Three Unpublished Role Playing Games I'd Love to See Printed in Print on Demand

Two Superhero and One Mech Game

Over the years, I’ve purchased and run a lot of role playing game, but I have a particular affection for Superhero role playing games. Over the years I’ve curated a collection that ranges from Superhero 2044 to games currently being play tested. I once had a desire to eventually own every super hero role playing game ever published, but I’ve abandoned that quest due to the outpouring of games that digital publishing enabled. That doesn’t mean I’m not still on the lookout for new and interesting games in the genre. I very much am, but between itch.io, DriveThruRPG, Lulu, Substack, and random websites with links to cool stuff it can be hard to even find games that are very much worth my time.

A perfect example of how difficult this can be is Plaid Rabbit's Modern Knights superhero role playing game. Have you never heard of Plaid Rabbit or Modern Knights? They were a part of the growing digital publishing industry in the late 90s and early 00s.

Much like Steve Jackson Games' digital Pyramid, there was a time when finding copies of Plaid Rabbit games was nigh impossible - especially if you are like me and seek to only acquire your games through legal means. Digital is great, but when material disappears it strangely really disappears. And this is in a format that should allow for truly deep catalog retention due to ease of "shelf space" etc. Thankfully both the Steve Jackson Games Pyramid Archive (at Warehouse 23) and Plaid Rabbit’s Modern Knights (via Electric Mulch on DriveThruRPG) have resurfaced in the digital marketplace. There are still other games completely lost to the ether.

As a collector, it’s one thing to worry about digital games that become vaporware. It’s quite another thing to lament over the game that was advertised but never saw the light of day. These are the games that really frustrate me. That’s because these were games that were far enough along in the development cycle that the publishers spend advertising dollars to promote them, or at minimum to offer them for solicitation, and yet no publicly available version exists. Like the second and third boxed sets to Pacesetter’s excellent Sandman role playing game, these games are either completely lost or exist as a digital file or random pile of papers in their creators’ homes.

Over the years I’ve begun creating a list of these games, a list of games I’d love to see released digitally or print on demand. Games that are lost to time, but need not be. While and updated version of Superhero 2044 might be on my list of games I wish people would design, these are already designed games that I wish people would release.

Today’s post is about two superhero role playing games and a “mech” game that I would have loved to see in print. I also hope that the publishers, one that is still in business and one that alternates between existing and not, see fit to at minimum offer these games digitally and regardless of where they are in development. These are games that I don’t need to be released in playable form, but they are games I’d at minimum like to explore for their ideas.

d20 Modern Spectaculars

Yes, you read the title of the first game correctly. Wizards of the Coast at one time planned to publish a superhero role playing game for there d20 Modern rules set. Wizards had already released a number of high quality products in the line and has made them available online for legacy play. The quality of these games was high enough that any skepticism I might have regarding the ability of the d20 System to smoothly handle super heroic action were dismissed by my enthusiasm. Here's the advertising blurb for d20 Modern Spectaculars:

New for July in WoTC 2005 calendar:

d20 Spectaculars: New rules for running a d20 Modern campaign in a super-heroic setting.

This new supplement for d20 Modern provides a campaign setting where player characters become the first super heroes. Characters begin with only a few tricks, but as they increase in level they gain fantastic powers. d20 Spectaculars provides everything players and Gamemasters need to participate in super-heroic adventures, including rules for super powers, power trees, new classes, and equipment. A full campaign setting with material and adventure seeds suitable for all levels of play is included.
by Mike Mearls, Bill Slavicsek, Owen K.C. Stephens; 160 pages, $29.95

Let me repeat those designer names again. Mike Mearls (who's work on D&D was excellent), Bill Slavicsek (Paranoia, Star Wars, D&D, Pokemon Jr.), and Owen K.C. Stephens (a designer who can make the d20/3.x/Pathfinder systems do essentially anything) were the designers on the project. Stephens has been as open as an NDA allows on the subject, but he has made it clear that the designers were paid and treated well even though this product was cancelled. I desperately wish that Hasbro would devote like 60 hours of development to finish the manuscript and put it up on their d20 Modern page. That's all I ask...that or a super secret copy of the unpublished manuscript which I will put into a steel vault and never mention to anyone.

If not Hasbro, then maybe Evil Genius will release an Everyday Heroes version of the game. Then again, their focus on licensed games seems to have had the effect that always has on smaller publishers.

Supra-Sentinels

On the opposite end of the "graphic design" and "modern mechanics" spectrum is Judges Guild's never released Supra-Sentinels role playing game. The game would have likely been published in 1983 if Judges Guild hadn't gone out of business. Based on the publisher, the art, and the advertisements, this game would have been an interesting glimpse into what a late stage old school superhero role playing game would have looked like mechanically.

There was some talk by the designers of the game back in 2014 on rpg collector message boards that there was some interest in seeing this game published. Given Judges Guild's stuttering rebirth in the early 00s, followed by their recent Kickstarter and cooperation with Goodman Games, followed by their later decline it seems like any possibility of it seeing the light of day is gone. Given that Goodman Games had publishing old Judges Guild Journals and modules hardback format without "updating," I would have loved to see them give Supra-Sentinels a similar treatment. Sadly, Goodman Games and Judge’s Guild have parted company acrimoniously so that looks unlikely.

Proton Fire

Another game lost to collectors was 1985’s “most exciting role playing game that never came to be,” TSR’s Proton Fire. The game was far enough in development in order to be solicited to retailers and advertised in TSR’s annual catalog, but it never got published. Like d20 Spectaculars it is one of those games that may have been pretty far down the development pipeline and a skeleton of the game might exist in a box somewhere.

Though the game was never released, it was playtested and heavily promoted. In issue 99 of Dragon Magazine, the Ares section of the magazine included a feature article by Michael Breault discussing the background of the game on pages 76 and 78. You can find copies of those pages around the internet, and they don’t include any mechanics, so I won’t include them here. I will say though that if TSR had managed to release this game, they would have provided some pretty serious competition for FASA’s Battledroids (now Battletech) game.

Battledroids came out in 1984 and was still gaining a fan base. Looking at the proposed materials for Proton Fire, it looks like it would have been more of an RPG than early Battletech and that would have made for an interesting market dynamic. Which would perform better, a tactical miniatures game or a role playing game? We'll never know, but I would love to see the Proton Fire rules if they ever surface.

Conclusion

I honestly don't know what the market outside of "me" looks like for these products or games like them, but I would purchase them in a heart beat. I'd even try to get my players to play them for a spell.

Then again, if I could get reliable information on the actual copyright status of Superhero 2044 and who owns the rights, I'd love to see if the owner would be interested in doing a 3rd edition of Superhero 2044 with some rules editions by Wayne Shaw. The 2nd edition was designed by Steve Perrin for a Kickstarter that has yet to deliver. Since I’ve talked with the person who ran that Kickstarter, and since Gareth Skarka’s Far West was finally released, I do think the 2nd Edition of Superhero 2044 will eventually see the light of day. It’s currently in the “the creator wants to make sure it’s perfect” phase of late delivery and needs to hit the “just get it out” phase.

The 2nd Edition of Superhero 2044 is very different from the original though (as a backer I got a playtest copy when Steve Perrin was still alive) and what I’m talking about for a 3rd Edition is a little different.

The edition I’d like to produce would include excerpts from the interview I did with Wayne Shaw and discuss the the influence that Superhero 2044 had on the superhero game genre. Speaking of which, it's time for me to see if I can find the combat tutorial I put together for Superhero 2044. That would serve as a good foundation for a retroclone at minimum.