Best RPG that has since been discontinued?

[pargbonecrusher]

This is mainly to get a frustration off of my back.

There have been many RPGs in the past that you or people you know have played. Now these might not mean much to you, but to others, it holds a soft spot in their dice. So I must ask you, What is the best RPG you have played that has since been discontinued or just fell out of existence.

I would like to point something out though, I'm talking about fully published RPGs.

My favorite would have to be Brave New World by Matt Forbeck.

[Ernir]

D&D 3.5.

[Grynning]

Two spring to mind - WasteWorld, a silly Rifts/Dune/SciFi kitchen sink ripoff with one of the best combat systems ever, which I unfortunately only have the quickstart rules for because the main rulebook is hard to find and pricey.

Star Wars D6 - I love Saga, but the D6 game is the first thing I ever GM'ed and I have a special affection for it. It kind of survives as some generic sci-fi rules that got put out a few years ago, but I don't know anyone who uses them.

[BladeofOblivion]

3.5. It has all the good homebrew.

[Aroka]

Easiest question ever: The Riddle of Steel. Best combat system ever in any RPG, for each of smoothness, fun, and realism. The developers just fell off the face of the earth (along with the pre-orders for their next book on magic and the fae).

Runners-up:

RuneQuest, 3rd edition (Avalon Hill). Fortunately, Mongoose's RuneQuest is great too.

Cyberpunk 2020. 203X is the worst RPG I actually own. The attempt to convert from early 80s Gibson mirrorshade-cyberpunk to early 90s Stephenson post-cyberpunk (already ancient when 203X came out!) was hideous, but the single worst thing by far are the Intruder Countermeasure programs that form a body from nanites so you can just shoot them with a gun instead of hacking through them.

[Trodon]

D&D 3.5

[Gnaeus]

Torg. (Also D&D 3.5)

[darkpuppy]

Hoo boy, where to begin?

I've heard good things about Torg, and similarly, I know darn well that Cyberpunk V3 is awful... when dealers at the last GenCon UK (apparently the last GenCon UK... ) were literally giving the things away along with those free "quick play" things for various games, you know you're not gonna be able to expect much.

But on that subject, I'm one of the few people I know who ever liked CyberGeneration (the midpoint between 2020 and V3, again, a completely different game) and wants a new copy... lemme see... they should never have scrapped Alternity, that rocked. Amber Diceless also rocked. Artesia.. the company's still selling books, but they aren't working on anything new, 'sfar as I know... and finally, I want Chris Blankley's Screaming Silence and Heavy Ordnance to return to the web. can't find them for love nor money now.

EDIT: Okay, couldn't find the really cool PDF version of Heavy Ordnance, but I did find the HTML one, and Screaming Silence is on mediafire.

[Aroka]

I wouldn't call Artesia: AKW discontinued so long as Archaia Press is going, and so long as Smylie is alive (I would say "so long as Smylie is doing the comic", but you know he'll die long before he finishes or stops making the comic even if he lives to be a hundred).

If it were, though, it'd be my #1. The combat system is only "pretty great" rather than "literally the best", but the game overall beats out TROS. The setting is stupendous.

[lyko555]

By far the best is Tales of the floating Vagabond.
what game can go wrong when the dm is called the bartender

[The Big Dice]

+1 to Cyberpunk 2020 going the way of the Dodo. Fortunately, there's still a ton of resources for it online.

I also miss D&D. That is the red/blue/green/black/gold boxed BECMI D&D, not AD&D. To the point where I got a bunch of clones, then shelled out for the Rules Compendium.

[Analytica]

I think Kult is currently not published, unless that French company is still at it. I recall the original Swedish version (and the English translation) very fondly. In any case, there is an amazing setting and metaplot going on, with good rules support. Playing it like the authors seem to have intended should be completely awesome. It might be the one game that used the most real-world occultism for it's setting, and that tied it all together the most...

... but OWoD Mage: The Ascension might come a close second, and is also both excellent and discontinued.

[arrowhen]

Car Wars, Battletech (neither of which were technically RPGs, but we used to roleplay the hell out of them back in junior high), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness.

[Aroka]

Car Wars, Battletech (neither of which were technically RPGs, but we used to roleplay the hell out of them back in junior high), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness.

Battletech ?

[endoperez]

Torg. (Also D&D 3.5)

I have a TORG mainr rules box, but I never played it. Is it good for the rules, the setting, or something else?

[Balain]

Doctor Who by Fasa

[FelixG]

Battletech RPG (though i have been told they are reprinting the books!!)

and SPECIAL (Fallout)

[Platinum_Mongoose]

Star Wars: Saga.

Or AD&D, but only because of Planescape.

[Zom B]

I gotta chime in again with West End Games' Star Wars d6 system. We adapted the heck out of that system for other campaign settings. It was so easy and enduring. Also, you can get a 5-pack of d6's at the Dollar Tree here.

[pargbonecrusher]

I like the answers so far. Keep them up!

[katans]

In Nomine Satanis / Magna Veritas. Greatest modern setting ever, easy and fun game system, nigh-endless possibilities (play an angel! play a demon! play a viking hero! heck, play a mundane human!), deliciously cynical, dark comedy aplenty... luckily there has been lots of material published, so I still have hours and hours of play before me, but yet again I felt really sad when I bought the final module.

[Satyr]

I would say the original World of Darkness. I know it has a few successor games, but I really don't think that those have nearly the quality of the original games. And yes, pretty all of the game lines.

Two weeks ago, I would have mentioned the Unisystem RPGs as there have been no new publications in nearly two years, but since they finally published that awesome pirate book, I would put them from the red list.
So... it's not the Unisystem as a whole (fortunately), but I highly doubt that there will ever be a new book for Witchcraft, Armageddon or Terra Primate, and that's sad.

I wouldn't call Artesia: AKW discontinued so long as Archaia Press is going, and so long as Smylie is alive (I would say "so long as Smylie is doing the comic", but you know he'll die long before he finishes or stops making the comic even if he lives to be a hundred).

I would really like more books by him. The problem is, that he does everything alone, and I fear that sooner or later, he will face a serious George R.R. Martin syndrome... however, more Artesia AKX actually seems unlikely to me. Not because the game isn't good (it's perhaps a bit clunky, but okay) but because I've never heard of anybody who really plays it.

[Wonton]

{Scrubbed}

[Aroka]

I would really like more books by him. The problem is, that he does everything alone, and I fear that sooner or later, he will face a serious George R.R. Martin syndrome... however, more Artesia AKX actually seems unlikely to me. Not because the game isn't good (it's perhaps a bit clunky, but okay) but because I've never heard of anybody who really plays it.

He needs to write more of the damn comic - four volumes in, what, 11 years? It's not enough. If he actually produced it at a steady pace it could become a big thing, because it is completely awesome, and that ought to market the RPG too.

[Kurald Galain]

I have a TORG mainr rules box, but I never played it. Is it good for the rules, the setting, or something else?

+1 to TORG.

Primarily for the setting. It's fun that several of the realities run on movie cliches. That means that if you're hanging on to a cliff and surrounded by evil zombies, somebody will come by and rescue you precisely because that's what would happen in a movie.

Also, a good part of the rules is the One On Many / Many On One table. There aren't many RPGs that deal this well with the notion of one character doing many things at once, and many characters trying to do the same thing at once.

[dsmiles]

I would have said Talislanta, but I recently found out that it was still available (YAY!)

Sooooo...AD&D (1e).

[kestrel404]

Earthdawn. While 3rd edition has just entered print, Earthdawn itself went out of print after 1st edition for several years before a couple of different publishing houses picked it up and dusted it off for the LRG/Redbrick 2nd editions.

As for which edition of the game is best, I'm currently in an 1st edition/LRG hybrid game (since LRG didn't re-publish a lot of the original play options, and we own ALL of the original source material). That and the Redbrick version of 2nd edition are both quite playable and nice. While 3rd edition TRIES to fix a few things (like versatile character options) that were poorly done in the first two editions, it does a bad job of it and makes the game less appealing to old style players.

Overall, between the backstory (epic fantasy post-apocalyptic pulp horror), the gameplay (faster paced and easier to use than DnD with a slightly steeper learning curve), the magic system (mages get a very limited of selection of spells at any time that they can cast at will, but the more powerful spells take multiple actions to cast, and they can change between these spell as either and out-of-combat action that takes 10 minutes, or take damage and make a roll to try to do it fast), and the integration of the fluff with the crunch (90% or game mechanics are in-world concepts with reasonable explanations, including things like why 'dungeons' exist to be explored and looted by adventurers, and going up level) all combine to make Earthdawn the best RPG I've ever played.

[Bogardan_Mage]

D20 Modern. In many ways, what 4th Edition probably should have been.

[darkpuppy]

Interesting that you say that, Bocardan, because some of the features in 4E were indeed directly lifted and modified from D20 Modern.

[potatocubed]

I'm going to say Alternity. It's one of the very few scifi games I actually liked.