Let's break off the thread a little and talk about those old-school games we dig, and why the diggin'.

Like, say, Classic Traveller.  Not real coherent in the skills department, but easily patched -- and great googly, is it expandable.  It's built out of expandability.  It makes its own gravy!

Or Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes.  A modern-era T&T offshoot which allows for a variety of adventures, and ends up being somewhat generic (i.e., multi-genre) in the process.  Needs a little polish in some places, but perfectly serviceable.

Next?

I've already mentioned TSR's Conan boxed set several times. Why? It's fast, simple, gritty, has a unified resoloution mechanic, an early example of mook rules and a suitably dark and dangerous magic system. It's incredibly easy to houserule and can be applied to most fantasy or historical settings with very little work. Attributes are derived from skill totals rather than the other way around, which makes for a nice, logical twist. NPC's and monsters can be statted up in minutes, and the system pretty much fades into the background during play.

What's more it's now becoming freeware under the ZeFRS project. The site is only half complete but the essentials have already been posted:

http://www.midcoast.com/~ricekrwc/zefrs/

If I may rehash an old (if predictable for me) favorite:
 
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:  My lord.  Countless hours of rolling up mutant animals (80 in the main book alone, hundreds including all the sourcebooks), running them out, and having a blast.  One of a small subsection of games where character generation is just about as much fun as playing the game itself.  Man, spending Bio-E--just a massive range of options, customization potential, etc.  CharGen was/is a bit clunky, but that's the way things go.

MegaTraveller - I've been naysayed for it, but I still consider it a superior skill system than most I've seen, even today.

DC Heroes - My supers game. The exponential attributes, benchmarks, and simple yet robust handling of powers really makes supers tick for me.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstIf I may rehash an old (if predictable for me) favorite:
 
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:  My lord.  Countless hours of rolling up mutant animals (80 in the main book alone, hundreds including all the sourcebooks), running them out, and having a blast.  One of a small subsection of games where character generation is just about as much fun as playing the game itself.  Man, spending Bio-E--just a massive range of options, customization potential, etc.  CharGen was/is a bit clunky, but that's the way things go.

One of my absolute favorite games! A classic!

-clash

MegaTraveller: It´s the best weapons damage/penetration munition type simulator in any RPG still playable fast and loose. Pure genius!

Anything Battletech: It´s basic engine was adaptable, quick and translated very well into other games. Also look at Renegade Legion.

Tunnels & Trolls: Roll some dice, add them, tell a story. Take that, you indy fiend!

Abenteuer in Magira: Ancient german role-playing game, consisting of a few mimeographed books with proto-LARP pictures glued to the front. Very playable, interesting world and some features that are still missing from modern games.

Swordbearer: You want a reason to kill orcs? Well, they're a neccesary component for your spells. A really good magic system and the rest isn't bad, either. Forgotten classic. Plus: Bunrabs.

QuoteSwordbearer: You want a reason to kill orcs? Well, they're a neccesary component for your spells. A really good magic system and the rest isn't bad, either. Forgotten classic. Plus: Bunrabs.

FGU, black box. Not forgotten! But try to find players for that one...

TMNT and Other Strangeness was the first RPG I ever played, and I still have a bunch of the books for it.

I've also got a soft spot for Revised Recon, just because it's easy as heck to grind through characters without slowing down play.

I would have to agree with Zachary and Pseudoephedrine about TMNT. I always enjoyed it. (Heck still do today, except I'm more focused on the "After the Bomb" setting for it.)  
I also like Star Frontiers. Everything seemed to work well (skill checks, combat, and etc) without bogging down. I like the alien races. And the destructive power gamer in me likes being able to dial up up the power on a laser pistol.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI've also got a soft spot for Revised Recon, just because it's easy as heck to grind through characters without slowing down play.

Man, you and me both! That game seriously needs more love than it gets.
 
Incidentally, for a blast from the past, the original Recon is available for free as a pdf from Palladium's Cutting Room Floor.

Nifty. Thanks for the heads-up.

Rolemaster - We had many years of fun rolling on the Critical charts. Something evocative about reading those criticals. 66E on any table was cool. The system is crunchy and character creation took a while but what fun we had.

Stormbringer 1st Ed - Amazingly unbalanced but we didn't care. The games we played were fun! The system is easy to learn and run. Moves quietly into the background as you go around fighting either agents of law or chaos. Oh, the art was incredible.

Basic D&D - I actually started playing AD&D at 7.  Basic D&D allowed me to run games.  It was simple and cheaper than buying all of the AD&D hard covers.  I could buy adventures at the toy store.  It only took around 10 minutes to make characters and play.  I loved the Larry Elmore artwork.  

Star Frontiers - It was our first sci-fi game.  I can't recall how many times I've crashed on Volturnas.  The assault scout seemed to be the vehicle of choice.

Robotech - Our first exploration outside of TSR and really the only Palladium game we played to any extent.  We had some great times playing this and almost got into a fight over a typo or "What do you mean the Veritech doesn't have ultra-violet sensors?".  It makes me smile everytime where I see my brother penciled it in the book.  I plan on writing a campaign based on the SDF-1 actually crashing in American Samoa in 1985 or 87.

Nostalgic games?  As in games that I remember some of the best times with?  Those are simple to list, Basic D&D, Star Frontiers, and Villains & Vigilantes.  Close runners up are AD&D, Paranoia, T&T, and CoC, but those are remembered for more specific reasons.

D&D & Star Frontiers are probably my favorite “nostalgic” games because they are the ones I played the most with my Big sister Colette.  She is the one who got me into almost every geek hobby I love, and was pretty much my role model growing up.  Not only that, but those were some of the best stories ever told.  Unlike most people, my first adventures didn’t start as hack and slash and then develop into great stories…it was actually quite the reverse.  With my sister things were always very much about the story, lighthearted, and about good vs. evil.  Sort of fairy tale type of game.  It was always about the story, character development, and cool fun NPCs and villains.  

Later, when my sister went off to college I began playing more with my peers, and the games were much more social, more about rules, and more about getting together with friends than telling a story.  Those were fun time too (with those second listed games), but not the same as those early games with my sister.

V&V was a bit different.  It was about my Junior year in High School, when I had settled on my very good group of life friends (still friends with them all, despite the fact that we live a good distance apart).  At that time we had all gotten seriously into comic books, so it was only natural that we try some super hero role playing.  Unable to afford Champions, we settled on the thin V&V rules at $6.  Those were some seriously good adventures, and seriously fun times with friends.  V&V marks the peek good nostalgic years of my life.