little known RPG systems?

[GoblinGilmartin]

Does anyone have some good tales of obscure RPG systems? I recently learned about an older one based on golden age cartoons just called Toon. I'd prefer if the systems work well, and that they are published rather than homebrew. I'm thinking of starting a collection, and i thought that the nice people of this site could point me in some interesting directions.

[beyond reality]

Any specifics you're looking for? Do you want ones available as actual physical books or ones available only on PDF? Any particular genres or themes you might be interested in?

[Thinker]

I've played and run Preternatural. It's a free paranormal investigation game. The game itself is intended to be dark (not grimdark), cinematic, and rules light. The fluff is a little light and there aren't that many monsters fleshed out, but it's easy to make them as you go. It has been fun so far and I recommend it. http://greyarea.webs.com/Preternatural.pdf

Sorry, I don't have any stories I'd like to share about play with the game.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Not sure if you can call it "little known", but I recently purchased and fell in love with Don't Rest Your Head. It's a nice and simple system, and it has a nice flavor to it. I also enjoy Little Fears, which I think is a bit less known.

[Glimbur]

There's a decent list in this thread. I like Wuthering Heights, myself. It turns out that when you give players power and remove responsibility they do things like attack New Orleans with a horde of zombies or burn down a tavern or kill an Inquisitor or live happily ever after.

[Provengreil]

battletech comes to mind, though personally i prefer the classic game. much more time using the big stompy robots.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

A Dirty World by Greg Stolze, it uses the One Roll Engine, which requires you to roll a d10 dice pool and match same numbers.

What's really interesting about the game is that most of your stats will shift and fluctuate during a scene. Instead of representing concrete, hard-to-change qualities about a person, they'll represent things such as Courage, Purity, and Deceit. Even better? Those Qualities are paired up with their opposites, and most attacks against one quality will lower it but raise the opposite.

For instance, if an opponent keeps attacking your Purity, it'll boost your Corruption, so you might find yourself suddenly making a very strong switch in your approach to the situation, playing instead to your enemy's darker impulses.

It's a very noir-ish system in that regard (moral ambiguity and such), and it even has a cool plot generator in the back of the book.

[GoblinGilmartin]

Any specifics you're looking for? Do you want ones available as actual physical books or ones available only on PDF? Any particular genres or themes you might be interested in?

pdf, please...cuz i'm cheap...let's not get into that here...

and also, i'll share one that i found called Monsters and other childish things, it's kindof like that one episode of powerpuff girls were Kid Mike Believe has an imaginary friend and it keeps playing mean jokes on people, except your friend can end up being an extra dimensional venus flytrap, a hawaiian shark god, or a spider monkey that rips people's eyes out... and they all have much darker senses of humor.

[BayardSPSR]

Destiny of Heroes is free; a link to the site's in my sig, and you can find the download page easily enough. It's pretty much the definition of little-known. In a sentence, it's a rules-medium system with some low-fantasy rules (though there're supposed to be more out in a few months).

[GoblinGilmartin]

what is it about?...what's the hook? It seemed kind of generic, to tell the truth.

[Aidan305]

Unknown Armies sometimes crops up around me during discussions of less well-known games. I believe that the nickname for it is "Cosmic Bumfights". Regardless, it's a fairly fun game with it's own interesting perspectives on how best the players can go around causing mayhem and destruction wherever they go.

[GolemsVoice]

Unhallowed Metropolis. Think Steampunk, together with Victorian age and gothic fiction, and throw in zombie apocalypse.

[Totally Guy]

Lacuna is an RPG about being agents in a shared dream space. The players seek out the hostile parts of the subject's personality eliminate them, reforming the subject.

But what is the true nature of the dream, the company and the soviet spidermen?

It's a lot like Inception, rules are light. It's surreal and intense.

Lacuna became available on PDF just 3 days ago.

[Arbane]

Unknown Armies sometimes crops up around me during discussions of less well-known games. I believe that the nickname for it is "Cosmic Bumfights". Regardless, it's a fairly fun game with it's own interesting perspectives on how best the players can go around causing mayhem and destruction wherever they go.

Also known as "Quentin Tarantino directs The works of Tim Powers: The Movie."
A little more explanation: UA's setting is the modern day, only magic works. But it mostly only works for a very few people - because to use it, you pretty much have to have driven yourself crazy with obsession over something. Being a Normal in this game can be a big advantage, as most magicians are power-junkies who'd literally sell their daughter for a big enough 'hit' of mojo.

[Aidan305]

Also known as "Quentin Tarantino directs The works of Tim Powers: The Movie."
A little more explanation: UA's setting is the modern day, only magic works. But it mostly only works for a very few people - because to use it, you pretty much have to have driven yourself crazy with obsession over something. Being a Normal in this game can be a big advantage, as most magicians are power-junkies who'd literally sell their daughter for a big enough 'hit' of mojo.

Hence Cosmic Bumfights.

[The Reverend]

Two D20 world books that I like for the same reason, they take spell casters down a notch. The first is Dragon Mech- 2nd age of walkers, its about a world bombarded by pieces of the moon and a recovering post apocalyptic landscape. The civilizations used a variety of methods to survive the moon fall, the worst of which is probably over but is continuing nonetheless. Some wrapped themselves in magical warding, some dug, elves wrapped their forest into a giant dome(didn't work real well), and the dwarves became the dominant civilization as they were already underground and just had to put up with survivors. The world hook is steam tech, a Lego like approach to tech, put these three thongs together and you get a flame thrower, change this part its a freeze ray. Certain classes, ie almost all the new ones in the books, can create new steam tech devices, anyone can use the devices unlike magic items and do not require charges only fuel or ammo. Also land based travel happens inside giant steampunk mecha, the city mechs are up to 2200 feet high and are the size of cities. they have at least nine books with tons of fluff, giant robot fighten rules, moon dragons, etc.

Dragonstar, dnd in space. Wizards aren't quite as impressive when your fighter can use an heavy auto blaster to do 4d10 5 times a round, the rogue has holo camo, and the paladin is in flying power armor and has a gravity hammer and force field. Wizards become much less about boomage and even more about being a magical Swiss army knife. My favorite group. I dm'd a game in which all the players were goblins who rode waarghs, later blink dogs, and specialized in indoor cavalry charges. All of them had high acrobatic scores for daring jumps over obstacles as their wolves ducked under them. One guy just chucked grenades behind him as they rode thru

The system I started out on when I was a child of 8 is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying system. Not 40k. The reaaaally neat thing I think about it is the stats, there are literally about 16 of them: initiative, ballistic skill, agility, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, toughness, wounds, attacks, leadership, fellowship, strength, etc etc. Some interesting characters can be stated in the system, class advancement is easy though to be honest we always played games where you were already on your second class.

[Tyndmyr]

7th Sea...also, sort of, Necromunga.

[Nepenthe]

I don't think things get any more obscure than Metalface.

[DwarfFighter]

Does anyone have some good tales of obscure RPG systems? I recently learned about an older one based on golden age cartoons just called Toon. I'd prefer if the systems work well, and that they are published rather than homebrew. I'm thinking of starting a collection, and i thought that the nice people of this site could point me in some interesting directions.

Imperium 3000

Great stuff, if you have Read/Write (Norwegian).

-DF

[vartan]

Adventure! is a system I found little knowledge of. It is a White Wolf game that seems like a spiritual predecessor of SotC from my understanding of that title. Pulp adventure a la Indiana Jones and the Rocketeer.

Also INSPECTRES a game by Memento Mori Theatricks made of collaborative storytelling and a rules lite system.

[Aidan305]

Fireborn is one I played a couple of years ago that has a particularly interesting concept behind it. You play in the modern era as the reincarnations of Dragons, powerful beings from an age of Legends that existed long ago. The game revolves around you, the scion, learning about who you were before. This is done through a series of flashbacks where you play as the Dragon. It's sort of like if you were swinging back and forth between an epic-level campaign and a low level campaign that are both tied together with an interwoven plotline.

Another interesting mechanic is a very precise and exact spell system. If a spell has a range of 60ft, then it can only be used if the target is exactly 60ft away. It can be fun to fiddle around with these spells to se just how far you can push this literal interpretation.

[GoblinGilmartin]

Fireborn is one I played a couple of years ago that has a particularly interesting concept behind it. You play in the modern era as the reincarnations of Dragons, powerful beings from an age of Legends that existed long ago. The game revolves around you, the scion, learning about who you were before. This is done through a series of flashbacks where you play as the Dragon.

A flashback centric game huh...sounds kinda...juicy.

[Tebryn]

I'd have to say Ninjaburger and Kobolds Ate my Baby. Awesomely hysterical games really.

[GoblinGilmartin]

I'd have to say Ninjaburger and Kobolds Ate my Baby. Awesomely hysterical games really.

Ninjaburger??? 0_0???

[beyond reality]

Ninja Burger is exactly what it sounds like. You play a ninja fast food delivery team. It's quite fun. There's two editions, the latest one is based on the PDQ system.

Speaking of PDQ, just about anything from that system is a good suggestion. All of them are available as PDFs and most are less than 10 bucks.

Questers of the Middle Realms Essentially a rules-light version of D+D with the PDQ system and a sense of humor. It's also notable for some interesting magic systems (I especially like the divine spellcasting system based on currying favor with the gods). For a more serious version there's also Jaws of the Six Serpents a sword-and-sorcerery version of PDQ.

Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies Airships, sky pirates and musketeers.

Zorcerer of Zo A PDQ game based around fairy-tale adventures.

There's others as well: Dead Inside (characters who have lost their soul trying to become whole again), Vox (you've got voices in your head. Includes some very interesting settings), Truth and Justice (great super-hero system for classic, four-color superheroics).

[prufock]

I played a one-shot of Ghostbusters D6 that was pretty fun. Simple, sensible system and it's Ghostbusters.

Does Paranoia! count?

[Conners]

Anyone know a good one for a game about party members barely holding together? Like, they're opposed to an extent that after travelling together for a few weeks, it might dissolve into blood and cursing?

Want a system where the focus is on the social aspect within the party. They won't necessarily hate each other with a passion... just that there's an air of resentment, where one push to far and it could be a murder-mystery. People might get nervous for their lives, or nervous for their pay--but getting out isn't much of an option.

More details here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post12145037

[Knaight]

Anyone know a good one for a game about party members barely holding together? Like, they're opposed to an extent that after travelling together for a few weeks, it might dissolve into blood and cursing?

Want a system where the focus is on the social aspect within the party. They won't necessarily hate each other with a passion... just that there's an air of resentment, where one push to far and it could be a murder-mystery. People might get nervous for their lives, or nervous for their pay--but getting out isn't much of an option.

More details here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...7#post12145037

Burning Wheel is perfect for that. Its basically what it is made for.

[Aidan305]

Does Paranoia! count?

Friend computer says no.