I have, however, played a lot of other RP games I enjoyed, including Tunnels and Trolls, Chivalry and Sorcery and RuneQuest/HeroQuest. I prefer the latter. I think the world of Glorantha is magnificent. I love the mix of history and myth, the blend of ancient and dark age culture with well structured myth, and I still love playing in it, be it with RQ, HQ, Hott, Dragon Pass or any of the other manifestations.

But I’m definitely gonna give Og and Amber a good try. I am kind of a neanderthal myself, so the grunting bit won’t be hard, and I loved the Amber books.

Although I think there is the oversight of a game that blends tactical combat with the RPG.

I think GURPS and Hero may do this, but you mentioned them for other reasons.

Rolemaster and The Fantasy Trip (really different systems!) both have that tactics element that I really like.

My games were always a bit more Lovecraft inspired than Wild Wild West, but my players liked it that way

How about a new version of this review “Top X games that every GM should run”. IMO, Fudge would have to be at the top of that list because it gives the GM every chance to run everything the way they want it (a knife that definitely cuts both ways). I found Fudge and I was done, it was love at first sight, it was like Christmas and I got everything that had ever been on my GM wishlist.

Anyway, I can’t wait to try Og! and Burning Wheel despite the fact that it will ruin my happy medium RPG-geekdom.

-zerfinity
http://zerfinity.blogspot.com/

Remove from the list:
Burning Wheel (way overrated, more hype than reality)
Dread (replacing dice with a weak gimmick is not all that illiuminating really)

Also, I’m not sure you have to play HERO *and* GURPS – I’d say one or the other depending on the genre you like will give you the “hardcore rules” flavor sufficiently.

Definite good calls on CoC and Paranoia.

Games not on the list I would reccomend:
Twilight 2000: Reminisce about the Cold War. Stump your younger friends with such geographic oddities as “East Germany”, and “The Soviet Union”

Albedo: Mostly for fans of the seminal indy “furry” comic “Erma Felna EDF”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=1464199). A really sophisticated social interaction system is the centerpiece. If you’ve played Ironclaw (http://www.sanguine.com/Ironclaw/), this is one of it’s spiritual antecedents. One of the creators is an old gaming buddy I haven’t seen in years, (Hi Jason, its Lou!)

Fringeworthy: I’ve never actually played Fringeworthy, or any of its sister Tri-Tac Games. But I own it and love flipping through it. Excellent flavor.

Rolemaster or Arms Law: Back in the ’80s there were essentially 4 “major” systems. AD&D, Hero (mostly Champions), Runequest (and many other variants on Chaosium’s game engine like Stormbringer) and Rolemaster. In many ways the Arms Law variants were considered the “grown up” games of the time. Often needlessly complex, with an experience point system bordering on the insane (a GM could if he chose award experience points for the # of miles a character traveled each day). Still could be a real blast to play. I think every gamer should bet the chance to roll an “E” Critical.
Tolkien fans should see if they can find the Middle Earth RPG which uses a watered down Arms Law ruleset, actually a good intro to the basics of the system. Added bonus, the supplements for MERP are some of the best ever printed for any game. the maps are works of art.

I could go on and on, (i’ve been a gamer since 1978), but I’ll end on Toon: Just get it and play it. Great Convention game.

@Teabee – I think it’s fair to say that everyone’s list looks different — if you took something fundamental away from a game, good or bad, it belongs on a list like this.

I’ve played SR and DL, but not Alternity (though I’ve read some of the old Dark*Matter stuff); what grabbed you so much about it?

Okay, there’s a bummer that needs to be rectified!

Anyway. Yeah, I haven’t had nearly the opportunity to play around with that game as I’ve wanted. Still, it warms my heart, that one.