Games you keep on your shelf.

Games that I keep pulling off my shelf and looking at. Some of these I haven't played in years but they always get me thinking. Reply in the comments on some of the games that you keep on your shelf even though they may not be the game you are running or playing anymore.

Psi World

Find it on DrivethruRPG or Ebay. 

Released by Fantasy Games Unlimited back in the day. The setting is a near future slightly alternate reality where there are people with psionic powers. Of course those with the powers aren't generally thought of to well by the non-psychic public. Also of course you play the psychics.

Featuring a game system that has some of that eighties crunch but is way simpler than FGU's game Aftermath. It works well with a few rough spots that could be ironed out. But the psychic power list is absolutely great and even with that crunch the way they work is even better. This is one of those games I keep wanting to run again but never do. But whenever I think of psychics in other games it comes off the shelf to use as reference.

Rolemaster

Find it on DrivethruRPG or Ebay or even on Amazon. 

Never ran a game of Rolemaster and probably never will. As a player, however, I love this system. All the tweaking, changes and adjustments you can do with your character. The freaking crit and fumble charts, oh those are golden, absolute golden. The spell lists that go on for days on end while getting insanely specific at the same time. The Shadow World setting that goes along with it is also amazing.

Would play in another game of Rolemaster in a heartbeat. But it makes for some good inspiration for my own homebrew fantasy stuff. So much to steal from and rework.

Conspiracy X

Find it on DrivethruRPG or Ebay or even Amazon.

1^st edition, all the way, it lost something with the 2^nd edition. Not due to the writing but I think it had to do more with the system change, artwork update and just general different approach and layout. But the original with that quirky system that works even though sometimes I don't understand how. But the system for developing a cell and resource management within that cell is sweet. The psionic abilities that are built around using Zen cards is inspired (I have a thing for psionics apparently). This is pure inspiration for modern day X-Files type stuff all the way up to cyberpunk type games with team management.

Now as I said I prefer the original version. However, 2^nd edition does have the cell creation and zen card psionics as well. So if anybody is reading this and has an interest in those two things you can get which ever one you want.

Rapture the Second Coming

Find it on DrivethruRPG (D20 version only) or Ebay. 

Again, the original version from Quintessential Studios and not the later D20 version. This is the horror game that makes nearly every other horror game look like a walk in the park. It's the end times, a complete no win situation and it's all about trying to do the right things in a world that is on it's way out. They pull no punches, it's a fucking nightmare setting and the characters are right in the damned middle of it fighting against all odds in a war that is already over.

I absolutely love it. Well to read it, and steal from it and to think about running it. But I have never had a group that I think would either handle it or take it serious enough. There are no more souls left for newborn babies so those born now are possessed by demons. Wars are waging grinding the population into the ground. Starvation is rampant and much of the food is either tainted, maybe even poisoned. The police have been replaced by straight up death squads. Those of religious faith are hunted and killed. It's hell on earth and you have to fight through it because doing otherwise is letting evil win without a fight.