Silverlion
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I'm a huge fan of the original Ghostbusters game, and the PDQ system, I wonder what happened to Chad Underkoffler. He seemed to disappear.
Oh yeah, "Your favorite game system you wish had better layout" would be a whole other thread…
Me neither, except when I am and I just threw my reading glasses across the kitchen in a fit of rage.It's funny because I'm usually not that fussy about game presentation.
There's also Truth & Justice and Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies (those are the only two I have)Questers Of The Middle Realm is very quirky and it does have that annoying script font, but you can erasily run it for classic fantasy dungeon crawls and whatnot, much easier than D&D in many ways. It really is quite good, despite it's indie production.
I keep forgetting about Monkey, Ninja, Robot but I should just get it for quirk value alone.
I really feel like I only lack for a good, high quality space opera PDQ-based game. I've rechromed S7S for that purpose a number of times, but I'd have loved to have seen one in print.Prose, Drama, Qualities
PDQ.
I came back to mention this, because I forgot to do so in my previous post.
Seems like others are already onto it however. Good to know it occasionally gets some appreciation.
PDQ is one of those 'narrative/fiction-first' generic/multi-genre systems, with very simple straightforward mechanics to cover most situations.
Characters are made up of an assortment of individualised narrative descriptors (Qualities) which have numerical values attached to them.
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The core mechanic just rifts off those descriptors when need be, and there's not much to it after that.
Your descriptors can be damaged/depleted, so that's the capacity tracker/HP.
It means there isn't any bloat on the character sheet, just the character description and a few narrative descriptors with numbers attached to them.
Everything fades into the background quite well, it's very free-form at the table.
Such a simple system, and IMO it deserves to be as just as prominent as Cypher, Fate, Everywhen/BoL, or PbtA
I have a few PDQ books and they are gold, very handy to pick up and run with
Easy enough for anyone to check out the PDQ free core mechanics
Then decide whether to buy a couple of titles like Jaws of the Six Serpents, Questers of the Middle Realms, The Zorcerer of Zo, etc
Those books are all digest-sized, and probably some of the best value for money titles in my collection
I'm half interested in converting my kids D&D game to Questers Of The Middle Realm and be done with it
It's really easy enough to convert any setting you want if you like handwaving thing
Another system similar to PDQ is Chaosium's HeroQuest (retitled Questworlds in the next forthcoming edition), wherein the characters just have a bunch of often individualised narrative descriptors (Keywords) that have values assigned to them, and resolved by the same core mechanic.
I don't feel HQ suited the setting of Glorantha (which hums better with a gritty version of BRP like RQ).
HeroQuest would have been really good for a rollicking Action/Adventure setting like Indiana Jones or Uncharted, or perhaps a Crime Detective Noir setting or something like that, but it just didn't feel suited for Glorantha for me
Both HQ and PDQ systems are really quite good, although I found that PDQ was more straightforward and clear than HeroQuest was.
Both systems didn't get much support by comparision to most games. HeroQuest was sporadically supported for a bit (although many just bought the setting books for Gloranthan lore, and used BRP/RQ), whilst PDQ only had a couple of small books to it's name.
It's criminal that both HQ and PDQ the PDQ didn't get more recognition, they are both very adaptable.
In particular, PDQ feels like such a missed opportunity
Well with the high production quality of current Chaosium products, HQ (QW) may actually become a much more prominent game.I really feel like I only lack for a good, high quality space opera PDQ-based game. I've rechromed S7S for that purpose a number of times, but I'd have loved to have seen one in print.
As for HQ (another game I love), I'm hopeful if perhaps a bit naively optimistic that 2023 will be the year we see QuestWords (what HQ has been rebranded to) officially released, complete with print support and the promised supplements.
I have not heard much about Truth & Justice, it sounds like a Supers game for PDQ, but I did read reviews about Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, probably because it got more exposure due to being published by Evil Hat. It sounded pretty good from the reviews, but that was some time ago now.There's also Truth & Justice and Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies (those are the only two I have)
For me, Champions 4th edition was the sweet spot and my first foray into the system. I kinda liked Champions New Millennium for the whole numbers and simple math, but it lacked something. To me, 5e and 6e are just too much.2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th? (I assume we will not discuss 6th. And 1st Ed was Champions only.)
I love Prose Descriptive Qualities. I think my favorite incarnation was Truth & Justice.
Truth & Justice was, in my opinion, good PDQ game. And a pretty darn good superhero game in general. But it does suffer a little from being one of the earlier PDQ games. It's definitely got some rough edges.I have not heard much about Truth & Justice, it sounds like a Supers game for PDQ, but I did read reviews about Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, probably because it got more exposure due to being published by Evil Hat. It sounded pretty good from the reviews, but that was some time ago now.
Although it is likely still available in pdf format, I don't think Evil Hat has physically reprinted the book due to low sales.
In many ways PDQ is one of those systems that the world is passing by.
Which is a shame, considering how simple and rules-lite it is.
PDQ could easily be a good framework for a more prominent range of settings.
From the preview it does look very much like PDQ, it even has the descriptors termed as 'Qualities'If you like PDQ and would like to see a similar treatment, I would recommend grabbing a copy of Sword's Edge System by Fraser Ronald. It is essentially PDQ with a d10. DriveThruRPG has a nice bundle with a bunch of adventures plus the core rules.
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.
And Greg Porter/BTRC's system is really slick. I love his designs, but they never catch on.
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
Did Boot Hill ever get a retroclone?
The real humdinger was Task Force Games' Delta Force, my favourite ever modern combat system wrapped up in a terribly niche anti-terrorist game. It did get one supplement, but that was it. I converted all of Classic Traveller over to it, and ran it that way until the big folder of rules got thrown out when I was out of the country, the 5 1/4" floppy discs with all the tables didn't work any more, so I moved on to GURPS Traveller as the next best thing. But that system was a thing of beauty for any self-respecting gun freak.
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Traveller: The New Era. Maybe if it had done better (though according to GDW staffers of the time it was doing okay) GDW wouldn't have died, and I really wanted to see where TNE's various meta-plot threads ended up (and I don't normally like meta-plots). Also, then we'd have gotten new/more 2300AD product and maybe other GDW games redone, and more options for FF&S, and...
The other one is current - GURPS. Doing better would mean more cool stuff to buy, and actually getting the Vehicle Design System instead of not.
This looks like a lot of fun, not sure why he felt the need to use a D&D base but from the description I can see how it would work. Will have to pick this up, maybe wait for the second edition?
Fringeworthy. The first honest game of transdimensional exploration.
Coming in a close second....
Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic
These games, despite some bad editing decisions, were simple, easy to play, and a heck of a lot of fun. The system was adaptable and easy to do things with. Tri-Tac was designed from Grognards, by Grognards... thus lost a lot of potential players.
These games have had D20 and other game system adaptions. People like them. Just the original games, languish in obscurity. (Who even remembers the B13 novels and the video game?)
2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th? (I assume we will not discuss 6th. And 1st Ed was Champions only.)
Well technically 2nd and 3rd( I believe) were also only either Champions or the various other genres. They played well together but not perfectly. Skill and ability costs I believe varied by product so no guarantee a guy from Espionage would transfer properly to Champions or Justice Inc. I believe they only unified things under 4th edition.
I think the trick is for it to leave Glorantha behind as a default setting ( or just have one book for it), as RQG pretty much covers Glorantha.
There are lots of other genres that HQ/QW would be perfect for, so lets see where it all ends up
Ah, yes, I keep forgetting those.There was the Delta Force Companion which is probably the supplement you are thinking of, but it also got several modules. DF is a terribly forgotten game which is a real shame. Like Behind Enemy Lines which it is clearly derived from it holds a really nice level of detail and simplicity as well as being close to the line between small unit wargame and RPG.
They had various troubles, some due to poor decisions, others outside of their control, and in the end closed up shop. At that point Frank Chadwick and Dave Nilsen were the last full-time employees. GDW at that point still controlled all its IPs - they were split up after it was wound up with people getting properties in accordance to some formula that was written into the companies' constitution when it was formed. Marc Miller got Traveller, Loren Wiseman got Twilight:2000, Frank Chadwick got a bunch of wargames and Space:1889, and so on. That's what Loren said, as I recall it ~20 years after the conversation, anyway.I've read in a couple of places that GDW didn't really die, they were just tired and with the downturn in RPGs and some troubles near the end they just threw in the towel and closed up the business. Mark Miller had already left with Traveller, Loren Wiseman went to SJG and Frank Chadwick has written some fiction.
They had various troubles, some due to poor decisions, others outside of their control, and in the end closed up shop. At that point Frank Chadwick and Dave Nilsen were the last full-time employees. GDW at that point still controlled all its IPs - they were split up after it was wound up with people getting properties in accordance to some formula that was written into the companies' constitution when it was formed. Marc Miller got Traveller, Loren Wiseman got Twilight:2000, Frank Chadwick got a bunch of wargames and Space:1889, and so on. That's what Loren said, as I recall it ~20 years after the conversation, anyway.
Loren sold Twilight:2000 and his other IPs to pay bills and living costs and later moved down to SJGames to work of their Traveller licence. I'm not sure what he was doing when he passed away. I miss conversations with him (and John M Ford, for that matter) on the old Pyramid message boards.
Dave Nilsen went back to defence contracting (which pays a heck of a lot better), and I don't know what he's doing these days, but it's not in gaming as far as I know.
5th with maybe some 4th Edition stuff like Regeneration.2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th? (I assume we will not discuss 6th. And 1st Ed was Champions only.)
I don’t know; there was a lot of HQ support for Glorantha IIRC. Personally, I think it’s a game that deserves to be buried by the sands of time. Even Chaosium realised that all it had going for it was its title. The best idea was that each player is a band rather an individual but that seemed to get lost as soon as the title was acquired to replace Hero Wars.I remember the b13 novels. My friends and I read them in high school. We played a short campaign of it using palladium heros unlimited. Those were fun games. Good memories.
I really feel like I only lack for a good, high quality space opera PDQ-based game. I've rechromed S7S for that purpose a number of times, but I'd have loved to have seen one in print.
I've got a lot of time for PDQ too. I'd love to see a toolkit or core book produced now, under an open license, with options from all the various flavours of PDQ.In many ways PDQ is one of those systems that the world is passing by.
Which is a shame, considering how simple and rules-lite it is.
PDQ could easily be a good framework for a more prominent range of settings.
I'm intrigued!I've been pecking away off and on at a heavily BEL / DF inspired system for years (I am easily distracted and discouraged).
They invested a lot into lines that didn't move as much as they needed. That was the largest part of what did them in.They had various troubles, some due to poor decisions, others outside of their control, and in the end closed up shop. At that point Frank Chadwick and Dave Nilsen were the last full-time employees. GDW at that point still controlled all its IPs - they were split up after it was wound up with people getting properties in accordance to some formula that was written into the companies' constitution when it was formed. Marc Miller got Traveller, Loren Wiseman got Twilight:2000, Frank Chadwick got a bunch of wargames and Space:1889, and so on. That's what Loren said, as I recall it ~20 years after the conversation, anyway.
Loren sold Twilight:2000 and his other IPs to pay bills and living costs and later moved down to SJGames to work of their Traveller licence. I'm not sure what he was doing when he passed away. I miss conversations with him (and John M Ford, for that matter) on the old Pyramid message boards.
Dave Nilsen went back to defence contracting (which pays a heck of a lot better), and I don't know what he's doing these days, but it's not in gaming as far as I know.
The Desert Shield book didn't just not do well, it did really badly and as it was through the normal book trade, they had to take back all the returns and refund on them.They invested a lot into lines that didn't move as much as they needed. That was the largest part of what did them in.
Edited to Add that their Desert Storm book did gangbusters, and they used that money to expand. Then the Desert Shield book didn't do as well, and other lines collapsed too.
Yes, indeed it isMonkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot is one of the funniest roleplaying game rule books I have ever read.
Mythras can take that thread by storm, tooOh yeah, "Your favorite game system you wish had better layout" would be a whole other thread…
I liked it as well.The only PDQ game I can remember is Ninja Burger. That said I did like Ninja Burger.
Technically it was the other way around. The Desert Shield book (published after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait but before the US invasion of Iraq) sold really well because it was released at the perfect moment when people wanted more info about the unfolding situation. Then the US invasion happened and the war ended quickly, and by the time GDW’s Desert Storm book was released major combat operations were already over and people didn’t care anymore (plus GDW printed and distributed way too many copies, using the sales of the Desert Shield book as their benchmark).They invested a lot into lines that didn't move as much as they needed. That was the largest part of what did them in.
Edited to Add that their Desert Storm book did gangbusters, and they used that money to expand. Then the Desert Shield book didn't do as well, and other lines collapsed too.
Sorry, got those the wrong way around. The first one also had no competition, whilst the second one was just one fact book amongst many.Technically it was the other way around. The Desert Shield book (published after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait but before the US invasion of Iraq) sold really well because it was released at the perfect moment when people wanted more info about the unfolding situation. Then the US invasion happened and the war ended quickly, and by the time GDW’s Desert Storm book was released major combat operations were already over and people didn’t care anymore (plus GDW printed and distributed way too many copies, using the sales of the Desert Shield book as their benchmark).
Yeah, I got them wrong way around too- should have remembered, because Desert Storm was actually a larger book- Desert Shield was really just a booklet.Sorry, got those the wrong way around. The first one also had no competition, whilst the second one was just one fact book amongst many.
The sad thing is that they didn't blow the money from the first book, but spent it on upgrading their equipment, so they were about the only gaming company that had desktop computers, layout software and all at the time. No more literal cut and paste!
Yeah, I got them wrong way around too- should have remembered, because Desert Storm was actually a larger book- Desert Shield was really just a booklet.
And yeah, the expansions weren't a wasteful choice, just an unfortunate one. If they'd banked that to have some solidity and hadn't oversold themselves into the mainstream (they weren't in that market before that, if I remember correctly), then they'd have been able to weather the MTG downturn better.
Miles better than fellow BRP game "Magic World" (which wold be a good fit for this thread, too; Most current BRP products tend to go in different directions)Mythras can take that thread by storm, too!
Mythras as well talked about as it is here is largely unjustly unrecognised in the broader community. And gods yes a larger font please! I’ll repeat thar a thousand times (my poor eyes)!Yes, indeed it is!
Mythras can take that thread by storm, too!
I liked it as well.
Didn't RQ6 have those useless "old-style" ligatures? And its de-copyrighted version Mythras now these tiny fonts. So I'm not sure how they'll continue that progression in the next version. Papyrus headings, Comic Sans body?And gods yes a larger font please! I’ll repeat thar a thousand times (my poor eyes)!
A lot of why I have no particular opinions on Mythras are because I can't easily read it, even on a large monitor. The fint's large enough when displayed on my 32" screen, but it's spindly, so it's still hard to read.Mythras as well talked about as it is here is largely unjustly unrecognised in the broader community. And gods yes a larger font please! I’ll repeat thar a thousand times (my poor eyes)!
Hmm, do I have a different Mythras PDF than others? On my laptop screen, with the 3rd printing PDF is displayed at maximized page width, I find it plenty readable.A lot of why I have no particular opinions on Mythras are because I can't easily read it, even on a large monitor. The fint's large enough when displayed on my 32" screen, but it's spindly, so it's still hard to read.
I won't speak for everyone, but I hate reading PDFs displayed that way. It's a deeply unpleasant experience.Hmm, do I have a different Mythras PDF than others? On my laptop screen, with the 3rd printing PDF is displayed at maximized page width, I find it plenty readable.
I feel your painA lot of why I have no particular opinions on Mythras are because I can't easily read it, even on a large monitor. The fint's large enough when displayed on my 32" screen, but it's spindly, so it's still hard to read.
I hate to break it to you, but this is not a sign of something optimalized for readability.displayed at maximized page width
I played and ran a fuck ton of SLA Industries in the 90s. It was my favorite game for a long while despite the mediocre system and inconsistent publishing schedule.Didn't RQ6 have those useless "old-style" ligatures? And its de-copyrighted version Mythras now these tiny fonts. So I'm not sure how they'll continue that progression in the next version. Papyrus headings, Comic Sans body?
Oh, did someone mention SLA Industries? I liked the core mood of the game, with the post-late-stage capitalistic planet ruled by a singular company, everyone just being a hired corporate killer. From what little I used it, the system seemed to have worked and gave the resident gun enthusiasts ammo types to talk about ("Should we use HESH? Too expensive?")
Of course, ignoring that leaked "behind the scenes" document where it went all Dallas.