Quote from: RPGPundit;299910So is there any obscure or REALLY obscure fantasy RPG that's maybe been dismissed as second-rate or even as a "fantasy heartbreaker" that you thought was just spectacular?

Talislanta fits this criterion.

Quote from: Silverlion;299999Start a thread and tell me what's cool about Agone?

Sure! See this thread.

Quote from: The_Shadow;299918And by the way, word is that someone is working on a full retro-clone [of the Fantasy Trip].

Check out Dark City Game's Legends of the Ancient World.

http://www.darkcitygames.com

The rules are free and only 6 pages long. They sell their adventures which are solo or GM moderated. Your choice.

I quite liked Runequest: Slayers, though it's impossible to find another human being who plays it.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;300047I quite liked Runequest: Slayers, though it's impossible to find another human being who plays it.

Hunh.  I stumbled on my copy of it just last week.  In fact, it's within a mild stretch of my arm right now.  Admittedly, I don't think I've even considered playing it before.

!i!

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;300047I quite liked Runequest: Slayers, though it's impossible to find another human being who plays it.

I tried to get a game going (had a GM lined up and two other players.) This was before bad things happened in my life which completely wrecked me for a while, so sadly I only played one test session and my elf fought with his spear...and his cool backstory was never plumbed.

FANTASIA was an interesting RPG that got no traction unfortunately.   It is Old School focussed on LotR-style Fantasy and it is a solid game with a few minor flaws.  

My Review
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12068.phtml

Fantasia Website - with free downloads
http://www.newdimensiongames.com/fantasia1.htm

ROGUE SWORDS OF THE EMPIRE is one of my favorite fantasy RPGs.  It was published in Space Gamer #2 in the early 1990s (the 4th reboot of the magazine?) and the company ran it heavily at the Los Angeles conventions.  Sadly, the company folded before they could really generate heat.

Quote from: Silverlion;299935Decipher's Lord of the Rings. It needed more editin but in many ways got the setting and needed probably another coat of polish and oversight to have been just right. Far better at the setting than MERP.

I'm curious what you thought was good about it.  As I mentioned in a previous thread on this, " Decipher's Star Trek and Lord of the Rings," I found it to be utterly broken.  I thought that the editing, layout, and illustration of the book were fine , though -- the problems were in the game design, IMO.  cf. my examples of shooting an orc with an arrow and slapping a Balrog with the flat of your sword from that thread.

Iron Gauntlets is a great FRPG that I still can't figure out why I can't play.

Arrowflight



I feel a lot of sympathy for it, I think it is a pretty solid game. Unfortunately, I have only read it, I have yet to play it.

Usagi Yojimbo. The Sanguine version



This one I have played . I have played and read so many RPGs, I thought I had become jaded. Until I read Usagi Yojimbo and thought "I have to run this!", and so I did. It has become one of my favorite RPGs ever. Unfortunately, it must not be very successful because there hasn't been any supplement for it yet (and I'm afraid there won't be), and you hardly see any discussion about it. Whatever, if loving it makes me wrong, I don't want to be right.

Quote from: Claudius;300201This one I have played . I have played and read so many RPGs, I thought I had become jaded. Until I read Usagi Yojimbo and thought "I have to run this!", and so I did. It has become one of my favorite RPGs ever. Unfortunately, it must not be very successful because there hasn't been any supplement for it yet (and I'm afraid there won't be), and you hardly see any discussion about it. Whatever, if loving it makes me wrong, I don't want to be right.

The system I heard was a simplified Jadeclaw? How easy is it to use?

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!;300177Iron Gauntlets is a great FRPG that I still can't figure out why I can't play.

Dang, Doc, you beat me to the one I was going to mention.

I only have the .pdf of it (though I printed most of it out.) I think that's the reason I haven't run this puppy through its paces.

This:



Maelstrom from Puffin Books.

Arion Games acquired the license and has reprinted the original in pdf and added a Companion book which expands on and clears up the rules and setting.

A very underrated system and of course the herb guide was amazing.

Quote from: Silverlion;300212The system I heard was a simplified Jadeclaw? How easy is it to use?

I don't know Jadeclaw, only what I've read about it in reviews. According to what I read, it's a simplified version.

How easy is it to use? Let me tell you that I'm not a big fan of strange resolution systems, mainly because there's nothing more intuitive than an honest and simple roll over or roll under system, so I thought I would be put off by the UY system. But I wasn't, it's very intuitive. It works so, characteristics and skills are measured in dice (as in Savage Worlds), for example you can have a sword skill of 1d8 and a body charactersitic of 1d6. If you want to attack somebody with a sword, you roll 1d8 and 1d6 and you don't add them, just take the highest score (as in Silcore). One rule that always applies is that you never add anything to the dice, you roll and the highest is what you get. This makes it very intuitive in actual play. What if an action is easy? You get bonus dice, for example if you attack somebody who is sleeping, you roll 1d8, 1d6 and 1d12, and take the highest. What if the action is difficult? You get penalty dice. The difficulty can be expressed in a fixed target number, or in dice, and in order to succed you must roll higher than the opposition. A penalty die gives your opposition a bonus die. Simple, intuitive, and brilliant.

I heard that Jadeclaw uses a more complex system for bonuses and penalties, but I'm not sure how it works.

Quote from: vgunn;300320This:



Maelstrom from Puffin Books.

Arion Games acquired the license and has reprinted the original in pdf and added a Companion book which expands on and clears up the rules and setting.

A very underrated system and of course the herb guide was amazing.

YES!

Dammit, I want to run this again; and maybe at some point I will.

RPGPundit