I'm not a fan of World of Darkness or Chronicles of Darkness, but they hold a monopoly over the urban fantasy market. There are some other urban fantasy games, but nothing approaching the level of setting detail as the White Wolf games.

Anyone interested in brainstorming different urban fantasy settings?

My interests are solidly in the 'horror' end of the fantasy pool, so I'd start with pulling some inspiration from various Thomas Ligotti stories... and Michael Cisco... just to get off the 'vampires and werewolves' track.
Less of a clearly delineated 'mythos' but recurring themes of corporate horror, urban wastelands, isolated mysteries that don't necessarily peel back to show a larger onion. So maybe a bit more disjointed, like Chill vs. Call of Cthulhu.

Shadowrun and Buffy/Angel (Unisystem) can both be used for urban fantasy.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1105622I'm not a fan of World of Darkness or Chronicles of Darkness, but they hold a monopoly over the urban fantasy market. There are some other urban fantasy games, but nothing approaching the level of setting detail as the White Wolf games.

Anyone interested in brainstorming different urban fantasy settings?

What kind of Urban Fantasy were you thinking of? Kitchen Sink or something more specialized? Brother's Grimm or Disney? I'm a fan of a few Urban Fantasy novel series, so this might be up one of my alleys.

A starting place is whether or not the monsters are mostly out in the open (True Blood) or hiding in the shadows (WoD).

Would you be more interested in a world which was recognizably our own, or an alternate history where fantastical elements were present from the beginning or revealed at some point in the past, or a completely secondary world?

Charles DeLint version of Urban Fantasy would make an interesting setting.

Some key points to remember about most urban fantasy series:

- They're tremendously dependent for atmosphere and plot elements on the specifics of their primary setting city; the city has to be, itself, almost a character.

- As a series, that setting usually only changes gradually over the course of the stories. Therefore the stories tend to focus on small- to medium-scope plots, and are seldom high-destruction or high-consequence tales of city-wide violence or war; most of them are mysteries of one stripe or another focusing on wainscot intrigue, usually with a decent side-helping of romance.

- In keeping with the focus on mysteries, if any of the protagonists have supernatural powers of their own, those powers usually have to be very well-defined so that the protagonists don't become plot-breakers. To quote Brandon Sanderson: "It's always more interesting and important what your magicians can't do than what they can."

- Protagonists are almost always extremely limited in the social resources they can draw upon; even if they have friends among the police or are police, or have rich family members or patrons, there will always be reasons why they can't simply flash their badges or buy or telephone their way out of trouble. (This isn't a given: the show Castle often played with the fact that mystery-writer-turned-detective Rick Castle was rich and connected enough to solve a number of problems his police friends would have been stymied by, but this was often done for comic effect, and never used as the primary way to resolve a plot.)

- They're not always outright noir, but they are likely to employ a number of noir tropes, ranging from the prevalence of dirty secrets and corruption among official authorities (whether mortal or supernatural) to the ease with which one can be betrayed by an apparent friend or ally. Even trustworthy colleagues may possess startlingly dark hidden pasts, and are seldom 100% up front about their reasons for any given choice. The flip side of this is that when loyalty and trust do exist, they can be very powerful character motivations.

- Almost every plot is driven by somebody not knowing, or guessing wrongly, about something else that is going on or about what somebody else is doing, or why they are doing it. On large scales, this can produce effects like magicians being shut out of gainful employment for distrust and working to form a union behind the scenes; on small scales, the local thug who's suddenly stepped up his protection racket may be risking the local boss's boot because his mother needs money for a healing.

- At least one major character has to be a Deadpan Snarker or other form of wiseass.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1105622I'm not a fan of World of Darkness or Chronicles of Darkness, but they hold a monopoly over the urban fantasy market. There are some other urban fantasy games, but nothing approaching the level of setting detail as the White Wolf games.

Anyone interested in brainstorming different urban fantasy settings?

The Dresden Files RPG is pretty detailed, because of having the books. That's the most common other urban fantasy that I see. I wasn't thrilled by the system, but I think it works well as a setting. I prefer it to World of Darkness.

I actually been trying to make a fork to Chronicles of Darkness and World of Darkness with my own game.  I can give you guys a link to my discord if your interested.

I highly recommend NIGHTBANE by Palladium Books, regardless if you use the system.

A+ urban fantasy where you play heroic monsters.

Quote from: jhkim;1105640The Dresden Files RPG is pretty detailed, because of having the books. That's the most common other urban fantasy that I see. I wasn't thrilled by the system, but I think it works well as a setting. I prefer it to World of Darkness.

I was going to mention the Dresden Files RPG. Mostly as I love the novels and the world in general.
But I really don't like the FATE system. It's just clunky and very abstract. Not to my tastes.

It's a shame really. The Dresden files would make a GREAT Urban Fantasy setting.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1105652I actually been trying to make a fork to Chronicles of Darkness and World of Darkness with my own game.  I can give you guys a link to my discord if your interested.

I am.

I actually like the setting of World of Darkness... generally speaking... the whole 'gothic noir' of it... but less the 'cool' vampires. Hunter, Geist, and Changeling were much more interesting from the Player perspective.

Nephilim has been popping up in my windscreen a lot lately, and that's one I never really gave as much attention as I should have.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1105666I am.

Sending you a link to my discord server now.