Never underestimate the power of a 20+ year old RPG.

I had a good chuckle recently because a friend of mine recently got into a game called Over the Edge by Jonathan Tweet. I found it funny because I thought it would be cool to dig out my old copy and look it over again. I picked it up at a convention many years ago because it looked cool. I was discussing it with my friend and turns out this game is in its third edition.

I blushed because my copy is first edition. I hadn’t pulled it up in a long time. It was in a crate with Khaotic, Fringeworthy, Gatecrasher, World of Synnabar, Skyrealms of Jorune, and Nexus. (Editor’s note- Sorry for the lack of links on these.) I used to loot dollar bins and silent auctions at conventions for lesser known RPGs.

Old RPGs are a treasure trove of ideas.

I know I’ve said this before. Old games are a wealth of ideas for campaigns and settings with current systems. Hidden Invasion and Don’t Look Back: Terror is Never Far Behind were excellent horror games. So is Chill. (I have the original box and adventures.) I’m actually contemplating borrowing from all of the above for a FATE horror game. Lots of good X Files type source material there.

Skyrealms of Jorune is such an odd duck of a game. I’ll post a review someday. It’s just so different than pretty much every other game out there. You practically have to learn a new language just to run the thing. But it also has the most unique and endearing campaign world I think I’ve ever seen. Mining it for data is fun, but challenging because of its freakishly intricate world.

Reskinning old modules can save your game night.

I’ve gotten a ton of mileage from old Champions, DC Heroes and Marvel Superheroes modules in my ICONS game. My supers game world is similar to the Marvel/DC Amalgam universe with some exceptions. Pilfering from classics such as All This and World War Two, The Island of Dr Destroyer, as well as The Doomsday Program has saved several game nights.

Supers games are easy to convert to almost any system. Old D&D modules are good between editions and just about any fantasy genre game you’d ever want to run with a few minor tweaks. For everything else, I’m grateful for Fudge, FATE and Open Legends, to name a few solid generic RPG systems. It’s even possible to slip old WEG Star Wars adventures into other games minus any references to Star Wars canon.

Basically, never underestimate the power of the old modules at Half Price Books or at any gaming convention. Just because a system is old and out of date by a couple of decades, doesn’t mean it’s not useful. I firmly advocate that every GM/DM out there should probably have a toolkit including at least one older module.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great week. Take care.