Mr. Welch's Mad Musings: TSR Compilation

I really liked Alternity.

Having played most of these games, with the exception of Buck Rogers, which, at the time, I really wasn't interested in because I had Traveller, I could say that only two kept my interest all these years: Gamma World, and Top Secret.

Alternity wasn't all that bad a system. I think TSR took advantage of the lull that Traveller had with its New Era, because very few Traveller players liked that for a lot of reasons, and, as I recall, at the time, Babylon 5 was doing pretty well, and the Lost In Space movie came out. I remember playing it, but finding it difficult to make adventures for it because the Star Drive setting wasn't all that well developed. Not that this ever stopped me before if I was trying to make something work, but I find that if you start taking liberties with whatever material they came out with, you're going to run into problems when they come out with more. And, of course, we always had the old Traveller system, and that's a hard act to follow.

I've only played Boot Hill three times, and I thought it was a pretty good game.

Star Frontiers. I suppose I can see why there are fans of this game; it's not quite a serious a game as the OTU of Traveller, and evokes a "Heavy Metal" quality to the setting, as in this is a setting where you could easily find yourself running into the likes of Captain Sternn, and having skimpy-clad ladies running around. I never cared for it, because, like I said before, I had Traveller, and you can make Traveller as bonkers as you wanted if you wanted to. You still can. I currently run a Traveller Law Enforcement game where Captain Lincoln F. Sternn as someone my players have to chase down from time to time, always managing to get out of local custody again and again, and they have to handle all kinds of weird situations you probably won't find too much in a typical Traveller campaign.

Top Secret and Gamma World are the ones I have the fondest memories of, and I still have the material for. Top Secret, particularly, interested me because of how it deviated from Bond. I like Bond movies, but at the same time I read the novels, and the novels are more about what Top Secret is like; where, in the novels, Bond enemies are Soviet Bloc or Chinese enemies, or have some association with those governments. It's more like Mission: Impossible, if the missions weren't altogether impossible and the baddies aren't trying so much to take over the world or start WWIII as they are trying to subvert various countries in places like Central and South America and Africa. One of my favorite adventures was one my old gamemaster back in the day had us do, which was twofold: Get a defector out of the Soviet Union, and then go and get the plane he was working on, in this case a MiG-29.

I'd love to revisit all of these titles someday, especially Top Secret. If my players will ever let me run something other than Traveller and G.I. Joe.

(As for Marvel Super Heroes, I didn't want to say anything bad about it. Superhero RPGs aren't for me. I generally don't care for them. I did play it, but, again, it wasn't for me.)

Trumpy!

Glad I just run starfinder now.

"Dear Buddy's Mom, I regret to inform you a space mortar landed on your son's head. We have shipped his remains to you in this coffee can. My condolences, Buck"

Honestly, I stopped buying anything D&D when they went to 3rd Ed. I did buy these 2 books, but never got to play.

I've often wondered, how much time do you spend looking for Screencast?
Do you already have a huge library of pics or do you spend a few hours looking for the right ones?

I'm a big fan of Gamma World 7E. I first played it back in 2011, and have since run one-shot games of 7E. It's zany and random, but in a good way. I never really got a chance to play any of the earlier editions, but thanks to articles in Dragon from 1992, I have been aware of Gamma World for a while.

Hope you realize that you’re literally documenting history here and that, even though your videos may not do the best when it comes to views or subscribers at the end of the day you are creating something that can be looked back on for decades, and centuries to come.

love the intro, though it's a bit loud especially the whoosh at the end

Another Mistie!

I was a big fan of Alternity, really hoped we would get a second edition when Wizards announced they got the Star Wars license. But unfortunately, they shoe horned that into 3rd edition instead.

Im probably going to regret this, but I didnt hear any mention of Gang Busters or Indiana Jones?

What really happened was Hasbro bougth WotC while the game was in production, they had the license to Star Wars toys, and picked up the RPG license and killed Alternity because STAR WURHZ zerdmagerd! This was before Jar Jar and people still liked star wars.

I love your channel. This world would not be the same without you. Thank you.

It's still criminal that your channel hasn't gotten more love. Keep up the amazing work, Mr. Welch 🎉