Help Khan Waste Money on RPG Products! e-th Edition

[The Rose Dragon]

Like always, I need your help to decide which new RPG books to buy.

A couple of things:

1) Nothing based on D&D or d20 Modern. And I do mean it. You may suggest other OGL-based systems, what with my favorite system being Mutants & Masterminds, but it has to be different enough to count.

2) Has to be cheaper than $26.99, the number being the cost of the Twilight: 2013 bundle on RPGNow.com right now.

3) Has to be legally available as a .pdf.

4) Has to be English. As much as I'd like to have deGenesis in my collection, I won't be able to make sense of it, so it doesn't count.

5) Should be (sort of) rules medium. Too many rules and I die a bit inside; too few rules and I don't feel as if I bought a new game. Still, if it is absolutely and positively awesome, I'll consider to break this rule.

5) I like things like dark fae, post-apoc settings, wuxia and pulp. Why Exalted doesn't make it on the top of my list I have absolutely no idea.

6) Things I already have: All Flesh Must be Eaten, d20 Modern, D&D 3.5, Exalted 2nd Edition, Mutants & Masterminds, True20, new World of Darkness, Changeling: the Lost, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying Game, BESM 3rd Edition, Faery's Tale Deluxe, Qin: the Warring States, Risus, Simply Roleplaying!, Spirit of the Century, Summerland and The Savage World of Solomon Kane.

Things I'm buying: Shadow of Cthulhu and Ghosts of Albion.

7) Since the aim is to waste money, free stuff should be added as an addendum, not as actual advice.

OK, thanks. Bye.

[Person_Man]

Star Wars Saga Edition. It's basically the fixed version of 3.5 D&D, IN SPACE!

[The Rose Dragon]

Star Wars Saga Edition. It's basically the fixed version of 3.5 D&D, IN SPACE!

Ah, yes. It's one of the only things WotC got right, or so I hear. However, I don't think it is legally available as a .pdf, and as much as I dislike WotC, I can't bring myself to deny them their rightful gains on something they didn't screw up.

((Also, WotC .pdf's used to cost the same as the print versions, so it's probably gonna violate the 26.99 limit even if it was legally available.))

[UserClone]

My vote goes to Donjon, by CRN games! Sweet!

[The Rose Dragon]

That said, I'd also appreciate a link to where I can buy the .pdf.

[Meek]

Cthulhutech, has a decent rules system I have some personal troubles with (ugh for the love of God why does vehicle movement have acceleration codes and tracked acceleration and decceleration rules?) but an extremely intriguing setting and metaplot. Most of the system makes up for the bits that are annoying, too.

The more money you have to waste on Ctech the better it gets. Dark Passions expands the setting's occult aspects considerably, Vade Mecum adds a slew of player options and opens up new campaign avenues (psychic scenarios and underwater military combat against the Esoteric Order of Dagon), and Damnation View advances the metaplot 1 year and includes like 6-7 adventures to partake in all of which are tied to major events in the story that your players can participate in and survive (and some of which they are explicitly allowed to steer towards either the end of the world as we know it, basically, or saving the day!)

Maid: RPG is a rules-light game but it's cheap and practically endless fun and mostly about rolling on random tables (for nearly everything you can think of) while pretending to be a maid (or the boss of a bunch of maids). You can run the game for as little as a half hour and still have a good time.

[The Rose Dragon]

Thank you, Meek, for your properly contented contributions.

Here, have a cookie.

[Yakk]

http://www.gregstolze.com/reign/
Hmm. That costs too much.

http://www.nemesis-system.com/delta-green/index.php
Delta-green via Nemesis. Same core ORE engine.

Sadly, I think the PDF is free. Hmm.

http://enworld.rpgnow.com/index.php?...cturers_id=120
weapons of the gods -- I have heard good things about that. 26.99$.

[The Rose Dragon]

Oh, I'm totally buying Maid: the RPG.

Of course, it still leaves me around 18.99 dollars to spend.

[Tehnar]

Shadowrun 4th edition pdf (20th anniversary edition), 25$.
http://battlecorps.com/catalog/produ...oducts_id=2240

Have yet to play it, but the fluff is great.

[Blacky the Blackball]

So you like Mutants and Masterminds, eh?

Then how about Warriors And Warlocks...

It's the Mutants and Masterminds supplement for running sword and scorcery campaigns, and it comes in PDF or hardcopy.

As Conan himself would say - By Crom!

[The Rose Dragon]

I already have it.

I'd like to mention that when I say "I have X", I probably mean "I have all books of X published by the company that published X".

[Kurald Galain]

Do not buy Paranoia, as it is not available at your security clearance. It is rumored to be "fun", but your life is already "fun" by order of The Computer, and enforced through Happy Pills. Also, rumors are treason. Please report yourself for termination immediately.

[Temet Nosce]

http://enworld.rpgnow.com/index.php?...cturers_id=120
weapons of the gods -- I have heard good things about that. 26.99$.

I'm going to second this. I'd like to suggest Nobilis, but there's no way you're buying it without a lot more cash available. Weapons of the Gods however, is a rules medium but detail heavy book with great flavor and an enormous array of options for a single book (as a bonus, it's the best portayal of Wuxia I've ever read). It isn't quite as awe inspiring as Nobilis, but the book is still worth reading just to read it even if you can't find anyone to play it with.

[Totally Guy]

Burning Wheel.

It's a bit on the rules heavy side but it's very readable at the same time. It's written around Tolkien-like fantasy with rules to simulate an abstraction of the world and rules to encourage roleplay. A player can choose motivations and the system rewards acting in accordance or directly against one of these beliefs.

For something a bit lighter there's Mouseguard which is pretty much a subset of the Burning Wheel with a little more game to it. Plus you're all mice.

[UserClone]

Whoa, brother! Mouseguard is pretty freakin' sweet, I gotta say. I bought it the moment I saw it in the store, and only learned later that it was Burning Wheel after having read it. A lot to it, and it promises to be loads of fun.

[Totally Guy]

only learned later that it was Burning Wheel after having read it.

Me too. But once I'd read through MG I had to pick up Burning Wheel. Burning Wheel puts flesh on the Mouseguard Conflict rules, you go from having the 4x4 resolution grid to a grid for each conflict type. Fighting is maybe 12x12 options, debating is 8x8.

Plus burning wheel has magic which mouse guard doesn't, unless you consider Weather Watcher to be magic.... They always blame the weather watcher.

[Vic_Sage]

Be a man, get Maid RPG.

[BobVosh]

http://atomicarray.com/new-gods-of-mankind-aa006
Official site(which appears to be down currently): http://www.newgodsofmankind.com/

Fairly rules light but fun when I playtested it. The author came by and we got to test it prior to release.

Also maid costs 5 more than Khan's limit :P

Also I would go so far as to agree that Paranoia is fun. As fun is mandatory.

[The Rose Dragon]

Maid costs only 8 dollars. Hardly five more than my limit.

[UserClone]

Yeah, he just wants PDFs, since it's hard to get things shipped cheaply to Turkey.

[Totally Guy]

Yeah, he just wants PDFs, since it's hard to get things shipped cheaply to Turkey.

Oops. Didn't think "has to be available as PDF" meant "has to be PDF". Figured it a was some kind of publishing nerd thing.

He's only got Burning Empires in his PDF store and I don't know what that's like.

[The Rose Dragon]

No, Flowers Win Piglets has the gist of it. Not only is it expensive, but it is also inconvenient and may not arrive in due time. While some online stores do send the books again if they don't arrive (gods bless Green Ronin), others may not.

[Totally Guy]

Wildcard suggestion: If the aim's to waste money on RPG stuff have you thought about downloading a scenery kit to build into terrain?

I've bought some from here and it's good quality stuff.World Works Games

Of course you have to spend some time making it yourself but I've found it very rewarding.

[The Rose Dragon]

Of course, it would be better if I could use them. Seeing how 99.(9)& of my games are online, that wouldn't be very useful.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Bliss Stage: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Also: $10

A new entry: Mountain Witch
In this game, everyone's a ronin with 3 Special Powers sent to kill O-Yanma, the semi-divine witch of Mount Fuji. In addition, each player is secretly dealt a Dark Fate before play begins which grants them narrative control and places them in conflict with the other members of the party.

An exciting narrativist game that may be a bit rules-light for you, but it deserves an honorable mention as a fun one-shot for $18

[The Rose Dragon]

A new entry: Mountain Witch

That's quite... niche, isn't it? I don't deal well with niche things, especially if it deals something un-mechanics like "trust".

Though I will keep considering Bliss Stage.

[wadledo]

TRD, do you have wild cards yet?
Because if so, I am totally going to run a game.

[The Rose Dragon]

Wild Cards is the only Green Ronin M&M 2nd Edition book I don't have actually, and the only one I'm not going to buy, since it does not hold any of my interest.

What would it have that I absolutely need anyway?

[Oracle_Hunter]

That's quite... niche, isn't it? I don't deal well with niche things, especially if it deals something un-mechanics like "trust"

Actually, Trust is a mechanic - you give Trust Points to other players to help you out during the next Act. The fun part is that those Trust Points can also be used to screw you over something fierce if the other character decides to act against you.

The niche part is true (this is the most limited RPG I've player ) but the sort of stories you get out of it can be quite varied.

In my first game I played a young ronin whose sensei had been killed and his body ransomed by a tribe of barbarian-thieves. Having drawn the Old Alliances Dark Fate I brought in the tribe and revealed that the leader was a childhood friend of mine - and he had married our mutual sweetheart! In the end he slew his former friend after he became possessed by the Mountain Witch, and escaped with his sweetheart to recover his master's body.

In the second game I played a man cursed with unbelievable good luck - he had been stripped of his title at the urging of a noble that had lost a good deal of money in a bet, and had slowly lost the rest of his goods as he got driven out by every town for "cheating." In the end I killed a fellow ronin (for I had drawn the Vengeance Dark Fate) because he was the reincarnated form of the sorcerer who had placed this curse on my bloodline. After the adventure, his ghost haunted me and we went on to do righteous things to redeem my past sins (such as killing the ronin).

And that was just me. In the second game alone 3 of the PCs ended up being related to each other - one was killed by the stepmother he thought he had killed in his past, the second fled his evil father and sought to live his own life, and the third... I think he drowned when the everflowing jug of sake exploded

Basically, if you like a good samurai movie, Mountain Witch is Good Times