Too Many New RPG's

So what happens when a couple of things you Kickstarted come to fruition around the same time that the FLGS in town has a fire sale and closes?  You get way too many new RPG's all at once.  Right now my nightstand is crowded with them, and I haven't even cracked open some of them yet.  What's on the reading pile?

Evil Hat did a Dresden Files RPG using a proto-version of their FATE rules, and have now circled back to do another using their Fate Accelerated rules.  I got this one as a pdf and hardcover via Kickstarter, and it's a good looking book (although one page was crunched and torn when I received it, it wasn't hard to repair).  I know the source material, loved the TV show even more, and know FATE, so this one might be interesting to get into.

Another Kickstarter come to fruition, Ninja High School uses the old d6 West End Games system (best known for their 1st and 2nd Edition Star Wars rules) to portray the American manga series from Antarctic Press.  I will confess to being more familiar with Antarctic Press' other major series, Gold Digger by Fred Perry, which I had hoped would be referenced in this or a future supplement, since I think it would make a better background for an RPG.

I have read this one, and it is heavy on the background of the manga, which is fine.  But my trained eye realized the game was more similar to 1st Ed Star Wars than 2nd, insofar as all the archtypes have the same skills to start with, just different stats, rather than have different skills in their repertoire.  Also the archtypes just mirror the major characters from the manga, rather than offering some different ideas.

On the whole, I'd likely eschew the high school background and try to distill out some sort of generic manga d6 system, if I'd try to use this.

This is one I picked up at the fire sale at the FLGS.  I'd had my eye on it for a while, just because I have a soft spot for fantasy heartbreakers.  I haven't had a chance to read this except a cursory glance that reveals a very different core system than D&D, a flair for Erol Otus-style art, and goblins as a PC race.

I actually bought this one while traveling on vacation.  Symbaroum was a Kickstarted RPG, and this beautiful hardcover book was the culmination.  Another fantasy heartbreaker, this one might actually not break your heart too much because it features a lavish campaign world complete with factions, religions, and a massive, spooky, dangerous forest.  Weirdly enough, it also features goblin PC's.  On top of that you don't get to play elves, who instead are antagonistic NPC's.  It also sets aside Hermetic-style wizardry (by that I mean scholastic mages pouring over tomes) and instead features matriarchal witches, nature-oriented spellcasters with bizarre rituals and crude but hauntingly beautiful masks.

Of all the ones on the list, this one has the most potential to end up at the table, if I had to guess.  If anything, I could use the background and swap in D&D or Fantasy AGE.

Ah guilt, my favorite emotion.  A couple of years ago Catalyst featured a micro-rulebook for Battletech: A Time of War for Free RPG day and I thought it looked interesting and mentioned this to the store's owner, who was also an old Mechwarrior fan.  So he bought a copy for the store, and I never purchased it, mostly because by then I had read some not-so-flattering reviews.  To add insult to injury, the binding on the book was horrible and fell apart while it was on the shelves at the store.

So it sat there, unloved and unwanted, until the store closed, and I ended up picking it up for 20% of the cover price.  I haven't even cracked this one open (not the least of which because I would like to see if I can get the binding repaired) but a super-complicated military RPG isn't likely to get much traction with my gaming group.

So that's the pile.  I really need to a) stop buying stuff for a while, and b) focus on the game I'm actually running, Bash.  Oh, and I got invited to look at the 2nd Edition of Prowlers and Paragons, which my kids are demanding I run for them on the side.  So there's that too.