RPG Top 25

Over at RPG Blog II, Zachary is holding a vote for the top 25 RPGs.  While the inherent selection bias (the blog’s audience) will no doubt affect the final numbers, it’s an interesting thing to think about, and I’m looking forward to seeing the ranked results.  Not least because it might give me some more games to check out.

I was a little surprised to realize that I have, in fact, played more than 25 RPGs.  And that’s just the ones that I remember playing.  This would be the case even if I weren’t counting each edition of D&D (and their clones) and each World of Darkness book separately.  There are a lot of RPGs out there.

My list, after the jump.

Nobilis

1. Champions/HERO.  I might have played D&D more — might have — but this is the system that had the greatest impact on my style, both as a player and as a GM.  It remains the most flexible, powerful, and universal system I’ve ever played.  Its math-heavy chargen process and its learning curve are definite weaknesses, but in spite of that, if I had to choose just one system to play with from here on out, HERO would win hands down.

2. Moldvay/BECMI/Cyclopedia D&D.  Otherwise known as “Basic D&D.”  This was my first exposure to tabletop RPGs, and it’s a system I keep going back to.  It’s rules-light compared to AD&D, and it encourages the kind of freewheeling improvisational style I enjoy.  The Cyclopedia in particular is perhaps the best single D&D manual ever published; it really does contain everything that you need.

3. Nobilis.  Pure style, wrapped in an elegant diceless system.  You play a living god, a representation of a concept, with powers far beyond mortal comprehension — and yet, among the complexities of politics, romance, and the clash of philosophies across multiple worlds, you can feel utterly helpless nevertheless.  Think Sandman.

4. (A)D&D (4th).  Still the best version of the AD&D rules yet, because of its ease of preparation and the general accuracy with which it predicts what the PCs will be capable of handling in combat.  Some flawed execution, but a solid overall structure, and an experienced GM will have no difficulty repairing the problems.  My favorite part is the way the rules stick almost purely to conflict resolution and leave the roleplaying to the group.  Feels a lot like Cyclopedia D&D.

5. Marvel Super Heroes RPG (1980s edition).  My second-favorite superhero RPG, a lightweight universal-table system that did a good job of mimicking the feel of Marvel comics of the era.  Not quite as good at games set outside of that universe, character advancement could be quite slow, and the skill system was basically an afterthought, but a lot of fun regardless.

6. Ars Magica.  I didn’t get around to playing this one until after I’d played Mage, but it shared a lot of the strengths of that game, without most of the baggage.  The flexible magic system was a treat to play with.

Jadeclaw

7. Jadeclaw/Ironclaw.  Anthropomorphic Mythic China/Renaissance Europe RPGs.  Always reminded me a bit of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but without the execrable Palladium system.  The Claws’ system intrigued me.  I was a little surprised to find how well it played, and now I run occasional games of it as a change of pace.  Jadeclaw is the better of the two, but perhaps that’s not surprising; it was published later.  The setting bears mentioning; it’s incredibly well developed within the space of a single rulebook, far more so than many better-known RPGs.

8. Star Wars (d6). My favorite ruleset for Star Wars, though I don’t play it that much any more.  It has a very cinematic feel to it.

9. Mage: the Ascension.  I wasn’t much of a fan of the old World of Darkness (or the new one, for that matter), but Mage was the exception.  Its power scale was questionably balanced at best, its metaplot was extremely silly, its setting, while workable, was nothing particularly special, but Mage had one thing that the other WoD games didn’t:  Hope.  There was a chance, however faint, that the PCs could win.  Not just survive, not come to terms with being outcast and alone and probably a monster, not redeem themselves in an act of self-sacrifice, but actually win.  That possibility alone led to games that were a lot more fun than any of our attempts at Vampire or Werewolf.

10. AD&D (1st).  More rules-heavy than I like these days, but I had a lot of fun with this game through the 80s.  It overtook Cyclopedia D&D for a while.  Of course, I was still in the phase where I cheerfully adopted all of the broken stuff and tortured my GM or players with it.  Nilbogs riding nilbogized rust monsters, I salute you.

11. Feng Shui.  I love the descriptive combat, but the character creation is a little inflexible for my tastes.  Still, I suspect this would be higher up the list if I’d played it more often.

Paranoia

12. Paranoia.  Just plain laugh-out-loud funny.  Sometimes that’s all it takes.

13. Savage Worlds.  A flexible system, pretty enjoyable to play, but it hasn’t grabbed me the way it has some of the RPG bloggers.  I don’t know, it’s competent enough, but I feel like I’m missing something — I don’t see what the raves are about.  Like  Feng Shui, it might fare better if I’d play it more.  Characters are a bit fragile for my tastes, though — a one-hit kill from a lucky shot seems entirely too common, for a heroic game.  I houserule accordingly.

14. DC Heroes.  Like Marvel, it’s a universal-table superhero RPG.  Like Marvel, it’s not as good in games set outside its universe.  Unlike Marvel, it’s got a point-buy type of character generation system that allows for a pretty nice array of effects.  Gadgets are kind of broken, though.

15. Tunnels & Trolls.  A quicker, lighter fantasy RPG with a very abstracted combat system.  In the edition I played (third, I think), combats would either drag out, or be over in seconds, depending on the way the odds balanced out, but I understand this has been addressed somewhat in more recent editions, along with oddities like Strength powering wizards’ spells.

16. Amber Diceless.  I like the Amber books well enough, but I don’t especially care to roleplay in them.  Even so, I have to acknowledge what this game accomplished by removing the dice from the system.  I enjoyed several games with this system despite my ambivalence toward the setting, which is saying something.

17. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  A licensed RPG system that does its subject justice.  In general, it’s just much better than I’d expect a licensed game to be.  Its handling of weapons is a “huh?” point — they’re a multiplier, which means the super-strong Slayer benefits far more from that katana than a mere mortal would.  I’d expect the normal guy to be many times deadlier with the sharp bit of metal than without, while it wouldn’t make as much difference to the girl who can punch through steel.  But for the most part, the game recreates the feel of the series pretty well.

Teenagers from Outer Space

18. Teenagers from Outer Space.  A lighthearted anime-style high-school sci-fi comedy RPG.  The system is nothing special, but the game itself is pretty hilarious, if the particular niche it serves appeals to you.

19. Star Wars (Saga edition).  Plays very well, fixes a lot of things that were a little bit broken in the earlier d20 edition, even feels a lot like Star Wars in the right GM’s hands.  It’s a good game.  Its main problem is that it’s standing in the shadow of the d6 version, which just feels more authentic to me.

20. Call of Cthulhu.  If not for the discrepancy between the amount of time it takes to create a character and the amount of time you can expect that character to live (and remain sane), this would rate higher.  It’s still a fun and very deadly little game, though.  I like to include little pieces of CoC-esque horror in my fantasy, supers, and pulp games.

21. GURPS.  The system itself is too rules-heavy and not cinematic enough for my tastes, these days.  But GURPS has an awe-inspiring array of supplements spanning just about every genre or setting you can imagine.  I own many of them, although I don’t play the game they’re written for, simply because they’re such good sources of ideas.

22. Empire of the Petal Throne.  For the setting alone.  Every gamer should experience it at least once.

23. (A)D&D (3.5).  I was a little lukewarm on the shakeup third edition represented, and not at all pleased about the dawn of 3.5 after only two years of 3.  I got over that, though, and intially had a lot of fun making things with the new building blocks the system gave me.  Somewhere along the way, I burnt out a bit on rules-heavy games, and that plus the growing array of broken elements of 3.5 as my game reached higher levels turned me off of the edition.  Still, at the start, it was very good… not least, because it showed me that even AD&D could change.

24. Tales from the Floating Vagabond.  Another humor game, this one more a tongue-in-cheek parody of roleplaying games.  And of pop culture in general.  I didn’t play it a whole lot, but I find it’s very memorable.

25. Villains & Vigilantes.  Not the first superhero RPG, but possibly the most influential.  Very random, with all that implies.  Other games did it much better, but this early, wild example deserves a nod.

Once again, this list contains only games that I’ve played somewhat extensively.  I imagine there are some that would rate on the list, if only I’d had a chance to play them.

Related posts:

1. 5 Games I Want to Play
2. “No, Wait…”