- Company: BTRC (USA)
- Authors: Greg Porter
- First publication: ???
- Theme: Macho Women with Guns is reverse-sexist and blatantly chauvanist role-playing taken to its obvious limit. Everyone has to be busty babes with guns, and the major role-playing goal is to find creative new ways to blow up the established order of things.
- Homepage: http://members.aol.com/btrc/
- Homepage (Unofficial): Macho Woman Web Page
- See Robotech.
MAELSTROM
The turbulent role-playing game of thieves, rogues,
magick and mayhem
- Company: Penguin Book (UK)
- Authors: Alexander Scott
- First publication: 1984
- Theme: Historic set in the XVIth century England.
MAELSTROM
Storytelling
- Company: Hubris Games (USA)
- Authors: Christian Aldridge, Seth Lindberg
- First publication: 1998
- Genre: Renaissance fantasy
- Theme:
"Before the great Equinox, there was an Empire. In the
Empire, all things were good. The world didn't shift
around, and the Shrikes were far away. There were
great machines and ships that flew in the sky. There
was the Law, and there was the Word. The storm was
tamed, you see, and the Empire brought the whole world
together with their obelisks and their roads."
"What happened to it, uncle?"
"It's gone, son. It wasn't strong enough. In the end, the storm tore it apart at the seams, and now all the world is broken in little pieces, all seperate and beautiful.
Until the storm comes, and washes the world away."
This is a game of pseudo-science, Leonardan magic and gunpowder set in a different reality. A rich and changing world, where reality is not all it seems, and dreams hold open a door to another world. - Homepage: http://www.hubris-games.com
- Company: White Wolf (USA)
- Authors: Phil Brucato, Stephan Wieck, Andrew Greenberg
- First publication: 1994
- Number of editions: 2
- Genre: Dark modern fantasy game
- Theme: Yours is the power of reality! The third game in the Storyteller Series delves into a world of mystery and awesome conflict, where modern wizards wage a battle for reality itself. Against the shadowy Gothic-Punk backdrop, mages with vision, purpose and mystick power strive to force back the hand of darkness and the rigid will of the Technocracy. Sinister Nephandi, wild Marauders, implacable Technomancers and the enigmatic Umbrood oppose your every step, but the ultimate enemy in this War for worldwide Ascension is within. Do you control your power, or does it control you?
- Homepage: http://www.white-wolf.com/
- Notes: Origins Awards for Best RPG 1995
MALEFICES
Le jeu de role qui sent le soufre
- Company: Jeux Descartes (France)
- Authors: Michel Gaudo, Guillaume Rohmer
- First publication: 1985
- Genre: Gothic horror at the end of the nineteenth century
- Design: Box
- Supplements: ** (screen, adventures, sourcebooks)
- Company: TSR (USA)
- Authors: Jeff Grubb
- First publication: 1984
- Theme: Superhero in the Marvel comic books universe, especially suited for beginners.
- Notes: A more complex game was released in 1986 under the name of Advanced Marvel Super Heroes.
MECHWARRIOR
The Battletech Role Playing Game
- Company: FASA (USA)
- Authors: FASA staff
- First publication: 1985
- Theme: MechWarrior is the roleplaying supplement for FASA's
succesful Battle Tech robots tactical wargame.
Strap yourself into the ultimate suit of armor -- the BattleMech: thirty feet tall and weighing up to a hundred tons. This humanoid engine of destruction you control is a walking arsenal with enough firepower to level a city. The MechWarrior RPG takes you into the world of the 31st century, where war has become a way of life, and great empires and tiny factions struggle among themselves for control of humankind. Your MechWarrior fights battles to take a planet or lose an empire.
- Company: Casus Belli (France)
- Authors: Didier Guiserix, Michel Brassinne
- First publication: 1984
- Number of editions: 3
- Genre: Time travel, alternative worlds
- Theme: a time-travel/ alternative worlds game published by the most famous French RPG magazine. Thanks to its magazine format, it's one of the most bought game in France.
MEGATRAVELLER
- See Traveller.
- Company: R. Talsorian Games (USA)
- Authors: Mike Pondsmith, Mike Jones
- First publication: 1985
- Genre: Generic mecha
- Theme:
The invaders' most terrible weapon was not their cloned warriors, but the
machines they commanded. Titanic armored humanoids, wielding
city-vaporizing cannon and beam swords, churned out by the aliens' asteroid
factories in an unending flood.
When the invasion came it was swift and savage. We barely had a chance. But a chance was all we needed. Using captured alien mecha-tech we have built our own fleet to repel their assault. A fleet crewed by a force of the best and brightest pilots, mecha-jocks, and techs our battered world can raise. Most are young and barely trained, but they are our last hope...
- Company: West End Games (USA)
- Authors: George Strayton, Nikola Vrtis
- First publication: 1997
- Genre: UFOs
- Theme: Adaptaton of the movie, a secret agency is keeping the alien presence on Earth a secret.
- Note: Uses the D6 game system.
- Company: Fantasy Games Unlimited (USA)
- Authors: Paul D. Baader, Walter Mark, Lawrence Sangee
- First publication: 1981
- Genre: Military
- Design: Box
- Complexity: Medium
- Company: TSR (USA)
- Authors: ???
- First publication: 1976
- Genre: Sci-Fi
- Theme: The first Sci-Fi rpg, in this game players wandered in a spaceship inhabited by strange creatures. A sort of space D&D.
- Notes: In the 1990's a new edition using Amazing Engine was released.
- Company: Iron Crown Enterprises (USA)
- Authors: S. Coleman Charlton
- First publication: 1984
- Genre: Heroic fantasy based on the famous Tolkien's books
- Theme: MERP is set in Middle-Earth, the realm of J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Typically adventures take place in about the year 1640 of the Third Age. This is before Sauron had re-established himself at Dol Guldur in Mirkwood and the Dwarves had awakened the Balrog in Moria. The One Ring is still being kept in dark solitude by Gollum; it will be another thirteen hundred before the free peoples of Middle-Earth fight the Dark Lord for it.
- Complexity: High
- Design: Box (1st edition), hardcover
- Homepage: http://www.ironcrown.com/
- Notes: Uses a lighter version of Rolemaster system.
MIDGARD
Das Fantasy-Rollenspiel
- Company: Klee-Spiele GmbH, Pegasus Press (Germany)
- Authors: J. Franke
- First publication: 1981
- Genre: Heroic fantasy
- Theme:
Somewhere in the far, unknown depths of time and space a fantastic world
exists. It is completely strange and nevertheless in strange way familiarly
with Earth. In this world live giants and dragons, elfes and dwarves. The magic
is everywhere. It is a world of adventures and legends. It is the world of Midgard.
Midgard is set in a classical fantasy background in the spirit of Tolkien's Lords of the rings or Howard's Conan. - Design: Box, softcover
- Supplements: **** (sourcebooks, adventures)
- Company: Tag Industries (USA)
- Authors: Timothy R. Green
- First publication: 1985
- Genre: Sci-Fi
- Theme: Based on the eponym Jack L. Chalker's novels serie.
- Complexity: Medium
- Design: Box
- Supplements: None
- Company: Sans Peur et Sans Reproche (France)
- Authors: Benoit Clerc
- First publication: 1995
- Genre: Historic medieval rpg set in the crusades times.
- Company: Chameleon Eclectic (USA)
- Authors: Charles Ryan
- First publication: 1992
- Number of editions: 2
- Genre: Technothriller
- Theme: Millennium's End is set against a world a lot like our own, on a bad news day. It's not a dark future--it's the near-present, at dusk. A technothriller game, Millennium's End compares to movies like Die Hard, Rising Sun, La Femme Nikita, and Patriot Games, but with a harder, more desperate edge. Technothrillers are popular fare with gamers, and Millennium's End lives up to the genre with emphasis on complicated, engaging plots, fast-paced action, and realistic high-technology.
- Design: Softcover
- Supplements: ** (screen, adventures, sourcebooks, miniatures)
- Homepage: http://www.chameleon-eclectic.com/
- Company: Gallimard (France)
- Authors: ???
- First publication: 1995
- Theme: Sci-Fi
- Design: Paperback
- Complexity: Low
- Supplements: * (world books)
- Notes: Each 4 books is based on a Sci-Fi novel.
- Company: Timeline Ltd (USA)
- Authors: Kevin Dockery, Robet Sadler, Richard Tucholka
- First publication: 1980
- Genre: Military post apocalyptic
- Theme: Teams of volunteers were trained together, cryogenically frozen, and later placed in protective bunkers known as boltholes. These bunkers allow the teams to survive the Third World War. After the war was fought, the teams were awoken by the command center of the Morrow Project to rebuild the new world.
- Company: Peregrine (Canada)
- Authors: Kevin Davies & David Brown
- First publication: 1995
- Genre: Humourous fantasy
- Theme:
It seemed like the perfect place to launch a financial
empire. So thought Sean Murphy, space trader and opportunist,
just before his spaceship crashed into the Sea of Tranquility.
Murphy quickly learned what scores of other unexpected settlers
had learned before him: that this most multi-cultural of planets
doesn't intend to be controlled by anybody - or anything.
Murphy's World, as it has come to be known, is actually the Land of Myth, Faerie, the Underworld of popular folklore and dreams. It is the place where many of the supernatural beings worshiped as deities on Earth (and other places) reside. Most however, are much like Murphy - reluctant alien immigrants.
Sean Murphy didn't take long to notice that on or anywhere near the planet things rarely seem to occur as planned or expected. However, Murphy's World itself is not actually responsible; the fault lies with its sun, Ludo. The strange distorting energies with which this amber orb assaults the little planet effectively dispels any sense of predictability regarding natural laws or supernatural forces. Additionally, Murphy's World happens to be in possession of an extensive but somewhat faulty network of dimension doorways, leading from just about anywhere to Murphy's World, through which many of the inhabitants have often unknowingly arrived. Thus new arrivals can pop up (in, or down) anywhere, confused and embarrassed, having simply made a wrong turn - yearning to return from whence they came. The trouble is, spaceships usually crash upon entering the atmosphere, and return gateways are invisible until discovered.
If you've ever thought that your campaign needed a break from the serious business of forging empires and personal fortunes, or if you're a GM who is tired of PCs who breeze through scenarios which have taken hours to prepare, this is just the thing for you. Murphy's World is a silly place where you can roleplay light-hearted adventures. It also provides an assortment of natural laws that allow you to have as much fun as the players.
Murphy's World is a generic product designed to be used with any existing roleplay system of rules and characters; you don't have to generate a new Player Character to use Murphy's World.
This book provides all that you'll need: a complete world with maps and detailed descriptions of geography and culture, a description of the natural Murphy's Laws of the planet, and wacky magic rules that you may use to torment anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves on Murphy's World. - Homepage: http://home.ican.net/~peregrine/
- Company: Aventyrspel (Sweden)
- Authors: Mikael Peterson, Gunilla Jonsson
- First publication: 1984
- Genre: Post apocalyptic
- Theme: The characters are descendants of survivors of wars and a great plague, in a future feudal Scandinavia that is slowly rebuilding.
- Design: Box
- Supplements: ** (adventures, sourcebooks, campaign)
- Company: Target Games (Sweden)
- Authors: ???
- First publication: ???
- Theme: In a distant future, on the tenth planet of the solar system, something awakens and menaces humanity. A military Sci-Fi game that will please Warhammer 40K fans.
- Homepage: http://www.target.se