Your "golf bag" of games

I sometimes get inspired to run a specific setting or scenario, and the next step is to decide what system I'll be using.



While I enjoy reading and playing a wide variety of games, I'm only really comfortable running a few, and over time I've refined my perception of these games' strengths and weaknesses into certain "niches" defined by what I feel each of them does best. Hence, the "golf bag" analogy.



These are the games to which I fall back when I want to adapt or convert something.



TSR-era D&D and OSR derivatives. I seldom use D&D (and its sundry OSR spin-offs) for settings and adventures that haven't been created with D&D specifically in mind. I mean, the OSR's amply proved that TSR D&D is a sturdy engine that can be modded to do all sorts of settings. Still, it's fun to match some of the old TSR modules to second-generation OSR games. For example, I'd love to use AS&SH for B4 Lost City, DCC for X2 Castle Amber and ACKS for the B6 The Veiled Society, X7 War Rafts of Kron or the Desert Nomads trilogy (X4, X5, X10).



Runequest 6e. This is what I default to when I have a fantasy world of scenario that I feel "straight" D&D won't quite do justice. Tékumel? Hyborian Age? A Song of Ice and Fire? Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell? World of Warcraft? Generally speaking, I find RQ6 much, much more modular than D&D; it's far easier to do away with one or more (or all) types of magic than it is, say, to do away with the Cleric. Also, here's a lot of both RQ6-specific and and generic BRP support out there that helps with setting-specific stuff. And speaking of BRP...



Call of Cthulhu. "Lovecraft didn't confine himself to the Mythos, and neither should you", says the rulebook. I used it for non-Mythos horror only once. Two words: zombie apocalypse. Worked wonders. I haven't really used it for non-Mythos horror ever since, though. I usually default to...



New World of Darkness. I had something of a reputation back in the day as I guy who ran oWoD "plain mortals" games, using the Vampire (and Werewolf, Wraith, etc.) books as bestiaries. Because everyone played the monster games, people were amusingly freaked out off-character when some monster displayed this or that ability ("Lasombra! We're fucked"), which had an interesting synergy with the feeling of horror I was trying to evoke. nWoD for the most part just made my life easier, even though starting-level monsters are such wimps (an oWoD vamp neonate could give a party of four starting hunters a run for their money). And Hunter: The Vigil as a great, great supplement for truly horrific games of ordinary humans way out of their depth.



Mongoose Traveller. I don't have nearly as much SF gaming under my belt, as I have fantasy and horror. I am a relative newcomer to Traveller and while I like the OTU well enough, I'm somewhat mystified by the paucity of homebrewed alternatives. It is as if everyone only ever played D&D in Greyhawk. In any case, I think Traveller will do a great job of hard or hard-ish SF, spacefaring or otherwise (I'd love to run a gritty post-apocalyptic scenario like Twilight 2000 or the Jericho TV show... though Strontium Dog can certainly cover your Fallout and/or Gamma World needs). I've toyed with using Traveller to run everything from Star Wars (minimal work from Mongoose core, surprisingly) to Revelation Space (probably a lot of work) to Borderlands (less work than I initially thought).



Savage Worlds. If a fantasy or SF setting is not gritty enough for the unforgiving brutality of Runequest's limb-chopping combat or Traveller's astronaut-eating universe, or if I just want it fast-paced and with a minimum of fuss, Savage Worlds is a loyal little bastard. I also want to give its supers sub-system a try, because in my other games action felt definitely comic-booky, and I'm mostly interested in low- to mid-power-level supers anyway.

Your "golf bag" of games