The Prettiest RPGs You've Never Read

There are so many RPGs out there that one can never really be sure where to begin, when deciding to branch out beyond the game or games that initially brought you into the hobby. In my experience that usually means some flavor of Dungeons & Dragons, or White Wolf's Vampire series. It definitely seems like most people enter the role playing hobby through one of these two gateways. It was the D&D Basic series for me, first the Moldvay books, then the Mentzer colored box series. I remember fondly looking at my teenage bookshelf to see all five boxed sets sitting there in their glory. I only wish now that I still had them, for both nostalgia and collectors value. A quality non dented box is really tough to find these days. --And now I think I'm starting to sound like a comic book or action figure collector, so I'll go ahead and stop right there.

Back to the real topic - other games. In the course of my own inter-game explorations, I've come across many systems. One of the properties I have seen vary the most, but consistently improve over the years is the production value, also known scientifically as the "prettiness" of the book. A hard cover with pages that didn't fall out would have been considered great production value 15 years ago. My how things have changed since then. Nowadays, if you aren't pimping it out with full color, non standard sized glossy heavy paper stock, it seems like maybe you just aren't trying hard enough. Or perhaps it is the books that are doing that that are trying too hard? Tough to say. I have seen many beautiful, nay absolutely gorgeous books hit the shelves in the past few years. Several of these have even hit my own shelf. But unfortunately many of them have seemed to meet with no commercial success, and others have not even found critical success, outside of the acknowledgement of their design and production efforts.

It is with this in mind that I present to you some of the prettiest RPGs you've never heard of - all of which are sitting on my shelf right now.

Alpha Omega

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/57713/Alpha-Omega-Core-Rulebook
A dice pool based primary game mechanic and a free form magic system taking place in a kitchen sink, post apocalyptic earth, in the years just preceding an alien v alien war in which Earth is the central battleground. For me the magic system, and the capability of the game engine to simulate Matrix-Like sequences, in which some actors are immensely faster than others, makes it worth taking a look. The system isn't for everyone, and is definitely on the crunchy side, but I don't find it to be bad crunch.
The monster manual for the game could easily function as a coffee table book of fantasy and sci-fi art, and is worth its purchase price for the inspiration it can lend, if nothing else.
Example Art:

This piece really highlights the tone of the game, showing the remains of Eiffel Tower set in front of the new Arcology, with wild growth all around outside of the fortress of civiliation that is the Arcology.

The Game book: 

The Encountered (The monster book)

Eoris Essence

http://eorisessence.blogspot.com/
I first discovered this one at GenCon about 5 years back, and preordered on the spot. They had an interested world idea, in which relative morality would be explored. The meta plot set the forces of god (in this world, a young girl) against well, itself. The idea was that god wants to die. But if she does, will the world cease to exist? "What is more important, god or her creation?" the text wonders. Another home grown system runs this game, focusing on the mental physical and emotional status of the PCs, trying to mechanically enable stress and demeanor along with the players' own role playing.

As with others in this post, the books are simply gorgeous. Set into 2 volumes, one for the game rules the other as a world book, they are both full color, glossy pages, and like Alpha Omega, laid out in hardcover landscape fashion, setting them apart from other books, but also making them handy at the table, since they fit a little better. The books ship in a slip case to contain both volumes as well.

The Books:

Example Art:

Nearly every third page contains a piece of art similar in quality as this!

Hell, even the character sheets are pretty:

Shadows of Esteren

https://shadowsofesteren.blogspot.com/
This game may be one you have heard of if you are a Kickstarter junkie like myself. They have launched 2 KS's, and been wildly successful with each, far exceeding their goals. The initial game book is available to all now and in distribution, I believe. I bought a copy directly from the studio at GenCon this past year. A system focused on mystery and terror, and unease is what the creators have tried to create. The game is set within a world of gothic, medieval style horror, enemies and monsters that are equal parts folklore and reality, the games are set are mystery, intrigue, and exploring the areas of the world that men were not meant to see.
The Book:

Example Art: 

Mouse Guard

http://www.mouseguard.net/books/role-playing-game/

Mouse Guard is based on the David Petersen comic, using rules based on the cult favorite system The Burning Wheel. Its ideas surrounding a character's beliefs and what they fight for is about as perfect a match you could find for the game of valiant guard mice, who range their lands, standing against nature and enemies alike to protect their realm and those within. A square shaped volume with thick, earth toned colorful pages, it is among my favorites. 

As if the book were not already pretty enough, it is also available as a boxed set with dice, the obligatory GM screen, cards, and tokens to round out the package.

What these games all have in common beyond their beauty is that they are all built on their own unique and independent game systems. The originality of the auhors' vision for their games presentation seems to also come out in their expression of the game rules. I won't pontificate on whether or not the rules are good, bad, or otherwise, but I will note that these games have all had limited success thus far. There are far too many factors to consider as to whether or not rule design takes away from its success, but for the same reason, we cannot say whether or not the games' beauty contributes much to it either.

What do you think?

Gencon 2013 -Demanding Games at Games on Demand

Another year down, another GENCON in the books. Folks, when they make the claim that GENCON is "The best four days in gaming" they are not messing around. GENCON for me is like every holiday and special occaision of the year rolled into one, and then launched into orbit on top of a giant beam of awesome. Do I get a little too excited about GENCON? Yes I do, and I don't pretend that I don't. I start looking forward to the next year's GENCON before the current year's is even over yet.

The sights and sounds of GENCON are just a marvel to behold. 40,000 gaming nerds all gathered together for the sole purpose of gaming and geeking out. For me that means playing a ton of RPGs. Specifically ones that are either new, or at least new to me. It also means seminars, and running games. As a card carrying member of the GM's union, and "GM for Life", it wouldn't be a geekfest for me if I were not running a couple of RPGs as well.

So without further adieu, I give you my report card for GENCON 2013. I always present my honest opinion in these reviews. No offense is meant to anyone who receives a harsh grade. All criticisms here are meant in honest good faith - with the intent of helping the GM in question improve their game. I hope to find similar critique of my own games out there. Let's go!

Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint was very high on my list of games to play this year. I picked up a copy from the IPR booth last year after hearing a lot of good things about it. I had only skimmed through it once or twice prior to this session. Enough to know I really wanted to play, but that I had not yet invested the time needed to run my own group through a game. Hollowpoint seems designed for one shot games, and what better place than a convention for such a venture? The two scenarios offered up by our GM were an old west theme, and a sci-fi / space opera theme. Neither of those seemed to really grab the passions of anyone at the table - and the GM picked up on this and offered to take suggestions. (This counts for major points in my book. She expertly read the table and reacted to it in a really enthusiastic and positive way)

We bounced ideas around and settled on 80's action movie in cold war Germany. Our GM, Nykki, took a few minutes and whipped something up while we players got to know each other a bit. Gameplay at the table was excellent. The group definitely hit it off with each other, and everyone really seemed to enjoy playing together, working our characters off of each other, bantering, etc. It was an absolute blast, culminating with out heroic, if crazy rescue of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, who were held hostage at the Berlin Airport.

Nykki did a great job explaining the rules and keeping the action flowing. The system isnt difficult per se, but can be hard to grok, and she really helped us all through it without getting anything bogged down or slowed up in the technicalities of rules at the table.
Overall - A

Fate of the Norns
I had a chance to play this game with its creator/author as the GM. I was very much looking forward to it, as I had backed the Kickstarter for the game, and recently received my book and runestones. FoTN is different, in that there are no dice, but there is a definitive random element to the game, in the form of runestones.

The stones are pulled from the bag randomly at the start of a round, and they will dictate which of your characters spells or special attacks are available to them that round. Alternatively any stone can be used to power any normal action, like a move or basic attack. You can also use extra stones to power up the range, or damage of an attack, depending on which color stone they are. The combination of symbols and colors makes for a very tactile and interesting take on random result generation for resolution, with the player in charge of how those results get applied. (In this regard it reminded me of the decision making required in PSI*RUN) The stones are also used to track damage. In fact everything you need to play is on a single sheet of paper, which is used as a playmat for your runestones. No pencil required for tracking things. I also liked this about the game.

On the GM side of things, Andrew was great. Its his game so he obviously knew it very well. You could tell that he also has spent a lot of time researching old Norse mythology - his storytelling and usage of that knowledge came through nicely. On the down side, I was able to see that running the NPCs in tactical combat seemed to mirror exactly the process used by the players. I don't have a solid basis to assume this from but it seems to me that more than a handful of bad guys would be cumbersome and overbearing to run. I could be wrong, but that is my gut feeling.

I was the only player at the table who was not bilingual (everyone else also spoke french) and the rest of the table excluding the GM were a group of friends. As Quebeqois, they would slip into French often, which made sense given that it is their primary language, but at the same time it felt fairly rude and exclusionary to me, who only understood about every 10th word they said when this was going on. I couldn't help but feel left out on the in talk at the table
Overall - B+

Shadows of Esteren
Some times you can sit down at a game, and feel all the signs pointing to a bad experience. I think theres even an internet meme about it. This was one of those times. GM bashing how dumb the players of an earlier session were? Check. GM telling you how great of a GM they are? Check. Another GM running a different scenario trying to dump his players into our group because he wants to go do something else? Check. Not enough characters to go around? Check. This one was firing on all 6 evil miserable cylinders, so I went ahead and excused myself before we kicked off. Its a shame because I still really want to play this game. I just wasn't about to sit in on that session.
Incomplete

Always/Never/Now
This was a Games on Demand session. I jumped in having no idea what it was about, and man am I glad I did. This was my first introduction to any of the Lady Blackbird hacks, and it is a good one. Great sic-fi and a simple but effective system for making the mechanicals of the game interesting are just two of the highlights. The table was great with everyone jumping into character.
A

School Daze
Having the opportunity to play a game with its creator is always a great nerd experience. When that creator also happens to be a talented GM its even better. When that GM also happens to be a genuinely great person, you've got yourself a grand slam. This game session was a grand slam. We played a monster high school, in which my idiot goblin found himself with the ability to do mathematics at a galactic scale - time traveling dimension hopping maths. Of course it was all just a practical joke on him by Lillith, the school's resident demon girl. It was funny, fun, a little bit sad, and a great time.
A+

I think I might be missing something, but as it turns out I started writing this last year and never finished. So in the completion of it, I know that I must be missing some details.
I hope you enjoy - or find it useful - or something :)