Just curious...

[pyat]

[Poll #1353702]

Feel free to expand on the whys and wherefores in the comments. My choice, MERP, is based entirely on memories of good game sessions and my liking of the supplement books, rather than any great love for the system.

Comments

[eggshellhammer.livejournal.com]

Exalted, almost purely because of the setting. My issues with the system are myriad.

[nottheterritory.livejournal.com]

In the same vein, I picked Wraith because of fond memories of an exceptional, if somewhat curtailed campaign. The system was... well more in the vein of a series of slightly confused suggestions.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I think that's true for a lot of people, and it makes game designers sad. People tend to fondly remember whatever game they played with good friends, and forget the system that framed the experience.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Exalted, both for the setting and system. I'm sure there are games out there that I would like more though, Burning Wheel for instance seems to have a system that I would like from what I can tell.

Changeling the Dreaming is still my first love though.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

For me, the cinematic unisystem rules are precisely the level of non-crunchy, but also not too rules-light play that I love (with nWoD coming in a close second). Eclipse Phase is an even easier answer (although I don't expect anyone else to answer it yet, since it's not even out), it does precisely the same sort of modern SF (specifically Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, and Elizabeth Bear) that I enjoy reading.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

WHo is putting out Eclipse Phase? I'm always on the lookout for new SF games. :)

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Catalyst Games, the people now doing Shadowrun. Eclipse Phase is fairly hard SF (about as much as the modern space operas being written by Charles Stross, Alastair Reynolds, and Ken MacLeod), with a fairly simple percentile mechanic. Percentile systems aren't my favorite, but they definitely work w/o too much complexity. Here's the official website (http://eclipsephase.com/). The game is due out any time now, which I think means March. I'm exceedingly pleased with what I wrote about it, and the influence I had on the setting (the aerostats [aka cloud cities] of Venus were my idea).

[melskunk.livejournal.com]

I played the best with beyond the Supernatural, and have always enjoyed horror settings. But I had the best gaming memories of TMNT. I miss them both a lot

[pyat.livejournal.com]

OOoh, I got in trouble for playing Beyond the Supernatural. I ran a Negapsychic!

[melskunk.livejournal.com]

Haha :) Cool :) I miss that system. it was perfect for people like me who read WAAAY too much mythology/bad science

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

Over the Edge -- for pure setting and literary quality, obviously, since the rules are as substantial as a wet Kleenex. :p

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I've never played that one! I think it came out during my few years of RPG "compression," where I was playing very little and buying nothing.

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

It's really quite a piece of work, especially in how effectively it nails a genre that had seemed fairly nebulous beforehand. The whole thing is a big William S. Burroughs and David Cronenberg psych-horror homage, with some very sharp anti-authoritarian satire. The characters and locales are memorable, some of the most vivid I've ever seen in a sourcebook, and it all just comes together to feel... very grown-up somehow.

There's also a fantastic essay at the end of the 1st edition book about how to deal with powergamers in a system that allows damn near any character It's nothing more than "give them enough rope," but there's some fine analysis of how and why it works. It actually gave a tremendous boost to my MUCK RP skills...

[rowyn]

Champions just nailed the superhero genre for me. It doesn't work that well for fantasy, IMO, but it's a reasonable fit for sf and modern games, too. I like the flexibility and the range of options it gives in combat.