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Post by simrion on Apr 16, 2021 15:32:12 GMT -6
I'm guessing in an effort to compete with Traveller and the concept of low tech planets encountered throughout the "Universe?" I found the limited weaponry list disappointing as well, easy enough to create my own though. That might make sense in Traveller (sort of), but given the somewhat narrower focus of Universe that logic doesn't really hold up well. Going beyond that, given that folks in Pakistan have gained a certain amount of fame for creating various modern firearm designs, including machine guns, using only files, chisels, hand saws, and hand drills, I find it difficult to believe that there would be "primitive" planets with Brown Bess muskets - if you had the tech needed to simply get to a planet other than Earth, then you have more than enough tech to make something a bit better than a musket... Bear in mind a certain level of ignorance when rule set was introduced, many were unaware of the initiative and creativity of the Pakistanis and others... |
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Post by Punkrabbitt on Apr 16, 2021 16:11:05 GMT -6
My list is very long... I used to collect RPGs for fun. Really, though, rather than play most of the more interesting things I had collected, I'd really give my left nut* to play some OD&D, AD&D1e, Holmes, or Original Traveller. Those were tje best gaming experiences of my life.
*I'm old, I rarely use it, it doesn't work right, and it hurts sometimes. I won't miss it.
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Post by tkdco2 on Apr 16, 2021 19:53:03 GMT -6
I have collected rpgs in the past, mainly because of the content I could use for my game. I was willing to look at the game mechanics, although I never tried out many of them. One such case is The Everlasting rpg. I have the first two books, but I never tried the system. My main goal was to integrate some of the ideas for my Highlander/World of Darkness setting. I also got Legacy: War of Ages for the same reason. |
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yesmar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Fool, my spell book is written in Erlang!
Posts: 217
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Post by yesmar on Apr 16, 2021 21:25:31 GMT -6
A few ‘gems’ from my collection that have languished since forever…
Aftermath! (to be run with the Sydney campaign, of course)
The Mechanoid Invasion
The Morrow Project
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Post by DungeonDevil on Apr 16, 2021 21:56:43 GMT -6
All of them. (Kidding -- not kidding!)  Off the top of me 'ead, I'd say FASA Star Trek, it looks cool. I love TOS and would like to try it. Also Starships & Spacemen is supposed to be TOS with the proverbial serial numbers filed off. Advanced Fighting Fantasy, 2nd edition. I've got nearly all the books and the PDFs, but haven't had the chance to get a group together for that either. *sigh* Too many... |
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Post by tkdco2 on Apr 16, 2021 22:26:46 GMT -6
FASA Trek was a blast to play. I enjoyed roleplaying Starfleet characters, but my friends preferred to play the starship combat system. I didn't mind the starship combat, but I didn't think every game should include it.
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flightcommander
Level 6 Magician
"I become drunk as circumstances dictate."
Posts: 387
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Post by flightcommander on Apr 17, 2021 1:10:45 GMT -6
A few ‘gems’ from my collection that have languished since forever… Aftermath! (to be run with the Sydney campaign, of course) The Mechanoid Invasion The Morrow Project Aftermath we certainly "played" (if that's the right word, it's a kinda gnarly ruleset, I feel like we ever just "attempted"), as well as Morrow Project, but only a session or three of each. I don't think we played Mechanoid Invasion but somebody almost certainly owned a copy (ie me). I feel like all of these games were part of a hardcore "simulationist" jag in early/mid 80's gaming that never really panned out despite some great ideas and much enthusiasm on the authors' part. As children in the 80's, beneath the ever-present specter of mushroom clouds, Aftermath was honestly the darkest "serious" game we engaged with. As I recall, we ran an "after the bomb" kind of campaign based on our real-world locale, and it was seriously depressing. Same thing with Recon (a Vietnam War RPG), I think our entire fire-team died in a jungle fire-fight and we were like, ok, some of our dads actually lived this, I don't want to play this game any more. There's a degree to which these games were used as coping mechanisms that probably hasn't been explored or documented. That being said, we played the poop out of Flying Buffalo's Nuclear War card game, highly recommended! One game I owned but did not play was the Doctor Who RPG. It seemed awesome but there were ... problems. (a) Nobody I knew had ever heard of the show and if they did they thought it was boring crap; (b) there's a main character who's amazing and has 12 lives, and then there's everybody else; (c) there's an implied happy-ending plot-line to the adventures, which are nevertheless difficult to concoct if you're a kid, meaning you'll need to buy the published adventures, meaning you're railroaded the whole way through unless you and your players are extraordinarily creative in which case you don't really need the ruleset do you. In any case we tried a LOT of games back then, for which I'm grateful. |
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Post by simrion on Apr 17, 2021 8:46:27 GMT -6
Ah yes, the very crunchy Aftermath. Would have loved to play in a game with a DM who knew rules inside and out. And had a passion for the gritty excitement of post-apocalypse. also makes me think of Twilight 2000. Played that one briefly we ended up dying due to enemies calling in arty on us, short lived experience. We also played Dr. Who briefly, we all played Time Lords, the DM was free wheeling in that regard LOL.
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yesmar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Fool, my spell book is written in Erlang!
Posts: 217
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Post by yesmar on Apr 17, 2021 8:54:11 GMT -6
When it comes to post-apocalyptic gaming, I mainly ran (in order of popularity with my players) Gamma World 1E, TMNT After the Bomb, and Twilight: 2000.
I always restricted my use of Aftermath! and its supplements to mining stuff I could use in my Gamma World games. While I loved the concept, Aftermath! presented just too hairy a rule set to consider using in actual play. The multi-page flowchart for adjudication of combat comes to mind. Still, I’d like to attempt to run the Sydney campaign RAW at some point — if only to see if I could manage to survive such an ordeal.
As for The Morrow Project, it was a late addition to my collection. I like the ideas behind the setting, though. I think it could be used to create a rip roaring simulation of Zelazny’s d**nation Alley. (Edit: This out of context censorship is annoying.)
The ideas behind The Mechanoid Invasion are just plain cool, although I’m not really into the mechanics as presented. Still, the game has a cool campaign arc that would be fun to play through. I could see mashing that up with game mechanics from 2300 AD.
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Post by Falconer on Apr 17, 2021 10:07:06 GMT -6
Off the top of me 'ead, I'd say FASA Star Trek, it looks cool. I love TOS and would like to try it. Also Starships & Spacemen is supposed to be TOS with the proverbial serial numbers filed off. FASA Trek was a blast to play. I enjoyed roleplaying Starfleet characters, but my friends preferred to play the starship combat system. I didn't mind the starship combat, but I didn't think every game should include it. My group is using the Heritage Star Trek rules for everything to do with characters — generation, departments, advancement, skills, man-to-man combat. It’s honestly very, very similar to FASA Star Trek in these areas, just all-around lighter. Stats are 3d6 instead of d100; skills are “you either have it or you don’t” rather than having values. For space travel and space combat we use Starships & Spacemen. Frankly, there’s *nothing* like it in any Trek-like RPG I have ever come across. It nails the feel of TOS. It’s light. It’s fun as hell. For the past year we have been playing through all the FASA Star Trek modules using these rules, and it has been really fun. We have also been playing the Starships & Spacemen sandbox The Lucanii Drift, which is really great! |
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Post by tkdco2 on Apr 17, 2021 10:51:25 GMT -6
I didn't know about the Heritage rules until now. One of my friends bought the 2d20 system Trek rpg, and we created a character. It was a convoluted process.
The FASA Doctor Who rpg is pretty clunky. I played it a few times. I have a copy of the the Decipher version, I only played it once, but it's much more streamlined. Not sure why FASA created two different systems for Star Trek and Doctor Who.
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Post by Falconer on Apr 17, 2021 15:38:47 GMT -6
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Post by dizzysaxophone on Apr 17, 2021 15:51:44 GMT -6
Classic runequest, or Warhammer frog. One of these days!
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Post by DungeonDevil on Apr 17, 2021 15:58:20 GMT -6
I know of (and am a member of) the Old School Trek forum, but, sadly, the traffic is rare and infrequent. It is a forum, the subject of which ought be far, far more popular than it is. Perhaps some aggressive advertisement is in order? I got into Classic Traveller over a decade ago, but nobody in this area has ever heard of it, strangely. When I have kids Bunnies & Burrows should prove fun, but I don't think I'd get into it until then. I've got some stuff for Pendragon, but, again, nobody cares much for Arthuriana.  |
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Post by tkdco2 on Apr 17, 2021 18:33:28 GMT -6
It's interesting that you had to use a second ruleset to cover space travel and starship combat. I once designed a near-future campaign that had one set of rules for roleplaying, a second for mass combat (planetside), and a third for space combat. Granted, the latter two were wargames rather than rpgs, but I have certain preferences when it comes to gaming systems. |
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Post by Falconer on Apr 17, 2021 20:04:23 GMT -6
Well that’s one of the great things about old school rulesets. Partly because the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree (of OD&D), and partly because rulesets are rather ad hoc anyway, and partly (in this case) because the genre is the lingua franca, you can piece together rules from different rulesets pretty seamlessly.
My Star Trek "3LBBs" are
1. Different Worlds #18 (Characters)
2. Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier (Planetary Adventures)
3. Starships & Spacemen (Space Adventures)
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Post by stevemitchell on Apr 17, 2021 20:53:38 GMT -6
Runequest 2E in Glorantha. I've played the Basic Roleplaying System for other games, mostly Call of Cthulhu, but would love to go back to the Gloranthan starting point.
Warhammer. I played a surly outlaw in a two-session adventure back when the game first came out, but nothing since then. I didn't really understand the rules at that time but still managed to enjoy things. I don't necessarily need to go back to that first rules set, the latest version would probably be fine.
And I think that Dragon Warriors would be pretty interesting, too.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2021 20:57:29 GMT -6
Well that’s one of the great things about old school rulesets. Partly because the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree (of OD&D), and partly because rulesets are rather ad hoc anyway, and partly (in this case) because the genre is the lingua franca, you can piece together rules from different rulesets pretty seamlessly. My Star Trek "3LBBs" are 1. Different Worlds #18 (Characters) 2. Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier (Planetary Adventures) 3. Starships & Spacemen (Space Adventures) I just saw the video of your review on those three books and STAGFF looks like a very cool rulebook. I hope I will not derail the topic but I would like to ask you something. Did you ever tried to run Star Trek using Traveller rules? If yes, what went wrong or you didn't liked that you prefer to use STAGFF? (Of course you might just prefer to use STAGFF without having something wrong with Traveller, I'm just curious about your opinions and possible comparisons  ) Did you ever tried to use just OD&D with some house rules for Star Trek? I'm asking this because at first glance STAGFF looks a lot like OD&D in (more than) some ways to me. Do you think STAGFF would make a good system for Star Wars games as well? Have you ever tried something like that? |
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Post by Falconer on Apr 17, 2021 23:05:22 GMT -6
Did you ever tried to run Star Trek using Traveller rules? No. For a while I was excited about Traveller Prime Directive, but it is perpetually on the horizon, and I was tired of waiting to play. I don’t have any experience with Traveller, so I wasn’t keen on learning it and making my own conversions. Did you ever tried to use just OD&D with some house rules for Star Trek? I'm asking this because at first glance STAGFF looks a lot like OD&D in (more than) some ways to me. Check out Finarvyn’s OD&D TOS - pretty self-explanatory. The reason I settled on STAGFF is it is just the first Star Trek RPG I really dug into, and the DW #18 article in particular really captured my imagination and shaped how I think about Star Trek RPGs. I wanted a traditional RPG with 6 ability scores in the 3-18 range and XP/level advancement, and I got it. It also has pulled together a lot of research into equipment and stuff really competently. If you’re interested, you should really listen to my interview with Michael Scott, the designer of STAGFF. It’s really good!  Do you think STAGFF would make a good system for Star Wars games as well? Have you ever tried something like that? There is a variant of STAGFF called Space Patrol which is a little less specific to Star Trek (it has a lot of the Star Trek stuff but also stuff from other Sci-Fi), and it has a page about Star Wars at the end (probably added at the last minute right after the movie came out). Yeah, it would work fine. But for me personally, WEG Star Wars 1e really nailed it. For the base mechanics, I could really go either way, but where a published RPG comes in handy is all the stuff—the specific equipment lists and the character templates and the Force powers and the hyperspace calculations and alien writeups. That’s why, going back to Traveller, I would have been thrilled if Traveller Prime Directive ever came out, because I feel it would have been super immersive, because I know how much of a fully realized universe the Star Fleet Universe is, and how well it would be served with a gritty RPG like Traveller. But adapting to Traveller for love of the base mechanics, nah, I feel nothing. |
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bravewolf
Level 4 Theurgist
I don't care what Howard says.
Posts: 109 
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Post by bravewolf on Apr 18, 2021 0:00:59 GMT -6
A few ‘gems’ from my collection that have languished since forever… Aftermath! (to be run with the Sydney campaign, of course) The Mechanoid Invasion The Morrow Project I have also wanted to break out Aftermath! I have a (perhaps misbegotten) fantasy of running a game of Red Star/White Star and having my mates pick some of the survivors to develop as Aftermath! PCs in a Europe benighted with a nuclear winter. I also have a fictional setting that I could probably slot Aftermath into. |
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Post by badger2305 on Apr 18, 2021 13:18:56 GMT -6
Might be getting further afield, but what about Michael Berkey's Where No Man Has Gone Before?
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Post by Falconer on Apr 18, 2021 14:45:28 GMT -6
Might be getting further afield, but what about Michael Berkey's Where No Man Has Gone Before? I cover it in my video. I like it and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. It’s overall in the same, well, school as the other old school Star Trek RPGs — based on TOS and the Technical Manual, class=department, level determines rank and ship. What gives STAGFF the edge for me is that it is less jokey and less abstracted than WNMHGB, and therefore better for a long campaign. As Eric put it in the video, WNMHGB is less like adventuring in the Star Trek universe and more like roleplaying putting on a Star Trek show. To put it another way, I like a *slightly* higher level of simulationism. I need to know my hand-phaser’s range, settings, and charges. The show may not care about those things, because all that matters is that it serves the script, but in a RPG you have no script. Not to dwell on it, because honestly I tinkered with STAGFF and could almost as easily have started with WNMHGB to get where I got. That said, what I and my players *really* like from WNMHGB is the Lifepath Generator. We imported it (and the Alien Device Generator which you might need to roll on) pretty much wholesale. We talk about it a bit on our first episode of the podcast. |
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Post by tdenmark on Apr 18, 2021 15:03:55 GMT -6
GURPS: I ran a one-shot GURPS Lite game, but never a game using the full ruleset. Played way too much GURPS during the 2nd edition AD&D era (my gaming group hated 2e). I still like the sourcebooks though. I just picked up GURPS Witch World and would consider playing it if I could find any players interested. |
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Post by Finarvyn on Apr 18, 2021 16:34:06 GMT -6
When I have kids Bunnies & Burrows should prove fun, but I don't think I'd get into it until then. My sister has a copy of B&B and she ran a "kids only" campaign with it maybe 15 years ago. (My kids are in their mid to late 20's now.) She banned me from the room but I managed to eavesdrop a little and it sounds like the game was a blast. It wasn't nearly as anamorphic as I anticipated, with the kids playing actual bunnies without opposable thumbs. Watership Down is one of her all-time favorite books and I think she based a lot of the ideas on that. The kids kept trying to pick up tools and such until they finally figured out that they were bunnies. |
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Post by DungeonDevil on Apr 19, 2021 1:56:49 GMT -6
When I have kids Bunnies & Burrows should prove fun, but I don't think I'd get into it until then. My sister has a copy of B&B and she ran a "kids only" campaign with it maybe 15 years ago. (My kids are in their mid to late 20's now.) She banned me from the room but I managed to eavesdrop a little and it sounds like the game was a blast. It wasn't nearly as anamorphic as I anticipated, with the kids playing actual bunnies without opposable thumbs. Watership Down is one of her all-time favorite books and I think she based a lot of the ideas on that. The kids kept trying to pick up tools and such until they finally figured out that they were bunnies. That's funny. Must suck to not have opposable thumbs. However, animals get around that by carrying things in their mouths, nudging things with the snout, etc. Some animals have been observed pushing or manipulating things with their paw(s). Cats do this a lot. |
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Post by rsdean on Apr 19, 2021 7:38:26 GMT -6
If you include play at conventions, I guess I’ve done reasonably well at playing my collection _sometime_. I still have not played Pendragon, and I’ve owned the 1st edition since forever. Practically speaking, though, I could probably live with OD&D, classic Traveller, and Fate (for all other random ideas) going forward, but I have played all of those.  |
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