This one is quite a change from the 2014 version, which asked about the rarest RPG that you owned. Interestingly, I've brought the Traveller setting I discussed previously to the table at least twice since I wrote that.
No, not this Maelstrom.
I think there's a toss up for the most obscure roleplaying game that I've played. I'll start with Maelstrom. No, not that Maelstrom, but rather the one originally released by Hubris Games and then acquired by Precis Intermedia. This was a game set in a world with flexibly realities, a world of dream now that the anchors that the empire used to hold them together have been broken. It was combined with the first take on the Story Engine, a traits and descriptor based engine that I found pretty mind-blowing when it was released. I loved the setting but beyond one short session, I've never got to run it again.
This Maelstrom!
The other obscure game I'd like to give a shout out to is Sufficiently Advanced. A game set in a transhumance far future, I had a lot of fun the one time I got this to table at Furnace. Players are agents of the Patent Office, an organisation run by transcendental AIs. Characters are defined by their technology and values. This gave me a lot of inspiration on how a big scale technology game could be written, and was an influence on design decisions for the Tripod game I have in very slow development called Singularities. I have the first edition; the second edition is uses diceless resolution and I've never picked it up.
Sufficiently Advanced (1st Ed)
Both of these games have fascinating settings that have kept me from selling them on.
What are your obscure roleplaying games?
30 August 2023
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