Great (and not so great) RPG's of our time
  • Aliens
    I didn't like this really, the combat is way too strange and weird (How many hit locations?), and admit it the limitations for the game isn't really going to stretch beyond 'Boot door, kill aliens, rescue civilians'.
  • Advanced Dungeons and Dragons
    'Simple but fun', that's what I'll say about AD&D. The game I played run by my good mate Jim was in the forgotten Realms. Ahhh great days.
  • Ars Magica
    Probably the best spell system of any game, loads of atmospheric material and a brilliant setting. Not one for people who want dungeon moshes though! An excellent game!
  • Battletech
    I like this game lots, semi-realistic futuristic robot combat. Only marred by the sheer amount of errors FASA manages to include in nearly every supplement for it.
  • Bloodbowl
    "American football with no rules at all" is the best way to sum up bloodbowl. It's quite a good laugh with various fantasy races each having their own teams. Not bad at all.
  • Call of Cthulu
    The system isn't as important as the sheer amount of atmosphere in this game, don't play this if you like getting your characters to level 297 or whatever, you're going to go eventually it's just a question of what kills you or finally drives you mad! Great game!
  • Cyberpunk
    I like this a lot, it's also the basis for the dubious system I wrote, scimitar, I have a tendency to play netrunners in this but that's mainly because of the sheer number of bizarre program ideas I can conjure up. Four out of five stars from me!
  • Dark Conspiracy
    Cyberpunk meets call of Cthulu, but using Twilight 2000's rules. A potentially good idea, a horribly bad system. "It sucks" is a bit of an understatement. It's all geared towards gung-ho alien/monster/possessed-whatever blasting really. A wasted opportunity.
  • Dungeons and Dragons
    AD&D's little brother, this is what I started on. Now simplicities no bad thing but this is perhaps just a little too hacked around the edges from AD&D. Still you can always pick it up to get you started cheap.
  • Earthdawn
    This is my favourite system at the moment, FASA really produced a corker with this one. The setting really has been thought through and the whole systems really nice and refreshing. Five stars, top marks - TRY IT!
  • GURPS
    GURPS is a generic system that can be used for anything. Which is it's best and worst feature. In my experience a system written for a particular genre works a lot better, as a general system this isn't bad, but you could try the Hero system as well.
  • Harn
    I vaguely remember playing this game, many many years ago, in the dawn of my years of gaming. I seem to remember I liked it.
  • HERO
    I only really briefly played the system, but most of what I saw was good.
  • Immortal
    Now I thought this was going to be some vampire rip-off but I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of background and ideas behind this game. Basically at the dawn of time certain creatures gained powers from some astral tree and became immortals ala Highlander. Not bad at all.
  • Magic the gathering
    The card game with more addictive qualities that most class 'A' drugs has claimed me too, although I still haven't bought any cards I have a pile from other people.
  • Marvel Super Heros
    Simple and fun, I played The Thing (tm), mind you a system to generate your own superheroes would be nice, the HERO system seems a lot better structured for this really.
  • Mechwarrior
    This is FASA's attempt to make Battletech into a roleplaying game. It doesn't really work as Battletech is a wargame, plain and simple and roleplaying really gets a second seat to all the stragedy element of the game. A goodish system but if you're going to play it you might as well just play Battletech.
  • Middle Earth Roleplaying
    This system is basically a cut down version of Rolemaster; It's a lot easier to master than rolemaster (which isn't difficult!) and works quite well, there's also buckets of stuff for it. If you like Middle Earth this is the system to use as you can get source material for nearly any part of the world. Unless you want to use Rolemaster in which case you can convert things over without too much fuss at all.
  • Paranoia
    This is not a game for people who take life seriously. It's not intended as a campaign system and it never should be. Being the GM (or computer) is more fun than being a player, kill the players and enjoy it! It's rather weird but fun.
  • Rolemaster
    I've been running this for about four years now and my players love it, well I assume they at least like it since the campaigns been running for four years. Now I know some people think it's overly complicated, hell I've got an entire folder full of rules modifications, but I sorta fell in love with the entire horrible complexity of it all. There's a saying in my group 'In rolemaster there's a table for everything.' and by golly they're right.
  • Rifts
    Nah! I'm sorry, this game stank of powerplay to me, Glitterboys, dragons and guns o' doom. If I want a sci-fi fantasy game I'll play Shadowrun thank you.
  • Runequest
    A good game although the system irks me slightly as I've never really liked percentage based systems. Apart from this little niggle it's great, a good world system and several new approaches to running things.
  • Scimitar
    Putting my own system in is a bit of a cheat since I've never really got round to running it properly and it's just a cyberpunk/runequest variant. Still I like it, mind you I wrote it. But hey it's free so what you moaning about?
  • Shadowrun
    I never really liked this system much until Earthdawn came out, when you realise that Earthdawn is set in the same world as Shadowrun and start picking up all the parallels it becomes a lot easier to accept some of the things in Shadowrun. I quite like it now!
  • Spacemaster
    Basically this is Rolemaster in space, if you like RM and want a sci-fi campaign you won't go much wrong with this.
  • Startrek RPG
    One word - Sad.
  • Tales from the floating vagabond
    This game is daft. I love it! You don't even need to play it to have fun - just read the rulebook! As a sampler of how silly it is let me tell you the weapon categories for firearms : Gun, Big gun, Really big gun, Don't point that at my planet.
  • TORG
    A bit bizarre this one, the world being split into various technological and magical zones. Some good ideas, a pity the system is fairly basic.
  • Twilight 2000
    I've never really liked the twilight system at all, sorry, but I don't.
  • Vampire
    White wolf pulled a blinder with this one, the atmosphere, the background, the work. It's a real roleplaying game. One of my favourites. Pity no-one runs it round here!
  • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
    Ick! One of the systems I really don't like - I'll leave it at that.
  • Warhammer Fantasy Battle
    I used to have a vast army of orcish figures, which I was convinced I would finish painting and never did. This can be quite a good system if you avoid the more silly rules and powerful magic.
    I've played others and I'll update the list as and when I can be bothered.
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