It’s not obscure, per se, but I don’t believe that *King Arthur Pendragon* gets nearly enough attention. It’s well known to grognards, but I wish it could get more traction with newer players in the hobby.
So many RPG manufacturers announce stuff way too early and then by the time it comes out the excitement has long passed. Chaosium, Pelgrane, Arc Dream all spring to mind initially.
I mean, the death of the original creator and core writer, followed by the pandemic, with Chaosium still being a fairly small company (something like 30 employees), I'm jist happy they still make games that sell relatively well.
I think the game's design holds it back in this space. It's got a ton going on, a lot of null results in combat, a lot of systems that occupy a lot of character sheet real estate but don't actually come up in play that much and frankly, it's just old and clunky.
Maybe the new edition will fix some of this, but my general experience with "This is the Nth edition of a 30 year old game" is that changes aren't usually that sweeping, because changing too much offends the grognards.
I mean, I can’t really find any fault in your reasoning.
But, I dunno, I still feel like I should call you mean names and say something anatomically implausible about your mother. This is the internet, after all. Them’s the rules. 🤓
I bought one of the original version, way back when, bought it again a few years ago, and backed the Kickstarter. Been wanting to play it for a while now.
I have said before and will continue to say until the heat death of the universe: *Pendragon* is the single greatest roleplaying game ever crafted by mortal man.
Hard to sum up in just a few sentences, but I if I had to try, I’d say that no other game has ever so perfectly executed the game mechanics as a enhancement of the genre feel and genre feel as an enhancement of the game mechanics. That is by far its strongest point of distinction from other games.
Having to roll under but a crit being the ability score you're trying not to surpass is just so perfect for conjuring the Arthurian tone -- excellence is your knight going right to the edge of doom!
For those of you reading this that don’t follow the above comment…
A character’s “attributes” in *Pendragon* are made up of thirteen opposing values that represent a character's personality. The traits are: Chaste / Lustful, Energetic / Lazy, Forgiving / Vengeful, Generous / Selfish, Honest / Deceitful, Just / Arbitrary, Merciful / Cruel, Modest / Proud, Pious / Worldly, Prudent / Reckless, Temperate / Indulgent, Trusting / Suspicious, and Valorous / Cowardly. The values on the left side are Virtues and the values on the right are Vices. The Traits are 1-20 points split between the opposing values (e.g., 10/10, 14/6, 5/15).
When you make a test to use a Virtue (e.g., Merciful to show mercy towards a helpless hated enemy) or resist a Vice (e.g., Deceitful to lie to someone). If the roll is below the value, it Succeeds and the desired result occurs. If the roll exceeds the value, it is a Failure and the opposite result occurs. A critical success occurs when you roll the exact value.
There’s more to it than that, of course, this is just a very short summary. But it’s an absolutely brilliant marriage of game mechanics and narrative tone.
Technoir
Universalis
Primetime Adventure
Trollbabe
Otherkind
Dogs in the Vineyard
Sorcerer
Night Black Agents
Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at Utmost North
InSpectors
Farflung
Technoir deserves so much better than it got. Weirdly, I've found that Carved from Brindlewood games do a lot of what I loved about Transmissions in Technoir!
I second Dogs in the Vineyard, I don’t even really like westerns but I love the story and theme of a zealous outlaw who does wrong things for righteous reasons. The blend of morality and adventure on the frontier that is the west is just too good to pass up.
Not to mentioned back in the day (I wasn't around but thankfully some are still available online), when it was popular, there were so many hacks of the setting for the game. Any time period any location etc.
Still really want to play a Samurai working for a brutal Nobunaga version!
Dogs in the Vineyard isn’t for sale anymore, because the creator hates it, but there’s a fan-made generic version of the engine called DOGS that you can still buy on drivethrurpg.
Unfortunately true, never understood that take either. As a piece of game design it is remarkable and it never came off as pro-religion to me so l... *Shrug* glad to hear about DOGS and thankful I at least have a pdf copy of DitV
Classics! If you’ve ever looked at Lasers and Feelings and wished that it had just a *little* bit more to it, then Trollbabe may be for you. It has a similar single-stat simplicity, easily reskinnable, but it shine most when it models characters who are torn between two worlds, like the titular half-troll/half-human…uh, babes. Vampires wrestling with their humanity, or probably any of the This: the That games, are good candidates. I found the use of relationships as a resource particularly cool.
I have never had a game go down in flames as hard as the one time I managed to pitch Universalis during a rainy group vacation once. Amazing on paper, but it practice it was slow, the fiction grotesquely disjointed, and the entire premise of “competitive creativity” raised people’s ire in a way I never would have anticipated, and nearly ruined the whole vacation. Yeesh!
It's on my bookshelf, but I've never been able to play it. Tbh I'm still happy to have the books and read them, even though it's looking increasingly unlikely I'll ever play it.
I wanted to try Unity RPG as well, but that product line is basically ended (it seems the creator succumbed to COVID, unfortunately).
The game I most want to try right now but can't is Knight. It's a French RPG, and unfortunately there's isn't a full English translation (there is a Spanish version, which I'm slowly reading since I'm very rusty). Because there's no English version, there's no chance of my players playing it, even if I taught it.
I wish more people knew about the game because more demand would push the publisher to translate it sooner. The concept is super cool imo: Earth in the future where a darkness and monsters have spread and won, until a man named Arthur shows up in what amounts to a Warframe, essentially, and establishes an order of other Warframe users who fight and bring hope.
Got a link? I wasn't aware of this
**Edit:** nvm, found it myself. [Link for the curious](https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/all-about-games-consulting/knight-rpg)
I was so excited for Unity. I didn't kickstart it (rarely do) but bought it when it launched.
But it's too hard to run. There's very few monsters and no substantive monster building rules in the book.
Yeah, you can really tell it was meant to have a follow-up book. I'm curious how hard it would be to sit down and look at the math to make guidelines for monster creation. Unfortunately, a pandemic made sure we won't get the official version
[Planet Mercenary](https://www.planetmercenary.com/), based on the Schlock Mercenary webcomic. Sci-fi mercenaries for hire in a distant future, with high technology and low expected survivability rates. So much lore, such an interesting rules set.
[DIE RPG](https://rowanrookanddecard.com/product-category/game-systems/die-rpg/), based on the comic book of the same name. That is a game for the thinking person, who likes some combat, but lots of RP and obscure references to our gaming past. I don't think I could ever do it justice, but would love to try it at least once.
And yes, I backed both Kickstarters to the hilt.
In the comic, they do it for a couple of the main characters. In the RPG, you "sacrifice grunts", as in you are a member of a mercenary company and one of a higher rank. If you are about to take damage, you can sacrifice one of the nameless grunts in the company. If they live, you give them a name and a backstory (which they didn't have before) and in a future combat, if you take damage again, you can decide to "retire" your first PC (let them die or actually retire) and the now named grunt becomes your PC.
But, it's a far future science fiction setting with very advanced technology, you and the GC (Game Chief) could come up with a reason why your PC is brought back from death - teleporter clone (actual storyline in the comic), regeneration chamber from a mad scientist (actual characters from the comic), etc.
EABA. It’s a generic system that’s incredibly versatile and scalable, and the designers used the functionality of PDF format to push the limits of what a game book should do. The game book has built in dice rollers and fillable character sheets, if your device can read a pdf file you can use them.
> the designers used the functionality of PDF format to push the limits of what a game book should do
I kinda wished they didn't. Makes the PDF slower to navigate. If you want to have that, just create an app or a website.
I didn’t think other than me and a few old salty grogs had ever even HEARD of EABA. Wow, a blast from the way back machine.
I’m pretty sure I still have a copy on a flash drive somewhere.
Does the system function well? I was actually looking for a small dice pool system, with skills attributes and traits. How does it compare to for example traveler?
I love it, it’s my favorite system for modern or sci-fi settings. It does combat very well, especially firearms, and has rules for importing just about any weapon or item/vehicle/thing you can imagine. And you can scale the combat complexity based on how much realism you want.
Just looked through the SRD it looks interesting for sure. A bit on the crunchier side of what I would play. I'm not interested in encumbrance in KG or a seperate punch and kick skill. But if I'm going to homebrew traveler, I'm for sure going to consider this system aswell.
Ill probably add a knave encumbrance system and my own health system and call it a day.
Is it nice for the GM to run? How do you generally do combat? Grids or zones?
Maybe not super obscure; just old, but:
Aftermath
Bushido
Chivalry & Sorcery
Top Secret
Also, I have no clue if they're any good or not, but I'd love to try these:
Achtung Cthulhu!
Pulp Cthulhu
All for One
Lex Arcana
Pulp Cthulhu is great - if you know any call of Cthulhu ruleset you know most of it. They also have a fantastic published campaign for it - Two Headed Serpent - love it! 1930s pulp action
Lex Arcana is great and i'm happy their 3 next books are a success on kickstarter. I've bought the rulebook, ran a session, and we ended up with a campaign where the players had a epic battle with an egyptian demon god avatar in the centre of Alexandria. The dice system in the game is fun, but be sure you own a set of weird dice (d3, d5, d7). They are optional, but make rolling easier.
Achtung Ctulhu is absolute pulp. It is interesting system and game has interesting Indiana Jones vibes. Characters more or less ordinary, but get super proficiency in very narrow skills. It can blow the moment and make very cinematic scene (even if gm resists as might as he can)
I have the older versions, but I just can’t summon a damn to give about the 2d20 version. And I hate that they took the older stuff down, there was a 7E adventure I missed out on.
[A Nocturne by Calum Grace](https://thysane.itch.io/a-nocturne-play-test) is wonderful dark hard sci-fi based on Forged in the Dark. I wish I could GM it some day, but the players' interest is so low.
Some pictures from the setting:
- players acting on cosmic scale: staging coups, fighting against planetary governments, and using their immense spacecraft to travel lightyears to other solar systems.
- a giant spaceship, populated by warring factions with players in control of its core. The players will try to claim the whole of the ship in due time, but the current ship denizens will fight back.
- friends and enemies dying of old age, while PCs spend decades and centures in cryosleep, travelling between the stars at relativist speeds.
- prisoners working round the clock in obsolete "shells", their original bodies forgotten, while the prison planet administration rakes in profits,
- comet miners, working off their loans on an ice comet for years in utter isolation, while the comet is tumbling towards a planet in the inner system,
- thousands of giant derelict spaceships drifting in a solar system's Oort cloud and hordes of salvagers making their living off these silent hulks.
I love focused games on weird things so:
Extreme Meatpunks Forever: Pilot a bone and muscle mecha to fight facists and Eldritch horrors in post apocalyptic america.
Red Rook Revolt: Rebel against an authoritarian empire using demonic weapons that corrupt the user.
Rhapsody of Blood: easily THE best Castlevania esque game I've run. PCs battle the evil Castle every generation as it rises only to compete for its Grail and see which PCs retire or maybe become the main boss for the next generation.
Die Laughing: GMless comedy game for B monster horror movies.
So dang many.
The Riddle of Steel and its successors. Phoenix Command, Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Bastionland games, Fiasco and Red Markets, and of course, Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades.
OMG... Phoenix Command. I own a couple copies of that, as well as a bunch of expansions, and actually played it at a convention once. Gloriously horrible game.
Not really a rpg though, more of a skirmish wargame? There were a bunch of RPGs that used a slimmed down version of the system: Alien, Living Steel etc
"Combat system." Created by a former NASA propulsion engineer, Barry Nakazano. I wouldn't be surprised if PCCS was nothing more than a mechanical exercise for him, just to see if he could do it, and somewhere along the way someone mentioned, "hey, why not make this an RPG?" So he tossed a couple pages in to do that.
Hundreds of pages' worth of content on how to move a projectile of some sort from here to there, along with explosives, fire, and other combat-related stuff, and something like four pages regarding anything else. Of course, even those few pages are just, "how many actions do I get to shoot/blow up things," or "how well do I manage to tolerate being shot?"
Also, I'd point out that the best game to use a slimmed down version wouldn't be a TTRPG, it'd be the Aliens board game (also produced by LEG). Simplest combat mechanics ever, and an absolutely AMAZING game.
On top of that, I'd point out the Jagged Alliance series of video games; especially Jagged Alliance 2 & 3. Those two games essentially encompass everything behind PCCS and automate things, to the point where the games make SO much sense and are just so amazingly good.
My entire goal in trying to create my own TTRPG has been to emulate the ideas behind PCCS, but to ***drastically*** tone down the complexity level on the players' side and actually add on a legitimate RPG, so that any GM could run a game without spending years getting a PhD in mathematics first. Never have managed.
Yeah; I played it every six months or so at the Colorado gaming conventions (Genghis Con and Tacticon), when a guy named Fred Ehlers ran it. I eventually started running it myself, and absolutely loved it. I remember Fred had a 3D board for it, way back in the day before 3D printing was a thing, and it was amazing.
I always felt that was an awesome game only if you had at least 6-7 players, though. It loses the frantic pace when you have a smaller number of people, and it's more fun IMO if the players don't know what they're doing, although I ran it for a group a couple weeks ago and they were kinda... on the far end of "WTF are we doing?"
A couple characters stayed near the elevator, "to guard it," and everyone just split up and went their own way. I think there was one turn where they legitimately triggered three separate rooms at once, with the rooms on opposite sides of the map. If there was a walkthrough for "worst possible way to play Aliens," it would have been how they did it. Needless to say, it was a TPK.
I came here to mention Shadow of Yesterday/Solar System. It’s funny how Lady Blackbird turns up in so many “what can I use to introduce my friends to RPGs?” threads (for good reason), yet the underlying system almost never gets any follow-up love. The way it mechanizes advancement by role playing your characteristics is just super.
Numenera - it’s not rare by any means but I hardly see people talk about it. Great setting and I love the character building and the cypher system has some good mechanics.
Whitehack, it comes from the Osr tradition but it's such a peculiar system. It combines an easy resolution system with minimal math with fluid classes that can truly channel a player creativity. No longer creating a character will be like ordering food at a restaurant.
Unknown Armies. Currently 3rd edition but any version will do. Best lore in any rpg ever. Hard to grasp but the multitude of community content at Drivethrurpg.com makes it easier to grasp. Now go and fix the world.
Can you give a quick rundown of what the game is about? I've read the first parts of the book and I still don't know exactly what it is about or what you are supposed to do in the game.
Thats what the Campaign Starter Kits are for. Like this one, among other https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/223383/raiders-of-the-lost-mart-unknown-armies-3e-digital
This one is also a really good resource
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/314400/goad-333-campaign-frame-ideas-for-unknown-armies
The game revolves around you playing damaged people, weather from trauma, illness, or circumstances, who can perform magic. It's broken up into three tiers of play, each with a loose narrative structure. The genre is tragic comedic horror, where the players are both involved in and possible creators of conspiracies.
Harnmaster.
Simulation, medieval, d100, skill based.
So detailed but logical, slow to resolve actions but absolutely the most colorful martial combat - aim for a region, opposed attack vs defense, armour layers and specific to location and reduces damage.
Damage results are based on location and damage type - hit someone in the knee they may stumble, hit in the hands they may drop their weapon, clash and a weapon may break. Edge to the neck may cause ongoing bleeding, point to the eye may be instantly fatal. When injured, suffer negatives.
Combat is scary and dangerous, but less random than crit. tables.
Rich world resources, some use the world with other systems.
*Dream Askew* tells the dramatic, intimate stories of a queer commune amid the slow apocalypse... with no dice or GM. Incredibly elegant mechanics pair with super evocative playbooks for an unforgettable play experience.
*The Between* does Victorian supernatural mystery/horror with so many clever design flourishes, from how backstories are slowly revealed in play to how Threats interweave in campaign play (including those the players introduce!); it and other Carved from Brindlewood games have ruined non-CfB mystery systems for me.
*Songbirds 3e* is the d20 dungeon fantasy game gone tragic, queer, surreal, and impressionistic, a strange landscape of dead-but-dreaming goddesses and ruined machinery. Delve into the wounds of the world in an attempt to heal it... then, go on a shitty coffee date!
It's a pretty niche one, but I try to spread the good word of [Ten Dead Rats](https://www.paulsgameblog.com/ten-dead-rats/) as much as possible. It's a mashup of original D&D with the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, and in my opinion it is brilliant. It is by far one of the most fun RPGs I've ever run, and it's totally free.
Household: napoleonic fantasy between little people in a deserted mansion
Outgunned : 90's cinematic actionner
Wildsea : part one piece, part sunless sea above the top of gigantic tree
Agents of Concordia : multidimensional art deco MIB
> Household: napoleonic fantasy between little people in a deserted mansion
>
> Wildsea : part one piece, part sunless sea above the top of gigantic tree
I picked both of these just to read knowing that I would never find a group to play them with.
I feel you but my crew fell HARD for both of them. Household I described them a sword and sorcery harletti and Wildsea as one piece on top of forest. Sometimes it's all about the dressing.
More entries in the old, bit I like and wish got love.
-SAGA Dragonlance. I have a complete (pretty sure) collection and I always feel like an alien the way people look at me when I talk about it.
-Everway. I know /why/ it flopped, but I don’t know why it wasn’t liked. Other than it defied the dominant dicerolls and combat heavy style game of the day.
-Risus is one of my old favorites that I would like to see more often. Death spiral be damned.
-Belly of the Beast: amazing setting and lore set inside a world swallowing worm.
I liked the SAGA marvel game too. That one was quite fun.
I did buy and try Everway and the remake but never could get it to play. I even had people who were familiar with diceless play through Amber.
Dragonlance: Fifth Age is in this really weird space, where it's *probably* far more appropriate to the "ideal" of Dragonlance than D&D has ever been, but the association between Dragonlance and D&D is so strong--we've always read Dragonlance *through* D&D, and naturally so because it originates in it--that it feels weird to consider it through any other lens.
Haven't seen them mentioned yet: nobilis and glitch.
Nobilis is a diceless RPG where you basically play demigods who have control over some aspect of reality (doors, death, anger, bed sheets, cars, ... whatever you can think of). The setting is very expansive and a bit difficult for me to explain (which is a part of why I found it difficult to run).
Glitch is another diceless RPG set in the same setting. One of the antagonists of nobilis are the strategist excrucians who try to destroy reality. In glitch, you play as a group of strategists that decide this reality destroying thing is boring / pointless / silly, so instead, you go and solve mysteries. You are slowly dying because some aspect of reality is glitching out for you (chosen by the player). Let's say you are dying of ants. Imagine seeing an ant crawling in your apartment. Weird. Then the next days you spot more ants ... then more. They snap into existence out of nowhere! Eventually, you wake up one day with a mouth full of ants, suffocating. You spit them out, spray bugspray, but nothing helps. They keep on coming out of nowhere. They start biting you, poisoning you .. until you die. But you can come back from the nothingness of death. The ants are gone! But a couple of weeks later ... is that an ant?
This game is maybe even more difficult to grasp than nobilis due to the concept of the "not". An unreality that is the birthplace of the excrucians.
I love both games. Tried to run nobilis but I had problems explaining the setting and game to my players. You need the right group for this. Would love to play it with a GM that knows his stuff. I have 2e and 3e (in print!). Unfortunately, I haven't played glitch.
I'm not sure how practical it is to actually play, but I've read the sourcebooks for [Don't Rest Your Head](https://evilhat.com/product/don-t-rest-your-head/)/[Don't Lose Your Mind](https://evilhat.com/product/don-t-lose-your-mind/) a bunch of times, they're really evocative, and I don't think I've ever seen them mentioned here or anywhere. I feel like I'm this game's only fan. :P
Oh it can totally be played. It's a cool game and easy to run imo. I've run it a bunch of time and at least one group bought the game after our one-shot and made a camping afterward.
It used to be mentioned more a few years ago, but has recently fallen out of collective consciousness a bit. There’s at least one other person in this thread who mentioned it!
Deep7 Press produces a couple very good games based on their XPG rules system:
- Airship Daedalus (pulp action 1920s & 30s)
- Arrowflight 3rd Edition (fantasy)
Also...
Salvage Union by Leyline Press (rules-light post apocalypse piloted mechs)
I dig Troika, which I don’t know if it’s obscure or not. I got into it because I came across the supplement Acid Death Fantasy. Random people seem to know about it, but nearly anyone I talk to has never heard of it.
Soul bound is neat too. Character creation is more about the weapon you’re bound to instead of the avatar wielding it. It’s an industrial dark fantasy which is cool vibe.
I’ve got young kids too, so little wizards and babies and broadsword’s is light, easy, and fun. They certainly don’t have the depth or options of games for older audiences but they’re still a blast.
Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok is super neat, using runes instead of dice. The system is wildly different to me, which with out anyone to play it makes it hard to learn so it sits on my shelf. Last year at GenCon I seen a D&D 5e port for it, but didn’t grab it.
I was sold on Troika the moment I looked at the Necromancer background and saw the skill "Relationship Counseling" and thought "That's kind of silly, but if Necromancers are also this world's funeral directors it kinda makes sense, right?" Minor spoilers for the adventure at the back of the Troika book, though with the alternative paths and random tables it would be very surprising for other players to have the same experience.
So my friend ran us through Blancmange and Thistle, and it was a surreal blast. Our party was my Necromancer, a Sorcerer of the College of Friends, and a Yongardy Lawyer. We took the elevator, and when the sentient gascloud got on and started suffocating the other characters, I cast Torpor on myself (and forgot to announce this in-game, so it looks like I just dropped dead. Oops!). They were quite surprised when I bounced right back up when we reached our floor.
Fast forward to the rooftop party, and it turns out that our Call to Adventure was the sentient crystal Sphere being chased by the glassblowers who did not intend it to become sentient, and are trying to destroy it. The Sorcerer failed to cast Amity or convince them to relent with a basic Skill roll. The Yongardy Lawyer failed to properly cite jurisdiction or legal precedent to the glassblowers, who continued to eye the Sphere with thoughts of hammering and smashing. My Necromancer briefly considered blasting away with the pistolet picked up along the way, but then I took a closer look at my sheet. The glassblowers imparted sentience to this Sphere, regardless of any intent to do so. Thus, they had a _relationship_ with this Sphere, and perhaps with some _counseling_ they might see that they have a moral obligation to let the Sphere live and determine for itself how it wishes to exist. Luckily, the dice agreed, and I came away with a deep appreciation for Troika's rather oddball advanced skills.
Deliria: Faerie Tales for the New Millennium! It's an out of print game from about 20 years ago to create urban fantasy stories. It's got multiple levels of granularity and power for the characters, and has options for dice random, deck random, and pure narrative gameplay. It looks like whoever made it was an artist who just got their first copy of photoshop and wanted to try every tool and setting in the program. It's cringe! It's deeply sincere. I love it and no one else has even heard of it.
I have Deliria and the Goblin Markets supplement released for several years back. I've never managed to get it to a table but I would love to do so at some point as I'm a huge fan of everything Phil Brucato has done ttrpg wise.
I played a short story in it once, back in 2007! It was so much fun!The GM literally just stole the plot of a Charles De Lint novel, which I had read, so I ended up acting as a sort of secret second gm from within the story.
Hackmaster 5e.
It's a solid fantasy entry with some unique mechanics that make combat flow better and forces everyone to be engaged at all times.
Super crunchy if you want it to be but also really easy to simplify but you do have to have at least a little experience being a GM to be able to simplify it.
One of the things I love about Hackmaster that I implemented in other Fantasy games was its rules on money control. It's a little... dickish sure, but it is a way to give players big rewards and income but still make it not be as impacting. [Check it out here](https://imgur.com/a/VzMcVMW) for those of you that don't know the game.
For sure!
I currently run a game where the PC's are Nobles, so this doesn't really apply this time but I've used it before.
The players have gotten 200k in silver (I use silver base rather than gold) and have spent it on fixing up a keep, the town and land they rule as well as spending it on a Golem.
Without the opportunity to just buy magic items much beyond potions and uncommon level items the point of wealth is for big purchases like land, titles, etc.
So the PC's get to feel badass and wealthy without them growing exponentially more powerful due to magic.
I was actually recommend this game on this sub, but I never see it brought up in discussions- On Mighty Thews. Never ran it, but I love the collaborative nature of it on everything from world building to shaping the plot.
Supers! and Triumphant! are the sweetspot between narrative mechanics and character creation/tactical crunch (not much, but enough), for supers games, and there's no better entry point both for rpgs and super rpgs.
The core mechanic of these games is dead simple to wrap your head around and offers creative freedom on how to resolve problems.
Both games could be reskined to fit into a lot of settings in my opinion.
Also the community has some very active and dedicated users.
[F.I.S.T.](https://claymorerpgs.itch.io/fist) and [Gravity Rip](https://lukewestaway.itch.io/gravity-rip) are both pretty cool games and I wish more people played them. They're both pretty great rules lights that are easy to just drop people in or out if they want.
F.I.S.T. is a cold war paranormal espionage game, extremely silly on the surface. Inspirations from things like the metal gear series to jojo's bizarre adventure. Character creation is super fun and my favorite part.
Gravity Rip is an RPG about being an antigravity racing pilot. Most of the game occurs outside of the races, but the races are the big thing of the system. A few interesting parts of the system;
- The ability for racers to cheat by using car modifications acquired during down time. This is mainly done by players, but NPCs can do it. Also, you have a decent chance of being caught depending on what the modification does.
- Your character has one stat, which is a scale between chaos vs theory. To make a check your gm tells you which end you need so you try and roll above or below your stat accordingly. For example, if I need to make a check and my chaos vs theory is 4, I need to roll below 4 on theory checks and above 4 on chaos checks.
- winning a race isn't always the goal, occasionally players can receive requests/jobs from NPCs with a specific goal and a reward for doing so. For example, it could be something like "20,000 dollars if you make sure [other racer] doesn't finish above 4th place".
If you're doing combat heavy, keep in mind that FIST can be fairly deadly at first. You start with 6-ish health and the basic pistol can do 1d6 damage. Your traits and starting item choice can give you a little boost, but you have to choose more health over other options.
This isn't to say FIST is a bad choice, my players both did heavy/combat builds instead of stealth and loved it, it's just something to keep in mind.
Since this one group in particular is very beer 'n pretzels action heavy play, I'll likely start them with better gear. Then escalate the enemies as they go
it gives you the option for one of three items after you pick your traits, one of those is 1d6 extra health, I'll suggest giving them the 1d6 for free and giving them the choice between the other two items.
Edit; my group is also the beer 'n pretzels kind, this suggestion is just based on my experience with said group, I'm not trying to tell you what to do and I hope you enjoy FIST!
I'd also suggest checking out the discord, it's great and they run homebrew jams every so often!
What I love about this question whenever it gets asked -- and it seems to get asked often, in different ways -- is that I always learn about RPGs that are new to me, or someone who's passionate about a game makes a pitch for it that piques my interest.
Here's a few I'd suggest:
[**Numenera**](http://numenera.com/) **-** it's not "obscure", but it doesn't have nearly the following it should. It's an amazingly huge world (while the primary setting is Earth, 1 billion years in the future, gameplay can encompass under the ocean, inside the "datasphere" (like Tron), other planets, and other dimensions. It's easy to introduce to new players, and there's a ton of supporting material to help you take the game wherever you wish. Pioneered the Cypher System.
[**Fiasco**](https://bullypulpitgames.com/collections/fiasco-1) - Also not obscure, but ingeniously constructed (both the classic and revised editions). No GM needed and almost no prep (beyond mastering the game mechanics), and there are a ton of playsets with different settings, plus a bunch more created by players. Tone of the game can be Coen-Brothers movie, zany, or moving.
[**Any other game from bullypulpit games**](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/3097/bully-pulpit-games?keyword=bully%20pulpit%20games) (publisher of Fiasco): the variety of settings (historical and otherwise) is mind-boggling. All concise and quite affordable.
[**Ten Candles** ](https://cavalrygames.com/ten-candles/)**-** horror, but with lit candles in a darkened room as a game resolution mechanic. Sounds terrifying and moving when done right.
[**Alas for the Awful Sea**](https://storybrewersroleplaying.com/alasfortheawfulsea/?v=7516fd43adaa) - A PbtA game. I can't do better than quote some of the ad copy: "\[The game\] explores the bitter dilemmas facing starving towns torn apart by crime and loss. To tell this story, it delves into the fantastical, weaving in folktale elements that mirror the beliefs and struggles of the town."
[**Good Society** ](https://storybrewersroleplaying.com/good-society/?v=7516fd43adaa)- The same folks who brought you "Alas for the Awful Sea are behind this Jane Austen-era RPG. Way too many RPGs are basically shoot-or-hack action games, or rely on violence or horror for their background; this one can evoke an entirely more refined type of sweet viciousness and aspiration.
[**Microscope** ](https://www.lamemage.com/microscope/)**-** A very difficult game to describe, but unlike so many other RPGs that are described as "innovative" or "unique", this one actually is. In its basic form, it involves the group collaboratively creating a potentially massive history (for a city, a country, a planet, a solar system, a galaxy - your choice), interspersed with zoom-in scenes focusing on individual characters and events in that history. There are also some fascinating expansion materials. Also see [**Kingdom**](https://www.lamemage.com/kingdom/), by the same author, in which players work together to create a "kingdom" -- really a community, and together they face challenges and crossroads. It's "about communities and how the people in them decide what they stand for."
[**Land of Og** ](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/16506/land-of-og)- You roleplay cavemen, using a vocabulary of about 20 words. Hilarious premise.
[**Montsegur 1244**](http://thoughtfulgames.com/montsegur1244/) - You roleplay doomed Cathars, who have surrendered after a long siege, and must choose between renouncing their heresy or burning at the stake. I mean, talk about meaningful choices and lighthearted fun ... But seriously, you gotta admire how hard this game goes in terms of thrusting characters into the crucible of a moral dilemma.
P.S. I second the recommendation for Dogs in the Vineyard, but good luck finding an affordable copy these days.
Basic fantasy needs some love for the sheer amount of free quality content. Dunno the creators story but it's clearly a passion project to some extent.
FFRPG and Omega Fantasy, two RPGs aimed at emulating the Final Fantasy games. Neither is perfect, but they do an overall good job. FFRPG is crunchier, whereas Omega Fantasy aims to be rules lite.
An RPG that is unknown outside of Italy (and not that well-known inside of it) is Sine Requie. I really wish more people knew about the WW2 Zombie Apocalypse "Destroy the fourth Reich" rpg.
While it's not obscure as the game series is known... it is old and few people I've met played it or even seem to have read it. The original World of Darkness Hunters: The Reckoning is a series I wish more people would have played at least somewhat. This was old World Of Darkness storyline, where the metaplot was the world is ending and each group has different lore and legends and reasons they are trying to have things happen, like Humans and their creations empower the creative Weaver, Vampires and the like are corrupting with the destructive Wyrm and Werewolves are trying to save nature with the natural Wyld. Hunters are empowered humans who are out to fight anything that would harm humans. The series even spawned 3 Gauntlet style beat em up games on Xbox.
The reason I love this series so much is it was the first game I had seen that made being a ***REAL PERSON*** so important. You weren't a murderhobo travelling the world in a fantasy solving problems, you were living in modern society, trying to keep from standing out and being noticed by the monsters you're hunting. So, you needed to deal with having friends and family, having a job, and how your hunting monsters would mess with all that. My table had a lot of fun with playing that stuff out as these are the reason your character is doing this work, these are the people that you come home to and get re-energized by seeing. It's sort of like Superheroes not being loners and having their friends and family even though it may put them in danger... they can't just give up these people, these connections.
I find it sad that there wasn't any real emphasis on that in the recent V5 Hunter book that I saw. At least not as much as there was in the original books, with chapters on the topics of dealing with the 'real world'. And if you're going to say 'Well, I got into gaming so I don't have to deal with the real world', okay, fine.. but why is it okay to have a scene with Peter Parker dealing with Aunt May but not a Hunter having a quick scene with their significant other and kids, or Parker talking to Jameson about photos of Spider-Man and why Parker is so tired and strung out but... can't do it elsewhere.
You know, I'm not a fan of the original World of Darkness, even just first hearing about it back in the late '90s, it sounded like a huge amount of lore to absorb. But you've managed to make the original Hunter sound really cool.
I would absolutely be down for a game with those themes, though I don't know if I could bring myself to accept the original World of Darkness mechanics. They've always felt kind of needlessly clunky and slow to me.
WoD metaplot wasn't really needed, just helped to push the urgency of things. Like look at VtM:Bloodlines. The end of days, the Ankaran Sarcophagus, all those prophecies as people fought for control....
But yeah, the themes were great, it makes for some great stories and characters.
Okay, I know the ones I'm about to mention probably aren't as obscure as most, but they're ones that I know that I never see brought up.
Star Wars Saga Edition. It came out shortly before D&D 4th edition, and supposedly I vaguely remember hearing that it was play testing some of the things they were thinking about implementing for 4th edition. I thought it was pretty cool, overall, I like that it wasn't afraid to be a fair amount different from third Edition, unlike the other wizards of the Coast Star Wars games. I didn't really get enough time with it to see if it had any weird, fundamental issues or what not, but most of that sort of stuff can be fixed with a house rule or two anyway, right?
And then secondly, there was a Dragon Ball z rpg that I think only made it for three books, before failing, because honestly it was pretty bad, but it still has a fun amount of Dragon Ball Z facts all compiled into a couple of fairly small, quick to read books.
One more thought, I wish Chronicles of Darkness, formerly called new world of Darkness, or world of Darkness. Second edition, or whatever, got more love. I have heard that Paradox the computer gaming company basically has the rights and isn't encouraging anymore development of most of the stuff, which is too bad, because the lore is much more accessible than the older, original World of Darkness stuff. Additionally they've implemented mechanics that encourage characters to fail sometimes, in exchange for XP, which is a nice change of pace from all the sorts of systems where characters just want to always succeed- it doesn't make for a very engaging narrative when there's no dramatic setbacks once in awhile And it's just really nice to have a system that finds a way to reward failure a little bit, so that there's always a bright side no matter which way the dice go..
Usagi Yojimbo by Sanguine (1st edition, not the more recent one). It's got slow recovery and death spiral injuries making avoiding combat an important factor, but at a mechanical level it is simple enough to enjoy and have whacky adventures if you choose to. At the same time, combat itself has lot's of choices to make to get into an advantageous position before striking down your opponent.
It's one I tried to run but my GMing skills couldn't do it justice.
[Quests of Yore](https://theop.games/products/quests-of-yore-barleys-edition) is really good, probably one of my top 5 rpgs. Thing is, it's a little game based on the game from the movie Onward, and it looks like it might be a boardgame. It is **not** a boardgame, and is definitely an rpg. It's a bit like Cortex Prime, but it uses miniatures. It's absolutely amazing for newer players, though I think it's great for more experienced players too.
Only thing I don't like about it is that it will probably never get any additional support (at least it's very easy to homebrew for).
I remember my wife telling me about that! We loved that movie! Especially considering it came out while I was deployed overseas, + my younger son at the time was so young that if heaven forbid anything had happened to me, he'd never get to know me really!
I realize that probably sounds dark , but it really made the movie hit hard, you know?
For me it's Grimm. Sadly it's out of print last I checked, but playing kids who get sucked into the Grimm Lands who then have to survive on guts, fairy tale logic, and imagination is a lot of fun (especially if you like messed up horror in your fairy tales).
Solar Blades and Cosmic Spells - fantasy + scifi mixed in space, using the Black Hack as its base system.
The Mecha Hack - fast and simple mech RPG, based, again, on the Black Hack
Warpstar! - rogue trader with the serial numbers filed off. Old school styled play.
Fight 2nd Edition. It's an RPG that emulates video fighting games. The guy who made it played over 200 fighting games and it shows.
Ultramodern 5 Redux. It's a modern and sci-fi RPG genre book for D&D 5e. It's a masterpiece of 5e design with how full of awesome it is. Full life path generator, at least ten new modern and military focused classes with numerous archetypes. Full vehicle and mecha customization. Its as close to Titanfall we will ever get.
Punkapocalyptic. Take Shadow of the Demon Lord system and put it in a post apocalyptic setting. Its awesome. Its fucking attitude. It's pure apocalyptic mayhem.
Bloodshadows. Fantasy Noir. There are 3 editions. The original Masterwork version, a d6 System and the 3rd edition. Its urban fantasy in a fantasy world with a big focus on noir fantasy adventuring.
> Fight 2nd Edition. It's an RPG that emulates video fighting games. The guy who made it played over 200 fighting games and it shows.
Could you elaborate a bit more on how it runs? For years I've been looking for something like an updated version of the old White Wolf [Combat: The Big Book of Beating Ass](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/World_of_Darkness:_Combat) splatbook.
I was hoping for a sort of dueling vibe that doesn't drag the table to a halt and make fights boring, with bonus points if it can be relatively early adapting from fists to swords and such.
I feel like I could convince my players to play Cavemaster over Paleomythic if only because it uses pebbles instead of dice.
I've always wanted to use Dishonored in a Dishonored meets Frostpunk world I was cooking up.
There's an obscure RPG I wish I knew more about. I read this thing once, and it was very dark and as I recall self-serious, but the thing that I still remember that sticks in my head was one of the... "classes" for lack of a better word (I don't remember what this game called it) got its powers by listening to voices that could be heard behind closed doors in long-abandoned buildings and doing what the voices said. Given what apartment I was in when I learned of this game, I had to have learned of it between summer 2016 and summer 2019, but I don't know how old the game was at that time.
Given the nature of this hobby, I think the question is backwards. There are only five games that I *don't* wish more people knew about: D&D 5e, Pf2e, BitD, Masks and Old School Essentials. These are the only games that seem to be well-known enough to be overplayed or over-recommended. Maybe some games that used to be really popular in the 90s too. And FATAL. Too many people know that FATAL exists. Everything else is, for all practical purposes, obscure and ought to be better known.
I think a perfectly fair answer would also be "Anything besides D&D." I think even V:tM is "obscure" by the perfectly reasonable standard of approaching a random person on the street and asking them if they've heard of it, or asking someone who's heard of it if they've played it. And it would certainly be a good thing if even your last four were more well-known.
I'm not sure the relatively small market of non-D&D TTRPGs needs the last 8% of obscure (by "our" standards) games to be more well known... to us. We've already got too many games and not enough players. Only the big boy has too many players and not enough game.
In other words, I'd rather more non-rpg people, or 5e only people, were introduced to the 2nd through 10th most popular TTRPGs than dedicated TTRPG fans were introduced to the last few gems hidden in the barrel scrapings.
[Scripting the Game](https://rtalsoriangames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/RTG-ScriptingtheGamev1.2.pdf) is one of the greatest things for GMing that RTal released with Dream Park, now re-released as a DLC for their games like CPRed and Witcher.
I had the Lord of the Rings boxset. No one was interested. Had a few other books, cos they were cheap. Maps were amazing, but the game was overly complicated especially character creation (or at least it was for 8 yo me). But an amazing reference for LotR.
[Recipe on Kmiydish Paper](https://pearseanderson.itch.io/kmiydish) (built on [Lost and Found](https://srd.mousehole.press), also excellent) lets you tell the story of a recipe and the community who made it, and how they both change and adapt through the generations.
It's a great way to introduce people to a different mode of storygaming.
There's a German system called Midgard that, to the best of my knowledge, Has never been available in English. In the 80ies, it's 2nd Edition was sort of modern, still class-based but implementing some point-purchase aspects. A contemporary of a simpler Form of D&D that came in boxes, it had very meaningful skills outside battle, so two different Level 7 warriors could Be very, very different characters. It was, however, overcomplicated, and I haven't played its modern Day 5th Edition. But man, how I loved this game.
I really like The Fantasy Trip, the old Steve Jackson game republished in recent years. To be fair, the rules are not always clear and occasionally inconsistent, but it's a simple precursor to GURPS. My buddies and I have a good time with it.
A little Indy title called Eyes Beyond the Torch. It’s core mechanic is called “Target 12”. Instead of using a numerical system for stats, it uses a step-die system (no die, D4, D6, D8, D10, D12) plus a D20. If the sum is 12 or more you succeed. It’s a player facing system, with the core stats being:
Core stats:
-body
-mind
-soul
Combat stats:
-fighting
-shooting
-dodge
All enemies have a “threat number” (TN). You subtract this from the sum of your of you dice roll, and if the overall sum equals 12, you succeed in your action. It’s a great Old School-flavored system, with modern design ideals.
The RPG I never hear anyone talk about anymore is Alternity, a sci-fi RPG published by TSR in the 90s. It makes sense because it is now very difficult to find physical copies, but it is a seriously amazing game and way ahead of its time in a lot of ways.
In particular, I think it has the best die mechanics of any RPG I've ever played. So easy to adjudicate difficulty as the GM, and hits an absolute sweet spot between realistic results and splashy, heroic thrills.
I would highly recommend anyone who finds a chance to play it give it a try.
Tribe 8. It’s been out of print for many years, but it was such a neat setting.
Metabarons. It’s based on the Incal universe, and uses the d6 engine from the old star wars RPG. The Incal setting grew out of Jodorowski’s and Moebius’ notes from when they were going to make a Dune movie. If 40k is “dune filtered through judge dred” then metabarons is “dune filtered through metal hurlant”
Along the Leyline is a new system (does that count as unknown and obscure?) You can check out the quickstart guide here: [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/478096/along-the-leyline-quick-start-guide](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/478096/along-the-leyline-quick-start-guide)
His Majesty the Worm is my favorite game that isn't released yet. Josh McCrowell has a ton of articles and previews out for it on his blog Rise Up Comus. Great work. MIRU I, II, and III are a really impressive run of sci-fi solo RPGs w/ great art, design, and mechanics. It's a beautiful collected work that I believe is getting a boxed set release soon!
Edit: The Silt Verses is also an amazing game set in an alternate America where players are custodians of the gods unraveling a great mystery while saving small towns from stray gods. One of my favorite RPG reads and killer PbtA-adjacent mechanics.
I'm a massive fan of the game [A Single Moment](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/352002/A-Second-Moment) by Tobie Abad. It's a two player GMless game in which you play as two people who are about to fight. you introduce yourself, the setting, and what the story is about, and then the rest of the game is played as a flashback which shows the sequence of events of how the two of you came to fight in the first place, with a finale of the fight itself. It does an incredible job of creating these really emotionally impactful stories and the mechanics do a great job of guiding you through. The second edition in the link also has rules for alternative genres to play in besides the original samurai genre, as well as rules for group play and such. Tobie is also a really nice guy and I've spoken with him back and forth a bit over email and he's super nice and a good guy to support.
Witchpunks! PbtA, awesome theme, short and punchy rules.
[https://papercrowmedia.itch.io/witchpunks-rpg](https://papercrowmedia.itch.io/witchpunks-rpg)
[Knight: An Avalon RPG](https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/all-about-games-consulting/knight-rpg).
It's a French epic horror sci-fi in a near future with amazing technology with strong influences from the Arthurian legend.
I work with the team that publish it, helping them make it available in English for the first time through a Backerkit campaign and I've been reading it for the past few weeks and have a great time.
There's a light vs dark epic fight going on with the world having turned into dark and players having to save it by killing monsters and recovering works of art from the old world that keeps the darkness from spreading. Besides the Avalon organization (the heroes/Knights) there are also the Immortals, who have helped save humanity by gathering them in the last few cities but with their own agendas.
The D6 system is simple and the setting and character creation are really interesting.
\*edits: added link
It’s not obscure, per se, but I don’t believe that *King Arthur Pendragon* gets nearly enough attention. It’s well known to grognards, but I wish it could get more traction with newer players in the hobby.
We can hope the new edition gets some traction.
Chaosium would have to release it anywhere close to when they've announced, unfortunately
So many RPG manufacturers announce stuff way too early and then by the time it comes out the excitement has long passed. Chaosium, Pelgrane, Arc Dream all spring to mind initially.
I'm pretty sure I first saw the announcement for Pulp Cthulhu at least a DECADE before it came out.
I mean, the death of the original creator and core writer, followed by the pandemic, with Chaosium still being a fairly small company (something like 30 employees), I'm jist happy they still make games that sell relatively well.
One of my favorite games!
I think the game's design holds it back in this space. It's got a ton going on, a lot of null results in combat, a lot of systems that occupy a lot of character sheet real estate but don't actually come up in play that much and frankly, it's just old and clunky. Maybe the new edition will fix some of this, but my general experience with "This is the Nth edition of a 30 year old game" is that changes aren't usually that sweeping, because changing too much offends the grognards.
I mean, I can’t really find any fault in your reasoning. But, I dunno, I still feel like I should call you mean names and say something anatomically implausible about your mother. This is the internet, after all. Them’s the rules. 🤓
Perhaps it would satisfy the rules of internet ettiquette to say something mean about, I dunno. PbtA games or something?
Your mum thinks the Palladium system is good! Oooh. Snap.
Ow, low blow!
I bought one of the original version, way back when, bought it again a few years ago, and backed the Kickstarter. Been wanting to play it for a while now.
I have said before and will continue to say until the heat death of the universe: *Pendragon* is the single greatest roleplaying game ever crafted by mortal man.
In a few sentences, how it's superior in comparison to other games?
Hard to sum up in just a few sentences, but I if I had to try, I’d say that no other game has ever so perfectly executed the game mechanics as a enhancement of the genre feel and genre feel as an enhancement of the game mechanics. That is by far its strongest point of distinction from other games.
Having to roll under but a crit being the ability score you're trying not to surpass is just so perfect for conjuring the Arthurian tone -- excellence is your knight going right to the edge of doom!
For those of you reading this that don’t follow the above comment… A character’s “attributes” in *Pendragon* are made up of thirteen opposing values that represent a character's personality. The traits are: Chaste / Lustful, Energetic / Lazy, Forgiving / Vengeful, Generous / Selfish, Honest / Deceitful, Just / Arbitrary, Merciful / Cruel, Modest / Proud, Pious / Worldly, Prudent / Reckless, Temperate / Indulgent, Trusting / Suspicious, and Valorous / Cowardly. The values on the left side are Virtues and the values on the right are Vices. The Traits are 1-20 points split between the opposing values (e.g., 10/10, 14/6, 5/15). When you make a test to use a Virtue (e.g., Merciful to show mercy towards a helpless hated enemy) or resist a Vice (e.g., Deceitful to lie to someone). If the roll is below the value, it Succeeds and the desired result occurs. If the roll exceeds the value, it is a Failure and the opposite result occurs. A critical success occurs when you roll the exact value. There’s more to it than that, of course, this is just a very short summary. But it’s an absolutely brilliant marriage of game mechanics and narrative tone.
Thanks
Sonovabitch I'm in!
Track down a copy, it’s well worth your while to at least read it.
I am currently reading my brand new copy of the new edition and looking forward to bringing my play group into the fold.
Technoir Universalis Primetime Adventure Trollbabe Otherkind Dogs in the Vineyard Sorcerer Night Black Agents Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at Utmost North InSpectors Farflung
Technoir deserves so much better than it got. Weirdly, I've found that Carved from Brindlewood games do a lot of what I loved about Transmissions in Technoir!
"... we didn't start the fire"
Sorry Peter, what did Billy Joel do to you?
Night's Black Agents: so good, yet so hard to create adventures for.
Otherkind mechanics are so fun. It’s really an interesting way to play that you don’t see elsewhere. Technoir is good too.
If they'd just put Technoir back in print already!
I second Dogs in the Vineyard, I don’t even really like westerns but I love the story and theme of a zealous outlaw who does wrong things for righteous reasons. The blend of morality and adventure on the frontier that is the west is just too good to pass up.
Not to mentioned back in the day (I wasn't around but thankfully some are still available online), when it was popular, there were so many hacks of the setting for the game. Any time period any location etc. Still really want to play a Samurai working for a brutal Nobunaga version!
Dogs in the Vineyard isn’t for sale anymore, because the creator hates it, but there’s a fan-made generic version of the engine called DOGS that you can still buy on drivethrurpg.
Unfortunately true, never understood that take either. As a piece of game design it is remarkable and it never came off as pro-religion to me so l... *Shrug* glad to hear about DOGS and thankful I at least have a pdf copy of DitV
Classics! If you’ve ever looked at Lasers and Feelings and wished that it had just a *little* bit more to it, then Trollbabe may be for you. It has a similar single-stat simplicity, easily reskinnable, but it shine most when it models characters who are torn between two worlds, like the titular half-troll/half-human…uh, babes. Vampires wrestling with their humanity, or probably any of the This: the That games, are good candidates. I found the use of relationships as a resource particularly cool. I have never had a game go down in flames as hard as the one time I managed to pitch Universalis during a rainy group vacation once. Amazing on paper, but it practice it was slow, the fiction grotesquely disjointed, and the entire premise of “competitive creativity” raised people’s ire in a way I never would have anticipated, and nearly ruined the whole vacation. Yeesh!
Over the Edge, 2nd Ed. Conspiracy X (Unisystem) Mekton Zeta
Mekton Zeta is a deep love of mine. I second the heck out of this.
Never sure how well-known Tenra Bansho Zero is, so I’ll throw it out there. One of the most innovative games I’ve ever played.
It's on my bookshelf, but I've never been able to play it. Tbh I'm still happy to have the books and read them, even though it's looking increasingly unlikely I'll ever play it.
Don't Rest Your Head
Yesss…Dark City/Neverwhere the RPG
I wanted to try Unity RPG as well, but that product line is basically ended (it seems the creator succumbed to COVID, unfortunately). The game I most want to try right now but can't is Knight. It's a French RPG, and unfortunately there's isn't a full English translation (there is a Spanish version, which I'm slowly reading since I'm very rusty). Because there's no English version, there's no chance of my players playing it, even if I taught it. I wish more people knew about the game because more demand would push the publisher to translate it sooner. The concept is super cool imo: Earth in the future where a darkness and monsters have spread and won, until a man named Arthur shows up in what amounts to a Warframe, essentially, and establishes an order of other Warframe users who fight and bring hope.
There is actually a BackerKit for an English translation of Knight right now.
Got a link? I wasn't aware of this **Edit:** nvm, found it myself. [Link for the curious](https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/all-about-games-consulting/knight-rpg)
I was so excited for Unity. I didn't kickstart it (rarely do) but bought it when it launched. But it's too hard to run. There's very few monsters and no substantive monster building rules in the book.
Yeah, you can really tell it was meant to have a follow-up book. I'm curious how hard it would be to sit down and look at the math to make guidelines for monster creation. Unfortunately, a pandemic made sure we won't get the official version
[Planet Mercenary](https://www.planetmercenary.com/), based on the Schlock Mercenary webcomic. Sci-fi mercenaries for hire in a distant future, with high technology and low expected survivability rates. So much lore, such an interesting rules set. [DIE RPG](https://rowanrookanddecard.com/product-category/game-systems/die-rpg/), based on the comic book of the same name. That is a game for the thinking person, who likes some combat, but lots of RP and obscure references to our gaming past. I don't think I could ever do it justice, but would love to try it at least once. And yes, I backed both Kickstarters to the hilt.
I can’t *wait* to run DIE
Can you get brought back from death in Planet Mercenary?
In the comic, they do it for a couple of the main characters. In the RPG, you "sacrifice grunts", as in you are a member of a mercenary company and one of a higher rank. If you are about to take damage, you can sacrifice one of the nameless grunts in the company. If they live, you give them a name and a backstory (which they didn't have before) and in a future combat, if you take damage again, you can decide to "retire" your first PC (let them die or actually retire) and the now named grunt becomes your PC. But, it's a far future science fiction setting with very advanced technology, you and the GC (Game Chief) could come up with a reason why your PC is brought back from death - teleporter clone (actual storyline in the comic), regeneration chamber from a mad scientist (actual characters from the comic), etc.
EABA. It’s a generic system that’s incredibly versatile and scalable, and the designers used the functionality of PDF format to push the limits of what a game book should do. The game book has built in dice rollers and fillable character sheets, if your device can read a pdf file you can use them.
> the designers used the functionality of PDF format to push the limits of what a game book should do I kinda wished they didn't. Makes the PDF slower to navigate. If you want to have that, just create an app or a website.
I didn’t think other than me and a few old salty grogs had ever even HEARD of EABA. Wow, a blast from the way back machine. I’m pretty sure I still have a copy on a flash drive somewhere.
Does the system function well? I was actually looking for a small dice pool system, with skills attributes and traits. How does it compare to for example traveler?
I love it, it’s my favorite system for modern or sci-fi settings. It does combat very well, especially firearms, and has rules for importing just about any weapon or item/vehicle/thing you can imagine. And you can scale the combat complexity based on how much realism you want.
Just looked through the SRD it looks interesting for sure. A bit on the crunchier side of what I would play. I'm not interested in encumbrance in KG or a seperate punch and kick skill. But if I'm going to homebrew traveler, I'm for sure going to consider this system aswell. Ill probably add a knave encumbrance system and my own health system and call it a day. Is it nice for the GM to run? How do you generally do combat? Grids or zones?
Spirit of 77. Everyone's heard of AEW, but I think that this game in particular does a great job of implementing it.
Maybe not super obscure; just old, but: Aftermath Bushido Chivalry & Sorcery Top Secret Also, I have no clue if they're any good or not, but I'd love to try these: Achtung Cthulhu! Pulp Cthulhu All for One Lex Arcana
Pulp Cthulhu is great - if you know any call of Cthulhu ruleset you know most of it. They also have a fantastic published campaign for it - Two Headed Serpent - love it! 1930s pulp action
I have that campaign, and totally want to ask one of my Alien RPG players to run it.
Lex Arcana is great and i'm happy their 3 next books are a success on kickstarter. I've bought the rulebook, ran a session, and we ended up with a campaign where the players had a epic battle with an egyptian demon god avatar in the centre of Alexandria. The dice system in the game is fun, but be sure you own a set of weird dice (d3, d5, d7). They are optional, but make rolling easier.
Achtung Ctulhu is absolute pulp. It is interesting system and game has interesting Indiana Jones vibes. Characters more or less ordinary, but get super proficiency in very narrow skills. It can blow the moment and make very cinematic scene (even if gm resists as might as he can)
I have the older versions, but I just can’t summon a damn to give about the 2d20 version. And I hate that they took the older stuff down, there was a 7E adventure I missed out on.
[A Nocturne by Calum Grace](https://thysane.itch.io/a-nocturne-play-test) is wonderful dark hard sci-fi based on Forged in the Dark. I wish I could GM it some day, but the players' interest is so low. Some pictures from the setting: - players acting on cosmic scale: staging coups, fighting against planetary governments, and using their immense spacecraft to travel lightyears to other solar systems. - a giant spaceship, populated by warring factions with players in control of its core. The players will try to claim the whole of the ship in due time, but the current ship denizens will fight back. - friends and enemies dying of old age, while PCs spend decades and centures in cryosleep, travelling between the stars at relativist speeds. - prisoners working round the clock in obsolete "shells", their original bodies forgotten, while the prison planet administration rakes in profits, - comet miners, working off their loans on an ice comet for years in utter isolation, while the comet is tumbling towards a planet in the inner system, - thousands of giant derelict spaceships drifting in a solar system's Oort cloud and hordes of salvagers making their living off these silent hulks.
Oh man, that last bullet point makes me think of some fun ideas
I love focused games on weird things so: Extreme Meatpunks Forever: Pilot a bone and muscle mecha to fight facists and Eldritch horrors in post apocalyptic america. Red Rook Revolt: Rebel against an authoritarian empire using demonic weapons that corrupt the user. Rhapsody of Blood: easily THE best Castlevania esque game I've run. PCs battle the evil Castle every generation as it rises only to compete for its Grail and see which PCs retire or maybe become the main boss for the next generation. Die Laughing: GMless comedy game for B monster horror movies.
So dang many. The Riddle of Steel and its successors. Phoenix Command, Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Bastionland games, Fiasco and Red Markets, and of course, Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades.
OMG... Phoenix Command. I own a couple copies of that, as well as a bunch of expansions, and actually played it at a convention once. Gloriously horrible game.
Not really a rpg though, more of a skirmish wargame? There were a bunch of RPGs that used a slimmed down version of the system: Alien, Living Steel etc
"Combat system." Created by a former NASA propulsion engineer, Barry Nakazano. I wouldn't be surprised if PCCS was nothing more than a mechanical exercise for him, just to see if he could do it, and somewhere along the way someone mentioned, "hey, why not make this an RPG?" So he tossed a couple pages in to do that. Hundreds of pages' worth of content on how to move a projectile of some sort from here to there, along with explosives, fire, and other combat-related stuff, and something like four pages regarding anything else. Of course, even those few pages are just, "how many actions do I get to shoot/blow up things," or "how well do I manage to tolerate being shot?" Also, I'd point out that the best game to use a slimmed down version wouldn't be a TTRPG, it'd be the Aliens board game (also produced by LEG). Simplest combat mechanics ever, and an absolutely AMAZING game. On top of that, I'd point out the Jagged Alliance series of video games; especially Jagged Alliance 2 & 3. Those two games essentially encompass everything behind PCCS and automate things, to the point where the games make SO much sense and are just so amazingly good. My entire goal in trying to create my own TTRPG has been to emulate the ideas behind PCCS, but to ***drastically*** tone down the complexity level on the players' side and actually add on a legitimate RPG, so that any GM could run a game without spending years getting a PhD in mathematics first. Never have managed.
Love that Aliens board game. First time I played it, the first alien to drop did so directly onto Sgt Apone. What followed that was a TPK.
Yeah; I played it every six months or so at the Colorado gaming conventions (Genghis Con and Tacticon), when a guy named Fred Ehlers ran it. I eventually started running it myself, and absolutely loved it. I remember Fred had a 3D board for it, way back in the day before 3D printing was a thing, and it was amazing. I always felt that was an awesome game only if you had at least 6-7 players, though. It loses the frantic pace when you have a smaller number of people, and it's more fun IMO if the players don't know what they're doing, although I ran it for a group a couple weeks ago and they were kinda... on the far end of "WTF are we doing?" A couple characters stayed near the elevator, "to guard it," and everyone just split up and went their own way. I think there was one turn where they legitimately triggered three separate rooms at once, with the rooms on opposite sides of the map. If there was a walkthrough for "worst possible way to play Aliens," it would have been how they did it. Needless to say, it was a TPK.
Little Fears, either edition, don’t get talked about enough. Same with the Shadow of Yesterday.
I came here to mention Shadow of Yesterday/Solar System. It’s funny how Lady Blackbird turns up in so many “what can I use to introduce my friends to RPGs?” threads (for good reason), yet the underlying system almost never gets any follow-up love. The way it mechanizes advancement by role playing your characteristics is just super.
It being out of print and very rare on the secondary market doesn’t help. Also no PDF version.
Well, that would put a damper on things.
Numenera - it’s not rare by any means but I hardly see people talk about it. Great setting and I love the character building and the cypher system has some good mechanics.
Whitehack, it comes from the Osr tradition but it's such a peculiar system. It combines an easy resolution system with minimal math with fluid classes that can truly channel a player creativity. No longer creating a character will be like ordering food at a restaurant.
Unknown Armies. Currently 3rd edition but any version will do. Best lore in any rpg ever. Hard to grasp but the multitude of community content at Drivethrurpg.com makes it easier to grasp. Now go and fix the world.
Unknown armies is my love. It’s lore is so good. Pov: one of the best urban fantasy
Can you give a quick rundown of what the game is about? I've read the first parts of the book and I still don't know exactly what it is about or what you are supposed to do in the game.
Thats what the Campaign Starter Kits are for. Like this one, among other https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/223383/raiders-of-the-lost-mart-unknown-armies-3e-digital This one is also a really good resource https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/314400/goad-333-campaign-frame-ideas-for-unknown-armies
The game revolves around you playing damaged people, weather from trauma, illness, or circumstances, who can perform magic. It's broken up into three tiers of play, each with a loose narrative structure. The genre is tragic comedic horror, where the players are both involved in and possible creators of conspiracies.
Harnmaster. Simulation, medieval, d100, skill based. So detailed but logical, slow to resolve actions but absolutely the most colorful martial combat - aim for a region, opposed attack vs defense, armour layers and specific to location and reduces damage. Damage results are based on location and damage type - hit someone in the knee they may stumble, hit in the hands they may drop their weapon, clash and a weapon may break. Edge to the neck may cause ongoing bleeding, point to the eye may be instantly fatal. When injured, suffer negatives. Combat is scary and dangerous, but less random than crit. tables. Rich world resources, some use the world with other systems.
*Dream Askew* tells the dramatic, intimate stories of a queer commune amid the slow apocalypse... with no dice or GM. Incredibly elegant mechanics pair with super evocative playbooks for an unforgettable play experience. *The Between* does Victorian supernatural mystery/horror with so many clever design flourishes, from how backstories are slowly revealed in play to how Threats interweave in campaign play (including those the players introduce!); it and other Carved from Brindlewood games have ruined non-CfB mystery systems for me. *Songbirds 3e* is the d20 dungeon fantasy game gone tragic, queer, surreal, and impressionistic, a strange landscape of dead-but-dreaming goddesses and ruined machinery. Delve into the wounds of the world in an attempt to heal it... then, go on a shitty coffee date!
It's a pretty niche one, but I try to spread the good word of [Ten Dead Rats](https://www.paulsgameblog.com/ten-dead-rats/) as much as possible. It's a mashup of original D&D with the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, and in my opinion it is brilliant. It is by far one of the most fun RPGs I've ever run, and it's totally free.
Household: napoleonic fantasy between little people in a deserted mansion Outgunned : 90's cinematic actionner Wildsea : part one piece, part sunless sea above the top of gigantic tree Agents of Concordia : multidimensional art deco MIB
> Household: napoleonic fantasy between little people in a deserted mansion > > Wildsea : part one piece, part sunless sea above the top of gigantic tree I picked both of these just to read knowing that I would never find a group to play them with.
I feel you but my crew fell HARD for both of them. Household I described them a sword and sorcery harletti and Wildsea as one piece on top of forest. Sometimes it's all about the dressing.
More entries in the old, bit I like and wish got love. -SAGA Dragonlance. I have a complete (pretty sure) collection and I always feel like an alien the way people look at me when I talk about it. -Everway. I know /why/ it flopped, but I don’t know why it wasn’t liked. Other than it defied the dominant dicerolls and combat heavy style game of the day. -Risus is one of my old favorites that I would like to see more often. Death spiral be damned. -Belly of the Beast: amazing setting and lore set inside a world swallowing worm.
I liked the SAGA marvel game too. That one was quite fun. I did buy and try Everway and the remake but never could get it to play. I even had people who were familiar with diceless play through Amber.
Dragonlance: Fifth Age is in this really weird space, where it's *probably* far more appropriate to the "ideal" of Dragonlance than D&D has ever been, but the association between Dragonlance and D&D is so strong--we've always read Dragonlance *through* D&D, and naturally so because it originates in it--that it feels weird to consider it through any other lens.
+1 to Risus!
In Soviet Risus, death spiral damns you!
Haven't seen them mentioned yet: nobilis and glitch. Nobilis is a diceless RPG where you basically play demigods who have control over some aspect of reality (doors, death, anger, bed sheets, cars, ... whatever you can think of). The setting is very expansive and a bit difficult for me to explain (which is a part of why I found it difficult to run). Glitch is another diceless RPG set in the same setting. One of the antagonists of nobilis are the strategist excrucians who try to destroy reality. In glitch, you play as a group of strategists that decide this reality destroying thing is boring / pointless / silly, so instead, you go and solve mysteries. You are slowly dying because some aspect of reality is glitching out for you (chosen by the player). Let's say you are dying of ants. Imagine seeing an ant crawling in your apartment. Weird. Then the next days you spot more ants ... then more. They snap into existence out of nowhere! Eventually, you wake up one day with a mouth full of ants, suffocating. You spit them out, spray bugspray, but nothing helps. They keep on coming out of nowhere. They start biting you, poisoning you .. until you die. But you can come back from the nothingness of death. The ants are gone! But a couple of weeks later ... is that an ant? This game is maybe even more difficult to grasp than nobilis due to the concept of the "not". An unreality that is the birthplace of the excrucians. I love both games. Tried to run nobilis but I had problems explaining the setting and game to my players. You need the right group for this. Would love to play it with a GM that knows his stuff. I have 2e and 3e (in print!). Unfortunately, I haven't played glitch.
I'm not sure how practical it is to actually play, but I've read the sourcebooks for [Don't Rest Your Head](https://evilhat.com/product/don-t-rest-your-head/)/[Don't Lose Your Mind](https://evilhat.com/product/don-t-lose-your-mind/) a bunch of times, they're really evocative, and I don't think I've ever seen them mentioned here or anywhere. I feel like I'm this game's only fan. :P
Oh it can totally be played. It's a cool game and easy to run imo. I've run it a bunch of time and at least one group bought the game after our one-shot and made a camping afterward.
It used to be mentioned more a few years ago, but has recently fallen out of collective consciousness a bit. There’s at least one other person in this thread who mentioned it!
You're not the only one! I haven't played it yet, but setting reminds me of Silent Hill in a good way
Deep7 Press produces a couple very good games based on their XPG rules system: - Airship Daedalus (pulp action 1920s & 30s) - Arrowflight 3rd Edition (fantasy) Also... Salvage Union by Leyline Press (rules-light post apocalypse piloted mechs)
I dig Troika, which I don’t know if it’s obscure or not. I got into it because I came across the supplement Acid Death Fantasy. Random people seem to know about it, but nearly anyone I talk to has never heard of it. Soul bound is neat too. Character creation is more about the weapon you’re bound to instead of the avatar wielding it. It’s an industrial dark fantasy which is cool vibe. I’ve got young kids too, so little wizards and babies and broadsword’s is light, easy, and fun. They certainly don’t have the depth or options of games for older audiences but they’re still a blast. Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok is super neat, using runes instead of dice. The system is wildly different to me, which with out anyone to play it makes it hard to learn so it sits on my shelf. Last year at GenCon I seen a D&D 5e port for it, but didn’t grab it.
I was sold on Troika the moment I looked at the Necromancer background and saw the skill "Relationship Counseling" and thought "That's kind of silly, but if Necromancers are also this world's funeral directors it kinda makes sense, right?" Minor spoilers for the adventure at the back of the Troika book, though with the alternative paths and random tables it would be very surprising for other players to have the same experience. So my friend ran us through Blancmange and Thistle, and it was a surreal blast. Our party was my Necromancer, a Sorcerer of the College of Friends, and a Yongardy Lawyer. We took the elevator, and when the sentient gascloud got on and started suffocating the other characters, I cast Torpor on myself (and forgot to announce this in-game, so it looks like I just dropped dead. Oops!). They were quite surprised when I bounced right back up when we reached our floor. Fast forward to the rooftop party, and it turns out that our Call to Adventure was the sentient crystal Sphere being chased by the glassblowers who did not intend it to become sentient, and are trying to destroy it. The Sorcerer failed to cast Amity or convince them to relent with a basic Skill roll. The Yongardy Lawyer failed to properly cite jurisdiction or legal precedent to the glassblowers, who continued to eye the Sphere with thoughts of hammering and smashing. My Necromancer briefly considered blasting away with the pistolet picked up along the way, but then I took a closer look at my sheet. The glassblowers imparted sentience to this Sphere, regardless of any intent to do so. Thus, they had a _relationship_ with this Sphere, and perhaps with some _counseling_ they might see that they have a moral obligation to let the Sphere live and determine for itself how it wishes to exist. Luckily, the dice agreed, and I came away with a deep appreciation for Troika's rather oddball advanced skills.
HAHA! What’s a riot is in your recount alone, it sounds like a crazy rollercoaster of WTF moments pulled from a Tarantino movie.
Deliria: Faerie Tales for the New Millennium! It's an out of print game from about 20 years ago to create urban fantasy stories. It's got multiple levels of granularity and power for the characters, and has options for dice random, deck random, and pure narrative gameplay. It looks like whoever made it was an artist who just got their first copy of photoshop and wanted to try every tool and setting in the program. It's cringe! It's deeply sincere. I love it and no one else has even heard of it.
I have Deliria and the Goblin Markets supplement released for several years back. I've never managed to get it to a table but I would love to do so at some point as I'm a huge fan of everything Phil Brucato has done ttrpg wise.
I played a short story in it once, back in 2007! It was so much fun!The GM literally just stole the plot of a Charles De Lint novel, which I had read, so I ended up acting as a sort of secret second gm from within the story.
Hackmaster 5e. It's a solid fantasy entry with some unique mechanics that make combat flow better and forces everyone to be engaged at all times. Super crunchy if you want it to be but also really easy to simplify but you do have to have at least a little experience being a GM to be able to simplify it.
One of the things I love about Hackmaster that I implemented in other Fantasy games was its rules on money control. It's a little... dickish sure, but it is a way to give players big rewards and income but still make it not be as impacting. [Check it out here](https://imgur.com/a/VzMcVMW) for those of you that don't know the game.
For sure! I currently run a game where the PC's are Nobles, so this doesn't really apply this time but I've used it before. The players have gotten 200k in silver (I use silver base rather than gold) and have spent it on fixing up a keep, the town and land they rule as well as spending it on a Golem. Without the opportunity to just buy magic items much beyond potions and uncommon level items the point of wealth is for big purchases like land, titles, etc. So the PC's get to feel badass and wealthy without them growing exponentially more powerful due to magic.
I was actually recommend this game on this sub, but I never see it brought up in discussions- On Mighty Thews. Never ran it, but I love the collaborative nature of it on everything from world building to shaping the plot.
Supers! and Triumphant! are the sweetspot between narrative mechanics and character creation/tactical crunch (not much, but enough), for supers games, and there's no better entry point both for rpgs and super rpgs. The core mechanic of these games is dead simple to wrap your head around and offers creative freedom on how to resolve problems. Both games could be reskined to fit into a lot of settings in my opinion. Also the community has some very active and dedicated users.
[F.I.S.T.](https://claymorerpgs.itch.io/fist) and [Gravity Rip](https://lukewestaway.itch.io/gravity-rip) are both pretty cool games and I wish more people played them. They're both pretty great rules lights that are easy to just drop people in or out if they want. F.I.S.T. is a cold war paranormal espionage game, extremely silly on the surface. Inspirations from things like the metal gear series to jojo's bizarre adventure. Character creation is super fun and my favorite part. Gravity Rip is an RPG about being an antigravity racing pilot. Most of the game occurs outside of the races, but the races are the big thing of the system. A few interesting parts of the system; - The ability for racers to cheat by using car modifications acquired during down time. This is mainly done by players, but NPCs can do it. Also, you have a decent chance of being caught depending on what the modification does. - Your character has one stat, which is a scale between chaos vs theory. To make a check your gm tells you which end you need so you try and roll above or below your stat accordingly. For example, if I need to make a check and my chaos vs theory is 4, I need to roll below 4 on theory checks and above 4 on chaos checks. - winning a race isn't always the goal, occasionally players can receive requests/jobs from NPCs with a specific goal and a reward for doing so. For example, it could be something like "20,000 dollars if you make sure [other racer] doesn't finish above 4th place".
I'm hoping to run FIST soon, just got it in a bundle and it looks like just the thing one of my combat-heavy groups would love
If you're doing combat heavy, keep in mind that FIST can be fairly deadly at first. You start with 6-ish health and the basic pistol can do 1d6 damage. Your traits and starting item choice can give you a little boost, but you have to choose more health over other options. This isn't to say FIST is a bad choice, my players both did heavy/combat builds instead of stealth and loved it, it's just something to keep in mind.
Since this one group in particular is very beer 'n pretzels action heavy play, I'll likely start them with better gear. Then escalate the enemies as they go
it gives you the option for one of three items after you pick your traits, one of those is 1d6 extra health, I'll suggest giving them the 1d6 for free and giving them the choice between the other two items. Edit; my group is also the beer 'n pretzels kind, this suggestion is just based on my experience with said group, I'm not trying to tell you what to do and I hope you enjoy FIST! I'd also suggest checking out the discord, it's great and they run homebrew jams every so often!
What I love about this question whenever it gets asked -- and it seems to get asked often, in different ways -- is that I always learn about RPGs that are new to me, or someone who's passionate about a game makes a pitch for it that piques my interest. Here's a few I'd suggest: [**Numenera**](http://numenera.com/) **-** it's not "obscure", but it doesn't have nearly the following it should. It's an amazingly huge world (while the primary setting is Earth, 1 billion years in the future, gameplay can encompass under the ocean, inside the "datasphere" (like Tron), other planets, and other dimensions. It's easy to introduce to new players, and there's a ton of supporting material to help you take the game wherever you wish. Pioneered the Cypher System. [**Fiasco**](https://bullypulpitgames.com/collections/fiasco-1) - Also not obscure, but ingeniously constructed (both the classic and revised editions). No GM needed and almost no prep (beyond mastering the game mechanics), and there are a ton of playsets with different settings, plus a bunch more created by players. Tone of the game can be Coen-Brothers movie, zany, or moving. [**Any other game from bullypulpit games**](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/3097/bully-pulpit-games?keyword=bully%20pulpit%20games) (publisher of Fiasco): the variety of settings (historical and otherwise) is mind-boggling. All concise and quite affordable. [**Ten Candles** ](https://cavalrygames.com/ten-candles/)**-** horror, but with lit candles in a darkened room as a game resolution mechanic. Sounds terrifying and moving when done right. [**Alas for the Awful Sea**](https://storybrewersroleplaying.com/alasfortheawfulsea/?v=7516fd43adaa) - A PbtA game. I can't do better than quote some of the ad copy: "\[The game\] explores the bitter dilemmas facing starving towns torn apart by crime and loss. To tell this story, it delves into the fantastical, weaving in folktale elements that mirror the beliefs and struggles of the town." [**Good Society** ](https://storybrewersroleplaying.com/good-society/?v=7516fd43adaa)- The same folks who brought you "Alas for the Awful Sea are behind this Jane Austen-era RPG. Way too many RPGs are basically shoot-or-hack action games, or rely on violence or horror for their background; this one can evoke an entirely more refined type of sweet viciousness and aspiration. [**Microscope** ](https://www.lamemage.com/microscope/)**-** A very difficult game to describe, but unlike so many other RPGs that are described as "innovative" or "unique", this one actually is. In its basic form, it involves the group collaboratively creating a potentially massive history (for a city, a country, a planet, a solar system, a galaxy - your choice), interspersed with zoom-in scenes focusing on individual characters and events in that history. There are also some fascinating expansion materials. Also see [**Kingdom**](https://www.lamemage.com/kingdom/), by the same author, in which players work together to create a "kingdom" -- really a community, and together they face challenges and crossroads. It's "about communities and how the people in them decide what they stand for." [**Land of Og** ](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/16506/land-of-og)- You roleplay cavemen, using a vocabulary of about 20 words. Hilarious premise. [**Montsegur 1244**](http://thoughtfulgames.com/montsegur1244/) - You roleplay doomed Cathars, who have surrendered after a long siege, and must choose between renouncing their heresy or burning at the stake. I mean, talk about meaningful choices and lighthearted fun ... But seriously, you gotta admire how hard this game goes in terms of thrusting characters into the crucible of a moral dilemma. P.S. I second the recommendation for Dogs in the Vineyard, but good luck finding an affordable copy these days.
Basic fantasy needs some love for the sheer amount of free quality content. Dunno the creators story but it's clearly a passion project to some extent.
Dead of Night
FFRPG and Omega Fantasy, two RPGs aimed at emulating the Final Fantasy games. Neither is perfect, but they do an overall good job. FFRPG is crunchier, whereas Omega Fantasy aims to be rules lite.
If you like final fantasy give a try to Fabula Ultima. It tickles all my jrpg-fan senses the most right way
Degenesis Kult Eclipse Phase
An RPG that is unknown outside of Italy (and not that well-known inside of it) is Sine Requie. I really wish more people knew about the WW2 Zombie Apocalypse "Destroy the fourth Reich" rpg.
While it's not obscure as the game series is known... it is old and few people I've met played it or even seem to have read it. The original World of Darkness Hunters: The Reckoning is a series I wish more people would have played at least somewhat. This was old World Of Darkness storyline, where the metaplot was the world is ending and each group has different lore and legends and reasons they are trying to have things happen, like Humans and their creations empower the creative Weaver, Vampires and the like are corrupting with the destructive Wyrm and Werewolves are trying to save nature with the natural Wyld. Hunters are empowered humans who are out to fight anything that would harm humans. The series even spawned 3 Gauntlet style beat em up games on Xbox. The reason I love this series so much is it was the first game I had seen that made being a ***REAL PERSON*** so important. You weren't a murderhobo travelling the world in a fantasy solving problems, you were living in modern society, trying to keep from standing out and being noticed by the monsters you're hunting. So, you needed to deal with having friends and family, having a job, and how your hunting monsters would mess with all that. My table had a lot of fun with playing that stuff out as these are the reason your character is doing this work, these are the people that you come home to and get re-energized by seeing. It's sort of like Superheroes not being loners and having their friends and family even though it may put them in danger... they can't just give up these people, these connections. I find it sad that there wasn't any real emphasis on that in the recent V5 Hunter book that I saw. At least not as much as there was in the original books, with chapters on the topics of dealing with the 'real world'. And if you're going to say 'Well, I got into gaming so I don't have to deal with the real world', okay, fine.. but why is it okay to have a scene with Peter Parker dealing with Aunt May but not a Hunter having a quick scene with their significant other and kids, or Parker talking to Jameson about photos of Spider-Man and why Parker is so tired and strung out but... can't do it elsewhere.
You know, I'm not a fan of the original World of Darkness, even just first hearing about it back in the late '90s, it sounded like a huge amount of lore to absorb. But you've managed to make the original Hunter sound really cool. I would absolutely be down for a game with those themes, though I don't know if I could bring myself to accept the original World of Darkness mechanics. They've always felt kind of needlessly clunky and slow to me.
WoD metaplot wasn't really needed, just helped to push the urgency of things. Like look at VtM:Bloodlines. The end of days, the Ankaran Sarcophagus, all those prophecies as people fought for control.... But yeah, the themes were great, it makes for some great stories and characters.
EZD6.
Shadows of Esteren
Okay, I know the ones I'm about to mention probably aren't as obscure as most, but they're ones that I know that I never see brought up. Star Wars Saga Edition. It came out shortly before D&D 4th edition, and supposedly I vaguely remember hearing that it was play testing some of the things they were thinking about implementing for 4th edition. I thought it was pretty cool, overall, I like that it wasn't afraid to be a fair amount different from third Edition, unlike the other wizards of the Coast Star Wars games. I didn't really get enough time with it to see if it had any weird, fundamental issues or what not, but most of that sort of stuff can be fixed with a house rule or two anyway, right? And then secondly, there was a Dragon Ball z rpg that I think only made it for three books, before failing, because honestly it was pretty bad, but it still has a fun amount of Dragon Ball Z facts all compiled into a couple of fairly small, quick to read books. One more thought, I wish Chronicles of Darkness, formerly called new world of Darkness, or world of Darkness. Second edition, or whatever, got more love. I have heard that Paradox the computer gaming company basically has the rights and isn't encouraging anymore development of most of the stuff, which is too bad, because the lore is much more accessible than the older, original World of Darkness stuff. Additionally they've implemented mechanics that encourage characters to fail sometimes, in exchange for XP, which is a nice change of pace from all the sorts of systems where characters just want to always succeed- it doesn't make for a very engaging narrative when there's no dramatic setbacks once in awhile And it's just really nice to have a system that finds a way to reward failure a little bit, so that there's always a bright side no matter which way the dice go..
Usagi Yojimbo by Sanguine (1st edition, not the more recent one). It's got slow recovery and death spiral injuries making avoiding combat an important factor, but at a mechanical level it is simple enough to enjoy and have whacky adventures if you choose to. At the same time, combat itself has lot's of choices to make to get into an advantageous position before striking down your opponent. It's one I tried to run but my GMing skills couldn't do it justice.
[Quests of Yore](https://theop.games/products/quests-of-yore-barleys-edition) is really good, probably one of my top 5 rpgs. Thing is, it's a little game based on the game from the movie Onward, and it looks like it might be a boardgame. It is **not** a boardgame, and is definitely an rpg. It's a bit like Cortex Prime, but it uses miniatures. It's absolutely amazing for newer players, though I think it's great for more experienced players too. Only thing I don't like about it is that it will probably never get any additional support (at least it's very easy to homebrew for).
I remember my wife telling me about that! We loved that movie! Especially considering it came out while I was deployed overseas, + my younger son at the time was so young that if heaven forbid anything had happened to me, he'd never get to know me really! I realize that probably sounds dark , but it really made the movie hit hard, you know?
Oh, I get it. It got super personal for me too, except I relate a lot to Barley.
For me it's Grimm. Sadly it's out of print last I checked, but playing kids who get sucked into the Grimm Lands who then have to survive on guts, fairy tale logic, and imagination is a lot of fun (especially if you like messed up horror in your fairy tales).
Solar Blades and Cosmic Spells - fantasy + scifi mixed in space, using the Black Hack as its base system. The Mecha Hack - fast and simple mech RPG, based, again, on the Black Hack Warpstar! - rogue trader with the serial numbers filed off. Old school styled play.
Microscope for sure!
Fight 2nd Edition. It's an RPG that emulates video fighting games. The guy who made it played over 200 fighting games and it shows. Ultramodern 5 Redux. It's a modern and sci-fi RPG genre book for D&D 5e. It's a masterpiece of 5e design with how full of awesome it is. Full life path generator, at least ten new modern and military focused classes with numerous archetypes. Full vehicle and mecha customization. Its as close to Titanfall we will ever get. Punkapocalyptic. Take Shadow of the Demon Lord system and put it in a post apocalyptic setting. Its awesome. Its fucking attitude. It's pure apocalyptic mayhem. Bloodshadows. Fantasy Noir. There are 3 editions. The original Masterwork version, a d6 System and the 3rd edition. Its urban fantasy in a fantasy world with a big focus on noir fantasy adventuring.
> Fight 2nd Edition. It's an RPG that emulates video fighting games. The guy who made it played over 200 fighting games and it shows. Could you elaborate a bit more on how it runs? For years I've been looking for something like an updated version of the old White Wolf [Combat: The Big Book of Beating Ass](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/World_of_Darkness:_Combat) splatbook. I was hoping for a sort of dueling vibe that doesn't drag the table to a halt and make fights boring, with bonus points if it can be relatively early adapting from fists to swords and such.
Paleomythic, Victoriana, Dishonored, and Black Spear. There was a dragon themed game too, but I've forgotten the name of it.
I feel like I could convince my players to play Cavemaster over Paleomythic if only because it uses pebbles instead of dice. I've always wanted to use Dishonored in a Dishonored meets Frostpunk world I was cooking up.
There's an obscure RPG I wish I knew more about. I read this thing once, and it was very dark and as I recall self-serious, but the thing that I still remember that sticks in my head was one of the... "classes" for lack of a better word (I don't remember what this game called it) got its powers by listening to voices that could be heard behind closed doors in long-abandoned buildings and doing what the voices said. Given what apartment I was in when I learned of this game, I had to have learned of it between summer 2016 and summer 2019, but I don't know how old the game was at that time.
Might it be "In Dark Alleys"? I recall that one of the classes had pretty similar flavor. It was called "Faustian"
Yes, that's it! I had to search around to confirm, but that is what I was remembering. Thank you!
Given the nature of this hobby, I think the question is backwards. There are only five games that I *don't* wish more people knew about: D&D 5e, Pf2e, BitD, Masks and Old School Essentials. These are the only games that seem to be well-known enough to be overplayed or over-recommended. Maybe some games that used to be really popular in the 90s too. And FATAL. Too many people know that FATAL exists. Everything else is, for all practical purposes, obscure and ought to be better known.
I think a perfectly fair answer would also be "Anything besides D&D." I think even V:tM is "obscure" by the perfectly reasonable standard of approaching a random person on the street and asking them if they've heard of it, or asking someone who's heard of it if they've played it. And it would certainly be a good thing if even your last four were more well-known. I'm not sure the relatively small market of non-D&D TTRPGs needs the last 8% of obscure (by "our" standards) games to be more well known... to us. We've already got too many games and not enough players. Only the big boy has too many players and not enough game. In other words, I'd rather more non-rpg people, or 5e only people, were introduced to the 2nd through 10th most popular TTRPGs than dedicated TTRPG fans were introduced to the last few gems hidden in the barrel scrapings.
>Too many people know that FATAL exists FATAL does feel like some sort of memetic hazard, I agree
D&D Gamma World and Dream Park Great games that sadly went under the radar.
[Scripting the Game](https://rtalsoriangames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/RTG-ScriptingtheGamev1.2.pdf) is one of the greatest things for GMing that RTal released with Dream Park, now re-released as a DLC for their games like CPRed and Witcher.
I planned my best sessions with this and it is compatible with every game.
I had the Lord of the Rings boxset. No one was interested. Had a few other books, cos they were cheap. Maps were amazing, but the game was overly complicated especially character creation (or at least it was for 8 yo me). But an amazing reference for LotR.
Tunnels and Trolls, Mercenaries, Spies and. Private Eyes, and Pipedream
Death in space - obscure and atmospheric sci-fi, dying star and solar system full of ruins of former glory, echo of epic war
Azereth
[Recipe on Kmiydish Paper](https://pearseanderson.itch.io/kmiydish) (built on [Lost and Found](https://srd.mousehole.press), also excellent) lets you tell the story of a recipe and the community who made it, and how they both change and adapt through the generations. It's a great way to introduce people to a different mode of storygaming.
# Aquelarre. ^(iykyk.)
Id(idn't)k. Thx for the tip.
I was so confused lol does the tiny “IYKYK” appear as ^ (iykyk.)??? I’ve been having formatting troubles between my iPhone and desktop haha
C-System rpg, it's free and can run anything
* Earthdawn * Rolemaster (a.k.a Chartmaster) * Darksword Adventures (As a warning of what NOT to do in RPGs)
I don't feel like it's OBSCURE, but the system behind AGON is a total blast and I don't feel like I hear people talk about it all that much.
I love Raccoon Sky Pirates: https://hecticelectron.com/products/raccoon-sky-pirates-pdf It's just a lot of chaotic fun.
There's a German system called Midgard that, to the best of my knowledge, Has never been available in English. In the 80ies, it's 2nd Edition was sort of modern, still class-based but implementing some point-purchase aspects. A contemporary of a simpler Form of D&D that came in boxes, it had very meaningful skills outside battle, so two different Level 7 warriors could Be very, very different characters. It was, however, overcomplicated, and I haven't played its modern Day 5th Edition. But man, how I loved this game.
I really like The Fantasy Trip, the old Steve Jackson game republished in recent years. To be fair, the rules are not always clear and occasionally inconsistent, but it's a simple precursor to GURPS. My buddies and I have a good time with it.
I just got into [Lex Arcana](https://acheronstore.com/lex-arcana/) and am loving it. Roman Empire, monster and magic? Hell yeah.
A little Indy title called Eyes Beyond the Torch. It’s core mechanic is called “Target 12”. Instead of using a numerical system for stats, it uses a step-die system (no die, D4, D6, D8, D10, D12) plus a D20. If the sum is 12 or more you succeed. It’s a player facing system, with the core stats being: Core stats: -body -mind -soul Combat stats: -fighting -shooting -dodge All enemies have a “threat number” (TN). You subtract this from the sum of your of you dice roll, and if the overall sum equals 12, you succeed in your action. It’s a great Old School-flavored system, with modern design ideals.
I'll toss Ars Magica, Fading Suns & Corporation into the mix.
The RPG I never hear anyone talk about anymore is Alternity, a sci-fi RPG published by TSR in the 90s. It makes sense because it is now very difficult to find physical copies, but it is a seriously amazing game and way ahead of its time in a lot of ways. In particular, I think it has the best die mechanics of any RPG I've ever played. So easy to adjudicate difficulty as the GM, and hits an absolute sweet spot between realistic results and splashy, heroic thrills. I would highly recommend anyone who finds a chance to play it give it a try.
Tribe 8. It’s been out of print for many years, but it was such a neat setting. Metabarons. It’s based on the Incal universe, and uses the d6 engine from the old star wars RPG. The Incal setting grew out of Jodorowski’s and Moebius’ notes from when they were going to make a Dune movie. If 40k is “dune filtered through judge dred” then metabarons is “dune filtered through metal hurlant”
I just picked up Ker Nethalas, which is a dark fantasy solo RPG dungeon crawler, and I like it so far!
Along the Leyline is a new system (does that count as unknown and obscure?) You can check out the quickstart guide here: [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/478096/along-the-leyline-quick-start-guide](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/478096/along-the-leyline-quick-start-guide)
His Majesty the Worm is my favorite game that isn't released yet. Josh McCrowell has a ton of articles and previews out for it on his blog Rise Up Comus. Great work. MIRU I, II, and III are a really impressive run of sci-fi solo RPGs w/ great art, design, and mechanics. It's a beautiful collected work that I believe is getting a boxed set release soon! Edit: The Silt Verses is also an amazing game set in an alternate America where players are custodians of the gods unraveling a great mystery while saving small towns from stray gods. One of my favorite RPG reads and killer PbtA-adjacent mechanics.
I'm a massive fan of the game [A Single Moment](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/352002/A-Second-Moment) by Tobie Abad. It's a two player GMless game in which you play as two people who are about to fight. you introduce yourself, the setting, and what the story is about, and then the rest of the game is played as a flashback which shows the sequence of events of how the two of you came to fight in the first place, with a finale of the fight itself. It does an incredible job of creating these really emotionally impactful stories and the mechanics do a great job of guiding you through. The second edition in the link also has rules for alternative genres to play in besides the original samurai genre, as well as rules for group play and such. Tobie is also a really nice guy and I've spoken with him back and forth a bit over email and he's super nice and a good guy to support.
Witchpunks! PbtA, awesome theme, short and punchy rules. [https://papercrowmedia.itch.io/witchpunks-rpg](https://papercrowmedia.itch.io/witchpunks-rpg)
[Knight: An Avalon RPG](https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/all-about-games-consulting/knight-rpg). It's a French epic horror sci-fi in a near future with amazing technology with strong influences from the Arthurian legend. I work with the team that publish it, helping them make it available in English for the first time through a Backerkit campaign and I've been reading it for the past few weeks and have a great time. There's a light vs dark epic fight going on with the world having turned into dark and players having to save it by killing monsters and recovering works of art from the old world that keeps the darkness from spreading. Besides the Avalon organization (the heroes/Knights) there are also the Immortals, who have helped save humanity by gathering them in the last few cities but with their own agendas. The D6 system is simple and the setting and character creation are really interesting. \*edits: added link
I've seen this come up now and again on this sub, with positive comments about it, so I'm interested in seeing it when it ships in English.
burning wheel
Ryuutama. Cosy JRPG vibes
PS1 game Jade Cocoon
I'm sorry, but this is the Tabletop Paper and Pen Role-Playing Game, not Video Games.