Quote from: consolcwby on December 16, 2020, 12:09:30 AM

Quote from: Omega on December 15, 2020, 11:04:14 PM
Want there at least one official Highlander RPG?

Also wayyyyyyyyyy the hell back Dragao Brasil did a conversion for the Highlander setting to WoD I believe.

I checked it out. Apparently not: https://rpggeek.com/rpgsetting/62360/highlander

If I was going to make a Highlander RPG, the one thing I would need to figure out would be:
Other than death, what else could the PC be punished with, which would make the player think twice about being stupid or acting stupid during play. Why is it that PC DEATH is the be-all, end-all, punishment/loss condition? There must be a more nuanced way...

Well being trapped somewhere like in a collapsed cave, under the earth, chained up in a metal box underwater. Hell even prison would be awful especially if another immortal guards it.

There was a game in the 90s that was basically Highlander with the serial numbers filed off, with a "WoD" styling. I forget what it was called.

That would be Legacy War of Ages.

The tricky part about being an immortal under the "Highlander" setting, and being in the ancient world (or medieval or even up to democracy taking root  in the west) you are still pretty vulnerable as people were cutting off heads all the time to show proof of a kill, to just do it, or a means of execution.  I could see running it with 1 immortal, and a group of his friends/retainers.  I have a Conan (Hyborian Adventures we call it) campaign that has been fairly long running (largely due to one of the characters being able to pull the fat out of the fire by being very hard to kill, GURPS) and one of the players has a noble character.  The rest of the group is in some way acting on his dime/behalf.   I could see a campaign set whenever, being run in a similar fashion.  No need to have a gang of immortals hanging out together.

I had a short lived campaign with two players using the WOD hack. The system worked good enough if I remember correctly. We pretty much stole the premise of the show with an older immortal and a freshly dead one. It was fun cause the player of the older immortal knew the show and constantly came up with new characters from their past for the younger one to decapitate.

I dug out the issue of Dragao Brasil and it is indeed a conversion of the WoD system to play Highlander characters.

While i have tried over the years to conceptualise exactly this concept as an rpg i didnt get to do much with it. There are a couple of things that i see working in the concept of the tv series and other properties. Tying the world of darkeness seems like a mistake to me. The other supernaturals are just too powerfull compared to immortals and dont fit their theme of surviving over the countless years. If the vampires would get a notion of never ending bloodbags, they woudnt hesitate to find them en masse. If the werewolves got a notion of them they would probably rip them to shreads on principle alone. Ghost, Fey and Magicians would be uninterested probably, or they would experiment, haunt or just do unexpected things in response. Would it make for a good fit? Not in my perspective, ofc ones mileage may vary.

If we treat Highlander as a single property, we have the Watchers, the Holy Ground, the Sanctuary, the Gathering and such concepts. Expanding on them is possible, just tricky to sell to the audiences. Thats why the last movie was so bad in my view(among other things), they just didnt have the chops to make a believable story that was the culmination of the whole thing, some monumentally bad acting and bad bad songs...

I always envisioned the game placed in the past, not in the present. The past holds many secrets, and considering the potential alternate histories that could have taken place, playing in a uchronia would also be possible. Heck, thats where the unexplored potential lies, what could the historical theory of the Great Man mean if applied to ones who had even more capacity than their fellow humans?

Immortals have perfect recollection of all their lives, as shown by Connor in the first movie. They just do not forget, at least imho. This in turn means they can become incredibly more skilled than a regular human beeing, with unknown limits to their capabilities. They have acess to unexplained powers as seen in the movies, less so in the series but still, the oldest imortals could do supernatural things. Instead of chopping heads of their rivals what if they decided to teach them en masse? Schools for the idea of a culture of post human immortals?

If we add to it, there could for example exist other immortals, created by exposing people to quickenings, if they have the specific gene they become immortals of the kind seen in the movie High Guard. A limited kind of imortality. This kind has the fog of ages on, they have forgotten so much we cant really conceptualise their though processes. Its like having a partial amnesia while beeing very high functioning at the same time. What would the relationship between the two kinds be, would they kill each other on sight, live with each other, try to avoid the others or just plain mistake themselves for the same kind and steer clear?

What scenarios could bring a group of immortals together and make them stay with each other? Lets see; obligation, debt of honor, blackmail, emotional connection, mentorship, common enemy, codependancy, bounty on their heads, ideology, confinement, beeing survivors of a disaster, unexplained premonions, desperation or just a project that would span centuries and require multiple workers to pull off, say saving the human race from itself for example.

Also, wasnt there the game called Trenchcoats and Katanas played in the Darkest Vancuver? It was pretty much a satire that could be played straight if i recall. Dont know if it was published thou.

Legacy: War of Ages is cheesy and definitely tried to emulate 90's White Wolf books but the rules are very serviceable and actually quite solid.  I was surprised when I read it how easily it does Highlander right out of the box.  I would definitely recommend it for
Highlander.

Another game that is made for this is Katanas & Trenchcoats, which I backed on Kickstarter.  It hasn't yet released but I have the preview PDF now.  It is tongue in cheek but can easily and effortlessly be played seriously.  You can view the KS page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanmacklin/katanas-and-trenchcoats-retromodern-roleplaying/description

I have been planning to do a Highlander campaign online for a long time now.  We should team up, arcanuum!