mikemearls24 points19 days ago
I started doing this stuff in 1999, so I’m pegging everything before that:

GURPS 2nd edition – Platonic ideal of a universal engine IMO. Just enough detail to get you playing without overwhelming you with rules.

Call of Cthulhu 4th edition – Cthulhu I started with.

Ars Magica 2nd edition – liked the approach to magic, first game I encountered that really integrated setting and rules

Broken Covenant of Calebais for ArM – had a lot of fun with this, dungeoncrawl built by Jonathan Tweet that tried to not be a dungeon

Shadowrun 1st edition – my elf can have a gun and nobody thinks that’s cheating. Sign me up.

Early White Wolf magazine – before the Internet, was the best gateway to RPGs beyond D&D

Unknown Armies 1st edition (squeezes under the deadline) – kind of felt like modern day Ars Magica to me, setting and system really work well, hard to not come up with great campaign ideas reading it

Vampire 1st ed – clans were great, added a distinct flavor to the vampire myth and made it easy to figure out why the characters were actors in the world

Mage 1st ed – there’s nothing more fun than figuring out the convoluted series of coincidences that end with a Terminator-like assassin ending up getting sucked into the engine of a low-flying 747