RPGs that Turned You On over the past year...

[Andy Kitkowski]

So, I'm wondering what RPGs that fell across your desk over the past year (they can be older) gave you some sort of inspiration, and why? Doesn't have to be an exhaustive list.

For me:

Unknown Armies: Simple, concise d100 mechanic without feeling too "sterile" or Generic.  Interesting setting, but the system, namely the madness mechanic, make it perfect for adoption into a Kult, Hellraiser or other similar game.  I've been reading the background, and for the most part it's a 50/50 with me: I love the mysteries, hate the "most folks are obsessive losers" aspect.  But I'm running a game right now with my core game group.

FATE, a flavor of Fudge.  It's like Fudge and Risus/Over the Edge had a baby.  Great implementation of the Fudge rules.  While I haven't had time to run or play it yet, it's next on the list.

BESM - I revisited BESM to handle a game set in a Final Fantasy-India style fantasy setting that I ran for a mini-campaign.  Lotsa fun, very simple, all the players quickly grasped the rules.  There is very little that I don't like about the game.  Just don't ask for the stats for any vehicles or any of my NPCs, and we're golden.

I'm trying to think of some of the Indie games I got my fingers into as well. I love the scene framing ideas behind Trollbabe, but I have the feeling that I want to play this more than run it.  Also, Dust Devils flipped my lid, and I'm dying to try this one out, but again I might have to wait for a con to get some play on.

While the Daedalus zine doesn't exactly cound as an RPG on it's own, it deserves some props for including a set of both playable games and viable game settings that, agian, blow the mind.  I wasn't too impressed with the first one, admittedly, but I read the Winter edition cover to cover.

...and you?

[coxcomb]

The Good Knights and The Nighttime Animals Save the World, both by Vincent Baker, have given me much food for thought about simplicity of rules. (Basically everything on his site has rattled my brain in one way or another).

The Great Ork Gods playtest version helped me gather my thoughts about the ways in which players control play.

[Andy Kitkowski]

The Good Knights and The Nighttime Animals Save the World, both by Vincent Baker, have given me much food for thought about simplicity of rules.

Oh Fuck!

That reminds me, I totally owe Vince $5 for a printed copy of KPFS he gave me like 3 years ago.  With interest, I figure that's about $15. Or maybe I gained one Evil point by not paying him, so I can start a fire or someshit...

[Andy Kitkowski]

*bump*

C'Mon, folks!  I'm not looking to feed my ego with a high reply count or anything, but I'd really like to hear some others give some Regular/Indie RPG recommendations so that I can fill out my "to read" list this year... :-)

BRING IT ON!

[Shreyas Sampat]

Hm.

This year, eh?

Nobilis is a book full of glory. Granted, it's peanut glory and a lot of people are allergic to it, but it's glory nonetheless.

I just really got into writing Charm material for Exalted, which is charming for its CCG-ness.

I'm intrigued by Burning Wheel.

I like HQ's mechanics well enough to overlook its layout.

The Nighttime Animals Save The World is...well...wow.

I want to read The Valedictorian's Death but fear it will strike too close to home. I'm still too sentimental about my high school days.

[C. Edwards]

HeroQuest - It's got me excited and depressed all at the same time. It's just so good (minus Glorantha, yes I'm one of those), it's really raised the bar as far as how I look at other rpgs and my own designs.

Shadows - Not last year, but what the hell. This game is always an inspiration to me. It speaks volumes about how much can be accomplished with minimal fuss.

Cheapass Games - yes, pretty much the whole product line. I purchased a couple Cheapass Games a few years ago and loved them. I bought about a dozen more at GenCon SoCal. I want to roll around in them naked.

-Chris

[DevP]

I want to read The Valedictorian's Death but fear it will strike too close to home. I'm still too sentimental about my high school days.

That's sweet of you. <g>

Jeph's Exemplar and Gobi's PUNK looked awesome, and I'm really hopeful for Zero Movement when it finally comes out. Sorcerer and Dust Devils turned me on in bizarre ways, and I have a great love for Active Exploits Take2.

[Doyce]

Lesse.

Inspectres.  I haven't laughed so hard in a really long time.

I have most of a writeup down for using Unknown Armies to run stuff in the firefly setting.  For collated, rules-free background see http://www.fireflywiki.org.  (I'm also considering doing something with the setting using Dust Devils, but that's based solely on what I've heard about the game, cuz I haven't gotten my copy yet.)

Trollbabe.  My only problem with Trollbabe is that I seem to have trouble getting a full session in -- we keep starting late and getting one turn in for everyone.  Annoying.

Heroquest seems like just the thing to turn my d20 group on to -- provided I ever manage to force my way through the obtuse layout.

Sorcerer has rocked my fucking socks off in the last couple months.

Nobilis has been my game of the year, though -- I've been running a a mostly weekly game for a year as of April 14th. 36 sessions or so. Magical.

My Life with Master.  I absolutely must find time to run this with my Nobilis group.

Donjon... OctaNe...  Adventures of the Good Knights.

It's been a really good year for finding new games for me.

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[Ben Lehman]

The Last Year...

I have had a hell of a lot of fun with The Riddle of Steel.  Like, all the time.  For a while, I did nothing else.

Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.  briefly reared it's ancient head again and made me very happy.

Nobilis is constantly a source of amusement, although whenever I run it it turns into "James Bond meets Mystery Cultz meets Urusei Yatsura" and I feel that I'm doing it wrong, even though everyone has fun.  Last time the players destroyed the entire history of humanity, the entire factions of the Light and the Dark, and their own imperator *by accident*

I have fallen in and out of love with Charnel Gods more times than I can count.

D&D 3E provides it's own fun, to bring that can of worms into a new thread.  I would say it turns me on in a major way, but I am always amazed at the number of effective builds, in a Gamist context.

[Jason Lee]

FATE is the most clever thing I've seen this year.

[Jack Aidley]

PuppetLand and Munchkins appealed massively in a not sure I'll ever play them kind of way

Arcana Unearthered (Is Monte Cook indie or not?) briefly rekindled my interest in doing some olde-world roleplaying. D&D but not so depressingly vanilla.

(Incidently, does anyone else get irrationally pleased when other people mention their roleplaying game in posts?)

[Judd]

Burning Wheel has made me want to run vanilla fantasy again.  I want to use this system for all of my Dwarf, Elf, Orc, Human needs.  Best.  Elves.  Evar.

I've been using TROS a whole lot and I think it is a neat game, crunchier than I ever thought I'd use in a game but a cool game nonetheless.

I'm about to embark on my 2nd Dust Devils one-shot, which should be a hoot and a half.

It has been a rough year, jobless through much of it and so I think that is sadly about it.

[Brian Leybourne]

My Life with Master and Little Fears.

I have not had the chance to play either yet, but reading the books gives me "that tingle" down my back and I can't wait to try them out.

I'm also very keen on Transhuman Space. Actually, I'm not a GURPS fan at all, and in fact have not read the book(s) for THS yet (they're on the way as we speak) but everything I have read about them makes me very keen.

Brian.

[hix]

Buffy, which I totally thought I wouldn't like running (and I was only doing as a favour) turned out to have a fantastic, simple combat system, a drama point system we played way freer and looser with than spec, and players who couldn't get enough of it. Season 2, on its way. Would like to try it with Heroquest though.

Universalis, best game purchase I've ever made. Probably because it works on so many levels - gamism of getting your way and figuring out new ways to turn the rules to your advantage, negotiation, the 'Aha' moment of figuring out where the story should go, building a story out of nothing. I'm yet to be totally convinced that it's an example of narrativist game design - but that's probably for another thread.

Cheers,
Steve.

[Alan]

The single most enlightening and engaging roleplay experience I had in the last year was playing Trollbabe. And the experience is consistently reproducable.

The new Heroquest looks great.  I haven't played yet though.