Favorite Dead RPG company

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You can't buy the core rules which is a good sign of death to me.
Different Worlds never published core rules... They were originally just an RPG magazine publisher (which still qualifies them as an "RPG" company). I don't know when they got into the business of buying warehouse lots of out of print games and selling them. The magazine died in the 80s (my subscription ended 2 shy of the last issue, I picked up the last 2 issues at a comic book store).

Sorry, I need to correct that. They DID re-publish Empire of the Petal Throne and a couple other Tekumel books (Swords & Glory sourcebooks), and those were a full re-publish (in a new format) and not just buying warehouse stock.
 
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You fogies...nobody is going to mention a single company founded in the new millennium? I’m sure I missed one somewhere but it’s mostly old stuff up in here.

Goodman Games should be called Greatman Games. Wonderful products, stellar customer service and just a great relationship with their community. Pure Class.

Sine Nomine may be only one dude, but you wouldn’t know it based on the quantity and quality of products. Crawford never misses a Kickstarter deadline and his ideas have raised the standard for what OSR can accomplish.
 
I'd have seconded GDW, but I'm not so sure Marc Miller is on the right track with Traveller these days.
I'll second Eden Studios though. I do miss seeing shiny new Unisystem content being released.
I'll also add both Exile Game Studio and Atomic Sock Monkey to the list. The former because I had such high hopes for the Uniquity engine. I'd have loved to seen some refinements on HEX with other genres / games. The latter because it was Chad Underkoffler's PDQ shop, and I love me some PDQ. I don't believe Chad ever officially said, "it's dead, Jim", but he disappeared after he hooked up with Evil Hat.
 
Pity. I recently read that their Silhouette system is "a better d6 dice pool game than WEG Star Wars." I wanted to find out for myself, but the core rulebook is only available in apparently a bad scan.

I got Jovian Chronicles in a Bundle of Holding and don’t recall any issues with the core rulebook scan.
 
You fogies...nobody is going to mention a single company founded in the new millennium? I’m sure I missed one somewhere but it’s mostly old stuff up in here.

Goodman Games should be called Greatman Games. Wonderful products, stellar customer service and just a great relationship with their community. Pure Class.

Sine Nomine may be only one dude, but you wouldn’t know it based on the quantity and quality of products. Crawford never misses a Kickstarter deadline and his ideas have raised the standard for what OSR can accomplish.
When did they die?
 
Goodman Games should be called Greatman Games. Wonderful products, stellar customer service and just a great relationship with their community. Pure Class.

Sine Nomine may be only one dude, but you wouldn’t know it based on the quantity and quality of products. Crawford never misses a Kickstarter deadline and his ideas have raised the standard for what OSR can accomplish.

Are Goodman Games and Sine Nomine dead?
 
GDW was great, though for my money Digest Group Publications should have been the Traveller company after about 1988.

There's lots of little games I love, most were one off publications by companies like Mystic Wood. FGU as the publisher of people's visions is also cool but only mostly dead.

If people can say GW can I say Palladium?
 
Pity. I recently read that their Silhouette system is "a better d6 dice pool game than WEG Star Wars." I wanted to find out for myself, but the core rulebook is only available in apparently a bad scan.
There's a streamlined version of it available online, by yours truly. With permission by DP9.

https://blog.guildredemund.net/2014/12/23/how-i-made-my-peace-with-silhouette-core/

Edit - If anyone here has anything say about it, please post it here. I can't remember my password over there, and I'm not keen on renewing it, cuz of reasons. In fact, if you would want to host it here, I'm sure that Redemund's Guild wouldn't mind. I'm in good terms with them...
 
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GDW was great, though for my money Digest Group Publications should have been the Traveller company after about 1988.

People can pry my Digest Group material out of my cold hands after I am dead. It great stuff some of the best ever done for Traveller.
 
love the Silhouette system. If it weren't for Phaserip, it would be my go-to standard, hits all my buttons.

Simple, intuitive, but contains a ton of depth
Attributes are zero-average, so it takes literally seconds to stat up an NPC - just record the things they are exceptional at and their weaknesses
Combat is incredibly swift but tactically satisfying
It fades into the background during play, so all players need to do is roll dice when the GM requests
 
No love for Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE)?


I'd have to go with GDW, they turned out so many RPGs and a lot of war games too, which also led to some crossover wargamey RPG accessories. GDW games probably account for more of my shelf space than any other except for GURPS and HERO.

FASA gets an honorable mention.
 
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OK! I'm an idiot. In my defense, I was reading and writing on a phone and my I need a new prescription.
I wouldn't say you're an idiot but hey if you're going to do it who am I to stop you?
But seriously it's all good. I am usually distracted while reading or posting. The embrace of tangent commentary is something I love about this place and other than those companies being alive and kicking they're totally worth a shout out.
 
No love for Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE)?

Clearly not.

I still have a soft spot for Middle-earth Role Playing and the Robin Hood Campaign though. One of my players has a (misplaced?) fondness for Cyberspace too.

Honestly, I thought they were still around. Didn't they repackage Rolemaster as Rolemaster Classic a few years ago?
 
Just offhand: Mayfair (as far as RPGs go), TSR, GDW, West End Games, FASA, Task Force Games, I.C.E.

Probably some others I can't think of at the moment and I'm too busy to look them up.
 
Well, there's a current incarnation of ICE and all the stuff they can legally sell is available and they still put out a couple products a year, mainly focussed on HARP and Shadow World. Rolemaster Revisited or whatever is still in development limbo. The files are easily available.

Anyhow, so, I have some fondness and sympathy for the original incarnation of ICE where a lot of freelancers got screwed by the financial disaster that lead to the bankruptcy. It's easy to say they should have been more open and honest about where they were headed but that might have just hastened the inevitable. I have some sympathy for post bankruptcy ICE as they tried to recover and grow under some very tricky constraints. I think more openness and honesty might have helped but...the current incarnation is, I'm conflicted, I think the owner is the real problem and he's still there. Let's put it that way.
 
ICE are still technically around but most of the stuff coming out is written under Terry Amthor's imprint. The rest seems to be in a continual development hell. I get a Director's newsletter each month from them, but I miss the old days when I used to go to the Virgin megastore (another blast from the past for those from the UK) and find a couple of new ICE products each time.
 
For me it's 80's era Chaosium... and GW of around that time as well. Not dead... but undead, mutated into something I've got little or no use for.

A more legit answer would be Eden, because Unisystem interests me... though I only ever played Armageddon.
 
ICE are still technically around but most of the stuff coming out is written under Terry Amthor's imprint. The rest seems to be in a continual development hell. I get a Director's newsletter each month from them, but I miss the old days when I used to go to the Virgin megastore (another blast from the past for those from the UK) and find a couple of new ICE products each time.
Just a side note. I'm pretty sure we had Virgin Stores here in the states at least in LA. I think I bought stuff from them in the early 2000's near Lincoln and the 90 in Marina Del Rey.
 
I don't like to name (or think in terms of) favorites, but I feel like naming:

SPI (mainly for their wargames and serious style, and Barbarian Prince... also I hear they were murdered by TSR assassination).
Avalon Hill (for their wargames... I still haven't tried Runequest but it's on my list to try)
Task Force Games (for Star Fleet Battles and other games, but they did make Delta Force and Prime Directive, etc)
Metagaming (published TFT and several other charming games, but I'm not a Howard Thompson fan)
 
Couldn't agree more, especially since my favourite edition of Call of Cthulhu is 3rd, published by Games Workshop in the UK.

Anyone ever tell you that the green font you use causes actual, physical pain to their eyes?

More on topic, this is an area I'm quite ignorant in. How is old Chaosium different than the current incarnation?
 
While not quite RPG releated, I personally miss Task Force Games the makes of Star Fleet Battles and Starfire. SFB is still going strong under Amarillo Design Bureau but Task Force Games had other interesting games as well.

Like 1e Prime Directive! *chef's kiss*

I'm gonna say Pacesetter. Makers of Chill, Timemaster and Star Ace. Yes, their settings were somewhat goofy, but I've grown to appreciate that. Plus, I like the Action Table System.

I know Daniel Proctor has bought the rights to the Pacesetter name and system, but I don't consider it the same company. Nothing against Mr. Proctor, I love and own some of his stuff, and everything I've seen from him has been Kwality with a "K". But Pacesetter is dead.
 
Just a side note. I'm pretty sure we had Virgin Stores here in the states at least in LA. I think I bought stuff from them in the early 2000's near Lincoln and the 90 in Marina Del Rey.
The Virgin Games store I remember in London in '86 was verrrrrrry different from the Virgin Megastores I've been to in the US. Did the latter even carry RPGs?
 
More on topic, this is an area I'm quite ignorant in. How is old Chaosium different than the current incarnation?


Well, just as your body replaces every skin cell over the course of 7 years (not really, but close enough for the analogy), so you are essentially a complete different meat construct that you were 8 years ago, Chaosium is run by a completely different staff and group of contributors than it was during the Golden Age. They have different tastes, and different priorities for their game content. If you share their priorities/ideologies, it's all good. If not, it's...less good.
 
ICE are still technically around but most of the stuff coming out is written under Terry Amthor's imprint. The rest seems to be in a continual development hell. I get a Director's newsletter each month from them, but I miss the old days when I used to go to the Virgin megastore (another blast from the past for those from the UK) and find a couple of new ICE products each time.

Did ICE survive the bankruptcy intact? I know there is some new Rolemaster stuff always on the horizon, but I thought ICE was done and RM was being done by someone else. I've not actually paid much attention to RM in 20+ years but had a lot of fun with it in the late 80s / early 90s so it always kind of peaks my attention when there is talk of "new Rolemaster. On the other hand the odds are very slim that I'd actually buy it, so that attenction quickly, ooooh shiny!
 
FASA - Without them, Shadowrun just isn't Shadowrun
GW - The old GW before they decided they were toy soldier sellers.
Chaosium - Again, the old guard was better.
TSR - Before Gary left for Hollywood
 
You fogies...nobody is going to mention a single company founded in the new millennium? I’m sure I missed one somewhere but it’s mostly old stuff up in here.
Gaffe though this might have been, about ten years ago Evil Hat spun off a subsidiary called One Bad Egg to publish 4th Edition D&D content. It didn't really take off, but I have fond memories of their first (and, as it turned out, only) setting, the Shroud.
 
Whatever happened to Games Workshop?


Brian Ansell, in two words. He decided that the company should refocus it's efforts to making pre-adolescent upperclass boys the target audience for a dumbed-down miniatures gameline, and killed every project line that didn't fit that model, causing the majority of the original creators to leave the company
 
Brian Ansell, in two words. He decided that the company should refocus it's efforts to making pre-adolescent upperclass boys the target audience for a dumbed-down miniatures gameline, and killed every project line that didn't fit that model, causing the majority of the original creators to leave the company
Ah, the early 1980s were the halcyon days for me too.....:smile:
 
Just offhand: Mayfair (as far as RPGs go), TSR, GDW, West End Games, FASA, Task Force Games, I.C.E.

Probably some others I can't think of at the moment and I'm too busy to look them up.
Elaborating on my earlier post now that I finished what I was doing--some memorable products:

Mayfair: DC Heroes, Role Aids
TSR: Boot Hill, Star Frontiers, Indiana Jones, Marvel Super Heroes, Conan, Gangbusters
GDW: Traveller, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, Twilight: 2000, Space: 1889
West End Games: Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Paranoia
FASA: Star Trek, third-party Traveller stuff
Task Force Games: Heroes of Olympus, Crime Fighter
I.C.E.: MERP, Rolemaster
SPI: Dragon Quest, Universe
Victory: James Bond 007
 
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