Best Friends

A Role-Playing Game About Girlfriends and All Their Petty Hatreds
(First Edition)
Modern (social)
Self Published
2005
Complexity: 1

Best Friends is a game about friendships between women, or rather the type of catty jealousy-riddled friendships between women that you may see in Archie comics or other pop-culture references of which I am unaware. But can you really base an entire game around the concept of petty jealousy? I guess you’ll have to read on to find out.
(yes, excellent teaser, 5/5)

Vice Squad

Eighties Police Adventures
Retro (crime)
Politically Incorrect Games
2003
Complexity: 3

Vice Squad is a game based on dumb exciting police movies and shows of the 1980s—think Beverly Hills Cop or Miami Vice… or Cop Rock if you like singing— intended for short low-prep games. It’s also another one of those fairly minimal reskins of a publisher’s house system, which we have recently seen can be a lazily-made half-assed mess. But maybe this time it’ll be different.

Exosuit A-OK

Near Future (anime, science fiction)
Deep7
2004
Complexity: 2

Exosuit A-OK is a game based on “real robot” anime, and if you understand what I’m talking about you’re probably a nerd. Well I guess since you’re already reading a blog specializing in obscure tabletop role-playing game reviews that was already a distinct possibility.

The Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game and Resource Book

Join me as I review The Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game and Resource Book, which is exactly what it sounds like, a Sailor Moon reference book with an RPG in it.

Lost in the Fantasy World

Medieval (fantasy)
Old Skull Publishing
2019
Complexity: 1

Lost in the Fantasy World is a role-playing game loosely based on a cartoon, loosely based on a role-playing game. And if that sounds weird, remember that there is a role-playing game unofficially based on an anime, based on a series of novels, based on transcripts of a role-playing game.

Time Claw

Various (science fiction) [fan game, supplement]
Self Published
2001
Complexity: 2

Time Claw is something I came across while researching Ironcaw. It’s also a Doctor Who fan game that used the system from Ironclaw. This game comes from an interesting point in the Doctor Who fandom, the Internet was now making communication and sharing of information incredibly easy. But it was also a time twelve years since the end of the series, and five years since the movie, and still two years away from Scream of the Shalka—or four years away from the series revival if you want to pretend Shalka didn’t exist.

Ironclaw

Join me as I review Ironclaw, an anthropomorphic fantasy role-playing game. A game that has something to offer be you furry or fleshy.