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

[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...