In a futile effort to save Chris, show off for Brant, and feed my own ego:
Texcatlipoca Has Come From The North: a companion game to Huey Long’s Men of Action, set in AD 1000 or so in the Yucatan. Brave Byzantine warriors and their Viking allies battle the hordes of the god-king Quetzalcoatl. It uses D20 psionics rules, either Mindshadows or the WotC offering, depending on which is better. No magic. Plenty of Cathars.
The Seven Familes: there are seven great familes in the shadows of the world, struggling for dominance. Mystic flavor — perhaps stealing a little from GURPS Cabal. Ritual actions have subtle effects, so that getting married at the proper time with the proper flowers could provide luck for the family in certain endeavors for the next year, but there are no fireballs. One could think of this as roleplaying humans in the world of Nobilis, if one liked. Maybe use the Window system.
St. Cuthbert’s Men of Action: full-blown pulp adventure in a fantasy world. Despite the title, I wouldn’t actually want to use D&D. I don’t have a preferred pulp system yet… but I digress. The setting is Victorian in the cities and pulp as heck out in the jungles. Think Tarzan here. Humans and dwarves and elves are picking themselves back up again after a lengthy Dark Age; researchers are rediscovering old principles of magic, and the remnants of the First Age lie in the center of the forgotten cities, where mystical defense grids still wait for intruders. Good fun. At least one NPC named Hector.
The Legion: Trinity imagined as space opera. Described in detail here. Takes place in the Aeon Universe, but tilted somewhat to get the classic Jack Williamson space opera feel — not as grandiose as E. E. Smith’s books, but very steel-jawed. This is almost heresy, but since Trinity D20 makes it more attractive to play non-psions, I might use that over the original.
Ki-ki-ki-ki-ki: There is no magic in the world because the dolphins took it all to fight the good fight against the horrendous Cthulhoid creatures that live beneath the sea. As countless Call of Cthulhu scenarios prove, humans cannot be trusted with esoterica. There are two components to this game. In one, a small cadre of trusted human librarians retrieves copies of the Necronomicon and other such tomes from surface libraries. In the other, elite dolphin magickal squads combat Rl’yeh’s minons and the Mi-Go (who have long since eradicated and/or enslaved the native denizens of the Hollow Earth). The players take on one PC on each side of the water. Uses Call of Cthulhu mechanics.
3 Comments
The Window system claims at some length to use adjectives instead of numbers, but the adjectives are promptly translated into die types, which are what the rule system actually uses. Seems like flimflam to me.
Ain’t that adorable? I notice that every time I read it. About half of the attractiveness is just the stylish layout. But as a rules-light system it’s as good as anything once you ignore the flimflam and pretension.
I always find it interesting how little attention the Window gets from the Forge these days when it was such a huge early influence — not in terms of system, but in terms of being the first free game to stand up and say “Hey. I can look as good as anything on the shelves and I am just as good as anything on the shelves.”
Grunt. It does the same things Over the Edge does, in the same way, except that it breaks a lot of things.