Quote from: Simlasa;451878I guess one thing that turns me off of the 'police' idea is that I don't think of police as having all that much freedom of movement/self-direction... even at the detective level. The same sort of thing puts me off games about military characters. You pretty much go where you're told and always have a lot of oversight regarding your activities. Plus the vast majority of their time is spent waiting for something to happen. Just how I see it.
I can still enjoy cop shows because the boring/bureaucratic stuff gets truncated... but a game like that seems like it would be a series of unrelated vignettes.
Am I looking at the bark and missing the forest?

Yes, you are. In military game, your commanding officer tells you what needs to be done, not how to do it. Personal initiative is everything, and what separates winners from losers. In my military games, PCs either start or end up as the COs. For example, in In Harm's Way: Wild Blue, the PCs are entirely in charge of everything. They have characters who run the mercenary company, allocate resources, negotiate contracts. They have characters who are field officers controlling other PCs. They play grunts trying to achieve the goals the officers set. At each level individuals *must* exercise initiative to control the things they can control. They are the guys *in* the situation. They are the only ones who really know what;'s going on.

-clash

Quote from: thedungeondelver;452027Is there a game that does the gonzo superscience and over-the-top comic-book action crossed with a perverse Johnny Quest vibe of The Venture Brothers?

Because if not there needs to be one.

I'm thinking Hero System could probably do the trick.

I think a lot of what makes VB, VB, is the whole baseline theme behind the entire series, which is failure and being a has-been or never-was.  You could model the characters easy enough with nearly any current supers system, but I'm not sure how satisfactory that would be since you're only capturing the style.  A lot of the show's substance is ephemeral when it comes to trad tabletop systems unless you're willing to incorporate some minor story-game stuff.

Although I'm sure a really (really) epic botch table could work.  The failure mechanics would have to be super fun and entertaining, though.  And people would need to be willing to hand their character up Fate every once in a while for the sake of capturing the completely insane randomness of the show -- sort of revel in the complete deterioration of whatever situation they're in.  Sort of a toned down Paranoia vibe, maybe.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;451788They're dead now in US media, at least in Anglophonic media.  ABC just canceled the last two.

That's not the last two.  Four remain: ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘General Hospital’, ‘The Young and the Restless’, and ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’.

Quote from: flyingmice;452029Yes, you are. In military game, your commanding officer tells you what needs to be done, not how to do it. Personal initiative is everything, and what separates winners from losers.

See, I can see that in a 'Guns Of Navarone' type scenario... out there on your own with limited information and no way home but finishing the mission. A short campaign.
Mercenaries make sense as well... a small group that will stay together and answers mostly to itself.
Being a common grunt in a warzone doesn't sound like a tasty campaign idea though.

For a police game 'Life On Mars' would work because it's got a whole other set of mysteries going on besides the official police work.
Maybe I could get into an RPG version of Dragnet... I love Dragnet. The characters have a lot of restrictions but interesting freedoms to balance them out. Can't see a long campaign of it though... even Dragnet stresses that the every day experience of being a detective is pretty dull.

CSI is just bullshit on stale bread (with dance club lighting to how dumb it is).

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;451539Cops. Clash & I bantered a bit about it a while ago, and I think the concept roughly fits the mold of some of his other games, but he hasn't done anything with it so far as I know. There's Gangbusters of course but it's very old, and focused on the Prohibition era. I think a good game could be made of contemporary cops, including fighting street crime, tracking down murderers, taking on gangs, SWAT situations, etc. Some nod to genre could be included--60s and 70s shows, Starsky & Hutch, Kojack, Jack Lord, Streets of SF, etc.

I agree. We are working on an FBI game this year. And I have been thinking about doing somekind of general law enforcement game.

Quote from: danbuter;451582I'm still waiting for a good Urban Fantasy game, one that is actually designed for it and accounts for all the current major trends in the novels. Wizard, vampire, werewolf, coyote, fae and even normal humans as the PCs.

You would like this Italian comic book series, Jonathan Steele (no relation with The Guardian's journalist). It is exactly what you describe. The writer is a friend of mine, and I even ran a couple of GURPS andventures in this world.

Sadly, even if it screams "use me for a RPG background!!" (there are twelve years of monthly issues to mine from) finding a good publisher in Italy is the highway to clinical depression.

Quote from: AikiGhost;451540Prison drama, no magic, no powers, just harsh reality with a system that is appropriate for running the politics, dealing and brutality of it all.

One guy has already written a spoof RPG for politicians and public servants - BRIBE
 
http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue1/bribe.html

Quote from: Peregrin;452054I think a lot of what makes VB, VB, is the whole baseline theme behind the entire series, which is failure and being a has-been or never-was.  You could model the characters easy enough with nearly any current supers system, but I'm not sure how satisfactory that would be since you're only capturing the style.  A lot of the show's substance is ephemeral when it comes to trad tabletop systems unless you're willing to incorporate some minor story-game stuff.

Yeah; I mean, you're basically (as a GM) asking players to play fundamentally (and I mean really fundamentally) fucked-up characters.  Breaking it down with the VB squad as written, the team looks something like this:

Washed-up ex-jock ex-OSI "Swedish murder machine" is reduced to being a babysitter for two loudmouthed idiot kids.  

Loudmouthed idiot kid #1 - no specific role other than adventure foil or comedy relief.
Loudmouthed idiot kid #2 - ditto

(it doesn't matter which is Hank and which is Dean)

The "superscientist" is a pill junkie whose occasional flashes of brilliance are either entirely useless (witness the shrink ray) or uncontrollably destructive (the security 'bot he built to supplement HeLPeR).

The magic-user whose sole superpower seems to be the ability to drive his wife into the arms of another man, and embarrass his daughter.

The boys' other babysitter, a washed-up ex-supervillian pedophile.

(it goes on, but you know)

QuoteAlthough I'm sure a really (really) epic botch table could work.  The failure mechanics would have to be super fun and entertaining, though.  And people would need to be willing to hand their character up Fate every once in a while for the sake of capturing the completely insane randomness of the show -- sort of revel in the complete deterioration of whatever situation they're in.  Sort of a toned down Paranoia vibe, maybe.

Yeah...but at that point it becomes a real, real railroad.  I think a The Venture Brothers, the RPG is one of those things best left for talking about at the table while someone's on a pizza run/waiting for the game to start/discussing in webforums.  Although playing Rusty Venture: The College Years and playing D&D with Dr. Sorayama could get hilariously meta.

Quote from: The Butcher;451777I'd say 80-90%. The Dreamquest system should be portable with minimal adaptation.

Also the Combat Maneuvers system from MRQII core, which is pretty damn cool. :cool:

@ Cole: I basically agree with that. The skills are rearranged, repurposed and/or renamed, some parts like the combat maneuvers are added, and the combat chapter is more detailed than in most versions of BRP I know (which you'd expect from a RuneQuest game worthy of the name - MRQ2 is worthy of the name, btw), with hit locations, reach, charges and all these kinds of details, but ultimately, when you come down to it, the fundamentals are the same.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;452210I agree. We are working on an FBI game this year. And I have been thinking about doing somekind of general law enforcement game.

Then I will leave it in your extra-ordinarily capable hands, Brendan! I have no doubt your game will kick ass!

-clash

A friend of mine is working on a Niszchen roleplaying game :S

Quote from: flyingmice;453492Then I will leave it in your extra-ordinarily capable hands, Brendan! I have no doubt your game will kick ass!

-clash

Thanks.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;452210I agree. We are working on an FBI game this year. And I have been thinking about doing somekind of general law enforcement game.

Awsome news

Quote from: Sigmund;453564Awsome news

Well I've been quite sick, so it may take us time (our schedule is a little backed up as a result). But I am hoping I will be in good enough shape by next month to go full throttle on these ideas. I have all the basic groundwork for the FBI game done (and it uses many of the basic parts of our Counter Terrorism game---however focusing on the FBI changes a lot of the core concepts).

Quote from: Koltar;451591That doesn't cover all the possibilities.

Right now there is an oddball cross-genre thing going on between 'fantasy', 'Horror', romances, and 'Mystery' novels.

Included in this new 'Urban Fantasy' genre are book series like:

Chicagoland Vampire novels

The Sooki Stackhouse novels ("TRUE BLOOD" is the HBO version)

The Amber Benson books about Death's Daughter Calliope Reaper-Jones

The Dresden Files

Penguin Books inside their covers refers to this kind of stuff as 'Dark Fantasy' or 'Urban Noir' books.

TV Shows that might fall under this umbrella rea things like:

"Angel"

"Being Human" (U.K. or North Am version)

"Buffy: The Vampire Slayer"

"Charmed"

"The Dresden Files"

"Forever Night"

"Highlander" The Series

"Moonlight" (it wasn't as 'angsty' and 'dark' as other Vampire shows)

"TRUE BLOOD"

"Special Unit Two" (two season cop show set in Chicago - they hunted monsters of legend)

Is there a current RPG that covers all that kind of stuff as its main focus?

- Ed C.

Closest to cover all is probably Bureau 13 from Tri Tac Games (d20 version)