On Tabletop Role-playing Games.

Post Reply New Topic

Here's a few interesting paper and pencil games for you to look up, all free:

Basic Fantasy RPG

The Basic System

Open D6 System

ZODIAC Final Fantasy RPG

The Pocket RPG System

I play:
Warhammer 40,000
Dungeons & Dragons (Nothing past 3.5)
Axis & Allies (both the out-of-box and miniatures game version)
Star Wars Miniatures RPG
Panzer Blitz (an '80s wargame)
Squad Leader (and associated gamettes, such as Cross of Iron)
Mutants and Masterminds
Warmachine
Pathfinder
Stargate SG1
Digital Mage
Black Friday (a tabletop RPG a small group of gamers I know made in the spirit of the frenzied event retailers have come to lovingly refer to as "Black Friday").
Ophelia Henbane: A Steampunk miniatures RPG game I designed.
OnTour (A game a friend and I designed in which your characters are rock stars (or punk/metal/goth/industrial musicians) who have to deal with all the real-life drama of meeting release and concert deadlines, avoiding Paparazzi and STDs, not getting so intoxicated they cannot perform and everything else a famous musician knows all too well about).
and various others.
We (a small group of fellow RPG players and myself) are currently working on making Fallout a *viable* miniatures RPG, using the D20 system, as opposed to GURPS.

Your correct. In theory Hero System could be used as a rules base for any genre but, I generally feel it didn't hold up as well as some other rules systems for certain genres. However the system works pretty good for making games based off most comic book genres. Which isn't to say that it doesn't have some flaws.

Yeah, we just used it for superheroes.

I thought it was kind of neat, but the whole "here's your points, make your character however you want it" made it way too easy to come up with characters that die a lot. But maybe that's just me.

I dabbled in Paranoia RPG for a while, but that was way back; a few years ago.

I play Traveller - "Science-Fiction Adventure in the Far Future" -- 5626 A.D, to be exact.

My sig line gives my personal stats in Traveller terms (except for AQ, of course).

I've adapted Traveller rules to play Stargate: SG1, Star Trek, and Star Wars.

There are other adaptations that allow RP'ing in either the Roman Republic or Imperial Rome.

It has an extensive set of Commerce and Trade rules.

Every die roll uses D6 only -- roll 2D for 8+ to hit in melee combat (dice modifiers for STR, DEX, range, and other battlefield variables).

21 "Hit Points" are average for every character. There are no reincarnation or resurrection saves - once your character is dead, it's dead. This encourages tactical play over machismo.

My games are set in the Spinward Marches, a frontier sector bounded by Vargr, Zhodani, Sword Worlders, Darrians, Aslan, and a few other species that the players haven't met yet.

Marc W. Miller is my hero.

As long as you where following prudent conventions of character creation at what ever power level you where play you should not die a lot. Remember it's important to invest some points in the Body stat in most games. Other then that it sounds like you may have had a blood thirsty GM. Depending on your super hero genre most comic book villains and heroes should be using mostly non-lethal attacks. Getting knocked out, knock down or, knocked back should be common but, dying should happen very rarely. Remember that RPGs are about telling a story and, Champions is about telling stories that you might find in a comic book. Although, super heroes/villains get defeated they rarely kill each other.

Yeah, my character was prepared for non-lethal attack and defense, not for bullets =| The GM may have been at fault.

I just realized I forgot Flames of War.

I like 3rd AD&D augmented with d20 Modern and D20 Future. 4th ed is for people too stupid for 3rd ed. What I mean by that is Wizards of the Coast wants to broaden it's fan base to include those who aren't very bright. I just moved away from the group I used to play with and I don't know anybody here in Colorado, much less people who play tabletop games. I'm a sad nerd...

Ooooh! I totally forgot that I ran a Fallout based table top game with a small group. I used the pen and paper rules, but later decided to switch to the d20 concept for player familiarity and versitility.

It is called Fuzzy Heroes. Barbie has the best armor due to her expansive wardrobe and GI Joe has the best weapons

I could've sworn someone mentioned it in this thread, but maybe it was a different thread (or a different forum).

Anyway, someone mentioned Tunnels & Trolls, and I've been checking it out lately and it seems pretty awesome.

I've got a flashdrive loaded with gamebook pdfs (saving trees). I've got Pathfinder, Shadowrun v4 (I think) (with expansion books), Serenity RPG (based off Joss Whedon's awesome Firefly), and Wu Xing (everybody is a ninja)

My flashdrive is loaded with books on Traveller and Stargate material - I managed to get all five official Stargate:SGC PDFs before the entire franchise was put down by Sony/MGM.

I seem to be in a minority of people who find that being able to flip through a physical book and see 100% of both pages in "native resolution" is probably 20x better than a PDF.

Methinks I might need to get a laser printer so I can convert a bunch of mine into dead trees.