Tag Archives: inventory

The second shelf in my “non-D&D RPGs” section is all “B” and “C”s. Here’s a link to the Google sheet I’m using for the inventory, it’ll fill in as I go.

I have two editions of Behind Enemy Lines, a WWII RPG. You know, for how much RPGs are about blowing things up, there’s a startling lack of actual military RPGs. Like, what from this decade except the Warhammer 40K games? I mean, a lot of games let a player choose “a Soldier” as their class but aren’t military in any real sense. This irritated me so much I went on a military RPG buying spree. Sadly the older version is incomplete, the newer one is 1982 newer and it’s table-riffic, kinda like Squad Leader with RPG elements.

Next is Palladium’s Beyond the Supernatural. Hobbled by the mad science experiment that is the Palladium gaming system, it is otherwise a fun psychics vs monsters romp. And I like the random scenario generation tables. Oh no, it’s a… Tibetan supernatural threat… in a Prosperous Urban Condominium and Shopping Area… Precipitated by a PC suddenly remembering an obscure event from their childhood… And in the equipment list you can choose a black and white, green, or amber monitor for your top of the line IBM computer! Probably best used nowadays for a retro Stranger Things type game, and maybe with another game system.

I have two editions (1e/2e) and several splatbooks of Big Eyes, Small Mouth, the Guardians of Order anime RPG. A 4e got kickstarted some years ago it looks like. I liked this game and the Tri-Stat system was pretty nice – just Body, Mind, and Soul stats and rolling 2d6 versus them. Then you had attributes and skills giving bonuses for specific things. Simple but elegant, good for emulating the array of 1990s anime.

Next is a little indie RPG called Blowback that is basically “Burn Notice” (the TV show) the RPG. Written by Elizabeth Shoemaker Sampat, this is a spy game with several unique mechanics for the genre – analysis, operations – and the big innovation, the “push pyramid,” that details the escalation path as you start to mess with a conspiracy or whatnot, how much they come back at you based on how deep you’re getting into them. This mechanic was taken and incorporated into Night’s Black Agents (with credit given) by Kenneth Hite. A very light game but one meant more for the long haul so the consequences can operate. Still available for pay-what-you-want on her site.

Then we have a challenge for my alphabetization skills – is it The World of Bloodshadows? Is it Masterbook because that’s the generic rules book that powers it? Screw it, it’s in the B’s and it’s Bloodshadows. Masterbook was a generic system by West End Games, because their beloved d6 system was too simple I guess, and in the ’90’s we were all “Crunch: Ride or Die!”. I have no reason to want to learn Masterbook but the Bloodshadows line is basically “Cast a Deadly Spell” the RPG – modern fantasy noir. Be a hard boiled detective in a magical setting, but before the Dresden Files came around. And it has several adventures and sourcebooks, which makes it actually runnable (the bane of my existence is “here’s my cool new trad game, no adventures of course.” If I want to make up my own setting and adventures why would I use your shitty system? I’ll buy any trad game that has a setting book and 2 adventure books, that’s my minimum viable.)

Blue Planet is pretty high concept. It’s an environmentalist science fiction RPG, set on an ocean planet named Poseidon with humans along with uplifted dolphins and orcas fleeing an eco-burned Earth and wanting the sweet resources of this place. A very cool setting, and a basic tension very much like the movie Avatar. There’s “first gen” colonist natives and alien aborigines and newer megacorp arrivals… But it’s a little unclear exactly what to do with it story and adventure-wise.

And now… One from the vaults… Boot Hill. I think it’s the oldest Wild West roleplaying game, it’s part of the initial wad of stuff TSR put out with D&D back in the day, like Gangbusters and Gamma World. I have the 1979 printing, the first was in 1975!!! Only 34 pages long and 6 of them are a “Fastest Guns That Ever Lived” chart with stats for everyone from Sam Bass (a local favorite) to the James brothers to the Earps.

Bubblegum Crisis is a cyberpunk anime from the 1990s in which power suited young ladies fight replicant type bad guys made by an evil megacorp; this R. Talsorian game was the first to use their fairly long lived Fuzion system they used for many anime games.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a licensed-property Eden Studios game using Unisystem released back when the Buffy series was still red hot! Unfortunately for something with so much presence at the time it hasn’t had much staying power so not sure anyone will ever want to play this.

And finally, one of the granddaddies – Call of Cthulhu. The classic Lovecraftian RPG, I have several versions of the corebook (5th edition still the best) and a lot, lot, lot of the adventures and splatbooks – I love the 1920s setting best but I’ve got a pretty good swath of the OG content. I paid a pretty penny for that Spawn of Azathoth boxed set on eBay, I’ll tell you! I’ve played lots of Cthulhu, including the Cthulhu Master’s Tournament at Gen Con. It’s a great system that someone can pick up in 30 seconds – here’s a pregen, oh look a crap ton of skills you roll percentile against, ok let’s go. (I also have the d20 version, which is best left forgotten). Not indie hippie dippy but still one of the best most playable games around. Narrative control? YOU GET EATEN, how’s that for your narrative control?

OK, that’s shelf 2 of 22 (not counting 3 shelves of Dungeon and Dragon and other magazines). Chime in below, have you played any of these? What should be stolen from them to use in gaming nowadays?

All righty! I’m finally going back and organizing and cataloguing my extensive RPG collection. I’ve been buying games since getting Star Frontiers in 1982. I get more virtual than physical these days, but I still prefer paper for something I’m going to use. So I thought I’d share as I go!

The first section is basically the “non-D&D RPGs.” I have 11 shelves worth of these and then another 11 of D&D+Pathfinder. Shelf 1 is 65 items mostly in the “A”s! Here’s a link to the Google sheet I’m using for the inventory, it’ll fill in as I go.

All right, we kick it off with the new 7th Sea 2e, which I recently got via Kickstarter and haven’t read fully yet. It’s a swashbuckling game by John Wick.

Next is 13th Age from Pelgrane Press, kind of a semi-story take on D&D, which I am not sure I want to play but am up for stealing ideas from – each character gets “One Unique Thing,” which I assume is a Jonathan Tweet import because it feels like Over The Edge, and the game revolves around semi-deity “Icons” and their relationships.

Aberrant is a long forgotten White Wolf superhero game, but I played it at conventions in Tennessee in the ’90’s. Uses a system like all those old White Wolf games, which were all basically superhero games anyway so not sure why this didn’t take off at all. Was related to the Trinity sci-fi game I also played.

Aces & Eights needs a lot of investment to get players to learn some big ass ruleset but it’s a straightforward Wild West game (no magic or other genre-bending) and I’d love to play it. Deadwood the RPG, basically. It has whole sections on cattle drives and mining for gold and court trials.

Aletheia is a modern paranormal game I got on clearance. I might steal the well detailed home base building for their paranormal-fighting club for it at some point.

Aliens Adventure Game! I hear there’s a new Alien (no s) game that just came out, but this is an old school licensed RPG for Aliens, aka “the best Alien movie.” Real old – the system uses tables, which makes it a hard sell to get people to play nowadays. Maybe I can combine it with Starship Troopers or Star Frontiers or something to make it happen.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten is a zombie survival game with a stunning number of supplements, I only have a handful. Was popular in con play back in the day and I’ve run it as well, it uses the Eden Studios Unisystem and is good.

Alternity is a TSR/WotC science fiction game I really like, you can tell since I have 23 books in the line. I ran it back when it came out, more recently another GM in our group ran a huge StarDrive campaign where we were the command staff of the Lighthouse and everything. I really want to run their modern paranormal Dark Matter setting, I might be able to since a lot of our group has played Alternity and is used to the system if a bit sassy about it.

Then I have a handful of Amazing Engine games that I got in a lot mostly on the strength of Bughunters, which is an Aliens meets Space: Above and Beyond kind of setting, which is cool. The “Amazing Engine,” which was a very very brief TSR attempt at a generic system, went nowhere however. “We’ll make a GURPS clone and crush them! Oh wait maybe not…”

Next is Amber Diceless Roleplaying. All you kids think diceless and stuff is from newfangled indie games, but nope we had it back in 1991. This is a cool game, it’s PvP – each of the players is a Prince in Amber from the Roger Zelazny books and is largely against each other. Stats are just ranked – you’re the best or second best or third best at Warfare, just among the princes because no one else really could ever match you. Erick Wujcik wrote this and it’s a classic.

Then we have Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth. It’s less an RPG and more of a master’s thesis. It did have the idea of story-creating a world and such, like the more modern Microscope, but no one could slog through the 500+ pages to get there. Alas.

Armageddon is a modern supernatural end of the world game by CJ Carella. I think I got this while I was in an In Nomine fueled haze during that year or two of gaming.

Ah, Ars Magica. Another “indie before there was such a thing” game. Very innovative for the troupe system – you didn’t play just one character, usually each player had a single super powerful mage character and one person would run them and others would run Companions (decently powerful supporting characters) or Grogs (random low powered goons and serfs). Also innovative, the magic was a greatly flexible Latin-powered system – “Perdo Ignam!” would put out fires and make things cold, for example. Sadly, despite winning many awards, it’s been dead about a decade, the last corebook (5th edition) came out in 2004. I think this one would be a great one to revive in a much smaller/lighter indie game format nowadays. Hmm, I do see on their Web page that there are some Fiasco playsets for it! Well OK maybe not quite *that* light and indie, but you know, not 300+ pages either.

Ashen Stars is a GUMSHOE game of interstellar troubleshooters, I have the corebook in PDF but I have this one adventure supplement in paper (I try to support my FLGSes when they have something I want to buy…)

Then two editions of the Babylon 5 RPG! Still my favorite sci-fi TV show of all time, but still hard to re-watch (it was free for a brief moment and is now expensive again). Heck I wrote my first RPG.net review about this in 1997. They never got much product out for it, and then Mongoose came out with a second edition that did – but unfortunately converted it over to d20 during the d20 glut where everything got converted over even if it was a terrible fit system-wise for it. Maybe one day I’ll find some folks with B5 love and do something with this.

I kickstarted Russ Peyton from RPPR’s Base Raiders game, a FATE-powered game where basically the superheroes have all gone away and now people are looting their cool super-bases for stolen tech and bragging rights.

And then I have two supplements for Battlelords of the Twenty-Third Century, because they seem bananas in that Rifts kind of way. It’s a science fiction game that strips away everything except blowing things up. Somewhat similar to Warhammer 40k, though they didn’t bother to make that into a RPG until recently, it’s about shooting things in a galaxy at war but for megacorps and not the Emperor. “SLA Industries In Space!” I’ll call it. This is from the ’90’s but apparently a 7th edition has been kickstarted recently! Hmm, I’m gonna download the quickstart now, might make a fun one-shot. Ah, critical hit tables, I can see I’ll like this.

OK, that’s shelf 1 of 22 (not counting several shelves of Dungeon and Dragon magazines). Chime in below, have you played any of these? What should be stolen from them to use in gaming nowadays?