What Do I Know?

Yesterday, we went into what RPGaDay is and how it got started, so without all of that preamble, let’s look at today’s question.

What is an RPG You Would Like to See Published?

I’m going to preface this by saying that I’m old.

I loved G.I. Joe when I was growing up. People tend to think about the cartoon today when they think of the property, but the defining expression of the property, for me, was the Marvel comics series. At one point in time, this was the crown jewel of Marvel’s comics line, outselling even the X-Men. That’s kind of amazing.

“But,” says the theoretical reader addressing the older than dirt blog writer, “how was it any different than the cartoon?”

G.I. Joe had some brightly colored characters using super high tech weapons and technology in a military setting. However, not only was it “almost sci-fi” military action, there were some actual real world references that would sneak into the book. Most of the original, core members of the team were Vietnam veterans, and there were stories that would reference their service. Oh, and people died in the comic.

There are three geeky moments that can still make me tear up when I think about them.

• When Anakin is dying and tells Luke “you already have” when Luke says, “I’ve got to save you.”
• When Spock is dying and tells Kirk, “I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” 
• When Snake-Eyes comes home from Vietnam to find out that his family died in a car accident on the way to pick him up from the airport

 But enough about why I’m a geek for G.I. Joe.

The property has never had an official RPG release. This is even more of a shame now that WOTC is owned by Hasbro, the parent company that owns G.I. Joe. Who knows, maybe the push to create a meta-shared world in the IDW comics between G.I. Joe, Transformers, Mask, and ROM will produce an RPG in the future.

Regardless, the only instance where I know that the property came close to an official RPG treatment was when Top Secret S.I. was still a thing, and TSR put out a questionnaire in Dragon Magazine asking about potential future supplements for the game line, and G.I. Joe was mentioned as an option.