How to Select an RPG (A Chart)

54 Comments on “How to Select an RPG (A Chart)”

1. This is classic! I truly laughed out loud at some of the questions and results.

2. Genius! 😀

3. Awesome. 🙂

4. Star Frontiers is missing, but a very cool diagram, nonetheless. 🙂

5. I’d love to add it. Where would you put it and what condition would you add?

6. I would think there should be a place for Savage Worlds, or at least Deadlands on the list. Even without, this chart is amazing! Nice job! I so want to hand this out to my gaming group the next time we meet.

7. Shouldn’t Star War SAGA be purple like the other far future sci fi games?

8. I feel that L5R should be added, but I’m not certain where it would fit into this diagram…

9. A few ideas:

   You might want to differentiate between forgeite new-skool, big-brand new-skool, and old skool games. Right, like I care less what dice the game uses and care more about whether or not narrative mechanics play a huge role in the game. Similarly, dice pool vs. single roll is more useful for me than d6 vs. d10.

   I’d add All Flesh Must Be Eaten to the undead bit. Def. my favorite zombie game. Zombei Diaries might also be a good one, more narrativy compared to All Flesh’s hardcore simulationyness.

   Savage Worlds should probably also be added to the non-genre.

10. @Aaron B: Savage Frontiers on the chart should be Savage Worlds. I’ll get it corrected in the next update. I must have added that one late at night.
    @MisterBen: Yep, it should. It will be fixed in the next update.
    @Lobster: I agree… I think I’ve got an idea of where to add it.
    @Adrian: I’ll ponder those ideas and see what changes result.

11. No Cyberpunk 2020? It’s just a bit more Cyberpunk than Shadowrun :p

12. I like this chart. The only complaint I’ve heard is that some people can’t find the start point quickly. Perhaps you should write “START” on it.

13. Odd that you didn’t include 40K but you included Warhammer.

14. I’ll see where I can add warhammer 40k in the next revision.

15. Chart took me to Fudge… not a system I’d care to play. Though I like Fate games well enough, such as Spirit of the Century. I can’t spot any games on your chart that I’d care to play, personally. Suggestions of games to add? Sure. How about Sorcerer or Dogs in the Vineyard or Apocalypse World or Universalis or Primetime Adventures or Burning Wheel or Burning Empires or Mouse Guard or In a Wicked Age or Dresden Files or shock: social science fiction or Dirty World or Don’t Rest your Head or Trollbabe or msg?

    What does “open” game mean?

16. I officially sanction “Over the Edge” as the preferred system of the Church of the Subgenius.

17. @Dave: I think you like the artsy kind of RPGs rather than the mainstream type of RPG. I’ve played some of those. I enjoyed Mouse Guard especially.

18. WH40K RPGs seem to big sellers. Not including them is heresy.

19. Love it. Great work.

20. Erm, the diamond is green, not red. It’s a great work anyway!

21. It was red in an earlier version… I’ve corrected the text, thanks!

22. Do you like your high fantasy really, really high to start or do you like to build up to it?

    Exalted (otherwise D&D)

23. Is there a reason for the arrow from World of Darkness to Traveller? It seems to be the only direct link between two games.

24. Thanks for noticing that. The link between WoD and Traveller was a mistake.

25. No Earthdawn…

26. Looks good, but with Hackmaster 4ed was made in part to be humors but the new Hackmaster Basic is made to be a very serious game with a OD&D feel.

27. General reply: I’m open to additions… but please try to make more specific suggestions for where a game should go (what condition/test to add) don’t just mention a game. Also, it would be impossible to add every game, so some that aren’t popular or fill a niche won’t be included.

28. I’d like to see Tunnels & Trolls added to the list. It’s still in print over 35 years later.

29. @tenkar: added it! Let me know if you have a better place for it in mind.

30. Umm, Exalted was White Wolf’s #2 seller after Vampire the Masquerade when it was first published and is now neck and neck with Vampire the Requiem. The corebooks have probably sold in the hundreds of thousands which is more than some of these niche games you have in your chart. And it has an Amazon sales rank of #23,558.

    So again, fantasy -> do you like to be powerful in the beginning or do you like to be a one hit die weenie who eventually builds up to epic power.

    Powerful in the beginning -> Exalted
    Build up -> other fantasy games

31. Umm, D&D 3/3.5/4 can require as many mini’s as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, or not.

    If you’re a good enough GM, you don’t need to buy mini’s for the enemies. If you do require mini’s for the combats, well, you don’t need them, tokens, pieces of paper/card with the names of the monsters written on them work, as do Tiny Teddy’s (eat the dead NPC’s).

32. re: Warhammer & minis: remember, it is partly a joke. That said, it seems minis are more a part of their revenue business plan than most other game companies. (Excepting those that do cheap/clicky pre-painted minis.)

33. This chart is wonderful!

    Note a typo – “Cthulhu” seems to be missing the extra “h.”

34. Thanks for this flashback to my youth! Nothing was more fun for me than the Xmas I got my Boot Hill game. I wore that baby out! All my other mid eighty faves made it too – Gangbusters and of course Top Secret.

    This chart jsut validated years of random web surfing! cheers

35. Gurps: Transhuman Space

    It should appear as an option off of the diamond “Gothic, Space Opera or Post Apocalyptic”. Add the option “hard science” and then an arrow to a new rectangle for “Gurps: Transhuman Space”.

    AV

36. First, this is beautiful.

    Additions:
    Immortal…In Humor, Spies, or Cyberpunk, add “or godlings with amnesia”
    Chivalry and Sorcery…maybe somewhere near Rolemaster, qualifiers might include “Roll for alignment on a 20-point scale?” or “Magic system derived from historical alchemy texts?” or even “Roll for PC’s astrological forecast during character generation?”

37. Pendragon! (King Arthur Pendragon)
    Somewhere in Low fantasy>old school>not too much skills>do you want to play a medieval dynasty? or some such question.

38. Two I can think of off the top of my head are Silhouette and the Stargate rpg that uses the D&D 3.0 rules. I’ve got a Wheel of Time rpg book that uses 3.0 rules too; that’d be somewhere under high fantasy.

39. Awesome work!
    Any chance of seeing this implemented as a quiz in Dragon Warrior/Quest format?
    (not sure if that is where it originated)
    That way we don’t have to navigate as much.
    (But again, the map is VERY nice, just speaking from a utility standpoint)

40. I’d like to see REIGN (and maybe a couple other ORE games) represented. Awesome work, great questions (laughed at a couple) and well organized.

41. Aww, no Paranoia? It’s been around since ’84

42. @Anthony Valterra: GURPS Transhuman Space: good idea. I think GURPS is still a little underrepresented although I certainly shouldn’t included every add-on.

    @El Hefe: I’m not sure Immortal became popular enough or was different enough. There are a few other games on the chart already which cover that territory. I’ll have to look up more on Chivalry and Sorcery.

    @Linorah: Not familiar with “Silhouette.” I have Fringeworthy on the list, which is what Stargate the movie and show are based. 🙂 (That’s partly a joke… I think there was a lawsuit over that and I’m not sure how that ended.)

    @Suloyapla: the inspiration was a chart to pick an ACC college team to support. That was inspired by a chart to find a bar in New Orleans

    @john Doom: Paranoia has been there since the first version. Look a little closer. It was hard for me to say if it was science fiction or near present. With computers these days I went with near present.

43. Would love to put this in our program book (with credits). May I have permission?

44. @Michele: email sent.

45. I really like this, though like a poster above, I quibble with the conflation of the Warhammer Fantasy RPG with the Warhammer miniature game, especially since the Warhammer stores don’t sell the RPG anymore (it’s out of print, and has been replaced by a bizarre Fantasy Flight hybrid thing). I do get your point about the humor aspect, and I don’t know that this admitted minutiae (in the grand scheme of RPGs) that deserves screen space, but WFRP is one of my favorite systems and I’ve always thought it deserved more attention than it got.

46. This is a thing of beauty.

    Things I’d suggest changing:

    GURPS requiring more math than HERO? While actually true in play, it’s certainly against the well-known stereotypes.

    Fantasy HERO vs. Fantasy Hero is a subtle distinction for most people. Maybe some other verbiage?

    Maybe add to the genre-independent tree “one-off or experiemental genre” like Monsters and Other Childish Things, Low Life and other of the strange Savage Worlds settings, Lucha Libre HERO, etc.

    Actually, that’s an idea: a “grab bag” in each genre for “I’m bored with the major brands, what’s different in the genre?” to include a few specific settings for the configurable systems (Savage Worlds, ORE, HERO, GURPS, etc.) No need to make a distinction between them, since you’re just going to play them once anyway.

    Genre mixes would be a nice companion table. “Mideaeval Fantasy/Humor” -> Discworld for GURPS, etc. That would also get Mage separated from the “I’m a vampire! I’m a werewolf!” parts of WoD

    Where is Toon?!?!

    There are three charts mixed here: choosing a version of a major mechanic (which d20-like is its own whole chart spread throughout, for example), choosing between “generic” systems (which could include a few other good ones if broken out), and choosing an implementation of the “feel” of a genre (skill-based, balance-focused, etc.)

    So many distinctions between versions; should Paranoia and Paranoia “not XP” be separated?

    Pulp seems to be getting dissed. Where is my beloved Danger International?

    …And the fact that the chart brings up so many good questions is a sure sign of value. Great job. Will problebly wind up next to the geek hierarchy in the annals of something or another.

47. Fun chart.

    I would query putting WFRP as the yes option from Dice pools question as it’s percentile roll based, 3rd ed is the dice pool based one, custom dice no less.

    Also, no Heroquest? And BRP tucked away through all those Gygaxian options? I would have thought you could get to it through the “genreless” set plus no levels, classes or escalating hit points.

    Still nice work.

48. Kult, Castle Falkenstein, Witchcraft, Godlike, Wild Talents, etc…

49. Interesting, but it is missing my favorite Fantasy RPG. Exalted by White Wolf. Think World of Darkness game system meets D&D with an anime feel.

    One of the most developed game worlds I’ve ever seen and the comics in every book are extremely amusing. The novels are pretty good reads as well.

50. Awesome work!

    For me, GURPS is *both* a complicated system and a relatively simple one. If you don’t get into vehicles or advanced combat optional rules, then chargen and play don’t take any longer than your average point-buy RPG. (But if you do, then yes, keep that calculator handy every round…) In contrast, it’s difficult to pare HERO down to a “Lite” version–you *must* know some algebra to play it.

    BESM is a multi-genre RPG, not just limited to mecha. (Personally, I don’t play mecha games, but *love* BESM for fantasy stuff.) I’m just not sure where the best place to move/copy it would be. Maybe “Genre shouldn’t matter–as long as it’s anime”? 😉

    A few new suggestions:

    1. A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying (SIFRP). Probably off the same new school branch as Conan?

    2. Dragon Age RPG. (I don’t know anything about the system or setting, though.)

    3.Macho Women With Guns. Probably off the same humor branch as Paranoia?

    4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel/Army of Darkness (Cinematic Unisystem): Off of Like Undead?

    5. 7th Sea. Somewhere in High Fantasy/General.

    6. Faery’s Tale. Somewhere in Medieval Fantasy.