>You forgot Dawn Patrol 1980. Not focused on role-playing but it did have a
>basic system for it. �I have all the games on the list (+DP) up to 1984
>except Gangbusters (not sure I ever heard of it either). �I would have
bought
>Conan if I had known about it but the rest? Who the hell would buy a game
>called Amazing Engine?
Amazing Engine was a great idea with very poor execution. It was a core
rules system (Amazing Engine) with a series of genre specific source books
to go with it. The genre books were known as "world books". The books
were...
Year Book Genre
1993 Bughunters Worldbook
Aliens (as in the movie) / Sci Fi military
1993 For Faerie, Queen, and Country Worldbook
Alternate timeline "Victorian" England w/ Fae
1993 The Galactos Barrier Worldbook
Sci - Fi
1994 Kromosome Worldbook
Cyberpunk / Biopunk
1993 Magitech Worldbook
Alternate timeline modern with magic, races, etc...
1994 Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega Worldbook
Based on the game (sci-fi)
1994 Once and Future King Worldbook
Arthurian
1994 Tabloid Worldbook
Pseudo Conspiracy
The core rules were pretty decent, a basic skills based system. However,
only a few of the worldbooks were decent. They all contained some good
background material, but were usually very limited in their scope. It was
competing with GURPS, and the GURPS genre sourcebooks covered much more
material usually. The few standouts in my mind were...
- For Faerie, Queen, and Country - I really enjoyed this sourcebook. A
great map of Victorian era England, good background material on the Fae.
Lots of oppourtunity for "Sherlock Holmes goes supernatural" style play.
- Kromosome - Some really cool concepts in regards to genetic manipulation
and enhancement using animal DNA. I plan on using a lot of the material in
a Dark Angel style campaign I am planning.
- Bughunters - Pretty good if you want to run a pure military alien hunting
campaign ala Aliens or Predator.
>Unlike Johnathan T., I never expected to be getting the same game with
just a different setting. �Learning new games was part of the fun (wargamer
in me I
>guess). �Even though I never wound up playing DP (never made it in either
category), BH (seriously lacked production values to the point of inspiring
>boredom), or IJ (though I did buy an IJ module) my friends and I had a
blast with the others. SF may not have been as serious as say Traveller,
but we
>still really enjoyed it.
I used DP a number of times to fill in the gaps in a number of pure
miniatures rules for WWI aircraft when doing a campaign style game (I used
Triplane first, and Hostile Aircraft after it came out for the air combat).
I recently used modified DP rules with the air combat rules from Crimson
Skies in a Crimson Skies campaign. BH evolved over the years, the last
release wasn't bad at all for running spaghetti westerns.
John Bacon - Nero, Canterbury Creations
www.nerolarp.com
www.canterburycreations.com
-------------
For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
