Your favorite game system you wish had more success?

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Agentdenton

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Do you have a game system you like a lot but doesn't get the love you feel it deserves?

For me it's gurps. I love it, especially 3e, but 4e is fine too, 3e just has so much more stuff. I liked that gurps tries to cover everything, genre settings abd rules wise. You could do nearly any setting with it and sure it wasn'tt perfect for every setting but it usually gave you enough to get by with. I wish gurps had held onto it's status abd not declined so much over the years,I still feel it deserves more gamers than it gets.
 
Oh, I don't know, every single game I've written?

Funny thing, the one game of mine that gets a named checked occasionally is my very first effort, Mutant Bikers of the Atomic Wastelands from 20 odd years ago. And I love my Mutant Bikers, but even I recognise that the game is more about attitude then the system, which is just was just a quick and dirty Fudge hack. I mean, despite the game's name, there are actually no rules for mutatations or for vehicle, including motorcyles. A little bit of an oversight, you'd think?

My newer stuff, while still Fudge-based, I think have so much more to offer but it just never got the same level, or really any level, of name recognition.

As for real games, I think Cartoon Action Hour 3 has some really strong ideas that, possibly because of the subject matter, doesn't get the recognition it deserves.
 
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Against the Darkmaster.

It's early days for the game, though, so perhaps it'll become more popular over time.
MERP was quite popular back in the day but that probably was in large part thanks to the Middle-earth connection.

I loved the MERP system -- it seemed to include the best parts of Rolemaster but without the needless complexity and surfeit of charts. I have long wished for a "de-Tolkienized" version of the game, and Against the Darkmaster delivers.
 
Probably Atomic Highway. It's a great little post-apocalyptic game that I wish would have taken off more or at least inspired other games to experiment with the system. I was always tempted to try hacking it for a Fallout game but never got around to it.

Runner-up would probably be the Ubiquity system. Savage Worlds was my go-to system for a number of years, but I always thought Ubiquity was better in several ways. Although some people hated how combat abstracted to-hit and damage into one roll, I found that it worked much better for larger groups and inexperienced players. It's a shame that a setting-neutral core book was never released.
 
Cortex Prime. Not to say it hasn't had some success. But it keeps getting passed back and forth between companies and just... it never seemed to achieve the stability it needed.

(Yes, it had earlier Cortex games, but on top of the whole thing of Prime being my favorite iteration, almost all those older games were licensed games which means they do not exist now basically (unless you already own it or can forage the seedier parts of the internet)).
 
There's a few free systems I've rolled characters in for the character creation challenge that I think are cool and deserve to be better known. The pick of the bunch, so far, is probably X6, which looks like a really nice medium-weight system with a lot of versatility for its relatively small size.

Other than that, I second JC's vote for GURPS.
 
The Fantasy Trip is pretty successful, but the new generation of materials should be getting put in the public water supply along with the fluoride. It is super well put together, super fun to play, and readily used out-of-the-box for every kind of pre-modern campaign style you could think of. It is basically GURPS if GURPS was short, concise and trivially easy to learn and use and came with a bunch of groovy table top components.
 
I wish Unisystem, especially Cinematic Unisystem, was still supported.
Popped in just to say this. And to be fair, before Eden essentially became a zombie itself, the Cinematic Unisystem was pretty popular.

I also wish Marvel SAGA got more love because it's easily the single funnest RPG I've ever ran or played.
 
Cold Iron...

Of commercially available systems, I guess RuneQuest thought it really is pretty successful.
 
Do you have a game system you like a lot but doesn't get the love you feel it deserves?


Hmmm, for as old as it is , MSH continues to get a lot of love and support, so can't complain on that front.

WFRP is pretty well done by the current 4th edition.

Uh, kinda wish ZEFRs got some more love (starting with a new cover...ANY cover, even just plain text). It's a really good system that could stand more exposure.

Don't know what's up with Over the Edge these days. There was a anniversary edition, apparently limited to 400 copies, a decade ago but haven't heard a peep since.

Someone really needs to retroclone DCH. Like, I would, if I wasn't still neckdeep in Phaserip. But it's just a tragedy this system isn't currently available in any form.

The Silhouette System (Tribe 8, Jovian Chornicles, Heavy Gear) is, IMO, the best dicepool system yet to appear in an RPG, ad it's just a tragedy that the revival of Tribe 8 is being done by morons.

Prolly will think of some others later on.
 
What did happen to Eden/Unisystem? They just get swallowed in the D20 glut?
I can't say for certain, but I think it was several things. One problem was that they had some real issues getting Fox to approve the Buffy/Angel books. There are at least two or three supplements for those games that were 99.9% finished and laid out but never saw publication.

Another factor is that at least some of the people principally involved with Eden had day jobs that took up a lot of their time. I recall reading about 7 or 8 years ago that one of the guys was working on Beyond Human and a new core book for AFMBE, but he was only doing a little bit here and there in his spare time because of work, travel, and family responsibilities.
 
I can't say for certain, but I think it was several things. One problem was that they had some real issues getting Fox to approve the Buffy/Angel books. There are at least two or three supplements for those games that were 99.9% finished and laid out but never saw publication.

Another factor is that at least some of the people principally involved with Eden had day jobs that took up a lot of their time. I recall reading about 7 or 8 years ago that one of the guys was working on Beyond Human and a new core book for AFMBE, but he was only doing a little bit here and there in his spare time because of work, travel, and family responsibilities.
I think CJ Carella posted somewhere that the rights were still with Eden and he'd be open to licensing them under some open license to be used, but the owner of Eden had a stroke in 2022 and he hasn't heard anything since, and he can't make that decision unilaterally without talking to him. He even said he's not received any royalty checks since then.

ORE and Gumshoe do Ok, but I really wish they were more in use. And Greg Porter/BTRC's system is really slick. I love his designs, but they never catch on.
 
Conspiracy X 2.0 and AFMBE both got a few supplements in the early 2010s. That was the last of Unisystem. Supposedly Beyond Human was in final editing or layout stage about 10 years ago. I'm not quite sure why it never appeared but I'm guessing it's a cashflow issue and Eden is/was reluctant to use crowdfunding. They even had a license to do an RPG for the Hack/Slash comic book but I'm not sure any work was even done on that.

Unfortunately, George Vasilakos (Eden's owner) had a stroke last year or the year before. I read on The Big Purple that he's still recovering.
 
Don't know what's up with Over the Edge these days. There was a anniversary edition, apparently limited to 400 copies, a decade ago but haven't heard a peep since.
A 3rd edition was successfully kick-started about 4 years ago. Updated background, new system, shiny hardback book. I backed it, and there's some good material in it, but I didn't like the system and think 2nd edition is superior.

A book of adventures came out about a year after the core book but I don't know how good it was. It has a very nice cover though.

There hasn't been any other support for it. I'm not sure if that was because Jonathan Tweet made an ill advised tweet (no pun intended!), that got him briefly cancelled, or if it's because the KS was a one-and-done (with the supplement a KS add-on) deal.
 
A 3rd edition was successfully kick-started about 4 years ago. Updated background, new system, shiny hardback book. I backed it, and there's some good material in it, but I didn't like the system and think 2nd edition is superior.

A book of adventures came out about a year after the core book but I don't know how good it was. It has a very nice cover though.

There hasn't been any other support for it. I'm not sure if that was because Jonathan Tweet made an ill advised tweet (no pun intended!), that got him briefly cancelled, or if it's because the KS was a one-and-done (with the supplement a KS add-on) deal.

A new system sees like a bad move - that was more of a selling point than the setting
 
Even though Mythras and OpenQuest can cover most of the ground occupied by it, I really wish Magic World's (Stormbinger/Elric!) mechanics had gotten properly supported by Chaosium. I understand, the license rights to Moorcock's IP being problematic and I don't begrudge their decision to kill Magic World, but even without the IP, the rules do such a nice job of providing a simplified, but not too simple entry point for BRP-based fantasy gaming. Setting aside its shoddy layout, bad, bland and/or recycled artwork and some pretty egregious editing and formatting errors that really mar the presentation, I still love it like few games I've ever played in 35+ years at this hobby.
 
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I’m a huge fan of Barbarians of Lemuria and the new Dicey Tales pulp version just released to Kickstarter backers looks great. I’m not so hot on the generic version, Everywhen, which is why it’s so great Dicey Tales has happened.

I also really like Boot Hill 2E, just ran a successful intro for some new players tonight, but I guess I shouldn’t be championing an almost 50 year old game owned by Hasbro.

I wish the Pacesetter Ltd games sold by Goblinoid Games (CryptWorld, Rot World, Time Master) would get a better marketplace hold, it really sucks Dan Proctor doesn’t have the Chill IP because I think PDFs of it and those modules would definitely sell.
 
There hasn't been any other support for it. I'm not sure if that was because Jonathan Tweet made an ill advised tweet (no pun intended!), that got him briefly cancelled, or if it's because the KS was a one-and-done (with the supplement a KS add-on) deal.
I'd not heard anything of that... what was the kerfluffle about? I have the new edition also, and wasn't too impressed.
 
ForeSight with its supplement HindSight.
 
Well I really wish RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha (RQG) had used TDM RQ6/Mythras as the core mechanics

I love the production standards, aesthetic look, and lore detail of Chaosium's current version of Glorantha. However I am not garnering too much enthusiasm for the actual RQG game mechanics, and I am saying this as a long time RQ/BRP fan since the mid 1980s.

RQ2 worked really good in comparison to many of its contemporaries. I still love RQ2 even now, but it is not without its flaws.
Driven by both genuine appreciation as well as nostalgia, many BRP fans eagerly bought the RQ Classic Edition (RQ2 reprint). The result in sales prompted Chaosium to pursue development on the new edition of RQ using RQ2 as the mainframe, disregarding most later developments with subsequent RQ editions published by Chaosium or other parties.

However simply bolting on too many extra mechanics to RQ2 wasn't the greatest idea. The end result, in terms of game mechanics, would be have been great if nothing had existed after RQ2,.
However it was 20yrs too late for me, in terms of game mechanics it felt like RQG was a step backwards, or at the least a step sidewards, but certainly not a games mechanic improvement upon the previous edition (published by The Design Mechanism, not Chaosium).

I strongly feel that TDM‘s RQ6 was superior in many ways to the subsequent RQG, it really just lacked the Glorantha setting and the production values of contemporary Chaosium products
Yeah I know we have Mythras, but I would of loved seeing those rules in the current RQG packaging

I can easily run RQG products using Mythras, it's no problem converting the stats on the fly, as they are both BRP games and very compatible. But that's not the point, I really wanted RQG to use RQ6 as a core BRP chassis rather than RQ2.

Speaking of BRP, I would love to have seen Magic World get expanded into an entire line, perhaps with a Classic Fantasy meets Folk Fable flavour (I’m thinking Brothers Grimm influence). That would have been pretty cool

Spirit of the Century was a beloved product and setting for the earlier version of Fate, and I really would have appreciated a version for Fate Core. SotC is a really great rollicking pulp adventure game, something I think would be ideal for Fate Core.

I think Cypher System is pretty good, and needs a bit more attention at times. I didn’t initially like these game mechanics when I first read them, but now I can appreciate it so much better

Cypher’s main setting line, Numenera, is definitely known to many. However it is an absolutely mind blowing setting, a creative work of art which deserves far more recognition. It wears its influences on its sleeve, but they are not all widely consumable influences, and Numenera combines it all well.
If any property deserves a HBO streaming series, it is this one. If done right Numenera would definitely be the next big thing.

Also now that Cypher System is expanding , I think it would be great to have a pulpy rollicking action adventure line, something like what Two Little Mice are doing with Broken Compass, but with tweaked Cypher rules that capture the flavour.

Finally, a hidden gem I like is Ghastly Affair. A very atmospheric rpg of Georgian era gothic horror, it really captures the essence of it all, including the morality and perversity dynamic inherent in the mindscape of the era.
For an indie production, Ghastly Affair is very well done, and I wish it would be successful enough to have a range of resources. It uses a version of D20, which Is clearly influenced by D&D. Not sure what is happening with it at present, it is very much a small press publication.
 
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That's a hard one. I guess it depends on what you mean by "done better."

Traveller 4 would be one. I really would have preferred a new edition of that to Mongoose or T5.

Swordbearer is full of cool ideas but never really took off. I first heard of it in a little minigame called Wizard's Quest which really lacked much in the way of a game but had half a dozen plastic figures in it. I really wish Heritage's plastic range had done better or that I'd bought more of them.

Spacemaster Privateers never published the promised setting books and it really needed them. I wish they'd gone with the original two book organization instead of breaking it down into four books over the course of the ICE bankruptcy. The editing and organization really suffered.
 
I’m a huge fan of Barbarians of Lemuria and the new Dicey Tales pulp version just released to Kickstarter backers looks great. I’m not so hot on the generic version, Everywhen, which is why it’s so great Dicey Tales has happened.
I did not even know about Dicey Tales or I would of backed it, as I love Pulp Action Adventure and this system would be a great fit for it

I’ll look into grabbing this when it’s out
 
It would be cool if Eden released Cinematic Unisystem under the new ORC license.

I'm reasonably sure Eden doesn't have the authority to do that without CJ Carella's permission upfront.

I think at this point, the best outcome would be someone writing a retroclone of Unisystem and publishing it under the ORC license.

KoOS
 
I'm reasonably sure Eden doesn't have the authority to do that without CJ Carella's permission upfront.

I think at this point, the best outcome would be someone writing a retroclone of Unisystem and publishing it under the ORC license.

KoOS
CJ Carella has gone on record that says he's for it. It's Eden holding it up.
 
I'm another wishing Magic World had gotten the support it needed/deserved. But that was a difficult time for Chaosium... whatever Chaosium of that moment was and whatever it later became.
But I'm not sure I'd want to see what nu-Chaosium would do with it/to it.
 
I'm another wishing Magic World had gotten the support it needed/deserved. But that was a difficult time for Chaosium... whatever Chaosium of that moment was and whatever it later became.
But I'm not sure I'd want to see what nu-Chaosium would do with it/to it.
I’ld love to see Magic World with a sandbox setting and flavour like Rackham Vale, that would be really cool.
 
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