Favorite Dead RPG company

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Virgin cleared their RPG stuff around 1995. I was living in Dublin at the time, and scored a ton of expensive Avalon Hill RQ supplements at half price.

Favourite dead RPG company? Yeah, 80s kid here, so FASA, ICE, WEG. Star Wars and Ghostbusters, MERP and Star Trek were my 80s games, along with RQ, D&D and CoC. The Star Trek supplementary material and adventures were also excellent (at least until the Starfleet Intelligence Manual).

From the, 90s definitely DP9. Jovian Chronicles 1st ed and Heavy Gear 2nd ed were fine games.

And Gawd, Games Workshop too. Looking through what I still have... so many good games, not just RPGs. Rogue Trader was such a mine of ideas.
 
We were into Star Fleet Battles instead.
star-fleet-3.jpeg


Aren't the GURPs Star Trek books based on that universe?
 
Games Workshop really was almost a different company "back in the day" before Warhammer. They produced a great set of minis for Runequest, and printed the best edition of Call of Cthulhu (3E), published Battle cars and a great set of post apocalypse minis for it among other projects. It was many years before I made the connection that the Warhammer company was the same Games Workshop.
 
I think they're based on Prime Directive, which I think is in the SFB universe. Whichbi believe is derived from the animated series, at least in part.
Yes, GURPS Prime Directive is a GURPS version of the Prime Directive RPG from Task Force Games (which was set in the SFB universe), the (dead and on my list of fav dead RPG companies) publisher of Star Fleet Battles and various other RPGs and wargames. Though Star Fleet Battles is still being published by Amarillo Design Bureau, the original design company.

The universe is based on the rights via a license from the Star Trek Technical Manual and includes some but not all of stuff from the animated series (most notably the Kzinti Hegemony).

Hence also includes the one-engine ship design that Dumarest posted his cool model of above: https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/favorite-dead-rpg-company.4030/post-145119 - which in SFB could be either a scout or a destroyer (the scout has longer-ranged sensors (i.e. that MAIN SENSOR shown on the diagram that isn't on Dumarest's model) and labs rather than photon torpedo launchers).

The main differences in this universe are that the Organian peace treaty broke down (the Organians mysteriously vanished) meaning the galaxy could and did get into all-out fleet battles and wars, and nothing from Star Trek shows or movies after 1979 is included, but several other new races and things are.
 
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Games Workshop really was almost a different company "back in the day" before Warhammer. They produced a great set of minis for Runequest, and printed the best edition of Call of Cthulhu (3E), published Battle cars and a great set of post apocalypse minis for it among other projects. It was many years before I made the connection that the Warhammer company was the same Games Workshop.


I'll be nitpicky and say it wasn't "before Warhammer" so much as "before 4th edition". Oldhammer (1st-3rd edition) started in 1983 after all.
 
Hence also includes the one-engine ship design that Dumarest posted his cool model of above: https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/favorite-dead-rpg-company.4030/post-145119 - which in SFB could be either a scout or a destroyer (the scout has longer-ranged sensors (i.e. that MAIN SENSOR shown on the diagram that isn't on Dumarest's model) and labs rather than photon torpedo launchers).
I couldn't get the main sensor to stay attached to the saucer section, at least not with the minimal tools and effort I was willing to exert. It really needed to have a bit I could push through the bottom so it would hang in place.
 
Hands down GDW. 2300AD was my first RPG I bought that was not in my native language. I then bought Traveller the new era, Dark Conspiracy and Twilight 2000. Had a lot of fun with all those games over the years.
 
Yeah, I'd probably go for GDW as well, if I really had to.
 
I would have said R Talsorian, but they refuse to die. DUnno where Cyberpunk Red is though.
 
I gues AEG is worth mentioning here. Though did they do much other than L5R and some D20 splats?
 
I would have said R Talsorian, but they refuse to die. DUnno where Cyberpunk Red is though.

Before Witcher, I would have categorized R Tal as Undead, just a shambling mound technically only in business because they sell their back catalog.

But now there's Witcher and the CP Jumpstart, so I guess R Tal is the same category as Palladium Books: primarily back catalog, but occasionally a new but heavily recycled product.

I guess it depends on how much of Witcher and CP Jumpstart are just old material in a new package.
 
I'll be nitpicky and say it wasn't "before Warhammer" so much as "before 4th edition". Oldhammer (1st-3rd edition) started in 1983 after all.

Ok, so pre-focus on WH, 1980s GW. The (more realistic) Citidel minis, cooperative projects with US game companies, WFRP, Blood Bowl, Battle Cars, early 40k etc.
 
Yes you can get a POD softcover easily. The hardcover is hard to find. I'm not sure how much I trust POD to large books.
I got the new SWN rulebook from DTRPG. It's all in glorious technicolour and the print quality is OK but nothing special. The text is not the sharpest, and the colour illustrations look a bit washed out compared to colour offset on coated paper. However, the overall quality is certainly good enough.

The binding looks much the same process as the CoC 3e rulebook with the rigid cardboard spine. The binding on the Blades In The Dark and S&V rulebooks is a bit more flexible and lies flatter, with both a flexible spine and backing (i.e. the cloth bit that the page impressions are glued to). The SWN rulebook does still have flexible backing separate from the spine in the binding but it's not as flexible as the S&V rulebook and it doesn't lie so flat.

The other print rulebook I got from DTRPG is the CP2020 v2 rulebook, which was a B&W soft cover. The binding is OK for a soft cover, which is to say perfect binding is less flexible and inclined to lie flat than a hard cover as there is no separate backing. My main niggle with the CP2020 printing is that the printer had obviously been set to minimise the toner usage, which leads to rough, uneven black solids. The print quality in the BiTD and S&V rulebooks was markedly superior to the CP2020 rulebook, but you would expect that as they are done on an offset press.

The print specs for DTRPG stipulate 106 dpi halftones, which is a magic number for 600dpi rendering or multiples thereof. This is at the edge of what can be done on laser toner without it looking rough - most laser printers will do halftones that look significantly rougher at 106lpi than at 85 lpi, although 85lpi halftones are coarse enough for the halftone itself look quite obvious. Either way, it's still quite coarse as halftones go and I'd really like to see a POD process that can do a 150lpi halftone without it looking too rough.

At some point I'm going to try rendering a gray scale image with error diffusion dithering (A.K.A. stochastic or frequency modulated screening) and see if that comes out better on LightningSource's kit. As it stands now, halftones don't look very good on their machinery and black solids are rough due to their stingy toner usage policy.

I've not seen any evidence that their binding is substandard, though.
 
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AEG didn't die, they just don't do RPGs anymore (at least to my knowledge). They do a lot of board and card games though and are apparently doing really well at it.
 
West End Games prior to whenever Eric Gibson purchased it. Star Wars and other cool properties and D6, one of the three best systems of all-time.

Gallant Knight Games is almost ready with their Zorro D6 RPG (just waiting on approvals) and will be launching a generic "West End Games D6 2nd Edition" after that, so maybe a successor is rising. :smile:
 
Gallant Knight Games is almost ready with their Zorro D6 RPG (just waiting on approvals) and will be launching a generic "West End Games D6 2nd Edition" after that, so maybe a successor is rising. :smile:

Zorro is one my most anticipated 2020 RPGs. I can’t wait to see what they have done with it. I might end up porting it to a Western game as well.
 
I wish that Daedalus Games had survived longer. So much potential in Nexus: the Infinite City.

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Indeed so. For me, it's the ultimate RPG setting.

I'd like to say that Eden Studios is still technically around, but it's been ages since they did anything.

I also miss West End Games and Exile Games Studio (Hollow Earth Expedition).
 
They're not dead, but Games Workshop don't make RPGs anymore. Judge Dredd, WHFRP, and Golden Heroes were all great games.

I forgot GW did Judge Dredd, we had a blast with that game. In fact JD is the game that made me realize that sometimes games are just better when the rules are specifically made for the setting rather than using a house system or generic system. GURPS or HERO could do Judge Dredd. but it just wouldn't be the same.
 
Yes, GURPS Prime Directive is a GURPS version of the Prime Directive RPG from Task Force Games (which was set in the SFB universe), the (dead and on my list of fav dead RPG companies) publisher of Star Fleet Battles and various other RPGs and wargames. Though Star Fleet Battles is still being published by Amarillo Design Bureau, the original design company.

The universe is based on the rights via a license from the Star Trek Technical Manual and includes some but not all of stuff from the animated series (most notably the Kzinti Hegemony).

Hence also includes the one-engine ship design that Dumarest posted his cool model of above: https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/favorite-dead-rpg-company.4030/post-145119 - which in SFB could be either a scout or a destroyer (the scout has longer-ranged sensors (i.e. that MAIN SENSOR shown on the diagram that isn't on Dumarest's model) and labs rather than photon torpedo launchers).

The main differences in this universe are that the Organian peace treaty broke down (the Organians mysteriously vanished) meaning the galaxy could and did get into all-out fleet battles and wars, and nothing from Star Trek shows or movies after 1979 is included, but several other new races and things are.

Task Force Games may be "dead", but the zombie lurches on, as you can still get the original Task Force Games version of Prime Directive in PDF from dtrpg. It's not the greatest scan, but it's quite usable and I encourage everyone to check it out for the unique and cool mechanics.
 
Task Force Games may be "dead", but the zombie lurches on, as you can still get the original Task Force Games version of Prime Directive in PDF from dtrpg. It's not the greatest scan, but it's quite usable and I encourage everyone to check it out for the unique and cool mechanics.
Yes, Star Fleet Battles isn't dead at all, as it has had and continues to get new stuff published for it, just not through Task Force Games. A lot of the old Task Force Games-published stuff (looks like the Amarillo Design Bureau stuff) is also available in PDF on Warehouse 23, even the magazines and other games - 14 pages of products, most but not all SFB: http://www.warehouse23.com/products?&page=4&taxons[]=558398666-sb
 
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