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Slant:
There are a LOT of games out there, many of which are very well made but come from small-press publishers or are just so old that they have been forgotten.  This is a list of games that are not major names in the industry, but ones that, at some point over the years, I have greatly enjoyed.  Some are old and long out of print, while others are available now but languish in RPG anonyminity:

Arduin
Obsidian
Twerps
Legendary Lives
Dying Earth
SLA Industries
Starships & Spacemen
Supermegatopia
UNsanctioned
Flashing Blades
Lace & Steel
Villains & Vigilantes
Teenagers From Outer Space
Little Fears
Timelord
FemForce
Everway
Hunter Planet
Nightlife

How about the rest of you?  What are some games that you either play now or have in the past that have nothing to do with White Wolf or WotC, yet you still had a blast playing?  Does anybody remember any of the names on my list?

Kid_Kilowatt:
Some of the ones you listed are not that old - Little Fears, for instance, is one I've been trying to get my hands on lately without success.  Is it good?

"Teenagers From Outer Space" always struck me as stupid, so I never bothered with it.  Anyone have particularly good experiences with this game?  Keep in mind that I'm not a big fan of "I know it's stupid but it's SO fun" roleplaying (with the exception of Toon).  

The only one on your list that I actually played was Villains & Vigilantes - I owned one of the very early versions of the game, and it wasn't very good.  It's the only RPG I ever bought that had you play yourself (with the addition of a secret superhero identity).  You had to estimate your real-life attributes for use in the game, which was troublesome in my experience because GMs tried too hard to force people to be realistic about their Intelligence, Charisma, and Strength.  Ouch.  Interesting idea, but no one likes to be told that they have a real-life Intelligence of 7.

Also, I always thought that this approach would work best if you were dealing with really cool people, not RPG gamers.  A good superhero team would have people with cool secret identities: an architect, an eccentric millionaire, a retired army captain, and a flashy TV star.  I didn't really want to be part of a superhero group whose members were all RPG-playing middle school nerds in their secret identities.  That seemed pretty lame.

So that's my rant on Villains and Vigilantes.  I'd go on but my return, apostrophe, and backspace keys are suddenly not working so well and typing this is giving me a headache.  Grrr.

Slant:
Little Fears is a cool lil' game.  it is very dark and deals with such ooky topics like child abuse and neglect that initially made me shy away from the game, but in small doses it is creepy and genuinely scary, even more so than the legendary Call of Cthulhu.  In the one extended game I played in, all of the children died (or disappeared) but one, and that one ended up coming home without a soul and with a malignant spirit festering deep within her brain that will manifest when she hits puberty.

Teenagers From Outer Space, IS one of those games so silly that is fun.  I just like that sort of thing.  If you geek out on stuff like Ranma 1/2 or Project A-Ko, this is for you.  The game system is so simple and yet so comprehensive and quick that it can be adapted to just about any other genre (such as superhero) as long as you don't want a game that is too serious.

V&V was the very first RPG I ever played, and at the time super-heroes were my life (I was like 12).  Actually I know of a lot of people who didn't like the fact that their characters were based on them, but personally I thought it was a great touch.  Part of the fun is playing a character that DOES have some low stats.  Remember, the vast majority of Marvel heroes cranked out in the 60's and 70's had distinct physical or social weaknesses.  Peter Parker was a science geek who didn't relate well to his classmates.  Tony Stark made his first suit of armor to help power his failing heart.  Bruce Banner was a scrawny pencil-neck who was more comfortable with genetic bombs than with people.  Steve Rogers was a frail nobody who volunteered for an experiment that could just have easily have killed him as given him physical perfection.  The best characters, I've always felt, were not the heroes who were above the mean in their civilian IDs, but those who were just average Joes (I always loved Luke Cage in particular, just another two-bit ex-con who happened to get super powers in prison).

Yeah, it is pretty embarrassing to have a character that is, in effect, YOU, get stuck with low rolls  because of what others assign to you.  I ended up with a strength of 7 (hey, I was 12), but I just parlayed it into a positive by focusing on powers that didn't require any great physical strength.  If I'd wanted to, I could always have just picked a level or two of Enhanced Strength and BAM, I coulda been a contendah!  As it was, I ended up with Cat's Eye, a character that I ended up playing in nearly every super-hero game in one form or another since I was twelve.

Nicadymus:
One of the "Little Known Games" that our group has played recently is a game called All Flesh Must Be Eaten. It is pretty much a Zombie killing spree with the advent of some very interesting characters classes, archtypes and abilities set in a D10 based system that is similar to WotC's D20 system.  It has several supplements that offer some interesting adaptations to the standard classes, thus broadening the games potential.  If you enjoy watching movies such as Dead Alive, Night of the Living Dead, and/or Army of Darkness, then you'll probably enjoy this game.

Mr_Pleasington:
Hmmmmm...  One of my all time favorites that was once well known and has faded into obscurity is Amber Diceless. A great game.  I also think John Wick's Orkworld had a lot of great ideas but suffered from lackluster execution.  I'll be looking forward to his release of Elfworld, however.

Then there's one of the best "forgotten" games that's out there...Basic D&D.  It's surprising how few remember the original systems where races were classes and things were fairly abstract.  Some people are still fanatical about it though.  I still hold both copies of my Rules Cyclopedia dear.  My next campaign will either be run with Basic or 1E.

As for All Flesh Must Be Eaten....great game.  I love zombies and Eden sure did them right.  Their supplements are very well done also.  Used a lot of stuff from this for Deadlands over the years.

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