I created my own with Legos, I had 2 editions :) Put some paint or something on a sword to make it a +1 or Ice, Fire whatever you want.

Also liked Star Wars, WEG, because it was Star Wars.

I'm actually going to say 4e DnD (which I'm sure makes most posters here cringe). Mostly I think that's because there is no good PnP gaming system in existance, past or present.

I believe that fluff has little to do with mechanics, which is essentially what much of the customization in 3.5/pathfinder is: fluff expressed through mechanics.

I also think that out of combat play should be rules lite.

Most importantly I want meaningful customization and balanced mechanics. I don't want to simply pick a class and be like every other archetypal character of that class that anyone has ever made. Likewise, I dont' want to be able to make a character so uber powerful that the game becomes meaningless.

So 4th does all of this better than any other system, especially the balance. Unfortunately, it brings to light a couple of issues that I didn't notice (mostly due to how bad mechanics were in 3.5).

1. If all characters progress at equal power, and enemies progress at a rate equal to your level, then you are basically defined by your level. This is a fundamental problem with almost every RPG ever made, whether PnP or computer. Fortuantely it wasn't noticable until 4th edition brought it to light with razor sharp balance.
2. If all character types have the ability to do similar things then they will all feel "samey." With the amount of side materials released for 4th in such a short amount of time, it became possible to do almost everything with every class, and that made it hard to show characters standing out of the crowd.

Grew up playing tons of PnP RPGs.  AD&D was our favorite, but when that got old we would go to Rift, Shadowrun, Paladium, or Road Hogs (think TMNT meets Mad Max).  There was a James Bond RPG that we would play once in a blue moon.  I'm sure I'm missing something but oh well.

The most fun we ever had was when 100+ AD&D players got together and rented a conference room in the biggest hotel in my small town for a 3 day weekend.  We played for 72 hours straight, some would catch cat naps in the corners and others would come and go. 

There were people that showed up that walked and it was like OMG! YOU play DnD?  Didn't you used to call us nerds and geeks for playing?  There were rich people and poor, jocks and nerds, dopers and church goers that showed up.  Everyone got along and we had a blast!  I have a lot of good memories playing PnP RPGs with friends when growing up.  Those were the days.

For its wonderfull background and infinite plot potential : Vampire, the Mascarade.

I think Vampire can really fit to a lot of different kind of PnP players and did not suffer from its age. (I'm not saying Vampire is a old game, just that he's not on his youth anymore.)

For the player : being a vamp, a werewolf or a mage is just so cooooooooooooooooooooooooooool. No matter your kind of trip (brutish-actionnish or RP-intriguish).

For the GM : dangerous drug, great fun for those who loves a great mise en abyme of plots inside plots.

   We were introduced to AD&D when we were 10 which started a lifelong passion for RPGs. We quit AD&D when we were 12 or 13 because we found it too unsophisticated. These are some of our favourite RPGs we played and explored over the years (in no particular order): 

- Twilight 2000 (Post-Nuclear War)

- Call of Cthulhu

-Iron Crown's Rolemaster sytem and Shadow World Milieu (Our go-to Fantasy rpg which we felt surpassed all others)

-Stormbringer/Elric (in all its incarnations)

- Battlelords of the 23rd Century (Space Opera at its biggest and best. We also played traveller back in the day)

-Emperor of the Fading Suns (A fantastic space-based RPG with a twist. Roleplayer's/Adventurer's dream).

-Cyberpunk 2077

   I probably bought almost everything made in those days (and still have all the books) and we played them all. Some once, some a lot, including: Villains and Vigilantes, Marvel Superheroes, Traveller/Mega-Traveller, Gamma World, Phoenix command, Robotech, Battletech....and a lot more. But those 7 I listed first are tops.

   I saw someone mention the Morrow Project, nice. I never did get my hands on that one.

Dishonorable mentions: Shadowrun, AD&D (Yah despite it being our gateway drug I have a bit of a hate-on for D&D)

   Check out Battlelords or Emperor of the Fading Suns, these are more recent and have a lot of great stuff. ICE has a lot of the Rolemaster/Shadow World books available on PDF and new stuff is still being released.

Finally a Thread that doesnt criticise a game.

Not in any order:

1. Gamma World 1st edition

2. Star Frontiers

3. AD&D- Forgotten realms

4, Stormbringer, Elf Quest, and Call of Cthulu (loved Chaosium games)

5. Old world of Darkness

Paranoia

as a gm this is the most fun

you can do so many things to your players

one instance i remember  we set up the game room  with a desk and  bed side lamp  aimed to point in the players faces

then calling in each player to  report to there comander  on there previous mission  and the info they all gave got them all shot 

mutant  commie traitors always  get what they deserve

no idea  if this game is still the same  but was fun when we played it

CoC - in various formats. I liked the DnD version for the spell system though felt the insanity could also have been modified to fit with the rest.

MERP/Rolemaster mainly because that was the system for Middle-earth. The latest The One Ring however appears to be much better all round.

I quite liked Space Master, it had some good concepts.

Pendragon was excellent and I even ran some games based in Middle-earth using the system.

Originally posted by birdycephon
Am I the only one here who has played BESM?

owned it but never played it

my personal favorites were GURPS and Runequest

but more often than not, I was playing "homegrown" variants of the D&D Whitebox set from 1976

Originally posted by Hodo

Easy for me.  There are two games that are great, but one is better than them all.

 

Cyberpunk:2020. 

 

Fast paced, violent, dangerous, fun, and no magic.

 

The second best to me is...

 

Twighlight 2000.   

Come on who doesnt want to play a soldier stranded in Europe after WWIII?!

I have to agree on Twilight 2000. I used to play this every weekend with a group when I was in the Army. We had a lot of good times with this game.

Bren

Originally posted by birdycephon
Am I the only one here who has played BESM?

I don't know what BESM is. Please tell me about it and why you like it! I want to get as much info about pnp games as I can. I've found some really interesting stuff so far. 

#1 D&D (d20 system. 3.0, 3.5, or something else).... this is the grand daddy of them all. It's better than previous editions because the math has been simplified and both players and DMs have a lot more options, especially given the Open Gaming License. 4th edition closed the license and pushed the game in a more unrealistic direction.

#2 Vampire While there are two very valid arguments over the two versions of the game, they are both awesome. Vampire is a game where you viait very personal and mature stories where you get to deeply explore the inner mind of your character. 

#3 Shadowrun With an extremely unique take on what the near future will bring, Shadowrun brings the dystopian future to life in vivid detail. The game is basically set in one of the most unique worlds in all of gaming.

I strongly recommend Pathfinder to anyone looking to get into (or back into) table-top gaming.  It's really the best system going right now and is very well-supported.  Most of the rules are published online for anyone who wants to look them over.

I've been playing P&P RPGs for 25 years, on and off.  While I loved a lot (most actually) of the old-school games mentioned in this thread, the majority of them weren't really well-designed mechanically.  Nostalgia is a powerful thing.  What most people are remembering here are not the games as they were published, but heavily tweaked house rules.  Add in some memories of good times around the gaming table, and you have a mighty thick set of rose-colored lenses.

-As an old time P&P player- I think the original "Empire of the petal throne" is probably the best.

-Then I would say AD&D 2nd edition.

-Next the D&D rules cyclopedia (probably the best "full system" in one book- Ever...)

As far as newer RPG's , Pathfinder...hands down. In fact, I currently run a Pathfinder group and its ease of play, simple rules and myriad of options makes it a fantastic system.

-3rd edition probably had the most potential but failed miserably IMHO and tried to over monitize everything.

4th Edition? LOL.

EDIT: @ Greyface- You are 100% right about mechanics and "house rules" in older games...But that was half the fun. A good DM wants to house rule, tweak and optimize the system to the group. "Balance" (as it were) is really not of the utmost importance in a P&P game-  With 3rd edition (and even Pathfinder, but to a lesser degree) tweaking one part of the system can often "break" the game. That isnt my only complaint about 3rd and 3.5 but it is a valid one.