What's the "big thing" nowadays?

Roy

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A long time ago in a town far away, I played D&D, then AD&D, and then moved into Traveller. I really enjoyed it back then, but no longer have any of the stuff. I always liked the look of GURPS but never took the plunge.

So what are the big RPG's now?

I've browsed the net checking into online RPG's and in almost all cases you need to have the stuff (naturally). I've located something called "Free Form" RPG, but that doesn't really seem to be what I'm looking for. Also, the one group of RPG players I have seen in the last few years looked a bit on the scary side. That worries me a bit.

How about popular RPG's requiring a minimum of investment?

Thanks for any info.
 

Aries

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When the owners of D&D (not sure who that is currently actually) elected to go with the open license of the d20 design, poof everyone decided they knew best how to write a rolegame using the d20 system.

So, I think D&D3 is likely the leader of the pack today, mainly because in the last few years it has dominated new publications of rolegaming books.

I also think they have over saturated the market, and now there's too much, and it is not moving well enough.
 

Dr Zaius

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I don't have any hard numbers in front of me, but my sense of it is that D&D has a far larger fanbase than its next closest RPG competitor.
 

Roy

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ADVANCED SQUAD LEADER!

Come to the dark side! ;)
Dude.

I already did. 8 or 9 some years ago. It's all I've done for all that time. Not going away from it now. Just exploring.......

:smoke:
 

Blackcloud6

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I already did. 8 or 9 some years ago. It's all I've done for all that time. Not going away from it now. Just exploring.......
Dude:

That's like being married to Tricia Helfer for eight or nine years and then going to a gay bar and saying you're just exploring! :clown: :p ;)
 

Roy

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Dude:

That's like being married to Tricia Helfer for eight or nine years and then going to a gay bar and saying you're just exploring! :clown: :p ;)
Coming from a guy with a PanzerBlitz/Leader type Avatar with his name on it.

Are you straying yourself?

:blab: :crosseye: :p :angry:
 

Leftie

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D&D 3.5 definitely has a large portion of the market share.

To comment on what Les said about Wizards of the Coast creating the D20 Open Gaming License, I think it is definitely a double edged sword. There have been quite a few excellent books published thanks to the OGL. Monte Cook for example (writer for TSR and then WotC before he quit and started writing under OGL) has his "Iron Heroes" varient player handbook. He also recently released "Ptolus" which is a 600 plus page book covering one extremely detailed city. Without the OGL, gamers would have never seen any of this stuff.

On the other hand, there are a lot of Freelance writers who flood the market with terrible suppplements. Thankfully most of these are limited to PDFs but some even manage to get their stuff in print.



To get back on the subject of popular RPGs, I would include the following:


D&D 3.5- Leader of the pack

GURPS 4th ed- Not as popular but Steve Jackson still has a loyal following

White Wolf Games (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, etc)- The Vampire game in particular remains very popular with the more fringe RPGers. Many run LARPS using the ruleset.

Tunnels and Trolls- A throwback to the days of 1st ed D&D. Similiar if flavor with enough clarifications and streamlining to make this simple enough to teach new players and appropriate enough to run through all those old dungeon hacks you have lying around.

Savage Worlds- Another simplier RPG than D&D. Much of the calculations are streamlined with the intent of letting you focus on playing instead of looking things up in rulebooks. Dedicated fanbase around the internet.



There are obviously quite a few more out there but these are my personal top picks at the moment.



Ben
 
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Vinnie

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There's just been a new edition of Runequest published. With the release of Glorantha form AH obscruity you can now play one of the truely great systems again!
 

Blackcloud6

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[Gee you RPG types are a serious sort, only one of you rose to the bait. If this was an ASL thread Glennbo:drink: Psycho:hurt: and whole host of others would be hammering me with all kinds of posts... and it would have devolved into a war of whether I'm Scott Holst or not. :nuts:
 

Aries

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Who is this Glennbo and Psycho you mentioned? Are they people we should know?
 

rdw5150

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"There's just been a new edition of Runequest published. With the release of Glorantha form AH obscruity you can now play one of the truely great systems again!"

Who put this out?

Peace

Roger

PS you CAN play ASL and RPGs:clown:
 

dwardzala

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"There's just been a new edition of Runequest published. With the release of Glorantha form AH obscruity you can now play one of the truely great systems again!"

Who put this out?

Peace

Roger

PS you CAN play ASL and RPGs:clown:
You forgot Guitars also - The trick is playing them at the same time. (My character is a 6+1 Bard with 12 ranks in perform (Lute)).
 

Double Deuce

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"There's just been a new edition of Runequest published. With the release of Glorantha form AH obscruity you can now play one of the truely great systems again!"

Who put this out?

Peace

Roger
Looks like Mongoose Publishing. Also found this interesting piece on their site
The new edition of RuneQuest is produced with an Open Licence, allowing third party publishers and fans to produce their own supplements and settings for the game - look out for them!
 
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freightshaker

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[Gee you RPG types are a serious sort, only one of you rose to the bait. If this was an ASL thread Glennbo:drink: Psycho:hurt: and whole host of others would be hammering me with all kinds of posts... and it would have devolved into a war of whether I'm Scott Holst or not. :nuts:
We know you are Scott. We just don't play those games over here...:)
 

Vinnie

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Mongoose pubklishing just brought it out. Issaies Inc have been doing background stuff for a while and the game is quite well supported. I have bought the rule bokk but not the supplements yet. Hope to run a game fairly soon. If I can persuade the guys to stop playing internet poker. There's a good fun group game....
 

kcdusk

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I'd recommend T2K. It can still be downloaded in PDF (all versions and every mod including Merc) for about $10US.

There are active threads on it, with the best two IMO below

RPGHost Community Forums - RPG - Twilight 2000


and there are 3 active games on this forum (near the bottom)

Twilight:2000 forum :: Index


So its relatively cheap, you can buy as many or few mods as you like, there are active forums and even very active PBP games to play in (or you can start your own and Ref it).

What more could you want?
 
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