I still have the core and the only supplement for "It Came From the Late, Late, Late Show".

I formerly owned:

Beyond the Supernatural

RECON.  Pallidum had a series of these games before they started doing RIFTS.  Beyond the Supernatural and Recon are the only two I remember owning off the top of my head.

One of my players had It Came From. Never had a chance to look at it really.

BTS is very not forgotten and comes up relatively often in discussions of alternative supernatural settings or ones good for playing say Ghostbusters. Its also not forgotten because it is the precursor to Rifts and where certain notables like Victor Lazlo originated. It got a rather poor 2nd edition a couple of years ago. Stick with the original.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Spike on January 04, 2021, 10:50:37 AM
I was going to drop a bit on CyborGladiators, but I can't find my book. Cute little thing, decent names attached to it (who? Don't remember), like it was a goofy side project done for fun on a slightly better budget than most. 

The premise is undead super-aliens kidnap lesser aliens (Humans! Catgirls! Bugmen!!!) and upgrade them with bionics to fight in gladatorial games. And that's pretty much it. The in game fiction suggests a campaign arc of playing, getting moar upgrades and leading a slave revolt, but honestly there isn't enough on the captors to really support that, as I recall.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Stephen Tannhauser on January 04, 2021, 08:05:39 PM
BTS is very not forgotten and comes up relatively often in discussions of alternative supernatural settings or ones good for playing say Ghostbusters. Its also not forgotten because it is the precursor to Rifts and where certain notables like Victor Lazlo originated. It got a rather poor 2nd edition a couple of years ago. Stick with the original.

I had a copy of BTS 1E in my salad days, and enjoyed reading it immensely, though I never got around to playing it. What did the 2nd edition change, out of curiosity?
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Eirikrautha on January 04, 2021, 09:13:40 PM
BTS is very not forgotten and comes up relatively often in discussions of alternative supernatural settings or ones good for playing say Ghostbusters. Its also not forgotten because it is the precursor to Rifts and where certain notables like Victor Lazlo originated. It got a rather poor 2nd edition a couple of years ago. Stick with the original.

I had a copy of BTS 1E in my salad days, and enjoyed reading it immensely, though I never got around to playing it. What did the 2nd edition change, out of curiosity?

1e BTS was a blast to play (at least for a teenager in the late eighties).  The more gonzo you played it, the better.  No idea what they changed, but it would be hard for the changes to have been an improvement...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: JeffB on January 04, 2021, 09:39:05 PM
Recon. I had the original,  Pre Palladium, and one of the supplements for it. I remember Mike Stackpole giving a  scathing review of it in Sorcerer's Apprentice based on his political beliefs about The Vietnam War.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Two Crows on January 05, 2021, 07:12:27 PM
Would we include Twilight 2000?

Most of the GDW stuff had decent shelf presence in my area, but NOBODY I met ever played it, even if they had the books/boxes.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on January 08, 2021, 09:05:14 PM
I think Twilight 2000 has fallen by the wayside. But back in the 80s or so it seemed to be really popular. And seemed to outlast Morrow Project for a while. But in the end Morrow Project is still talked about fairly often whole Twilight 2000 is not. T2000 though got at least one PC game if I recall right. But then so did Jorune, which is far far more obscure.

Another one that sort of fell through the cracks is Aftermath, another post apoc RPG.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: moonsweeper on January 08, 2021, 09:24:32 PM
I still have my original T2K stuff as well as an old copy of Aftermath, never had The Morrow Project. 
I think the reason T2K died out vs. Morrow was because it was so closely tied to the cold war instead of a century or so later.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on January 08, 2021, 10:05:23 PM
BTS is very not forgotten and comes up relatively often in discussions of alternative supernatural settings or ones good for playing say Ghostbusters. Its also not forgotten because it is the precursor to Rifts and where certain notables like Victor Lazlo originated. It got a rather poor 2nd edition a couple of years ago. Stick with the original.

I had a copy of BTS 1E in my salad days, and enjoyed reading it immensely, though I never got around to playing it. What did the 2nd edition change, out of curiosity?

Lets see. They spend about 20 pages describing the setting and yet not. Mostly just repeating that "Tthere are monsters from beyond. You have to stop them. There is never any proof."

Another big change is "being observed by mundanes and scientists depowers psychics and mages". Which goes contrary to the originals ability to mix mundane investigators with supernatural ones. Another one is that psi and magic gets stronger as they get closer to places of supernatural focus. This was a thing in the original too. But not as much emphasis.

Another is that your ISP fluctuates based on the things facing. Against mundane things you are at base level. Against minor things its doubled, and against the bigger supernaturals its quadrupled. And ISP is six times greater against major threats. 10x vs the top end horrors.

Classes are different too to some degree. And it feels like the supernaturals are more up front. Autistic Savant, Diviner, Firewalker/Pyrokinetic, Genius/Natural, Ghost Hunter/Psi-Mechanic, Latent and Nega-Psychic (that most hated of classes), Physical Psychic and another Psi-Mechanic, Psi-Healer, Psychic Medium, and Psychic Sensitive for the psi. Of these the Autistic Savant, Ghost Hunter, Firewalker and Medium are new.
And for mundane investigators there is merely the entries on Ordinary people and the Parapsychologist. Which is the same in the original.

No spellcasters at all. That was to be in a book titled Arcaneum I believe. On the other hand the original only had one mage class. The Arcanist. (And an NPc class, the Diabolist)

The psi powers are mostly the same ones, but not sure if theres fewer or the same.

The equipment section feels gutted of all the tech toys.

It sure feels like there are fewer monsters listed, but may be about the same

No maps and hardly any mention of ley lines.

The rest is fairly standard Palladium system, but damages is SDC/HP only. No MDC that I could find.

There is also no comedy/Scooby-Doo adventure and no adventures at all.

Overall it feels lesser somehow due to the overfocus on psychics. The original felt like psi was alot less frequent and powerful. YMMV but that was my impression as the DM and my players were mostly 2 parapsychologists one latent and one sensitive.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Lord Dynel on January 09, 2021, 02:25:05 PM
High Colonies from 85 by Eric Hotz through Waterford Publishing. A semi-hard SF setting within the solar system and various colonies throughout. There is one alien race present, but no FTL drive, yet, and no artificial gravity that I recall. Nor any psi. I think. Its been a long time.

Columbia Games must have gotten the rights to High Colonies because they did a revision/version of it last year.  I think it was last year...2020 seemed to drag on forever!  Mechanics are Harnmaster-like, but a lot of the fluff is pretty much the same.

I always wanted a copy of the seemingly-forgotten Witch Hunt RPG, published in 1983 by StatCon Simulations.  I like the concept (and am a fan) of an early colonial America RPG, even if it's limited in scope.  Apparently, one can play witches or those tasked with seeking them out.  It always sounded like an interesting game, but it's usually out of my price range.

Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Armchair Gamer on January 09, 2021, 02:46:11 PM
I think Twilight 2000 has fallen by the wayside. But back in the 80s or so it seemed to be really popular. And seemed to outlast Morrow Project for a while. But in the end Morrow Project is still talked about fairly often whole Twilight 2000 is not.

  On the other hand, the new edition of Twilight: 2000 just tied with Dune in EN World's "Most Anticipated RPG of the Year" award, so I expect there's life in the property yet.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Eirikrautha on January 09, 2021, 04:54:39 PM
I think Twilight 2000 has fallen by the wayside. But back in the 80s or so it seemed to be really popular. And seemed to outlast Morrow Project for a while. But in the end Morrow Project is still talked about fairly often whole Twilight 2000 is not.

  On the other hand, the new edition of Twilight: 2000 just tied with Dune in EN World's "Most Anticipated RPG of the Year" award, so I expect there's life in the property yet.

Well, that dampens my enthusiasm a bit.  Anything the 'tards at ENWorld "allow" to be on one of their lists must have something wrong with it.  Granted, many (if not most) of the readers strike me as decent folks, but I have very little trust in the mods or admin there...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: soundchaser on January 10, 2021, 11:05:04 PM
Recon. I had the original,  Pre Palladium, and one of the supplements for it. I remember Mike Stackpole giving a  scathing review of it in Sorcerer's Apprentice based on his political beliefs about The Vietnam War.

I just made a hardcover version of Recon (from Lulu). I enjoy the game that much:)

Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on February 01, 2021, 03:10:01 PM
Part 10 in my new Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2862
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on February 01, 2021, 03:25:18 PM
I remember Witch Hunt as for a time was hunting information on it. Very obscure RPG.

Mechanoids is far far from forgotten. Or at least was up till about the 2000s. It got a Rifts version even. Seems alot of folk still like it despite it being one of the longest out of print Palladium games.

Challengers heard of but never could find.

Hunter Planet I've heard often enough from various friends in Australia. But very little outside. Much like Lace & Steel, though TSR liked that RPG enough they got the designer to do a novel based in the setting and published it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Mishihari on February 03, 2021, 07:18:05 AM
Does JAGS Wonderland count?  I got a free copy a long time ago in an online contest, and it was a fun read, but I've never met anyone who played it.  It's still available for download, though (free, now).
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on February 03, 2021, 09:11:20 AM
Does JAGS Wonderland count?  I got a free copy a long time ago in an online contest, and it was a fun read, but I've never met anyone who played it.  It's still available for download, though (free, now).
I suppose so. Was it ever available in print?
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: David Johansen on February 03, 2021, 09:52:55 AM
You know who forgot Mechanoids, Kevin Siembieda, that's who.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Dimitrios on February 03, 2021, 10:44:31 AM
I remember Witch Hunt as for a time was hunting information on it. Very obscure RPG.

Wow, that one is obscure. I don't believe I've thought of it for over 30 years, but now I remember seeing ads for it in Dragon magazine and even seeing a copy on the shelf at my local game store back in he 80s.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brad on February 03, 2021, 12:03:09 PM
You know who forgot Mechanoids, Kevin Siembieda, that's who.

I got introduced to Mechanoids from the Rifts sourcebook then bought everything I could. Really kickass idea and setting with serviceable rules.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Thornhammer on February 03, 2021, 11:51:25 PM
I suppose so. Was it ever available in print?

Yes, but I’m about 80% certain it was POD. I have a hardcopy of JAGS Wonderland and the supplement, The Book of Knots.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on February 25, 2021, 06:40:58 PM
Heres one have heard of but never been able to find much data on.

A french RPG called Arkeos. Seems to have an Indianna Jones feel to it?

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51U9Rdu1F2L._SX330_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brigman on February 27, 2021, 04:00:29 AM
Skyrealms of Jorune was an old one that I still have in my collection...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Simon W on February 27, 2021, 05:25:17 AM
Skyrealms of Jorune was an old one that I still have in my collection...

It might be old but it's far from forgotten
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on February 27, 2021, 07:28:26 PM
We discussed it a little upthread. For a brief time it burned bright, even got a PC game. Then faded. Im pretty sure it got at least one expansion, possibly 3 or more. But then poof. Had a certain Tekumel sort of vibe to it in parts of the background.

A quick check shows surprisingly Jorune saw 3 editions, at least one module and at least 5 expansions. Looks like Chessex picked it up for 3e Jorune.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brigman on February 27, 2021, 09:20:58 PM
I remember back in the day it was a bit difficult to wrap our heads around, because it was SO alien and used weird names for everything.  Which is of course part of what made it so unique...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on October 24, 2021, 12:56:43 PM
Part 11 in my Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2890
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: badpoet on October 24, 2021, 09:39:57 PM
Anyone ever play The Whispering Vault? Early to kid 90s horror type game. I own the books and read them ages ago but never found a group to run it with. Players are stalkers who were once human and are now hunters of the evil supernatural creatures.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Simon W on October 25, 2021, 05:39:55 AM
Anyone ever play The Whispering Vault? Early to kid 90s horror type game. I own the books and read them ages ago but never found a group to run it with. Players are stalkers who were once human and are now hunters of the evil supernatural creatures.

I've got it, always intended to play it but so far never have. I think I'd need to tinker with the rules a bit first if I do ever get to run it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Simon W on October 25, 2021, 05:48:39 AM
Part 11 in my Forgotten Games series on my blog.
https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2890

It looks like Holocaustic Dungeons is still available:
http://www.kristoffersilver.com/SilverWolf/SilverWolfRPG.html#Role%20Playing%20Games
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: spon on October 25, 2021, 05:56:50 AM
I have the Arcanum, love it. Even ran it for a couple of sessions in the late 80s, but we returned to D&D in the end. I still run through it occasionally for ideas though - absolutely crammed with stuff. 
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: palaeomerus on October 25, 2021, 07:26:11 AM
Not sure if it counts as "forgotten" but I noticed Albedo is now available again on drivethru. I only know it vaguely by reputation as a weird mix of military hard scifi and furry.

We called that anthropomorphics back then. It wasn't Furry until Hepcats comics happened. Before anthropomorphics it was funny animals.

I can't say it was 100% sex free because of Fritz the Cat and Omaha the Cat Dancer but it wasn't sex focused like the Furry iteration seems to be.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on October 25, 2021, 01:50:42 PM
Anyone ever play The Whispering Vault? Early to kid 90s horror type game. I own the books and read them ages ago but never found a group to run it with. Players are stalkers who were once human and are now hunters of the evil supernatural creatures.
Never heard of it, but it sounds like Nightbane. Neat.

Speaking of, there were a bunch of "play as the monsters" type games in the 90s. WitchCraft, Everlasting, Nephilim, War of Ages, Invisible War... World of Darkness outcompeted them all, though not for any special strength of the rules or setting. What I never liked about WoD was/is that it focuses more on advancing its comic book-style GMPC-ridden canon setting rather than giving groups tools to build their own settings and tell their own stories. At least Nephilim allowed the PCs to directly engage with the lore by allowing you to play as historical figures using the past life mechanic, and its use of magic-hunting human secret societies as the main antagonists (rather than vampire illuminati or whathaveyou) was quite refreshing when other games treated humans as cattle at best.

Night's Black Agents is an amazing example of how you can design a toolkit that provides extensive guidelines for building your own vampire hunting agency and vampire conspiracies from the ground up. It doesn't unhelpfully tell you that "you can build your own setting," it actually shows you how with huge lists of features, flowcharts, and practical examples. If you're building any kind of toolkit, then it's a great example of how.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: badpoet on October 25, 2021, 08:02:45 PM
I was in a number of WOD games (Vampire, Wraith, Mage, and Changeling with several refs and they all used their own settings and all were cities that felt alive. If you went by their sourcebooks and used premade stuff I could see it devolving into which awesome NPC is doing what but none of the games I was in used WOD source mats for settings. We were probably all just too poor. 

But Nights Black Agents is fantastic.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Thornhammer on October 25, 2021, 10:24:16 PM
Night of the Ninja.

I remember outbidding Jeff Rients for a copy of that fifteen or twenty years back, way the hell back when eBay showed you the winner. He didn’t live all that far from me at the time.

Also, this series is excellent.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on October 26, 2021, 01:01:29 PM
I was in a number of WOD games (Vampire, Wraith, Mage, and Changeling with several refs and they all used their own settings and all were cities that felt alive. If you went by their sourcebooks and used premade stuff I could see it devolving into which awesome NPC is doing what but none of the games I was in used WOD source mats for settings. We were probably all just too poor. 

But Nights Black Agents is fantastic.
Hence my preference for toolkits. Actual toolkits.

There is a toolkit game for playing vampires from 2013 called Feed (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387/Feed). It's not as detailed as NBA and the mechanics it uses are very unconventional, but you might find the design interesting. It includes four sample settings with distinctly different takes on vampirism, including emphasized addiction metaphor, deal with the devil, Mexican b-movie antics, and cycle of violence metaphor.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Persimmon on October 26, 2021, 09:45:10 PM
I remember a game called "Legacy: War of the Ages," that was a ripoff of the "Highlander" franchise and premise.  Saw it at a game store once but didn't buy it.  I recall it having classic rock song lyrics sprinkled throughout the core book as inspirational text.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on October 26, 2021, 09:51:15 PM
I remember a game called "Legacy: War of the Ages," that was a ripoff of the "Highlander" franchise and premise.  Saw it at a game store once but didn't buy it.  I recall it having classic rock song lyrics sprinkled throughout the core book as inspirational text.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/64385/Legacy-Basic-Edition
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Mistwell on October 26, 2021, 10:45:57 PM
This thread reminds me: Does anyone know anything about the Dreamtime game Iron Crown was advertising in Dragon in 1991? I'm quite sure it never saw the light of day, at least from ICE.

Did it become this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime_(CORPS))? That's a Wikipedia entry for Dreamtime (CORPS), an aboriginal setting in which the player characters are hunter gatherers.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Armchair Gamer on October 27, 2021, 08:27:19 AM
This thread reminds me: Does anyone know anything about the Dreamtime game Iron Crown was advertising in Dragon in 1991? I'm quite sure it never saw the light of day, at least from ICE.

Did it become this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime_(CORPS))? That's a Wikipedia entry for Dreamtime (CORPS), an aboriginal setting in which the player characters are hunter gatherers.

   It very well might have, given that ICE and BTRC were located in the same region.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on October 27, 2021, 11:12:57 AM
I remember a game called "Legacy: War of the Ages," that was a ripoff of the "Highlander" franchise and premise.  Saw it at a game store once but didn't buy it.  I recall it having classic rock song lyrics sprinkled throughout the core book as inspirational text.
It also had a web supplement for “warlocks” using a syntactic magic system. https://web.archive.org/web/20000816151130/http://www.blackgate.net/warlock/index.htm
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Jaeger on October 27, 2021, 05:06:18 PM
On game I have always been on the lookout for:

CUTTHROAT: The Shadow Wars RPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutthroat:_The_Shadow_Wars
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/60/Cutthroat%2C_The_Shadow_Wars.jpg)

Came out in 1988 and was one of the first d20 systems to be a Roll high: Skill + d20 vs. TN.

A revised edition that got two supplements came out in 1999.

Pulled from old forum posts on another site:
"A quick breakdown of how Cutthroat's sudden death system worked worked:
When a character hits his opponent (successful skill check with weapon used vs opponent's evasion rating), the target needs to make a damage resistance check (armor+resilience) check vs damage rating of weapon (affected by level of success of attack). If the check failed the target is killed (or incapacitated) outright. If the check succeeds, they are simply wounded (receives a "wound"). The more wounds accumulated the more likely death/incapacitation will occur (each wound applies a penalty to damage resistance checks as well as other checks). But since there always a chance of success or failure on any given check, the was no limit to how many wounds a character could get before they fell (theoretically). There's more variables, but that's the gist of it. Luck only play a part in that a target can spend luck points to succeed checks if the want to avoid death."

"Magic Engine :
Underdeveloped, but promising. I like the system for it's freedom, but there's something that annoys me about it. Can't place my finger on it yet. I think I simply have the traditional AD&D spell system permanently etched into my noggin. The game does not use pre-made skills or spell lists. The players are given "Spellcrafting" rules on how to design custom spells based on a list of various spell effects."


If anyone has a copy - I'll buy it. If you see one for sale somewhere - PM me. So I can buy it.

In many ways the premise of the game strikes me very much like Blades in the Dark.

It is rather interesting that the revised edition came out in 1999, and promptly went completely out of print in late 2000...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on October 27, 2021, 05:09:58 PM
Cutthroat sounds familiar, but I don't have it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Reckall on October 30, 2021, 09:44:22 AM
The Arcanum was really great as a "BECMI Redux". The other two books in the "Atlantean Trilogy"were good
too. The Lexicon presented an "Old Earth" inspired by R.E. Howard and ancient legends from all over the World (the PC version would be Dominions 5). The Bestiary gave even more flavour to each region with creatures of the Faerie Folk in the "Irish" areas and so on.

They published the 30th Anniversary Edition in 2019. I have the PDFs but the books could be placed alongside the Rules Cyclopedia on your shelf.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/266486/Arcanum-30th-Anniversary-Edition
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: palaeomerus on October 30, 2021, 04:31:07 PM
Was Arcanum the one that had stats for God and the saints and stuff in it as monsters?
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: therealjcm on November 05, 2021, 05:52:43 PM
Would Cyborg Commando be considered a forgotten RPG or just infamous?

I actually got a copy from the local 25 cent store back in 87 or 88. I tried to run it several times, eventually giving up on ever getting my money's worth out of it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on November 05, 2021, 06:29:33 PM
Not sure if it counts as "forgotten" but I noticed Albedo is now available again on drivethru. I only know it vaguely by reputation as a weird mix of military hard scifi and furry.

We called that anthropomorphics back then. It wasn't Furry until Hepcats comics happened. Before anthropomorphics it was funny animals.

I can't say it was 100% sex free because of Fritz the Cat and Omaha the Cat Dancer but it wasn't sex focused like the Furry iteration seems to be.

Its still anthropomorphics for the regular stuff. Furry for anything else that tends to drift into the sexual, but then every genre has fans that do that. Especially D&D so its not anything at all specific to furrydome. And part of the reason theres so much over the top sex art is heavy resistance to prior woke/sjw attacks on artists and fans.

As for Albedo. I worked with Steve back in the 90s. The comic series was an anthology originally and had pieces from alot of indie artists as thats really what Albedo is. An indie comic. There was some brief nudity, but totally tame and at most all of two instances. The story overall is hard sci-fi. No artificial gravity, ships are towers. Theres lengthy and stringent quaranteen periods for space travel and the hyperspace that they use is really dangerous to use.

Things went a bit downhill after the death of his wife and for a time someone else was running the show and from all I've heard, botched it pretty badly.

The RPG is fairly good too with some mechanics a few other RPGs could stand to use. 2nd ed was more organized and clear. But lacked a bit of the spark of the original. Avoid the Sanguine version. Its junk.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: PsyXypher on November 05, 2021, 06:34:02 PM
Speaking of furry RPGs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness is an RPG older than the Turtles' first cartoon. I don't know if it qualifies as "Forgotten" as it's got a cult remembrance. Still, I'd like to see a resurgence with some house-ruling to make it play better.

The RPG was made my Erick Wujcik, so it might not even be "Forgotten" here.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: tenbones on November 05, 2021, 11:52:28 PM
The Arcanum was really great as a "BECMI Redux". The other two books in the "Atlantean Trilogy"were good
too. The Lexicon presented an "Old Earth" inspired by R.E. Howard and ancient legends from all over the World (the PC version would be Dominions 5). The Bestiary gave even more flavour to each region with creatures of the Faerie Folk in the "Irish" areas and so on.

They published the 30th Anniversary Edition in 2019. I have the PDFs but the books could be placed alongside the Rules Cyclopedia on your shelf.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/266486/Arcanum-30th-Anniversary-Edition

The trilogy is classic. But the newer edition is excellent too - Atlantis the 2nd Age. It's also basically a forgotten system along with its red-haired sister-setting Talislanta (connected only vaguely through the Ariane race and the system itself).
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: 3catcircus on November 06, 2021, 09:59:02 AM
We *might* be far enough removed to consider Dangerous Journeys/Mythus a forgotten RPG (or not)...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: tenbones on November 06, 2021, 02:26:17 PM
We *might* be far enough removed to consider Dangerous Journeys/Mythus a forgotten RPG (or not)...

You know... I remember when it dropped and I got my hands on a copy at OrcCon in LA my reaction was less than enthusiastic. I literally couldn't get past the nomenclature at the time (Physical Neural Manipulation???) and yes, I admit it was childish of me, but what can I say - I never really gave it a chance it deserved especially without knowing all the behind-the-scenes shit he was going through.

Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: 3catcircus on November 06, 2021, 03:28:10 PM
We *might* be far enough removed to consider Dangerous Journeys/Mythus a forgotten RPG (or not)...

You know... I remember when it dropped and I got my hands on a copy at OrcCon in LA my reaction was less than enthusiastic. I literally couldn't get past the nomenclature at the time (Physical Neural Manipulation???) and yes, I admit it was childish of me, but what can I say - I never really gave it a chance it deserved especially without knowing all the behind-the-scenes shit he was going through.

If it were edited and cleaned-up, with a paring of the full rules (18 attributes/sub-attributes?!?!) and this would be a gem of a game.  Limiting which professions/classes u can be by your socio-economic class is a great part of chargen.  The natural limitations to becoming a full practitioner of heka mages it so casters aren't over powered.  The campaign setting is a really good open real-world in ye oldey tymes presentation.  The Necropolis mega-adventure is quite-well executed.

It's just a shame that they were dealing with legal problems at the time.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: KingofElfland on November 06, 2021, 05:26:53 PM
I think Dangerous Journeys Mythus Prime was pretty good. I have all the books, but the Prime game (simplified and not really compatible with the main game) is the one that hooks me. I’m not sure why. I find the vocations interesting.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Theory of Games on November 06, 2021, 07:23:28 PM
What about Bard Games' Arcanum?

It had some interesting races like the human-beast Andamen and the winged Zephyrs. There were single & dual-classed specialties that gave great cultural depth. Rather than trad D&D AC the game offered damage-absorbing armor. There were Background skills and a wild list of differing spell lists for each magical class. The PC's renown was a real statistic that impacted the game and the equipment list handled trad "Sword & Sorcery" gaming.

I felt it defeated AD&D in many ways and leaned towards it just as much as the Rules Cyclopedia. It was just very hard to get as it fell out of print.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on November 07, 2021, 08:59:25 AM
What about Bard Games' Arcanum?
See current article: https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2890
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on November 08, 2021, 12:09:55 AM
Speaking of furry RPGs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness is an RPG older than the Turtles' first cartoon. I don't know if it qualifies as "Forgotten" as it's got a cult remembrance. Still, I'd like to see a resurgence with some house-ruling to make it play better.

The RPG was made my Erick Wujcik, so it might not even be "Forgotten" here.

TMNT is not a "furry" RPG.
That said, it came out in 85. A mere year after the comics first hit the shelves. And about 2 years before the animated series. Its pretty good overall. But does not have alot for the PCs to really do aside from fight other mutants. Its After the Bomb setting though became the precursor seed for Rifts along with Beyond the Supernatural. After the Bomb is a odd little post apoc setting and since Palladium couldnt pay the licesnsing fee for a renewal of the TMNT books. They combined it all into a standalone After the Bomb book.

I'd say the RPG was oddly obscure even when the cartoons were at their peak. Yet not. Like you knew it was out there, but it was oddly not fully on the radar for many. Its been out of print so long now its really fallen into obscurity along with Mechanoids.

Bu for the really obscure Palladium, try Recon. Like many games in this list, it got talked about alot early on... then nothing. Not helped that it never really got past two core books and O think one module?
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: tenbones on November 08, 2021, 09:59:05 AM
What about Bard Games' Arcanum?

It had some interesting races like the human-beast Andamen and the winged Zephyrs. There were single & dual-classed specialties that gave great cultural depth. Rather than trad D&D AC the game offered damage-absorbing armor. There were Background skills and a wild list of differing spell lists for each magical class. The PC's renown was a real statistic that impacted the game and the equipment list handled trad "Sword & Sorcery" gaming.

I felt it defeated AD&D in many ways and leaned towards it just as much as the Rules Cyclopedia. It was just very hard to get as it fell out of print.

There's another Arcanum? I was talking about this version too... heh. My bad if people were talking about another. "Arcanum" is forever tied to Bard Games in my mind.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: soundchaser on November 14, 2021, 10:13:11 PM
An old Yaquinto game recently crossed my path in a "generosity" mystery box "win" at a thread I regularly follow at rpggeek. It's a odd thing...

Pirates & Plunder

I don't know much. The character sheet pad is super odd, highly uncoventional.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on November 14, 2021, 10:25:50 PM
An old Yaquinto game recently crossed my path in a "generosity" mystery box "win" at a thread I regularly follow at rpggeek. It's a odd thing...

Pirates & Plunder

I don't know much. The character sheet pad is super odd, highly uncoventional.
It's actually pretty good. I've been trying to bring it back like I did Man, Myth & Magic, but I can't track down the author (who knows if he's still with us).
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on November 15, 2021, 11:17:20 PM
Arcanum from 81 by Bard Games is the only TTRPG I know of under that title..
The Arcanum PC RPG from 2001 is the only other I know of. One of my players had it. Though apparently there is a fan made SAGA port of the PC game to tabletop back in 2011.

This excluding various product with arcanum as a secondary part of the title.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on November 15, 2021, 11:29:33 PM
An old Yaquinto game recently crossed my path in a "generosity" mystery box "win" at a thread I regularly follow at rpggeek. It's a odd thing...

Pirates & Plunder

I don't know much. The character sheet pad is super odd, highly uncoventional.
It's actually pretty good. I've been trying to bring it back like I did Man, Myth & Magic, but I can't track down the author (who knows if he's still with us).

Pirates and Plunder was written by Michael S. Matheny if I recall right. Also did the John Carter of Mars wargame/RPG in 78.
And then seems to have up and vanished after doing a batch of wargames in 81 and then Pirates and Plunder in 82.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on November 15, 2021, 11:35:40 PM
Yes, Don't know what happened to him.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on November 16, 2021, 09:39:48 AM
There are so many obscure RPGs lost to time because copyright law prevents them from being preserved.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Shawn Driscoll on November 16, 2021, 10:25:41 PM
I've started a new series on my blog about forgotten RPGs. I kicked it off with 6 fantasy games that I bet most people never knew existed: Dawnfire, GateWar, Of Gods and Men, Quest of the Ancients, Shades of Heroes, and The Essential Fantasy Earth. I'll probably focus on sci-fi games for the next entry. Have you heard of these games? Have you ever played them? What did you think of them? Any favorites?

Well, a current forgotten RPG is FFG's Star Wars: Age of Rebellion.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on November 16, 2021, 11:35:28 PM
Well, a current forgotten RPG is FFG's Star Wars: Age of Rebellion.
I'm not so sure. I've seen lots of talk about it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: 3catcircus on November 17, 2021, 01:43:46 PM
There are so many obscure RPGs lost to time because copyright law prevents them from being preserved.

Well now, there was, ahem, a way to preserve their legacy but some douche got it put out of commission...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on November 19, 2021, 02:49:00 PM
Well, a current forgotten RPG is FFG's Star Wars: Age of Rebellion.
I'm not so sure. I've seen lots of talk about it.

Its funny as I was tempted to mention it too. But really it is like a few other RPGs I've noted throughout this thread. They may be forgotten now. But at the time they were talked about sometimes quite a bit. Then poof - gone. Mechanoids and Recon are good examples.

Others like Immortel youd see alot of ads for. But little ever actually said about the game.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on November 19, 2021, 03:39:08 PM
Depends on your circles, I imagine.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Sanson on November 19, 2021, 10:03:34 PM
I got a lot of mileage out of the old Arcanum book (from the Atlantean trilogy), despite never having the money to buy the other two books, which weren't
easy to find.  It had a great deal i homebrewed into one of my old campaigns. 

Sadly i don't have it anymore, along with other things i'm missing (such as the old James Bond RPG). 

Though i do still have an old copy of "Hidden Kingdom" published back in 1983, a heavily Arthurian setting, which i mostly cribbed info from a different
old AD&D campaign, and the maps of the British Isles they came with were on my wall for years.  I'd forgotten i even had it until i stumbled on it looking
through old boxes looking for my Companion and Master sets...

Not sure how Forgotten it is though, seems a kickstarter funded campaign brought it back about 6 years ago, and it's on Drivethrurpg now...

Nice to remember Skyrealms of Journe and Villains and Vigilantes and Bushido and all the other games i saw advertised all the time in Dragon Magazine
but never actually saw... (i'd have probably bought all three given the chance back in the day)

Nice trip down memory lane...that.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: soundchaser on November 19, 2021, 10:55:37 PM
Jorune was weird to us.

Bushido was awesome. Disorganized bliss.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Pelorus on December 02, 2021, 03:52:35 PM
This was a very amusing walk down memory lane and a reminder that I should probably sell my forgotten RPG collection. Everything from Bushido to RUS, from Reichstar to Neverworld.

My own RPGs were actually too obscure to be forgotten.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: PonchoGoblin on December 02, 2021, 04:05:34 PM
There are so many obscure RPGs lost to time because copyright law prevents them from being preserved.

So true, feels like licenses lapsing will cause a lot of games to just get... Lost, for a sense. Curious to see how it'll impact FFG Star Wars, Mongoose Traveller, etc. in years to come. Granted, stuff like OGLs and SRDs make some of those games never truly lost.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: 3catcircus on December 02, 2021, 04:54:48 PM
There are so many obscure RPGs lost to time because copyright law prevents them from being preserved.

So true, feels like licenses lapsing will cause a lot of games to just get... Lost, for a sense. Curious to see how it'll impact FFG Star Wars, Mongoose Traveller, etc. in years to come. Granted, stuff like OGLs and SRDs make some of those games never truly lost.

Hmm...  If only there was a way to upload copies of them to some type of archive...
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: PonchoGoblin on December 02, 2021, 04:56:58 PM
There are so many obscure RPGs lost to time because copyright law prevents them from being preserved.

So true, feels like licenses lapsing will cause a lot of games to just get... Lost, for a sense. Curious to see how it'll impact FFG Star Wars, Mongoose Traveller, etc. in years to come. Granted, stuff like OGLs and SRDs make some of those games never truly lost.

Hmm...  If only there was a way to upload copies of them to some type of archive...

Yes, there is digital archiving, but physical copies will be lost to time unless well preserved.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Pelorus on December 03, 2021, 04:49:30 AM
So true, feels like licenses lapsing will cause a lot of games to just get... Lost, for a sense.

The duration of copyrights will ensure many will get lost. I'll be long dead by the time anyone unearths my writing.If ever.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Kyle Aaron on December 03, 2021, 05:52:38 AM
If it's your own writing, you may release it into the public domain, now, or in five years, or as part of your will immediately after your death, or whenever you see fit.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on June 19, 2022, 11:11:42 PM
Just found a copy of RUS while clearing out a storage shed.

And my old Hoyle's Rules of Games from around 63. Not RPG related but still a trove of games packed into it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Ruprecht on June 20, 2022, 04:50:50 PM
Universe from SPI.
I got a copy of that used. Don't know about the rules but the star map was better than the one for Traveller 2300.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: zircher on June 20, 2022, 11:17:15 PM
I've always been a fan of Space Opera's sector maps since they feel like space to me.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on June 23, 2022, 12:41:06 PM
Part 12 in my Forgotten Games series on my blog.

https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=2922
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: I on June 24, 2022, 08:37:57 AM
I got a lot of mileage out of the old Arcanum book (from the Atlantean trilogy), despite never having the money to buy the other two books, which weren't
easy to find.  It had a great deal i homebrewed into one of my old campaigns. 

Sadly i don't have it anymore, along with other things i'm missing (such as the old James Bond RPG). 



The Arcanum was great.  The other two books are worth the effort to track down.  It's a real shame that system was not more popular and was not better supported.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: tenbones on June 24, 2022, 10:39:35 AM
I got a lot of mileage out of the old Arcanum book (from the Atlantean trilogy), despite never having the money to buy the other two books, which weren't
easy to find.  It had a great deal i homebrewed into one of my old campaigns. 

Sadly i don't have it anymore, along with other things i'm missing (such as the old James Bond RPG). 



The Arcanum was great.  The other two books are worth the effort to track down.  It's a real shame that system was not more popular and was not better supported.

Well... 6-editions of Talislanta, a second edition of the Atlantis trilogy (all of them superb in their own way), it wasn't for lack of trying. LOL
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: I on June 24, 2022, 02:11:32 PM
I got a lot of mileage out of the old Arcanum book (from the Atlantean trilogy), despite never having the money to buy the other two books, which weren't
easy to find.  It had a great deal i homebrewed into one of my old campaigns. 

Sadly i don't have it anymore, along with other things i'm missing (such as the old James Bond RPG). 



The Arcanum was great.  The other two books are worth the effort to track down.  It's a real shame that system was not more popular and was not better supported.

Well... 6-editions of Talislanta, a second edition of the Atlantis trilogy (all of them superb in their own way), it wasn't for lack of trying. LOL

I owned most of the Talislanta stuff, and while it was good, I didn't like it as much as the Atlantean trilogy.  It was no substitute; it was its own thing.  I'd have preferred they just publish and support both.  Out of all the forgotten or failed RPGs, I regret the loss of the Atlantean system the most.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: tenbones on June 24, 2022, 08:06:29 PM
did you check out the Atlantis 2e game from Khepera Publishing?

Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: I on June 25, 2022, 04:30:11 AM
did you check out the Atlantis 2e game from Khepera Publishing?

No, wasn't even aware of it.  I will, though.  Thanks.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on July 09, 2022, 01:02:56 PM
Now you can read all the Forgotten Games posts on a single page: https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?tag=ForgottenGames
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on July 09, 2022, 07:31:35 PM
Likely a few repeats. But what the hey.
 
I wouldnt say High Colonies or especially Nightlife are forgotten at all. High Colonies has fallen to obscurity. But it gets brought up fairly regularly when discussing hard fiction settings. Which HC is for the most part. And Mechanoids is far from forgotten. People to this day continue to bug Kevin about properly reprinting this.

Nightlife is an odd one as about every other Vampire player has at the very least heard of it if not actually owns a copy.

Attack of the humans: Yup, another cover by Phil. Good to see he's still around. He did a piece in the comic my first RPG was based on and one of the example characters was based on that.

Dragonroar: How can this be forgotten when everyone on earth seems to remember the cassette tape and giant berserker hedgehogs?

World Tree: Have not seen that since was a playtester for it way the hell back.
The Tree if I recall right was loosely based on the Norse World Tree Yggdrasill. Which was populated by some talking animals among other unusual things. The Blooms were a pretty nice couple and put alot of effort into their setting.

Twilight Imperium: From back when FFG was still more a comic book distributor than a game company. Things were changing fast though. I remember when they first were starting and the TI board game was not even a thing yet. Still have some of their comics.

Ah IronWorld: Contender for THE most busy cover freaking ever!

Good to see LegendQuest is still kicking in some form. I've heard board gamers mention it more often than RPG players which may lend credence to it being a fair tactical game. Have not yet gotten to have a look myself. No one local has a copy.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Dropbear on July 10, 2022, 01:01:33 PM
did you check out the Atlantis 2e game from Khepera Publishing?

I wasn’t a huge fan of the Morrigan Press or Khepera versions of Atlantis. I had the original books for years, replaced by the Death’s Edge versions when they disappeared. Then those books disappeared, and I sighed deeply and resigned myself to paying higher prices to re-acquire the originals. And don’t even get me started on the 30th A niversary game.

I still need a copy of The Lexicon for completeness, but I have a copy of The Lost World already so playability is there.

Now I just need someone willing to play…
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on June 16, 2023, 08:44:58 AM
Some more forgotten RPGs.
 
Kabal: Saw an ad for this in Dragon but never saw it in stores locally where they had one distributor.
 
Pirates & Plunder from Yaquinto: An age of sail RPG from around 1982. I remember Yaquinto for their quirky board games often advertised in comic books like Attack of the Mutants. They also did the Timeshop RPG about time travel and a Greek Myth themed RPG Man Myth and Magic.
 
Behind Enemy Lines: Weird never heard of this one. A FASA RPG for playing in WWII.
 
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Exploderwizard on June 16, 2023, 08:55:04 AM
I got a kick out of It Came From The Late Late Show. Very fun beer & pretzels game.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Danger on June 16, 2023, 10:21:34 AM
Dream Park by R. Tal was a favorite of mine; think it'd have made a swell generic-esque game system without being too mired in details like GURPS and Hero can be at points.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on June 16, 2023, 10:21:47 AM
Some more forgotten RPGs.
Pirates & Plunder from Yaquinto: An age of sail RPG from around 1982. I remember Yaquinto for their quirky board games often advertised in comic books like Attack of the Mutants. They also did the Timeshop RPG about time travel and a Greek Myth themed RPG Man Myth and Magic.
Man, Myth & Magic and Timeship (http://rpg.deals/mmm)
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: David Johansen on June 17, 2023, 10:28:45 AM
I actually ran Time Ship.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: RPGPundit on June 17, 2023, 08:53:33 PM
I actually ran Time Ship.

So did I!
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on June 18, 2023, 12:06:29 AM
Dream Park by R. Tal was a favorite of mine; think it'd have made a swell generic-esque game system without being too mired in details like GURPS and Hero can be at points.

For a while there was some hype for Dream Park and then it just seemed to putter out.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: David Johansen on June 18, 2023, 11:28:17 AM
I actually ran Time Ship.

So did I!

The mystery in Murder At the End Of Time was too easy.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Danger on June 18, 2023, 05:25:45 PM
For a while there was some hype for Dream Park and then it just seemed to putter out.

The dangers of working with licensed property, I'd wager.

It's a game that clued me into the concept of effect as generic event/damage/power/etc. where the players get to dress up their effect in whatever trappings they wanted.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: El-V on June 18, 2023, 07:11:44 PM
GDW’s Cadillacs and Dinosaurs - I knew nothing about the comic it derived from, but it intrigued me and I ran a game of it for about 8 months, mixing in Dark Conspiracy stuff - another almost  forgotten GDW outing.  ;D
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: David Johansen on June 18, 2023, 11:18:50 PM
KABAL, Knights and Berserkers and Ledgergermain was pretty clearly some high school kid's attempt at publishing their own game with money from their parents.  It was two or three little booklets, badly organized and pretty much stream of consciousness.  The art was a bit better than High Fantasy with a few ink wash, maybe pencil or maybe a water color pencil drawings, but not a lot of art and none of it particularly good.

Your attributes were 6d20 and you made percentile rolls against the square root of your attribute divided by the difficulty times 100.  In the case of combat the difficulty.  Fighters got one attack per level.  Magic used spell points and the list was pretty generic.  The monster book was pretty standard with a brief description of each creature and a stat block.  I had a copy long ago, fished out of the discard bin at The Sentry Box, I've always loved small press stuff.  I did always wish I'd gotten the floor plans that came with it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: RPGPundit on June 19, 2023, 02:22:04 AM
GDW’s Cadillacs and Dinosaurs - I knew nothing about the comic it derived from, but it intrigued me and I ran a game of it for about 8 months, mixing in Dark Conspiracy stuff - another almost  forgotten GDW outing.  ;D

Had it but never ran it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Simon W on June 19, 2023, 05:11:11 AM
I actually ran Time Ship.

So did I!

Same here. For, I think, two sessions.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on June 19, 2023, 06:52:43 AM
GDW’s Cadillacs and Dinosaurs - I knew nothing about the comic it derived from, but it intrigued me and I ran a game of it for about 8 months, mixing in Dark Conspiracy stuff - another almost  forgotten GDW outing.  ;D

I saw it on shelves once in a hobby store alongside Wizards and Rogue Trader.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on June 19, 2023, 06:58:32 AM
Your attributes were 6d20 and you made percentile rolls against the square root of your attribute divided by the difficulty times 100.  In the case of combat the difficulty.  Fighters got one attack per level.  Magic used spell points and the list was pretty generic.  The monster book was pretty standard with a brief description of each creature and a stat block.  I had a copy long ago, fished out of the discard bin at The Sentry Box, I've always loved small press stuff.  I did always wish I'd gotten the floor plans that came with it.

Sounds like they had the same idea as Other suns where you needed a math degree to create a character.

One of the first cons I ever attended had an obscure little Mecha combat game on display called Ground Assault Gamma Force and the minis were little plastic Gundam models from Japanese grabber vendors. Probably the only person to ever have the game.
 
Theres alot of those out there I suspect. More obscure than the obscure.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on August 17, 2023, 03:57:22 PM
Part 13 in my Forgotten Games series on my blog.

https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=3018
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: zircher on August 17, 2023, 09:33:28 PM
Sounds like they had the same idea as Other suns where you needed a math degree to create a character...
Yeah, I reached out to the author back in the day and asked if I could write a program for character gen and give it to him to use and increase the player base.  He declined.  Yeah, if you are so protective of your property that you would rather have it die on the vine, don't be surprised when you get what you asked for.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on August 21, 2023, 07:15:09 AM
Sounds like they had the same idea as Other suns where you needed a math degree to create a character...
Yeah, I reached out to the author back in the day and asked if I could write a program for character gen and give it to him to use and increase the player base.  He declined.  Yeah, if you are so protective of your property that you would rather have it die on the vine, don't be surprised when you get what you asked for.

Yeah me and a friend were working on a fan site way back and he threatened the site owner and got it shut down. None of the FGU staff I ever met had anything good to say about the designer.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Omega on August 21, 2023, 07:27:35 AM
Found another obscure RPG while cleaning out storage.

Pandemonium: Adventures in Tabloid World: 1992. from Deja Vu Studios and M.I.B Productions. Theres mention of Atlas on the back but not in the book. Reads like similar take as another tabloid themed RPG from the 90s. So yeah, all the tabloid adds are true and you make adventures with those as possible adventure hooks. Uses a d10 system where 6 and up is a success of some sort. Came with EZ rules for quickstart and then the normal rules.

Also found my roommates copy of Ars Magica.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: Brad on August 21, 2023, 09:22:58 AM
Part 13 in my Forgotten Games series on my blog.

https://www.pigames.net/store/blog.php?entry=3018

LOL @ MEGA...so I was in high school and had busted my ass mowing yards, earmarked about $20 to buy a new RPG and I was hell-bent on getting MEGA from the gaming store. A lone copy sat on that shelf for at least 6 months and I thought it looked badass. Well, my brother wanted to buy a new album one evening so we took the bus to the mall and he went to Hastings while I went into Waldenbooks next door (really dating myself here). I ended up getting GURPS instead, much the chagrin of a couple guys I gamed with who all thought MEGA would be the best game ever created, because the cover looked cool or something?

Flash forward to around four years ago, I got a copy of MEGA off ebay for $5. Let's just say, at the time I thought maybe I made a mistake getting GURPS instead, but in retrospect what an uninspired fucking mess this game is. It could have been a tour de force of Norse RPGness, and instead is merely a weird D&D knockoff with some "interesting" systems. I'm happy I finally have a copy, but I doubt even 14 year old me would have had fun playing it.
Title: Re: Forgotten RPGs
Post by: brettmb on August 24, 2023, 11:17:57 AM
This is rare for me to do, but I brought back a game on my list. The Machineguns & Magic Classic Reprint is now available in PDF, with optional Softcover pre-order. What happens when your military squad gets transported to a fantasy world and must face orcs, goblins, dragons, and evil wizards?

http://rpg.deals/mm

(https://www.pigames.net/mgm_p/mgmCover.jpg)