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Thanks to a special request – “what could we play?” here’s a quick survey of the games currently on my shelves. There are probably a few more buried in boxes and things, and there are quite a lot more on PDF – but it’s hard to hand a PDF to someone at the table and let them leaf through it, so I prefer to run games I actually have a physical copy of if possible.
Obviously enough, this is going to be a giant list: sorry about that, but there’s just no other way. Note that this does NOT include sub-games, supplements, and d20 stuff in general except to note the presence of the d20 category. That would boost the length of this list many times over.
- 2300 AD
- 7’th Sea
- Aberrant
- Ace Supers
- Ace Agents
- AD&D (first and second editions, with innumerable settings and supplements)
- Adventure (the White Wolf version).
- Adventures in Fantasy
- After Wars
- Aftermath (a game with the most complex combat flowchart around).
- Agone
- Alternity
- Amazing Engine (with an assortment of worldbooks).
- Amber (still one of the few systems out there that gets along without a randomizer).
- Apocalypse
- Arcanum
- Arduin
- Aria (a game where characters, clans, and societies use pretty much the same rules).
- Army Ants (literally; you play militarized insects battling it out in the back yard).
- Ars Magica (one of the few RPG’s that embraces troupe play).
- Asylum (where hallucinogens from the sky have made the entire human race psychotic).
- Attack of the Humans
- Baba Yaga (designed for a WWII game with a bit of mysticism, but a universal system).
- Basic Role-Playing System (the base for Runequest, Nephelim, Call of Cthulhu, and many more).
- Basic D&D (and assorted expansions)
- Bastet (an Old World of Darkness race).
- Batman (a stripped-down version of DC Heroes).
- Battlelords
- Beyond the Supernatural
- Big Eyes Small Mouth (the original Tri-Stat system).
- Birthright (Included as separate from normal AD&D thanks to the boardgame aspect).
- Blood Dawn
- Blood of Heroes
- Bloodshadows
- Boot Hill
- Brave New World (a world where your superpowers are usually less effective than buying a gun – and the upgraded version of the game never came out).
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Bullwinkle and Rocky (OK, this one is for kids – but it’s still a role-playing game that includes hand puppets to help you show what your character is doing).
- Bureau 13 (if someone wants Ghostbusters, this is a good contender).
- Bushido (one of the classics when it comes to oriental role playing games).
- Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (this would doubtless have attracted me more if I’d ever read the original comic).
- Call of Cthulhu (not the d20 version, that’s under general d20. Still a classic).
- Castle Falkenstein
- Chainmail (again, not exactly a RPG, but ancestral).
- Champions / Hero System (1’st through 5’th edition).
- Changeling, The Dreaming
- Children of the Sun
- Chill
- Chivalry and Sorcery
- Chosen
- Continuum
- Continuum II (one of my personal rules sets).
- Corax (another Old World of Darkness were-race).
- CORPS
- Cosmic Enforcers
- Creature Feature (technically an expansion for Chill, but turning it around to play the monsters is pretty much a whole new game).
- Critter Commandos (for kids, but where else can all your soldiers be represented by stuffed animals?)
- Cybergeneration (amusing, if unlikely – and featuring nanotech that might as well be magic).
- Cyberpunk
- Cyberspace (a Rolemaster supplement, but one that really rewrites the world).
- Cyborg Commando (not one of Gygax’s better efforts unfortunately).
- d20 (3.0, 3.5, Future, and far too many variants to list)
- d20 Eclipse Point Buy
- d6 (Fantasy and assortment)
- Danger Quest
- Dangerous Journeys (another one of Gygax’s, and with potential – if a bit turgid in spots).
- Dark Conspiracy
- DC Heroes
- Deadlands (original and d20. A nicely original system and an evocative world. If you want to try it, go for the original).
- Demon City Shinjuku
- Demons
- Dominion Tank Police
- Don’t Look Back
- Dragon Quest (complete with that wonderful list of summonable demons).
- Dragon Hordes (more of a war game really, but some RPG aspects).
- Dream Park (a game where your playing a player of a character who can adapt to the game system. Best if you’ve read the books and know what you’re getting into).
- Dreamtime
- Duel
- Dying Earth (the original “Vancian” setting).
- Earthdawn
- El-Hazard (a Tri-Stat production, but essentially a separate game).
- Elfquest
- Elric
- Empire of the Petal Throne (Tekumal, and a seriously old-style classic).
- Enforcers
- Everlasting
- Everway
- Exalted (a nigh-unplayable rules set with errata that – at more than 160 pages – is longer than many games, but with White Wolf’s usual highly-readable fluff).
- Expendables
- Extreme Vengeance
- Fading Suns
- Fantasy Wargaming
- Fantasy Earth
- Feng Shui
- Fifth Cycle
- Forge out of Chaos
- Forgotten Futures
- Fringeworthy
- Furry Pirates
- Fusion
- Galactic Underground
- Gamma World (in both original and updated styles).
- Gangbusters
- Gatecrasher
- Gemini
- Geriatric Wars
- Ghostbusters (honestly, I’d use Bureau 13; it’s a lot more flexible).
- Giant Psychic Insects from Outer Space (OK, technically this goes with Don’t Look Back – but how could I pass up including this title?)
- Godlike (a one roll engine game, with a bunch of sample characters on this site under the “other games” tab at the top of the page).
- Godsend Agenda
- Greeping Death
- Gurahl (another Old World of Darkness subrace, but of some interest).
- GURPS (Cyberpunk, Discworld, Horror, Ice Age, Illuminati U, Lensman, Martial Arts, (The) Prisoner, Riverworld, Space, Special Ops, Supers, Swashbuckling, Time, Wild Cards, etcetera).
- Gypsy (Old World of Darkness)
- Hahlmabria (a very generic, and extremely forgettable, D&D clone).
- Harnmaster
- Heavy Metal
- Hengeyokai (Old World of Darkness East)
- Hero Wars (Glorantha)
- Heroes Unlimited
- Heroes Forever
- Heroes and Heroines
- High Colonies
- Hunter (Old World of Darkness).
- Imagine
- Immortal (very atmospheric, and with lovely art, but rather difficult to play).
- In Nomine (where both the angels and the demons are friggin’ nuts (TM))
- Indiana Jones (where your heroes are close to unkillable).
- Infinite Domains
- Insectia
- Iron Wind
- Ironclaw
- It Came from the Late Late Late Show (this one is a lot of fun; you’re an actor in a BAD movie).
- Jadeclaw
- James Bond OO7
- Justifiers (the system is hopelessly creaky, but the background is nice. I’d use Baba Yaga for this).
- Kindred of the East (Old World of Darkness again).
- Kult
- Land of the Rising Sun (a Chivalry and Sorcery spin-of, and as hard to play as that ever was).
- Legacy: War of Ages
- Legantia
- Legend Quest
- Legend of the Five Rings (we usually use a point-buy adaption that allows for building your own schools)
- Legendary Lives
- Lexicon Atlantis
- Little Fears (a game about being a child with horrible things after you. Not… pleasant).
- Lords of Creation
- Lost Souls
- Macho Women with Guns (once a joke, later a game – but where are the motorcycle aztec wrestling nuns? And how badly does even remembering that joke date me? Even more than the rest of this list?).
- Maelstrom
- Mage, The Ascension
- Man, Myth, and Magic
- Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP system. A lot of fun really, and character generation is a game in itself. There’s some stuff for this under the Other Games tab)
- Marvel Super Heroes (Current card-based system)
- Masterbook (the TORG successor).
- Masters of the Mind
- Mechanical Dream
- Mechwarrior
- Mega
- Megatraveler (an “updated” version of Traveler that more or less came and went).
- Mekton II
- Men in Black
- MERP / Middle Earth Role Playing
- Metabarons (what happened when West End lost the Star Wars license).
- Metamorphosis Alpha
- Midnight at the Well of Souls
- Millenniums End
- Mokole (Another race from the Old World of Darkness)
- Multiverser
- Mummy (Old World of Darkness)
- Murphy’s World (Monty Python meets AD&D meets the Apocalypse).
- Musketeers
- Mutants and Masterminds (d20, but sufficiently different to get it’s own listing).
- Mutazoids
- Nephelim (Original secretive-entities from ages past version).
- Nexus
- Nightbane (notable for creating REALLY random characters…)
- Nightlife
- Ninjas and Superspies
- Nobilis
- Noir
- Of Gods and Men
- One Roll Engine (the system for Monsters and Other Childish Things and assorted other games).
- Oriental Adventures (Not the d20 version, worth noting as being essentially AD&D 1.5)
- Ork
- Over the Edge (if this got much more “Rules-Lite” it would evaporate entirely).
- Palladium Fantasy Role Playing
- Pandemonium
- Paranoia (in various editions).
- Pelicar
- Pendragon (perhaps THE game of arthurian romance).
- Powers and Perils
- Price of Freedom
- Prime Directive
- Prince Valiant
- Project Twilight
- Providence
- Ravenstar
- Realm of the Gateway
- Recon (sneak-sneak-sneak-BLAM-you’re dead… the game is better than actually doing it, but it’s still rather less fun than you might think).
- RIFTS (and far too many supplements and worldbooks).
- Robin Hood
- Robotech
- Rolemaster (the closest any game has yet come to a complete list of everything).
- Rune (viking slaughterhouse. Need I say more?)
- Runequest
- S.LA Industries
- Saurions (a long-forgotten derivative of Chivalry and Sorcery).
- Sengoku
- Senzar
- Shadowrun (still one of the best, at least if you stick to editions 1-3).
- Shalkith Last Kin
- Shatterzone
- Ship of Fools
- Skyrealms of Jorune (for those who want a really exotic background).
- Sorcerer (White Wolf, in assorted versions)
- Space Master (Rolemaster version).
- Space 1889
- Spacemaster (yes, this is entirely separate from the Rolemaster version).
- Spacetime
- Spookshow (ever wonder why intelligence agents are called “spooks”? Now you’ll know).
- Star Wars (d6, the d20 version is included in the general d20 listing)
- Star Frontiers
- Star Trek RPG
- Stormbringer
- Sun and Storm
- Suzerain
- System Failure
- Tales of Gargenthar
- Tales from the Floating Vagabond
- Talislanta (a simple system but a nicely detailed world and background).
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Teenagers from Outer Space (have you seen my popcorn grenade? Oh wait! It’s under your seat!)
- Tenchi Muyo (another Tri-Stat production).
- The Fantasy Trip (Melee, Wizard, and Into the Labyrinth)
- The Blood
- The Primal Order
- Thieves World (a nice system if you want to focus on stealth and illegal operations).
- Throwing Stones
- Time Master
- Timelords (a Dr Who system)
- Timelords (A couple more by the same title, but unrelated to Dr Who or to each other).
- Tome of Neverworld
- Toon (you might as well not bother with a system here, but it’s fun).
- Top Secret (along with a bunch of other Hero System genre productions – sci-fi, fantasy, giant robots, and more. The Hero System does best with pulp heroes to superheroes though).
- TORG (the war for the multiverse!)
- Tractics (ok, it’s not really a RPG, but it was an ancestor of theirs).
- Traveler Classic
- Traveler, the New Era
- Tribe 8
- Trinity (psychics versus mutant monstrosities returned from beyond the stars!)
- Tunnels and Trolls
- Twilight 2000 (this is what you get for picking a near-future date for your game…)
- Underground
- Universe
- Unknown Armies
- Unsanctioned
- Usagi Yojimbo (yes, it is indeed cartoon rabbit samurai epics).
- Vampire, The Middle Ages
- Villains and Vigilantes
- W.H.A.T. (a generic system – with an acronym standing for nothing that I can recall…)
- War Gods (Turned out to be more of a miniatures war game, but usable)
- Warhammer Fantasy Role Play
- Warlock
- Warp World
- Waste World
- Wasted West
- Web of Stars
- Web of Heroes
- Web of Horror
- Werewolf Wild West
- Werewolf the Apocalypse
- Whispering Vault (where you get to be horrors from beyond come to save reality).
- Witchcraft
- Wizard’s World
- Wizards (yes, a RPG taken from that old animated film)
- World Tree (an extremely well-written and highly recommended game)
- World of Darkess (New, and point-buy adaption)
- World of Synnibar (Yes, yes, I know, Boo Hiss)
- Worlds of Wonder (including psiworld, spaceworld, and superworld as I recall).
- Wraith, The Oblivion (a remarkably gray setting with very little in the way of actual goals).
- Ysgarth (a game with the most elaborate skills system I have ever seen).
Hm. There seems to be a distinct shortage of RPG’s in my print collection that begin with a “Q”, “X”, and “Z”. I must see if I can fix that. I think there are a few “Xeno-something” games in existence out there.
This also doesn’t include a selection of minigames and one-page things. Those are usually too thin to support an extended campaign.
Filed under: Announcements, Game Rules | Tagged: Game Rules, Role Playing Game, RPG |
Emergence Campaign Weblog 
That’s an impressive list of games! Have you actually run at least one session or more with all of these?
Also, given that you take requests for your daily articles (something I quite enjoy), are all of these game systems viable choices to request things for? Or do you keep it limited to the systems in the tabs on the main page?
Hm. I think I’ll take those in reverse order, because the first one is pretty long…
Yes, all of those games are valid targets for article requests. For that matter, pretty much anything to do with games is a valid topic for requests; I just can’t guarantee that I’ll have anything to say on some of them.
Now as far as actually running all those games goes, sadly they fall into at least five major categories:
1) Games that are more or less hopeless from the start. They often have some good ideas to borrow, but their systems are so crippled, or over-complex, that no one wants to play for long (at least not now that there are newer, easier, games out in some cases). Aftermath, Brave New World, Chivalry and Sorcery, Cyborg Commando, Justifiers, World of Synnibar, and many more fall into this category. Ysgarth does too, which is a pity; it has LOTS of good ideas, but character generation is so complex that no one I know has ever managed to complete a character. For yet another example, Prince Valiant allows you to be a fighter, and only a basic fighter, and not even a very good one. No one wants to play for long.
Now, I’ve run many of those – especially early on – but none of them for long before we either switched systems (usually to Continuum II) or rewrote them.
2) Games that are so derivative that no one wants to bother with them – especially when they’re already familiar with the originals. Those usually just get folded into the games they resemble or mined for background for those games. Thus Adventures in Fantasy and Arcanum are both basically first-edition AD&D (with a lot less content), and so became sourcebooks for the AD&D game. CORPS isn’t bad, but GURPS and the Hero System both cover everything it does and more – so it became a sourcebook. Why bother with Aberrant or DC Heroes when everyone is already familiar with Champions? Nightlife? A crippled World of Darkness. Rune? If I just want to hack my way through something as a viking warrior, I can do that with D&D, and I won’t have to teach everyone a new system. That’s hard: I can’t even talk anyone else into reading through Dangerous Journeys. Thus Nightlife got mined for the World of Darkness, Rune got used to provide dungeon ideas, and Dangerous Journeys never got used much – in fact, someone who had bought more than the first book gave them to me, since I was the only one who wanted them.
Those games have all seen use, but mostly as a part of other games.
3) Games that are so weird or uncomfortable that no one wants to play. Some of the games in this group include Asylum (your character is automatically mad and hallucinating), Underground (brain replacements that don’t change your personality anyone?), Little Fears (oh yes, EVERYONE wants to play a tormented child in a fairly hopeless world), Wraith (No one could think of much of anything they wanted to do in the game), and Ship of Fools (another one where you’re constantly hallucinating), and Whispering Vault all fall into this group.
We’ve tried most of those, but they weren’t much fun (at least for my groups) – and we have a lot of games that ARE fun available. Ergo, they’re gathering dust on the shelves waiting for the time when one of them just seems appropriate – or when I want to turn their background into a plot arc for something else.
4) Games that are fine – but don’t have a lot to recommend them over a familiar game system. Of Gods and Men runs a lot like… AD&D. Waste World is a lot like RIFTS. Tome of Neverworld plays a lot like AD&D again. Worlds of Wonder? A lot like GURPS, albeit with far less material available. Nephelim kind of fits here too; it has a fascinating setting, and some very interesting character ideas, and more – but there’s little or no reason for the characters to stick their noses out of their libraries. We found reasons for awhile – but it soon got to be more work than it was worth, and we went on to try Exalted for a bit. That’s why I put up the Ancient One template for Eclipse; the character idea is similar, but the Ancient One has a reason to do something.
Now, that leaves the games that have playable rules, interesting backgrounds, and don’t repel the players. Most of those have gotten played in their own right, at least to try them out. Twenty or thirty are popular enough to get revisited every so often.
So almost all of them have been used. About half of them have had an experimental session or two over the last thirty years. Maybe twenty or thirty have actually proved to be worth revisiting regularly.
Wow, that’s a pretty good collection. I’m going to have to get on the ball, you’ve got me beat by about 95 games. Now if you count supplements (print & PDF) I more than likely surpass 281, but for actual systems you win.
I’m afraid this is just physical system books, since the list is for the players who want to know what they could ask to try.
The physical supplements are not listed since quite a few of those systems have dozens (like RIFTS), or even separate sub-games, like Deadlands (which has both an assortment of supplements and the Wasted West future version with it’s own assortment of supplements – which, come to think of it, I should probably add), the forty-odd books that go with three editions of Shadowrun (I don’t collect the fourth physically; the PDF’s are sufficient there), all the stuff for first and second edition AD&D, then several shelves full of d20 stuff.
Modules and magazines… there are decades worth of those. As last I checked, the games collection takes up somewhere between eighty and ninety linear feet of shelf space. Keep up a hobby for more than thirty years, and the collection can get rather large.
PDF’s are another topic altogether. There are a lot more of those then there are of physical books.
I can personally attest that Thoth isn’t exaggerating at all here. In fact, if anything he’s minimizing. I can add a few odds and ends he doesn’t possess, but nothing of note. There’s Anima and White Wolf’s Trinity (an expansion/sequel to Aberrant).
Speaking of which, I may have to post some day about why Aberrant, though interesting on its own, really was a bad idea from the beginning. I also think I might create an article on why Brave New World also sucked. Sadly, Superheroic RPGs are easy to start, but hard to do right. There’s a lot you can do wrong and a lot more variance in what the gamers like to accomplish, and trying to thread a needle between those problems is hell.