Questions tagged [product-identification]

For questions about identifying a game product (sourcebooks, published adventures, and even entire systems) based on remembered details of the product or of specific content within it. (For identifying specific game content instead, use the [content-identification] tag.)

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58 votes
1 answer
6k views

What d10 RPG is this cat playing?

A friend posted this funny image. There is a cat with a character sheet of a game. There is a pool of 10 d10s on it. It isn't clear enough for me to figure out what game it is.
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49 votes
1 answer
4k views

Which Article Helped Get Rid of Technobabble in RPGs?

Some time ago I saw an article on the Internet about technobabble in RPGs, specifically about why and how to get rid of it and replace it with something better. While I'm inclined to believe that I ...
48 votes
2 answers
6k views

Identifying my late father's D&D stuff found in the attic

I recently found a box of Dungeons & Dragons stuff in the attic of my father's home. In addition to an old boxed set of Dungeons & Dragons (the Men and Magic booklet mentions hobbits and ents),...
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45 votes
2 answers
9k views

How do I know which edition of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) the books I'm looking at are for?

I know there are quite a few editions of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), each of which has loads of rules, source, and splat books. But how do I know which edition the books I'm looking at are for? ...
43 votes
1 answer
5k views

What is this story I recall about an extremely long ever-changing character backstory?

I read recently a post that was going around about a player who didn't like his DM, so he wrote an ever-changing backstory (hundreds of pages so no one would read it) for his character that allowed ...
40 votes
1 answer
7k views

Punching someone so hard that they become a duck

I was reading 1d4chan's description of the exalted. In it while describing Sidereal Exalted, it mentions punching someone so hard that they turn into a duck (before saying it makes more sense in ...
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39 votes
4 answers
8k views

Is Morrowind based on a tabletop RPG?

Is there a tabletop, pen-and-paper RPG system that The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is based on?
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31 votes
4 answers
11k views

Is there a name for this 20 sided die with two 1s, two 2s, etc?

Purchased this die from a hobby/tabletop store yesterday, mainly because I thought it looked cool, and that it was funny that it was so hard to read the faces: I was passively rolling the die, and ...
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31 votes
1 answer
3k views

Help me identify these 20-sided dice with assorted numbers from 4 to 72

I have these dice. I don't know where they came from or how I got them, and I can't imagine what they are for. They are 20-sided dice but the numbers on the sides are bananas. See image Numbers on ...
  • 501
31 votes
2 answers
2k views

What D&D manual describes this game dragons play?

In a D&D manual, I once read about a game that dragons play against each other. They use kingdoms as pawns and the games can last decades or centuries. What book is the game in or what is the ...
30 votes
1 answer
3k views

What tabletop setting (if any) is this 1980s map from?

My dad found a photo from his college D&D game, and we're wondering what setting this map on the wall might be from. The photo was taken in 1986, and my dad doesn't recall any specific setting ...
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29 votes
1 answer
2k views

What game used how much your character cared as a resource?

I found a game system once that I'm trying to find again. A few minutes of Googling hasn't availed me any success. The main features I remember are: It was a modern-day Lovecraftian setting. The ...
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28 votes
2 answers
829 views

What game uses yellow 20-sided dice with letters and arrows?

Full disclosure: These are from my own online store (see my profile.) I've sold a small number of them over the years to dice collectors, but I don't know why anyone would want them or what they are ...
26 votes
1 answer
754 views

What is the name of this book, covering character history generation?

Recently, over a text-chat session, my game master ran through a process of detailing my character's history, using a product she never named. My GM is currently unavailable to me, so I cannot simply ...
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25 votes
1 answer
3k views

Identifying a tabletop book that has a panther with blue swirls on the cover

I'm likely fishing for a needle in a haystack but my daughter spotted a tabletop RPG book in a game store a while back and I'm trying to track it down as a possible Christmas gift. Unfortunately, I ...
  • 353
23 votes
3 answers
2k views

What was this Magic the Gathering RPG I remember?

More than a decade and a half ago, I have a recollection of a friend coming to school one day with a small book which was an early Magic the Gathering RPG. I recall that it was about being a ...
23 votes
1 answer
2k views

What is this mature RPG System I saw online a few years ago?

A few years back I read a bunch of stuff on a website for a very dark, mature, RPG. I am sure that this was an actual for-profit print RPG, published by a company, not just a online thing its creators ...
  • 3,802
23 votes
1 answer
3k views

What game uses six-sided dice with symbols as well as numbers on the 5 and 6 faces and a blank space where “1” should be?

Note for reviewers, this question is a part of several similar questions. It has been broken down so as to not run afoul of other guidelines. Whilst they are almost identical, they are not duplicates ...
  • 4,816
22 votes
1 answer
3k views

Game with one male warrior and remaining PCs as village girls

I remember coming across an article about this game where one player (who must be female if there is a female player at the table, according to the rules) plays a male wandering warrior, and everyone ...
  • 811
21 votes
1 answer
1k views

Looking for a late 80's (or possibly early 90's) D&D one-shot adventure based around a bar room brawl

About 20-25 or so years ago, our group played a D&D one-shot adventure that was entirely based around a bar room brawl. It started out with us in the inn post-adventure, and then developed over ...
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20 votes
1 answer
707 views

Game in which the stars are right

I recall reading the introduction fiction to an RPG years ago, and I'd like to know its name. The game was set on a Mars colony, just barely self-sufficient or possibly slowly dying off. Shortly ...
  • 3,802
20 votes
1 answer
585 views

RPG where everyone is an asylum resident and an ex-supervillain

I remember an RPG where all players play ex-supervillains (or just mad people who believed to be supervillians) in an asylum. They tell their stories and can be interrupted by others in a systematic ...
  • 959
19 votes
1 answer
2k views

"Tarot" based RPG?

When I was young (late-90s?) my brother and I were given a game that we never played. I opened it once and found it utterly impenetrable. Memory: There wasn't a board or anything concrete like ...
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19 votes
1 answer
696 views

What's that Seattle Fast-Food joint?

I know that, when reading through some splatbooks, I found a write-up on some Seattle fast-food restaurant. The food was horrible, the service was lousy, but everyone liked to meet there because the ...
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18 votes
3 answers
644 views

What was this set of RPG tools called?

Years ago, I found a set of free RPG tools on someone's website. It included: A random treasure hoard generator for D&D third edition. A random dungeon map generator. It created black-and-white ...
18 votes
1 answer
840 views

Has there ever been an official "Room of Death"?

D&D knows Mimics and their relatives, the Lurker and Trapper. They are aberrations that mimicpun intended the floor and ceiling and have been used in conjunction with a stunjelly for years to make ...
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18 votes
1 answer
366 views

What's this dark fantasy-themed RPG with a core mechanic based on rolling d10s and grouping dice results to be under a specific sum?

A few years back, I read an RPG which used the core dice mechanic of rolling a number of d10s, then arranging the dice into sets, such that the dice in each set added up to no more than a specified ...
17 votes
2 answers
1k views

Who or what first said to "don't name monsters, describe them"?

There is an interesting GMing principle that more or less states that a GM should only ever describe monsters, and let the players name them. There may also have been mention of creating a sense of ...
17 votes
1 answer
433 views

Identify a role-playing poem about an artifact

My Google-fu is rusty and I can't find this RPG poem[1] about making up stories about an artifact. Unfortunately since RPG poems are so short, there isn't much to say about them. Fortunately, if you ...
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16 votes
2 answers
770 views

Game with living guns and bullets

I asked this question on SCIFI SE, but was informed that it might be better suited to here. Basically, I recall a story that accompanied an RPG game in the late 90s. In the story, a human psychic ...
  • 263
16 votes
4 answers
3k views

Mid-to-late 1970's Space Based RPG: what was it?

I am having trouble recalling a space-based Role Playing Game that we tried after we first tried Traveller. Our usual D&D group didn't care for Traveller as much as I (and the DM/GM) did. The ...
16 votes
1 answer
2k views

What game uses dice with engraved faces, weapon symbols, double weapon symbols and object symbols?

Note for reviewers, this question is a part of several similar questions. It has been broken down so as to not run afoul of other guidelines. Whilst they are almost identical, they are not duplicates ...
  • 4,816
16 votes
1 answer
376 views

A role play poem about escaping from a time loop

I do remember a role playing poem, in which you play a mundane scene for like 3 minutues, before a time loop starts. The players then try to break out of the time loop, which they have a chance to do, ...
  • 3,957
16 votes
1 answer
787 views

What's the game in which the PCs themselves have character sheets?

Inspired by this question, I was reminded of a role-playing game solicited in a late 90s or early 00s Previews (Diamond Distribution's monthly comic book and associated merchandise--including games--...
16 votes
1 answer
461 views

Where is the Belt(?) of Shared Space?

I would swear that I've seen an item which allows anyone who has a linked copy to access the same extradimensional space; I'm 99% sure it was published by WotC or Paizo, and I'm 90% sure it was a belt....
  • 16k
16 votes
1 answer
645 views

What game is this method of NPC generation using playing cards from?

It uses a standard deck of playing cards. Thirteen cultural influences, laws, or taboos are assigned to the ranks of the cards, and the suit determines whether the character is an exemplar of that ...
  • 163
15 votes
3 answers
2k views

Fantasy Game Where Your Stats are Based on Your Real-life Skills and Abilities

When I was in high school back in the mid to late 1990s (between 1996 and 2000), my friends and I play-tested a fantasy role-playing game that one of them had received through the mail. The main ...
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15 votes
1 answer
810 views

What game uses dice with compass point arrows, forbidden signs, explosions, arrows and targeting reticles?

Note for reviewers, this question is a part of several similar questions. It has been broken down so as to not run afoul of other guidelines. Whilst they are almost identical, they are not duplicates ...
  • 4,816
15 votes
1 answer
318 views

What's the RPG about a journey from A to B, with examples about French soldiers going to kill Hitler and a team trying to win a TV race contest?

There's this roleplaying game that's all about a group of people trying to get from point A to point B. The two example scenarios that are the base for all the examples in the manual are French ...
  • 34.1k
15 votes
1 answer
542 views

What is this creature that increases in strength as its allies die?

I remember some years ago coming across a creature in 3.5e that works in groups and as each individual of the group is slain the surviving creatures increase in strength. Can anyone give me the name/...
  • 151
15 votes
1 answer
257 views

System (single manual) "Advanced Roleplaying"

I used to have a copy of a game, bought used circa 1998, single hardcover manual, called "Advanced Roleplaying" (if I remember correctly). The cover was a reddish illustration of a wizard summoning a ...
  • 1,309
15 votes
1 answer
615 views

That game of a human and an alien telling stories in a doomed space ship

I believe that at least two years ago (and my memory is consequently hazy), when I had no people to play strange games with and was not that interested in … anthropological games yet, I encountered a ...
  • 3,957
14 votes
3 answers
5k views

Which AD&D book contains the Cavalier, Acrobat, Barbarian, and other classes popularized by the cartoon?

What's the name of the AD&D book (1st Edition) that has the other character classes that were popularized in the Saturday morning cartoon? I'm talking about the Cavalier, Acrobat, Barbarian, ...
  • 3,659
14 votes
8 answers
3k views

Is there such a thing as a Magically Animated Coin Monster?

In today's session of the D&D 5e campaign I'm participating in, our party had to fight what was essentially a anthromorphic, magically animated, pile of gold coins with a weakness to fire (it was ...
14 votes
3 answers
2k views

Help me identify this 1980s book about role-playing

I'm trying to find a book which a friend had back in the 80s. I held it and browsed it, but I haven't seen it in over 20 years. It was a hardcover with binding and cover like the original AD&D ...
  • 2,050
14 votes
1 answer
603 views

Is there a published adventure in any D&D edition where the dungeon is a construct?

Does anyone know if a campaign exists that takes the PCs through a dungeon, where they are looking for a construct, only to realize at the end that the dungeon itself is the construct? I am asking ...
14 votes
1 answer
631 views

What was this role playing game from the 70s or 80s?

Does anyone know the name of the role playing game from around the 80s (or possibly 70s) that was sort of a Star Wars ripoff? There was combat, experience points you could earn. There were tall Jawa ...
14 votes
2 answers
451 views

Recognize Firefly-esque sci-fi scenario with minimalist narrative d6 system?

In the first half of 2009 a friend of mine went to a con in the USA (don't know where exactly), and brought back a great scenario which we played in the UK. I would like to know if anyone recognizes ...
  • 15.1k
14 votes
1 answer
1k views

What RPG converted "choose your own adventure"–style gamebooks into adventure modules?

Ages ago (read: "in the early 90s") I found rules for converting gamebooks from a certain series of CYOA-type books into adventures to play with a GM and one or more players, instead of their normal ...
14 votes
1 answer
570 views

What's the RPG where one character class acts as a “conduit” or “catalyst” for the others' “spells”?

I'm looking for the identity of an RPG I remember reading in paperback book form (rather a thick tome), must have been published late 80s–early 90s. A distinguishing feature was that while many (or ...
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