Fantasy Games Unlimited

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Fantasy Games Unlimited, often referred to as just FGU, is a role-playing game company which, though still in existence, was most active during the late 1970s and 1980s.

Founded in 1975 by Scott Bizar, the company's first publications were the wargames Gladiators and Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age. Upon the sudden appearance and massive popularity of Dungeons & Dragons from TSR, the company turned its attentions to role-playing games, seeking out and producing systems created by amateurs and freelancers. Rather than focusing on any one line and supporting it with subsequent supplements, FGU instead produced a continuous stream of new games. In its time, FGU published dozens of different role-playing games, more than any other company.^{[citation needed]}

A reasonable generalization of the games produced by FGU would be to say that most were clearly derivative of more popular designs produced by other companies (usually TSR), made distinctive only by being inevitably more detailed and complicated. For instance, FGU's Aftermath! vs TSR's Gamma World or FGU's Space Opera vs GDW'sTraveller. However, FGU also produced many unique games, some of which were very elegant and unusual, such as: Starships & Spacemen, possibly the first Star Trek inspired role-playing game; Odyseuss, an RPG of epic Homeric Greek adventures; Bushido, the first RPG set in feudal Japan; and Bunnies and Burrows, a game about semi-intelligent rabbits inspired by the novel Watership Down. Despite (or perhaps because of) their complexity, many FGU games are remembered with affection and still played with enthusiasm by many old fans.

Though FGU stopped publishing in 1987, the company still exists and maintains copyright over its titles. FGU has been very vigorous in defending any perceived threat to its intellectual property, sometimes taking what many consider to be unjustified umbrage at other publishers for even barely perceptible infringements. For instance, FGU has twice threatened legal action when other companies publishined role-playing games with the term "Space Opera" in the titles, even though the term predates FGU's game as a genre label by several decades. FGU has also earned a bad reputation for holding their games in limbo, replying to requests from new companies even for simple reprint rights with demands for exorbitant liscening fees.

A new FGU website appeared in July 2006 offering the company's back catalog. It promises new products "coming soon".