The 90s were a good decade for tabletop RPGs. With brilliant games like 7th Sea, Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Awakening and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the 90s introduced story RPGs that took the medium to places D&D couldn’t or couldn’t get to. Games in the 90s got bolder and brought out the medium. The plain paper pages and the cut-and-paste of the 1980s gave way to bright color graphics and glossy pages.
However, many TTRPGs that came about in the 90s didn’t hold up, much less went out on their own terms. These games tried to build a legacy, and some succeeded. For others, time took its toll. They ended up losing their followers, their creators, or in the case of games like Star Wars and Star Trektheir license.
10 Armored Trooper VOTOMS Tried To Ride The Anime Trend
In the late 90s, mecha anime was big business on TV. With the newfound popularity of giant robot anime, R. Talsorian Games scored a hit by licensing the hit anime series chewing gum crisis for their new universal system, Fuzion.
To recapture this magic, R. Talsorian Games turned to Nippon Sunrise, the production company responsible for: Mobile suit Gundamand a license for another classic series: Armored Trooper VOTOMS. While chewing gum crisis did well enough to receive a second book, Before and after, VOTOMS and the bleak war themes remained a small niche product.
9 Amber Diceless is sold out
The brainchild of the late Erick Wujcik, Amber was a role-playing game based on a new diceless RPG engine. Wujcik’s play encompassed the vast novel world of writer Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Ambermainly about the Corwin Saga.
Amber began to fade after Erick Wujcik was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on December 21, 2007. Communicating through his friend and longtime collaborator, Palladium Books owner Kevin Siembieda, Wujcik kept the community informed about his health. Wujcik passed away on June 7, 2008. At GenCon 2008, Wujcik received the first Lifetime Achievement ENNIE Award.
8 Changeling: the dream could not communicate its dream
exchanger was artistically beautiful. It became one of the first role-playing games to use full color in its interior artwork after two decades of games mainly using black and white art, with limited use of color plates.
A game mainly about the end of childhood and the loss of innocence, Changeling: The Dreaming was a wonderful experiment, but it ultimately failed. It saw a brief return in 2007 Changeling: The Lostbut it was never as successful as its peers.
7 Big eyes, small mouth lost
Canadian publisher Guardians of Order’s debut game, big eyes small mouth, was a rules-lite, narrative anime RPG. Unlike R. Talsorian’s high-crunch Interlock and Fuzion systems, BESM kept the focus on character and interaction.
A downturn in Canadian investment markets in the late 1990s and early 2000s led to Big eyes, small mouththe ultimate downfall. After several investments from owner Mark MacKinnon started to fail, Guardians of Order closed their doors in 2006. big eyes small mouth finally got a revival in 2019.
6 Earthdawn was a high fantasy version of Shadowrun
Represents a “hidden history” type setting, much like JRR Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, the world of Earthdawn presented an alternate history that was suggested to be set on a distant past Earth. With its intimate connection to urban-fantasy cyberpunk RPG shadow run and his world, Earthdawn seemed like a bull’s eye.
While Earthdawn was fairly popular and survived as a line until FASA folded in 2001, the game’s following dwindling in the following years. It remains to be seen whether the re-emergence of FASA Games and the publication of a 4th edition of Earthdawn will make the game popular again.
5 Lord of the Rings Adventure Game was a revision of another game
Lord of the Rings adventure game was based on the early Middle Earth Role Play. For comparison, Lord of the Rings adventure game was somewhat simplified, intended as a stepping stone for new players to approach the complex system.
Although it was a popular game for its time, the game’s license expired in 1999 and Tolkien Enterprises did not renew it. The company later teamed up with Decipher, Inc., a respected card game manufacturer, to reinterpret it Lord of the Rings as a role play.
4 Legacy: War Of Ages Wasn’t The Right One
In the 1990s, the TV series Highlander, based on the cult film, had a short popular card game for collectors. Beautifully decorated with pictures from the TV show, the card game allowed players to simulate sword duels between immortal warriors. One thing it didn’t have was a role-playing game on the table.
Indie publisher Black Gate Publishing stepped into this hole in 1993 with its RPG Legacy: War of Ages. Signs of both Highlander and new sensation Vampire: The Masquerade, Legacy too many annoying functions. The resulting game had little to offer compared to the free internet World of Darkness fan supplement Highlander: The Gathering.
3 Star Trek Didn’t Help Last Unicorn Games Live Long And Prosper
The Star Trek role-playing license rarely created lucrative opportunities that would imply the parent show’s intoxicating pedigree. Must work with a protective parent company, Star Trek games were often short-lived.
The revered Last Unicorn Star Trek game seemed destined for longevity. The company, formerly known for its Aria: Song of Songs of the Monomythlost the license in early 2000 before work got to it Star Trek Voyager setting book. Towards the end of that year, Wizards of the Coast bought its assets.
2 The classic Star Wars RPG didn’t survive
After a well-received first edition in 1987, the definitive second edition is now available Star Wars Role Playing released by West End Games in 1992 to great acclaim. For five years, the game seemed untouchable, leading to the revival of the Star Wars franchisee.
The Star Wars franchise known to the world today grew out of the grueling West End Games conservation work from 1987 to 1998 Star Wars fantasy, however, could not survive reality. In 1998, the game company’s owner, Bucci Shoe Group, filed for bankruptcy and liquidated the game studio, ending one of the most successful lines of games in the history of the hobby.
1 FUDGE Inspired but not sustained
The FUDGE RPG was the first tabletop roleplaying game designed by and for the internet. Developed on the USENET newsgroup rec.games.design, the base game was published by Steffan O’Sullivan in 1992 before going to print in 1995. FUDGE was used as a game engine for independent RPG projects and became a major inspiration for the game’s 1990s design explosion.
As the underlying engine for the popular role-playing game of the 21st century Lot, fudge exists in many modern RPGs. However, the game itself has already sold out before the millennium. It remains available as a free PDF download, inspiring its successor to do the same. Like The Velvet Underground, few people played fudgebut many who did went on to become game designers.
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