I'm interested in games where the forces of repression and authority are truly evil and Robin-Hood-style outlaws are unambiguously good (even though they might seem anti-heroic).



One possibility might be to use Old World of Darkness and have Sorcerers or Hunters as the underdog Robin-Hood outlaws. The bad guys would be Sabbat vampires backed by both mind-controlled mortal cops and mind-controlled mortal gangsters.


It might be best to pick whatever rule system is well-loved by the participants. Vampire: the Masquerade is very well-known, which might compensate for any mechanical imperfections. (Possibly V20 has polished away the old imperfections.) GURPS can do anything, but GURPS might get very cumbersome, and I don't necessarily know it well enough to run it smoothly.  Shadowrun might be an option.


A major challenge would be maintaining a somewhat light-hearted action-movie atmosphere while giving enough details to make it clear that the bad guys are really unethical, not just misunderstood.  So for example, if the bad guys are kidnapping people and cutting out their kidneys for resale on the black market, that's clearly unethical, but the details might be a little too heavy and serious for an escapist action fantasy.


What do you think? Would you want to play as a Sorcerer with an illegal shotgun, on the run from both mind-controlled SWAT teams and mind-controlled drug cartelistas?

It seems to me that 'Feng Shui' (Hong Kong action movie role playing) is designed from the ground up to be exactly what you are looking for. It works great table top, but might need a little tweaking to work on RPOL.

Shadowrun (much as I love it) shares the disadvantages of GURPS and is optimised for a very specific genre which isn't quite this.

The moment you mention sorcerors with shotguns then Mutants and Masterminds leaps to mind. You don't have to have 'free form character creation' but can make your own templates that people can buy with points, and spend the rest on attributes and skills. That would certainly be very popular on RPOL (all M&M games get a lot of people applying for them, and would be by far the easiest to run (While it is rules heavy for character creation it plays very simply).

If you are looking for modern day with magic and monsters I really like Monte Cook's World of Darkness (almost no relation to V20 etc apart from the name).

Someone is bound to mention D&D modern, and I have no experience with it, but it also sounds like what you want

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Of all of the above M&M is the simplest to play, and if you make the templates then it's also very simple to character create: it can approach rules lite systems like that

The Leverage RPG maybe? Like the show, it's all about pulling heists against nasty rich people to benefit the ordinary folks they've harmed.

Blades in the Dark generally assumes the players are criminals, but I don't see why it couldn't be hacked into making them rebels or freedom fighters. On the other hand, the effects of Stress are probably too serious for a light-hearted action movie atmosphere.

I wrote a game called Crime and Chaos that seeks to emulate what I've lately taken to calling "Crimepunk" as seen in games like GTA and Saints Row. From the sound of it you want more fantasy and magic, which I only barely dipped into because those video games only barely dipped their feet into them. Dunno if my game's a good fit for what you're looking for but it's definitely "those who have committed crimes are the good guys, and they commit more crimes taking down the man."

In reply to Siran (msg # 2):

Thanks for the recommendations. I used to run Villains & Vigilantes, but I think Mutants & Masterminds is a considerably different system.  I would have to look closely at the rules before I tried to run it.

In reply to White Cat (msg # 3):

I've never heard of the Leverage RPG before, but it seems to be a new version of the Cortex rules, which are elegant.


As for Blades in the Dark, I'm not very confident that I could GM it without getting more experience in it first, but I am very confident I could make it a game of freedom fighters with hearts of gold.  The setting is gritty but the protagonists can definitely be good guys if the players are willing to play them as good guys.

In reply to steelsmiter (msg # 4):

I have not seen "Crime and Chaos" available anywhere. Did you publish it or is it a closed beta product? I like the idea of "crimepunk."

closed beta wouldn't be wholly accurate, but there are aspects of that description that fit what it is. Basically I can't really publish 'cause disability but I do have everything in PDF form linked up on my discord. The reason I'm not calling it closed beta is because I'd allow/accommodate anyone who stumbled onto the discord (which I can probably give on a PM but am not certain it's a go here in this thread). It's one of 5 completed games I have, and it's the most appropriate to the idea of criminals being the good guys, but not necessarily very fantasy oriented.

In reply to NostalgicTortoise (msg # 6):

Leverage is actually one of the older Cortex games; it was the second Cortex Plus game, after Smallville. It's a pretty fun game though; it uses the five roles from the show (Hacker, Hitter, Thief, Grifter, Mastermind) as PC statistics.

The "sorcerer with a shotgun" thing is beyond Leverage's scope, but you could probably make something workable with Cortex Prime.

I played in a GURPS game very much like this back in my early days of RPOL. The Robin Hood type faction were more ambiguous in their motivations, but the system excels at games like this.

Risus, after all, its the Anything RPG

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/p...sus-The-Anything-RPG