Many of us have played some edition of a Star Wars RPG; but what other RPG systems have you played? What are your favorites?

I've played a few campaigns (in my group a campaign is usually a few months worth of gaming at least, 5-15 sessions or so) of World of Darkness (Mage and Vampire), got a number of sessions into an Exalted campaign that's currently on hiatus (we'll probably get back to it at some point), and plenty of DnD 3.5 and 4e. I've run 2 sessions of Dread (an indie RPG that I'm absolutely in love with, read about it here: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11974.phtml), and I've run some Spycraft 1.0. I've also run a Call of Cthulhu 6th edition campaign.

Recently I've picked up a number of books for pretty cheap. I got Mutants and Masterminds 3e, The Authority, Ars Magica, and have The Dresden Files RPG on the way. I also picked up Cthulhu Dark Ages at GenCon. I haven't gotten a chance to actually play any of these yet, but they all look pretty good. Ars Magica has one of my favorite magic systems ever, but the character creating is very heavy and too in-depth for my taste; I'm thinking about porting the magic system over to FATE to see how that works.

I have the Dresden Files books, mainly because I'm a fan of the Dresden Files. The Fate system is pretty cool, imo. I doubt I will play in a game, but I really like using it as a kind of creative writing tool to practice.

FATE is really neat, especially the version shown in the Dresden Files. Definately a system for creative people.

Just got my copy of The Dresden Files (Your Story, the core rulebook) today. It's exceptionally well put together. The art is excellent (looks similar to the art for the Dresden Files graphic novel; might be the same artist), the background of the paper is very attractive (the runes on the insides of the pages, the worn look, the spiral biding in the center), and the notes in the margins from Harry and Bob are really great. I'm looking forward to reading it through.

The FATE system is definitely interesting, but I'm not sure if it has enough variance for me. -4 to +4 with a very steep bell curve seems like you can too easily rely on getting -2 to +2. I prefer the odds to be more spread. It is pretty simple, though. I might try to get my regular gaming group to play The Dresden Files some to see how it actually plays before I form too strong of an opinion about it.

After playing just once, I'm willing to say that Dread is borderline brilliant. At first glance it's just a one-shot RPG with some Jenga involved, but sometimes simple is better. The character determination system makes you think honestly more than any other game I have ever seen, and that stupid block tower adds more tension than you'd ever think it would. Highly recommended.

All the Atlanta guys are probably tired of hearing about cause I must bring it up every single road trip but Unknown Armies (by Greg Stolze and John Tynes) is a brilliant and criminally ignored RPG. It uses a very clever D100 system that minimizes rolls (obvious example is that the same roll determines if your attack hits and how much damage it does), which lets the setting and characters really shine through. Sithborg, if you liked using the Dresden Files RPG as a creative writing tool I implore you to check out Unknown Armies. Grab it used off Amazon for $20. It takes a compelling, raw look at what magic would really be like if it existed in our society. The results vary from inspiring to sinister to farcical (Mak Attax!) to absolutely mysterious.

If nothing else, you will want to copy the campaigns and NPCs, both of which the authors flesh out marvelously. If Alex Abel or The Freak or the Comte de Saint-Germain don't intrigue you then I don't know what to say. And I would put "To Go" against any RPG adventure ever written.

Anyway, the old WEG D6 Star Wars game is also excellent. I really prefer D6 to D20 in general, and they do a good job of capturing the Star Wars zeitgeist, but the real reason to buy the books (for a song, since they're out of print) is to get the most well-thought-out depiction of the Star Wars universe ever written. When WEG started writing those books Lucas basically gave them carte blanche to do what they wanted with it; when Tim Zahn started writing the Thrawn novels, for background they handed him a stack of WEG material! They actually try to figure out what life is like for an ordinary Joe in the Star Wars galaxy, put more thought into economics and travel than Lucas ever did, and go to great pains to really show why the Empire is evil and must be overthrown (which the movies actually aren't that good at, aside of blowing up Alderaan).

Plus they wrote so many books, and put out so many adventures, that you could play them back to back for years and never see the end. "The Far Orbit Project" is freaking brilliant. That adventure puts you on a privateer, provides an ungodly amount of information about an entire sector of space, and then lets you figure out what to do. They even have tables of various trade goods showing how much prices will go up once you've captured enough convoys! They also capture the ambiguity of working with pirates - and especially taking orders from an ex-pirate captain. "Domain of Evil" was another good one.

Seriously though - Unknown Armies. I haven't played a single session and I still feel as though I got my money's worth. One of their adventures gave me nightmares. That's how good those books are.

I think that's the point. It seems to be more about creative use of aspects and fate points then the dice. The Dresden book had an interesting varient to add a bit more variety.

And I like Dresden, mainly because I like the book series.