Dragon Warriors.

I have a copy of Maelstrom working its way towards me as I type. I'm holding this thread responsible for its quality!

I keep hearing good things about the Secret of Zir'an (though I loathe apostrophes). Unfortunately it's OOP, and then some.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;300459I keep hearing good things about the Secret of Zir'an (though I loathe apostrophes). Unfortunately it's OOP, and then some.

I keep seeing a copy for cheap at my game store. I flip through it "Why didn't I pick this up?" then I get to the pages that are unreadable due to the art design. (Pale Text that the art actively obscures.) I then put it back on the shelf.

I'm lucky enough to have a copy that's entirely legible. It's sweeeeeet.

Another vote for T&T, The Fantasy Trip, and Talislanta!

Does "Stalking the Night Fantastic" count as fantasy?

I'm not sure if talislanta, now thinking of it, is really "underrated".  Under-supported, maybe. If WotC had kept it, it might have surpassed D&D as the game to play, as 3rd ed Tal was definitely a beginning point for D20.

Quote from: Pere Ubu;300681Another vote for T&T, The Fantasy Trip, and Talislanta!

Does "Stalking the Night Fantastic" count as fantasy?

I think its allegedly "Horror" originally but the tone was "Comedic Horror", not even as subtle as "Black Humor", now it might be "Supernatural Modern Fantasy."

Labels are often a mess...

It isn't Urban Fantasy (Because after all fighting Goshmog might be done in some farm land...)

Quote from: Silverlion;300465I flip through it "Why didn't I pick this up?" then I get to the pages that are unreadable due to the art design. (Pale Text that the art actively obscures.)

That's due to an unfortunate printing error rather than an intentional design, actually, and its severity varies from copy to copy. The one I purchased from a sale at the FLGS is quite readable, for instance.

I think one of them is undoubtedly "Beasts men & gods" fantasy RPG.

So please join the online petition i put on my blog for this forgotten gem:

http://addsecondaedizione.blogspot.com/2011/03/petition-for-lost-fantasy-rpg.html

From the days of yore, I'd have to say Chivalry & Sorcery didn't get good treatment. It wasn't a math heavy game... Meaning not alot of repetative math, It was definitely a math complex game though. Once you got through character creation though it improved considerably.

It brought Jousting to the fantasy realm, something no one was ever able to really do in D&D.

There were spell design mechanics so you could create new spells.

And it introduced characters with detailed backgrounds amd family histories, yet another thing that was lacking in D&D until much later.

Twin Crowns d20 remains one of my favorite Naval RPG games from the modern era.

Claudius - That does sound a lot like Jadeclaw/Ironclaw, a system for which I have a lot of love, so let's go ahead and add them to this thread as well (Jadeclaw especially).  It got some things very wrong, but character creation, task resolution, martial combat, and progression for martial characters were about as good as anything I can think of, with bonus points for audacious originality.

Well I always trot out Swordbearer, Wizard's Realm, and High Fantasy on these threads.

Swordbearer was a three stat percentile game that had an innovative magic system based on capturing elemental and spirit nodes in reflections of their true form and binding spells to them, it also introduced using wealth levels instead of money and had actions declared in order of intelligence and played out in order of agility, not super workable in practice, but a great notion.

Wizard's Realm was a nice little fantasy game with very flexible character creation.  It was the first place I ever saw the "your class is what you call what your character does" concept.  The art was somewhere between Disney and Charles Vess and it had all these secret messages in runes written in the margins.

High Fantasy to this day holds the title for ugliest cover ever seen on an rpg.  The art inside was poor but not as spectacularly bad as the cover.  Anyhow, a simple percentile game with classes and levels but many innovative ideas.  Magic spells scaled, you needed your spell book to cast them but could master them to over come this.  Each class had down time activities and expenses that got them special stuff like that.  It was also the first game I saw where Alchemists could make firearms.

Quote from: GeekEclectic;299978Earthdawn, too. I wouldn't call it obscure, but it certainly doesn't get as much love as it deserves. Why more people don't seem to understand just how infinitely-better-than-D&D it is is beyond me. It's a bit more rules-heavy than I'm used to, but there's an internal consistency that makes it just work.

I've played a lot of ED (1e), and A lot of (TSR) D&D and I have to disagree- to a point, anyway. Everything that ED "fixes" in D&D can be dealt with in a paragraph or two of house rules  (or by just ignoring some shit) without marrying the mechanics to any sort of setting in the way ED is married to Barsaive.  

I guess if you like having a setting hardwired into the rules, maybe ED does 'fix' D&D, but, for me, more than anything else, that was the deal breaker.

Beyond that, after not touching D&D for well over a decade I relearned the system in minutes; I tried to do the same with ED and decided it was not worth the trouble. Thread magic: wtf?  Opening the core book with fiction. For the love of God, stop! Also, first edition ED had the worst monster book I have ever fucking seen.

Quote from: SuperSooga;300448I have a copy of Maelstrom working its way towards me as I type. I'm holding this thread responsible for its quality!

Ditto! That cover just sold me and I'm a sucker for good herb-section And it cost less that 8$, including shipping.