August 20: What is the most challenging but rewarding system have you learned?
I'm going to go way back to Heroes Unlimited by Palladium Books. I suppose that this would apply to any title by Palladium. I remember my brother and I went from TSR's Marvel Superheroes--a very easy game that I think still holds up--to Heroes and we didn't have a clue about the complexity. As a kid/teen I read through the book over and over again even when we weren't playing. We eventually bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness and After the bomb. After several moves I lost all of these books, and I wish I still had them. You could create practically and superhero that you wanted although I remember the book specifically shunning the guy with the 'S' on his chest and the 'god' characters, but if you tweaked things a bit you could still make similar characters.
If these questions have taught me one think it is that I am old. I played a "recent" game of heroes as an adult...realizing now that was nearly twenty years ago. The character creation was so complex and the powers at hand so detailed with minutiae that I'm sure none of my current group would want to play, but my friend made one great character:
In a time before mobile phones Sweet Daddy Sweet was one of the most successful pimps in all of Atlanta. A man with such a large workforce and clientele list couldn't afford to miss a single call, so he loaded himself down with multiple pagers to make sure he was available 24-7. Everything went smoothly until the fateful night when his entire roster of ladies decided to check in at once. Every single pager and beeper went off at the same time ravaging Sweet Daddy Sweet's body...and when he was unable to return the calls?....they all paged him again!! This led to him gaining all of the powers of vibration and he became the Vibrating Pimp. My own character was a homeless man with a sonic scream, super speed and flame powers. So he was just a crazy homeless man running and screaming while on fire. It was good stuff. I wish we could have played more of it.
About a year ago I played RIFTs for the first time. It was a one shot at a convention. I'm glad the GM provided prebuilds because the system sure didn't get any easier. Very good game though once you learn the rules.
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