The Obscure-But-Awesome RPG Sharing Thread

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

There are a lot of RPGs out there that very few people one play, put are cool beyond belief. JAGS Wonderland, RISUS, and Basic Fantasy just being a few examples. There are so many undiscovered gems out there. So many obscure RPGs that deserve fame.

This is the place where all those obscure games can be showcased and given the credit they deserve. Where we can all come together and give them a tip of the hat and a salute.

[Xefas]

Hot Guys Making Out
Blazing Rose (which often includes hot guys making out, unrelated to the above game)
Monster Hearts (a hack for Apocalypse World that will almost certainly involve teenage monsters of varying genders making out)
Fiasco (which requires no making out, but it certainly helps)

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Hot Guys Making Out
Blazing Rose (which often includes hot guys making out, unrelated to the above game)
Monster Hearts (a hack for Apocalypse World that will almost certainly involve teenage monsters of varying genders making out)
Fiasco (which requires no making out, but it certainly helps)

Well ... Um ... Wow. Those are certainly unconventional. Especially the first. Awesome.

[TooManySecrets]

Hot Guys Making Out

Hot Guys Making Out is a yaoi role-playing game, set in the Spanish Civil War, in which a tormented nobleman and his young ward attempt to resist their forbidden love for each other, and fail.

ಠ_ಠ

Anyways, it sort of depends on what you mean by "obscure". There's some that are just slightly obscure, but that you never see in the Finding Players forum. For instance:
Paranoia - 1984 meets Three Stooges (though there is one game running right now, strangely enough)
Unknown Armies - Modern occult horror/action/adventure
Cthulhutech - Lovecraftian mythos meets Evangelion
Delta Green - Lovecraftian X-Files (just recently go an update that was able to pull it into the 21st century, instead of the 90s)
Shadowrun - By far the least obscure, but it's just never seen wide play. Part of the reason might be do to the fact that the companies that create content for it keep going out of business for reasons unrelated to sales of the books themselves.

Then you have the super obscure:
The Window - A rules-lite RPG that bridges the gap between freeform RPGs and ruled RPGs
Icar - Far future SF RPG with a neat twist on unarmed and melee combat
Violence: The RPG of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed - The only RPG that isn't meant to be played. It basically moves dungeoncrawling from quasi-medieval fantasy to the real, modern world. Replace "orcs" with "people" and "heroes" with "sociopaths". It's a great satire. [I'm not linking to it - forum rules]
Artifice - An AI RPG. The content, right now, is a bit anemic, but it has one of the cooler ways of doing skills.
Engine Heart - A modified version of Artifice where the players are maintenance robots that survived the end of humanity.

[Raistlin1040]

I was going to say Paranoia, which I don't actually know how to play, but would learning/playing. Um, other than that, Burning Wheel or Dread? I've played Dread and if the narrator is good and the players are serious, it's amazing. Never played Burning Wheel but I've heard good things.

[Knaight]

Carnage 3:16
Its the official alien genocide RPG, and a lot of it has to do with questions about the acceptable price of utopia. Fascinating stuff.
Chronica Feudalis
This is written as if it were the translated document found in a 12th century monastery, and written by monks there. I mean that literally, and that leads to it being an incredible read, of what is also a very good game.
Lucid
Basically, its a specific build of Dread to cover what is basically Inception. That leads to quality.

I'd list Fudge, but I've probably shilled it out to the point where it is no longer obscure at all on this forum.

[TooManySecrets]

Oh, and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which is a rules-lite way of telling ridiculous improv stories.

[Jjeinn-tae]

My signature has some good ones.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten - It's a zombie Apocalypse, the DM creates a kind of zombie (lots of different options) and the player's try to survive. I have not gotten to really play it much yet, but apparently try is the key word there.

MAID RPG - Maybe self explanatory? It's comedy based and weird, and things get beyond ridiculous for no good reason.


There's also one I've been wanting to find, but I haven't been able to re-locate it... Touhou though, that has to be good, Touhou fans are insane that way.

[Knaight]

And I just realized a failing on my part. I didn't mention:
Wuthering Heights
Ennui ridden upper class Victorians get involved in love, as they inevitably spiral towards suicide. It has the potential to be worth playing once or twice, if ennui and suicide are themes you take an interest in for personal reasons.
Dogs in the Vineyard
Its awesome, it is also innately religious. PM me for the basic overview if you must know. The short version, stripped of religion: Picture a group of very young paladins, given a sword and a holy text, and sent out to solve complex problems that are far beyond their maturity level. Now take that concept, set it in a western U.S. frontier town, and call it a day.

[TooManySecrets]

MAID RPG - Maybe self explanatory? It's comedy based and weird, and things get beyond ridiculous for no good reason.

You are a maid, having worked dutifully for the Saionji family for several years. You are also a shy albino princess who does odd jobs for the yakuza, and train with the three-section staff. Your peer Maya is an outgoing young maid with freckles, a streak of being greedy for sweets, and who also happens to be a military cyborg.

ಠ_ಠ

Speaking of, one of the non-trolls on /tg/, Ettin, was planning on using Maid for one of his games. Basically, the story of the game, was that the Lady of Pain (from the Planescape Setting) decreed that every faction needed to empower a single magical girl to be their representative. He eventually ended up Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM) if I remember correctly. The chat logs of the game sessions were quite funny.

[Agrippa]

These are both retro-clones.
Mutant Future: Retro-clone of Gamma World.
Generic Old-school Role-playing Engine or G.O.R.E.

[Jjeinn-tae]

ಠ_ಠ

Yeah, that about sums it up, and some of the optional rules are really creepy, but it is hilarious too. And mindless, stupid fun.

[Conners]

The Riddle of Steel is probably a winner on obscure. Have any of you heard of it before? I didn't think so.

[Jude_H]

And I just realized a failing on my part. I didn't mention:
Wuthering Heights
Ennui ridden upper class Victorians get involved in love, as they inevitably spiral towards suicide. It has the potential to be worth playing once or twice, if ennui and suicide are themes you take an interest in for personal reasons.

That's one I haven't played, and it sounds like that could have been a mistake. Nice tip!

And, if I'm supposed to chip anything in, I'm hesitant to call any games I've played "obscure," except maybe a couple of unawarded one-shot free rpgs.
Until We Sink is a pretty slick murder mystery type game. Very casual, nicely structured, a lot of fun.
vs. Monsters is just a stripped down set of mechanics for Victorian era monster killing. It is very straightforward and very fun.
Sea Dracula breaks the awards rule, but it is about prosecuting criminals (or defending criminals, sometimes it is not easy to keep track), using facts. It sometimes even matters what the facts are. The conflict resolution mechanic is streamlined by the removal of dice, and the unique dance-off engine.
Badass Presidents does everything its title promises.

Just because I'm digging around on 1km1kt again, I want to say that I've never played normality, but I'd kind of like to; it makes me smile.

Due to its awards and general popularity, Dust Devils probably doesn't count, but I don't see it mentioned around here very often, and it does excellent jobs matching its mechanics to its fiction, tying genre staples into gameplay and sharing narration between players at the table.

[TooManySecrets]

Additional game: Amber Diceless. As the name suggests, it's a diceless (though not entirely freeform) game set in Roger Zelazny's Amber universe. For those who don't know, in the Amber universe, by doing certain things, you can go to any universe you imagine (the main conflict comes from the fact that there's only one "real" universe and all the rest are reflections of it - it's also the one place that you can gain the ability to create universes). I do like how they did the character sheet for canon characters - they basically gave them three different sheets, based on different viewpoints (usually common fan viewpoints), instead of just one "official" one.


EDIT:

The Riddle of Steel is probably a winner on obscure. Have any of you heard of it before? I didn't think so.

Yep. It got mentioned in /tg/ thread I read which was talking about Conan games. There's even a TVtropes page about it.

[Shades of Gray]

ಠ_ಠ

Speaking of, one of the non-trolls on /tg/, Ettin, was planning on using Maid for one of his games. Basically, the story of the game, was that the Lady of Pain (from the Planescape Setting) decreed that every faction needed to empower a single magical girl to be their representative. He eventually ended up Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM) if I remember correctly. The chat logs of the game sessions were quite funny.

The system is very rule-light and malleable. I use it, but rarely for maids.

In one game it was an alternate future (where the Cold War never ended and they invented mecha instead of nukes) and the players were teenagers in an orbital space academy where they learned to pilot mecha to further the war on earth.

I use it when I want a mostly RP-based game but with some rule structure.

[turkishproverb]

Hot Guys Making Out
Blazing Rose (which often includes hot guys making out, unrelated to the above game)
Monster Hearts (a hack for Apocalypse World that will almost certainly involve teenage monsters of varying genders making out)
Fiasco (which requires no making out, but it certainly helps)

I think you and me are going to get along.

*Scribbles links*

Some from me then...hmm....
Offhand, that I've played, these come to mind quick:

Inspectres

Tales from the Crypt
Silver age Sentinels


Less but still arguably obscure:
Men in Black
Ghostbusters (Ok, it may not be that obscure)

[Knaight]

Additional game: Amber Diceless. As the name suggests, it's a diceless (though not entirely freeform) game set in Roger Zelazny's Amber universe. For those who don't know, in the Amber universe, by doing certain things, you can go to any universe you imagine (the main conflict comes from the fact that there's only one "real" universe and all the rest are reflections of it - it's also the one place that you can gain the ability to create universes). I do like how they did the character sheet for canon characters - they basically gave them three different sheets, based on different viewpoints (usually common fan viewpoints), instead of just one "official" one.

Amber is pretty widely known. Karma might qualify as a diceless game which isn't, but Amber? Sure, its not D&D, or WoD, or even GURPS, but its not Wuthering Heights or Blazing Rose or Kagematsu either. Which reminds me:
Kagematsu
A samurai comes to the village, and the characters play a bunch of maidens trying to woo the samurai, so he will defend the village.

[Tetsubo 57]

Games that I think are cool but aren't all that well known:

Everstone: Blood Legacy. One of the best versions of the 3.5 rules I have ever read.

The World Tree. A truly unique fantasy setting without any of the classic fantasy setting tropes.

The Mutant Epoch. A post-apocalyptic game that perfectly emulates the feel and tone of early games in this genre. Just a really fun read.

[Shadow of the Sun]

I agree with Dogs in the Vineyard, as mentioned above; I rather love the mechanics.

By the same guy, and also religious: Kill Puppies For Satan. The basic premise is that all the players are addicted to Faustian style power and have to commit evil acts to keep getting it.

FUDGE is pretty cool. It's a free universal roleplaying game, except, unlike GURPS, it's not so stupidly math-y.

Human Occupied Landfill is stupidly random and hilarious. I love it. I know someone who rolled up a character that was a superhero potato.

[TooManySecrets]

Amber is pretty widely known. Karma might qualify as a diceless game which isn't, but Amber? Sure, its not D&D, or WoD, or even GURPS, but its not Wuthering Heights or Blazing Rose or Kagematsu either.

That's why I said earlier that it depends on how you define obscure. Let's be honest - the RPG market is dominated by D&D. WotC is the Microsoft of RPGs, with White Wolf and Steve Jackson vying for Apple (in this metaphor, I'm just talking about number of OSes, not anything else). Everything else, individually, has less than 1% of the market. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if everything else collectively had less than 1% of the market.

Hence,

There's some that are just slightly obscure, but that you never see in the Finding Players forum.

[...]

Then you have the super obscure:

I made that distinction to prevent what I call the Hipster Paradox i.e. anything that the hipster has heard of is not obscure enough for them to like.

[Shadowknight12]

This thread is relevant to my interests, and therefore it is now incarcerated in my subscriptions dungeon.

Please, do carry on.

[beyond reality]

I'll give some love to the PDQ system:

Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies: A fantasy setting featuring floating islands in a chaotic world of anti-gravity trees and pirates riding on giant parrots.

Truth and Justice: A fun, fast traditional super-hero game. Put on silly pants and beat up bad guys.

Questers of the Middle Realms: A rules-light parody of the traditional D+D setting. Lots of fun reinterpretations of the standard Tolkien-esque races.

Ninja Burger the RPG: You're a ninja. You deliver fast food. With great honor.

[Ravens_cry]

Dogs in the Vineyard
Its awesome, it is also innately religious. PM me for the basic overview if you must know. The short version, stripped of religion: Picture a group of very young paladins, given a sword and a holy text, and sent out to solve complex problems that are far beyond their maturity level. Now take that concept, set it in a western U.S. frontier town, and call it a day.

I played it at a convention, and that was basically my take on it too. We never resolved the issue at hand completely. We solved the crime, but the judgement had us really flustered. If you DM, make sure your prepared for a long wait as players struggle to figure out the right thing to do.
If you want to play a less religious game, reflavouring it with a kind of Mafia flavour and playing Mafia enforcers could also work.

[Glimbur]

Wuthering Heights
Ennui ridden upper class Victorians get involved in love, as they inevitably spiral towards suicide. It has the potential to be worth playing once or twice, if ennui and suicide are themes you take an interest in for personal reasons.

I have found that other common themes include starting the American Civil War early, taking over the town like a "big gay spider", and getting married off and living happily ever after. The setting is very malleable especially once you start tinkering with the problem table.

Lady Blackbird is a one shot/system set in the skies. The setting has several asteroids/planetoids/islands with the PCs flying between them for various reasons. The system has attributes which are supported by traits. If you have the Bold attribute and the Explosives trait, then when you attempt a bold escape from the brig using explosives you have cooked up then you get extra dice. There are also Drama Dice, which are a floating pool you can use to get things done. They come back when... I forget, actually, but I played the game once and had a great deal of fun as the titular character.

[Captain Six]

Dang, I was hoping to be the first to say Maid.

But seriously the game Maid plays closest to is Paranoia. Your experience points equivalent is 'Favor'. Favor is used to buy or sell stats, running out of favor gets you fired, the only way to 'die'. (The HP equivalent is Stress, it can only incapacitate you and you recover 1 stress ever OOG minute.)

You gain favor by having Friend Computer the Master like you more than anyone else. This can be by doing a good job, sabotaging your rivals or by trying to be his leading love interest; the game can quickly become a harem romance. The exception is the Head Maid, who only gains favor when everyone gets along with each other and loses favor when they don't, in exchange they get the ability to punish maids who work beneath them. I'm not sure on the Head Maid details because I haven't had enough players to support having one.

[Drachasor]

Eldritch Ass Kicking -- You play a wizard, you get bonuses if you humiliate your opponents (the insult rule). Rules-lite and silly fun.

Universalis -- rather rules-lite cooperative story-telling game. Everyone has coins, you pay a coin to make up a fact about the game world. Typically you start off any session creating the world from scratch as well as all the characters one fact at a time.

[OverdrivePrime]

My favorite RPG of all time, Immortal: The Invisible War was pretty awesome. To make it work, you had to house-rule it to the gills, but the intent of the system and the setting were fantastic. Immortal 3rd edition (now free online) is pretty good as well. Stay far, far away from 2nd edition.

[Shadow Lord]

Dresden Files RPG is totally awesome. Everyone should go play it

Y'know a complete inverse of Obscure but Awesome? FATAL. Everyone should go play it, so they will respect every other RPG far more.

[randomhero00]

Prism. Pretty gritty. Lots and lots of math.

Edit: Oh, and battlestar galactica RPG. I own the book but have never played :(