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What is your favorite Microlite20-based game?

Discussion and Reviews of rules-lite tabeletop RPGs (games like Microlite20, The Black Hack, etc.)


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randalls
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What is your favorite Microlite20-based game?

Post by randalls »

What is your favorite Microlite20-based game? More importantly, why is it your favorite?

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RandallS
Playing and Gamemastering Tabletop RPGs Since 1975
Designer: Microlite74, Microlite75, Microlite78, Microlite81, Microlite20 OSS, and others
Compiler: The Microlite20 RPG Collection
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Snorb
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Re: What is your favorite Microlite20-based game?

Post by Snorb »

There's two favorite Microlite20 games that I have.

First one that comes to mind is Mike Berkey's Argo. I love it because each character class has its own thing: Heroes (the fighter class) get abilities that let them be even better with fighting and using armor. Rogues... well, rogues don't necessarily have to get Sneak Attack, in a case that precedes the Sneak Attack Incident from the D&D Next playtest. Sorcerers don't get too crazy as far as what spells they have access to-- you have to buy cleric domains as level-up perks to learn their spells, and you're limited to how many Spell Points you get. (Though I would houserule that you can burn HP for SP if you run out.)

As an aside, in Argo, sorcerers don't get the iconic arcane spell, Magic Missile.

Second is Craig Cartmell's Stargate 1895, which... actually, I'm not 100% sure based on the dates involved, but I think this might have been a conversion from (or later converted to) Craig's own rules-lite d20-based game, Dead Simple. This is Victorian-era sci-fi, basically "What if they found the Stargate in 1895 instead of 1995?" and rolls with it. Craig's got an awesome writing style, every single character class career is mundane, and almost all combat is ranged combat (thus, a lot of vintage firearms, including a frighteningly lethal elephant gun!)

Unfortunately, there isn't too much in the way of going to worlds from the various Stargate TV series-- the one adventure published takes you to the planet from the movie.

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I wrote stuff:
The ArrrPG - A game about pirates.
Nakama: A Game of Magical Girls - A game about being Sailor Moon ripoffs PARODIES.
Intervigilum - A PbtA-ish game about being knights against the Dark.

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Re: What is your favorite Microlite20-based game?

Post by Vanya »

I just started getting into the M20 system recently.
Haven't even played yet really.
Can't even say I have any favorites yet.

But I do find Eric Bullis' Resident Evil and M20 Cthulhu variants very intriguing.

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Re: What is your favorite Microlite20-based game?

Post by Desdichado »

My own kitbashed fantasy and space opera variants, respectively, of course. While the concept of m20 was always super intriguing to me, I found that it still was too mired in D&D-isms to work for my specific setting, so I ended up making some modifications. Then I needed a Star Wars game, and wasn't completely happy with any of the options that were floating around. I ended up melding the two plus a handful of other space opera house rules to create my own. Later, I decided to file the serial numbers off, make it less Star Wars and more "my space opera" setting, grafted some planetary travel and star system generation rules similar (although much simpler and less jargon-dependent) to what Traveller had done.

Next thing I knew I had a fantasy and a space opera version of m20 that were all my own, and I decided that I didn't really need anything else.

Of course, I later decided kind of on a whim to adapt my fantasy game to be more specifically D&D-like, just in case I ever wanted to run a stripped down and truncated version of a Pathfinder adventure path in m20 but more to my own specific tastes, and I ended up with a slightly different fantasy game too. Although there's been a ton of cross-pollination between all three of my games, and they are all really the same game, but with a handful of different setting specific details that separate them.

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Re: What is your favorite Microlite20-based game?

Post by randalls »

Desdichado wrote:
Tue Sep 17, 2019 8:28 am

My own kitbashed fantasy and space opera variants, respectively, of course.

That's what I really love about Microlite20, it's so easy to modify that it simply begs GMs to modify it to better fit their campaign and/or their group's style of play.

Next thing I knew I had a fantasy and a space opera version of m20 that were all my own, and I decided that I didn't really need anything else.

I'd love to see them. I'll bet that others would as well.

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RandallS
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Designer: Microlite74, Microlite75, Microlite78, Microlite81, Microlite20 OSS, and others
Compiler: The Microlite20 RPG Collection
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Re: What is your favorite Microlite20-based game?

Post by Desdichado »

I posted links to them in the Introduce Yourself thread below. Although the Google Docs embedded themselves rather than rendering as links.

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Re: What is your favorite Microlite20-based game?

Post by GoudaGuy »

I have not played too many of the different variant rule sets, mainly playing Purest Essence. However, the Wild West rules (Tumbleweed or something like that) was probably my favorite, just because of the integrated combat options that it provided in the core rules. I did reskin the "ethnicity" rules to just be "race" as per typical fantasy, and it worked out nicely for my group who wanted the fantasy flavor, but different rules from standard Dungeons and Dragons.
I also did really like the firearms rules, as most other rules just reskin the fantasy crossbow damages, but each gun felt different from just a heavy crossbow with a different range, which never comes up in most normal games anyway.

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Re: What is your favorite Microlite20-based game?

Post by Vanya »

randalls wrote:
Tue Sep 17, 2019 8:57 am

That's what I really love about Microlite20, it's so easy to modify that it simply begs GMs to modify it to better fit their campaign and/or their group's style of play.

Here here! That is one of my favorite things about it!
While I was explaining the basic system to my girlfriend she asked if there was a mortal kombat variant. I said no, but if you use the martial arts and modern-day suppliments plus add a few races ou basically have it.

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