SuiteSisterMary's Journal: 'Underdog' RPGs on my bookshelf

My bookshelf is just chock full of RPGs; I collect them. Quite a few, I haven't even played; lack of time, lack of buddies willing to take a dive into a brand new system, yadda yadda yadda.

Lots of them, in my most humble opinion, either got the shaft, or are getting the shaft. So, I construct here, my tiny little memorial to them.

1: UnderGround
Ah, UnderGround. Aliens crash on earth, humanity discovers secrets of genetic modification. Technology is sold to 'conflict firms' who deal with wars on behalf of gov't, who create boosted soldiers, who promptly go insane at waking up and being super-human. So, conflict firms put boosts into VR training, while they're being boosted, where they live out their lives as four colour comic book heroes. This helps them adjust, somewhat; they still tend to go insane, just not so promptly.

A wonderful view of future imperfect, based on current trends; overpopulation, rising violence, a jaded population. One favourite part is where 'McRaneys' restaurants, discovering cloning technology, determines a cost of about 100,000 to clone an organisim. So, cloning cattle is out. The average customer, though, buys 110,000 dollars worth of their food in a lifetime, so they start cloning customers.

2: GURPS
Never tried the system, but the world books are TOP NOTCH. Not that GURPS is doing poorly, by any sretch. But it deserves mention for the fact that the world books make great references for ANY game system. Favorites include Black Ops, Ogre, Bio-Tech, Transhuman Space, IST, Time Travel and Reign of Steel. Oh, and Bunnies and Burrows.

3: Conspiracy X
Basically, X-Files the RPG. Very well done background; I wish they hadn't canned the 'Extinction' sequal. Between the psychic 'Greys,' the nanotech enhanced 'Atlanteans,' the equally classic 'Saurians,' the way they work the Supernatural into the whole mix, well, it's well done.

4: Battlelords of the 23rd Century
Not much to say about this, other than 'How do you keep a Ram Python busy? Put him in a round room and tell him there's food in the corner.'

5: HoL
Ah, HoL. If you can find a copy, grab it. Note that it's entirely hand written and illustrated. I believe there's a reprint of some sort recently come out. Classic classic stuff. Has a 'claimer' in the front of the book, which starts out 'This game WILL fuck you up. We swear.

6: Continuum
One of the best ways of doing time travel ever seen. Kudos for dealing with the 'I want to meet myself' phenomenon; a Gemini event. If the version is older than you, by the way, do what they say; they're probably right.

7: Delta Green
A vision of the Call of Cthulu mythos set in the modern day. EXCELLENT stuff. CoC is pretty groovy itself; highly reccomended is the Taint of Madness supplement.

8: ShadowRun
Went down the tubes with 3rd edition. The fans, however, are trying to bring it back, but I simply cannot bring myself to get back into it. But I do have pretty much every supplement for 2nd edition, from Sprawl Sites through to Awakenings. Oh, and grab the Universal Brotherhood supplement from 1st Ed for a chuckle at a good poke at Scientology, if that's your bag, baby.

I've lots of other ones on my shelf, but they're doing just fine, thank you, or they deserved an ignomious death.

Underdog Games

[ronfar]

I don't have any of those games, except for Shadowrun. I do have Call of Cthulhu and at one time I used to have all the supplements. By the time Delta Green was released I had pretty much stopped buying RPGs for purposes of stacking on the shelf. (I bought the GURPS Horror Supplement, but found it disappointing. I never owned the core rules though.)

The Sega Genesis version of Shadowrun was actually really good, especially the net-running part.

I though Torg could've been fun, though I might not have