Lost genre's?

[Tech priest support 295]

Way back before the world ended and I was but a tech adept, there were many genre's of RPG's. Some of them I really don't see much of anymore. I was wondering if some RPG genres have become lost.

 

Spy setting. I remember a lot of spy games. There was top secret, "mercenaries, spies and private eyes" and the James Bond rpg. Are there any espionage themed games left anymore? I don't seem to see any.

 

Post apocalypse. We had the silly ones like gamma world. We had the dead serious ones like twilight 2000 and the ones kinda in between like The Morrow Project. Is the post apocalypse genre still around? I know there's the "hell on earth" setting for deadlands.

 

Speaking of deadlands we used to have some western RPGs. Boot hill was TSRs offering. Now I think it's mostly deadlands as far as western like RPGs are concerned.

 

I also remember a few pirates RPGs like "pirates and plunder" and I think one was called "swashbucklers". The last one I heard of was the pretty negatively regarded Poison'd which I had no interest in.

 

Of course we have had new genres like the whole world of darkness style and a lot of personal horror settings. But I was wondering about the ones I rememebr or at least remember reading about as a little tech brat.

[GhostDancer 406]

Post-apocalyptic: Paranoia started shipping to Kickstarter backers in March.

 

Western: Aces & Eights has a current edition; Reloaded.  This was also a Kickstarter project.

[GM Joe 383]

Espionage: There's Merle Rasmussen's Top Secret: New World Order on Kickstarter. And of course there's Classified (a James Bond retroclone, updated for modern tech), as well as DWD Studios' Covert Ops.

 

Post Apocalypse: Goblinoid Games has Mutant Future and Goodman Games has the current edition of Metamorphosis Alpha.

 

There have been several westerns recently. Aces & Eights has been mentioned, and there was another recent one. But the biggie to me is that the award-winning Swedish role-playing game Western is finally getting an English translation via Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1152089861/western-the-roleplaying-game

 

I'm sure there are others, but it's hard to keep up with the plethora of new products coming out all the time. The barriers to entry are so low in this market, we get tons of new product all the time, and they tend to stay around forever now, one way or another.

[Tech priest support 295]

Thanks all. I'm kinda glad some genres from my days as a little tech brat are still around in some forms even if I might not play some of them.

[Nolgroth 1,145]

I really wish I could get in on the Top Secret KS. That looks great.

[Burrito Boy 690]

Post-apocalyptic: Paranoia started shipping to Kickstarter backers in March.

 

Western: Aces & Eights has a current edition; Reloaded. This was also a Kickstarter project.

There's a copy of the painting used on the cover for Aces & Eights hanging on the wall next to me.

[mrinku 484]

Triple Ace Games has a Musketeer swashbuckler using their Ubiquity system called All For One. By default it includes (historically appropriate) monsters, but those are easily left out or relegated to superstition if you want a straight Musketeer game.

 

But yeah, swashing your buckle is one of those genres that pops up now and then, with long stretches of nothing. GDW's En Garde! Waaaaaay back in 1975 was one of the earliest RPGs of them all, but it's never been a common RPG genre for some reason.

[Tjack 103]

Unfortunatly, the Spy genre has turned from Bond to Bourne. Even the recent Kingsmen film lamented the trend of depressing espionage movies.

Perhaps with the Kingsman sequel coming out things may reverse themselves.

[Nothere 225]

Tech could you perhaps be referring to Swashbuckling Adventures a d20 published by wizards of the coast?

[Tech priest support 295]

Tech could you perhaps be referring to Swashbuckling Adventures a d20 published by wizards of the coast?

I don't know. I'm trying to remember stuff from long ago. I just could have sworn someone did a RPG called "swashbucklers!"

[Doc Shadow 433]

Swashbucklers was the name of the pirate genre book for GURPS.

 

[algesan 0]

On 8/1/2017 at 1:05 AM, mrinku said:

<snip>

 

But yeah, swashing your buckle is one of those genres that pops up now and then, with long stretches of nothing. GDW's En Garde! Waaaaaay back in 1975 was one of the earliest RPGs of them all, but it's never been a common RPG genre for some reason.

 

Heh, because it is a bit hard for most players to get into.  As for En Garde! itself, it is a great game for developing a character (like Traveler), but not so hot in the playing of it (again, like Traveler, but Traveler had more support) as well as being saddled with a clunky combat system that actually appears to be more useful for an early PBM (or PBEM if you wished) style.  Pretty much, without any outside support, the GM had to gather his characters, plan out broad events, get each characters' plan for the next month, then decide if anything actually happened (other than the stated stuff) and roleplay that or adjust his event timeline.  Other than the combat system (which was given a fan mod in an old Dragon to be a d100 system, much more playable) and general lack of module support, it is actually one of the best PnP RPGs out there for simulating Three Musketeers era urban swashbuckling.

 

Edit: Not to be confused with Osprey's En Garde which is a similar period tabletop skirmish game based on the excellent Ronin system (it is arguably Ronin v2, but loses some of the "flavor" from Ronin of the special rules of the different warbands....but that "flavor" included some broken stuff that the author refused absolutely to address despite having simple fixes pointed out to him).  It isn't like most of Osprey's stuff based on some other combat system.

[C-Note 34]

"Post apocalypse. We had the silly ones like gamma world. We had the dead serious ones like twilight 2000 and the ones kinda in between like The Morrow Project. Is the post apocalypse genre still around? I know there's the "hell on earth" setting for deadlands."

 

[Spence 609]

There are actually several out there.  Pirates of the Spanish Main, Mean Streets and there is another western besides Aces & Eights that I can't remember the name.  There are allot of Post Apoch popping up as well. 

 

But most of the Spy games are always tied into horror, zombies, aliens or some other supernatural.  Agents of Swing is a FATE based one that is not. 

 

But most Pulp, Spy, War, Swashbuckling (land), Pirates (sea) and Westerns all seem to have a fantasy/horror tie in these days.  Easy to strip out, but there. 

 

There are so many Post-Apoch settings/games out there, when I saw the "Extinction Event" kickstarter I winced with the "not another one" reaction.  They are getting as over saturated as zombie games IMO.  

[Lord Liaden 3,325]

The end of the Cold War kind of put the kibosh on the spy genre for gaming. It really was inspired by maneuvering between two rival factions of roughly equal capabilities. The more outlandish James Bond villains verge into supervillainy, as Bond has himself at times.

[algesan 0]

On 2/26/2018 at 8:58 PM, Spence said:

(snip)

 

But most Pulp, Spy, War, Swashbuckling (land), Pirates (sea) and Westerns all seem to have a fantasy/horror tie in these days.  Easy to strip out, but there. 

 

(snip)

The problem being they are already pretty well done.  As it is, my players are having fun for the last few sessions running a Weird War Two based on the Dust 1947 (aka Dust Tactics) world.  Four players filling out a squad of five (oops, the SGT is dead now and no replacements), starting out as ASOCOM Ranger privates.  So far, for intro, they have confirmed the existence of Axis Zombies, haven't found out about the Gorillas yet, haven't met one of the actual super soldiers (one each from Soviets and Allies), have dealt with Soviet Steel Guard (Terminator sized, disabled Red Guard heroes wired into mech chassis), Soviet mecha (as well as watching their Allied light mecha go absolutely apesh*t with his quad 50s trying to penetrate its armor right before it gave him the heavy flamer treatment), etc.  Aliens (the original concept, but not mentioned anymore) and maybe Cthulhu can be added in (Dust actually is producing some minis for the tabletop now).  Ignore the pricing on each link, I just pulled the first one I saw and they might be the super premium prepainted and/or limited edition ones, so the price may be seriously high.  The regular minis are at least as reasonable as GWs...to the point where I almost thought of building Guard out of them.

http://www.dust1947.com/news_d.php?id=413

http://www.dust1947.com/products_d.php?sid=80&id=959

http://www.dust1947.com/products_d.php?sid=28&id=1004

 

[Ninja-Bear 730]

Dust Tactics minis always looked cool to me.

[Ninja-Bear 730]

I remeber running across some weird WW II miniatures years ago. Nazis had werewolves, Frankenstein, and undead zombies. Always thought that would fun to play.

[wcw43921 1,421]

Comedy seems to be a lost genre with regards to RPGs.  As mentioned earlier in the thread, Paranoia is making a comeback, but TOON?  Ghostbusters?  Teenagers From Outer Space?  Nobody seems interested in thoroughly unserious roleplaying.

[dmjalund 735]

I could imagine FATE Toon - using outrageous Aspects

[IndianaJoe3 541]

5 hours ago, dmjalund said:

I could imagine FATE Toon - using outrageous Aspects

 

I think Fate Accelerated would work well with this, mapping the Toon stats to FA's Approaches. (If I still had a copy of Toon I'd do it right here.)

[Ninja-Bear 730]

I’d play in Ghostbusters. It sounds fun.

[Brian Stanfield 104]

On 7/24/2017 at 1:59 AM, Tech priest support said:

Spy setting. I remember a lot of spy games. There was top secret, "mercenaries, spies and private eyes" and the James Bond rpg. Are there any espionage themed games left anymore? I don't seem to see any.

 

I don't know if you remember this, but early last year or late 2016 High Rock Press announced plans for an updated Danger International in late 2017. I think the Champions character creation cards are on the front burner at this point (very close to being ready), but perhaps if there's enough buzz we could fast-track the DI reissue.