13 Great Classic Role-Playing Games That Aren't Dungeons & Dragons

[wcw43921]

The Article At 13th Dimension

 

Saw this on Facebook and thought I'd pass it along.  Champions does get a mention here, albeit not a particularly favorable one.  But there are some seriously old-school games noted here.

[drunkonduty]

Many fine games mentioned. Also, Gamma World.

[Cygnia]

I've always heard good things about the original Ghostbusters rpg...never had the chance to play it, alas.

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, drunkonduty said:

Many fine games mentioned. Also, Gamma World.

 

 

I don't know-  what it 3e?  2e?  The brown box with the Elmore cover-  or at least, the Elmore-esque cover) really seemed to get the kinks out- at least, as much as any other TSR game ever did.  I rather enjoyed that version of the game.

 

 

51 minutes ago, Cygnia said:

I've always heard good things about the original Ghostbusters rpg...never had the chance to play it, alas.

 

 

My first exposure to a Dice Pool mechanic.  The system was solid; I have heard (without verification) that the mechanics went on to appear in later games.  Solid mechanics, and briefly, there was support in terms of adventures,  but it never tripped my trigger.

 

More than anything, I suspect this is because I really didn't like the property.  I went in thinking it was foing to be a quasi-serious, potentially tense dramatic thing with quirks and twists-- the original movie succeeded because no matter how people remember it, it was _not_ a comedy.  It was a kid-friendly horror with funny bits.

 

Anyway the property was that God-awful cartoon version of Ghost Busters which, like most 80's cartoon, were essentially extended-run toy commercials.

 

The game didn't lean into the toy commercial aspect, but it kept leaning into the bad slapstick of the cartoon instead of the drama of the movies.  Just kind of a turn off right   out of the gate for me.  Certainly a similarly-minded group could have steered it in a different direction (though the rules showed hard cartoon bias), but the group I was invited to play with _loved_ the cartoon for reasons I dont really get...

 

Still, the mechanics were _solid_, and I would liked to have found some other game built around them. 

[Scott Ruggels]

The photos in the WEG Star Wars were gold for sketch reference back then. Boot Hill, screw revolvers, we were Chuck in’ dynamite! 

[assault]

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

The game didn't lean into the toy commercial aspect, but it kept leaning into the bad slapstick of the cartoon instead of the drama of the movies. 

 

I'm not sure how you would write a game based on the antics of Peter Venkman, arch-sleaze.

[Duke Bushido]

You stick to the dramatic premise or ghosts / demons / what-have-you from other realms wrwaking havoc in the real world, and being part of a team,with high-tech methods of dealing with it.  Who the characters are is up to the players, but lean into the drama.

 

That game kind of leaned into the goofiness instead, and specifically aimed,doe the vibe from the cartoon.

[Opal]

"Supposedly, Champions was one of the first games where you designed a character first, then “bought” powers and skills for it."

 

I can't think of an earlier one off the top of my head, but the concept didn't seem new or surprising at the time. 

[Scott Ruggels]

4 hours ago, Opal said:

"Supposedly, Champions was one of the first games where you designed a character first, then “bought” powers and skills for it."

 

I can't think of an earlier one off the top of my head, but the concept didn't seem new or surprising at the time. 

The point by System was already old hat, from steve, Jackson’s, Advanced, Melee, Wizard, collectively known as The Fantasy Trip. We had been playing it for a year or two before champions came out, concurrently with playing Bushido. I think that there were Fantasy Games, Unlimited publications that had point buys, but none that I can think of that had power construction. Because even Villains & Vigilantes, and Superhero 2044, had random tables for powers. From what I remember champions started as homebrew rules to make Superhero 2044 playable. George McDonald did quite a lot of work.

[Christopher R Taylor]

And The Fantasy Trip was only very simple point buy, because they had so few stats and that's all I remember the points going into,

[assault]

If you were using In The Labyrinth, once you had allocated stats, you had to pick Talents and spells based on Int.

It was kind of a double points system. Buy Int with points, buy talents/spells with Int.

 

4 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Because even Villains & Vigilantes, and Superhero 2044, had random tables for powers. From what I remember champions started as homebrew rules to make Superhero 2044 playable. George McDonald did quite a lot of work.

 

Superhero 2044 didn't use random tables, at least in the core rulebook.

 

George acknowledged the influence of Wayne Shaw in allocating powers.

Edited May 9, 2023 by assault

[Joe Walsh]

It's interesting looking at the original work Wayne Shaw did back in the late 70s to develop his system for Superhero 2044. It is so much more familiar to anyone who has played Champions from the early days than I thought it would be. Disadvantages as "Crocks". "Detective Work", "Security Systems", and "Computer Programming" skill names. "Power Points". The 5 point basis. Energy projection in beam, burst, or fan format. "Ego attack". "Elemental Control". And on and on.

 

If you ever run across a copy of issue #8 of the fanzine Lords of Chaos (1979), take a peek at Wayne's article.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by GM Joe

[Ninja-Bear]

Have you guys heard of Supergame? Its by Jay Hartlove. Its a point buy and in an interview he said some of the Champions guys play in his game and took notes and adjusted their game. He claims he wasn’t in it for the money. On a whim I got the classic reprint. I haven’t tried to make a character nor run a battle. Interestingly though his characters start with 250 points. 🤔