Quote from: jeff37923;754262d6 Star Wars RPG had the best backstory. Which was ruined by the time the rest of the versions of the game had come out.

/thread

Generic D&D.  You got a town, some wilderness, and a dungeon.  Go find some adventure.

My feelings are that most rpgs try too hard.

Quote from: mcbobbo;753915For me, that's Earthdawn/Shadowrun.
...

Quote from: everloss;753936...
Shadowrun ... .

Quote from: Vic99;753946Shadowrun. ...

Quote from: golan2072;753962Old-school Shadowrun. ...

Did someone mention Shadowrun?  Count me in

Quote from: The Butcher;754045...
Delta Green. Really a setting-within-a-setting, they did a good job of transposing the X-Files vibe to one several possible Cthulhu Mythos worlds. ...

The Day After Ragnarok. ...

Agreed, for pretty much the same reasons.

I'll add Eldritch Skies as another take on the Chtulhu Mythos to this list for me.  Mythos as Sci-Fi just works for me.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;754957...
2300 AD - Best aliens, hands down. Least obnoxious FTL handwavium. Decent future history. ...

Another Ditto.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;755139Ok, maybe I should redefine this topic a little. What's the influence backstory has on your games? Which games have backstory that influence actual play a lot? In what way does it influence the game? Or does it have great backstory which never seems to come up?

While I vastly prefer to create my own, when I do run in pre-gen setting, I try to make sure I include those elements that make it unique into scenarios as much as possible.

My last Shadowrun game (run with Savage Worlds) I had the runners trying to escort a newly found magical artifact right out of Earthdawn.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;755139Ok, maybe I should redefine this topic a little. What's the influence backstory has on your games? Which games have backstory that influence actual play a lot? In what way does it influence the game? Or does it have great backstory which never seems to come up?

2300AD and the Official Traveller Universe are both on the top of my list for this. 2300AD has a detailed background of history that is not too far into the future that we cannot see its roots in today's world. The Official Traveller Universe also hits that sweet spot right between being excessively detailed and giving too little info to be useful, it is just right to take an idea inspired by it and insert it in to the setting.

Any mundane modern or historical roleplaying game.

Our own past and present is the most complex and richly detailed game setting ever produced, or producible.

Quote from: Old One Eye;755220My feelings are that most rpgs try too hard.

Indeed.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;755139Ok, maybe I should redefine this topic a little. What's the influence backstory has on your games? Which games have backstory that influence actual play a lot? In what way does it influence the game? Or does it have great backstory which never seems to come up?

Published settings give me adventure hooks to play with. This is as true of the setting's background as it is of gazetteer entries, antagonist writeups, everything.

A secondary purpose for background is to lend depth and consistency to a setting. Some settings are better at it than others (Tékumel, Glorantha, Talislanta) but generally speaking I feel this should take a backseat to gameable opportunities.

Quote from: Brander;755225While I vastly prefer to create my own, when I do run in pre-gen setting, I try to make sure I include those elements that make it unique into scenarios as much as possible.

True. Though I usually go about it the opposite way; I run WFRP because I dig the idea of a motley of mercenary misfits savaging their way across ersatz Medieval Germany at the end of time. I run Day After Ragnarok because I want to see square-jawed heroic types punching Soviet ape-men, giant snakes, ODESSA Nazi war criminals and the Imperial Japanese sorcerers of the Black Dragon Society in the face. And so on.

Quote from: jeff37923;7553182300AD and the Official Traveller Universe are both on the top of my list for this. 2300AD has a detailed background of history that is not too far into the future that we cannot see its roots in fucking 1986.

Fixed it for you.

Seriously, 2300AD feels horribly dated to me.

Quote from: jeff37923;755318The Official Traveller Universe also hits that sweet spot right between being excessively detailed and giving too little info to be useful, it is just right to take an idea inspired by it and insert it in to the setting.

This I'm 100% behind. I've been really thinking of doing something within the OTU lately. But then maybe I've been listening to the eponymous Slough Feg album a bit too much lately.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;755336Any mundane modern or historical roleplaying game.

Our own past and present is the most complex and richly detailed game setting ever produced, or producible.

Now, that's just cheating. In any debate about settings, Mother Terra should be hors concours.

News Flash: I like Traveller. I give it's history at least an honorable mention, in my campaign I have moved history ahead to 1323 vs the 1100's of the official universe. There are some nice bits there.

I LOVED Greyhawk when I was 13, thought it was the Bees Knees, plenty fun there.

I can appreciate how much work modern games have put into their setting, like Eclipse Phase.

Quote from: The Butcher;755404Fixed it for you.

Seriously, 2300AD feels horribly dated to me.

Understandable, but have you taken a look at the Mongoose Publishing reboot of 2300AD that goes with their reboot of Traveller? It fixes that typo.

Quote from: jeff37923;755487Understandable, but have you taken a look at the Mongoose Publishing reboot of 2300AD that goes with their reboot of Traveller? It fixes that typo.

That's the only one I'm familiar with, actually.

But I'd be glad to read your take on it. Maybe we should start a new thread?

I enjoy the way that Greyhawk built up from the adventures that Gygax's group played.

Quote from: golan2072;753962Old-school Shadowrun. Doesn't always make sense, but is UBER COOL. Newer-school Shadowrun (i.e. the post-2060 timeline) is much more bland to my taste, though.

I find the same thing about Shadowrun, strangely.

A good backstory set things in motion, doesn't it?

A good blueprint of the setting with some backstory makes or breaks to the game to me. That's why I am not really that fond of building block setting, because there is not plot in those ones. Makes it less interesting.

The Morrow Project's backstory is a simple, not too overwrought and quite interesting setup for a gonzo post-apocalypse game.  Don't use Prime Base because it fucks it all up.

Skyrealms of Jorune's backstory is a flawed masterpiece.  The business with Iscin and his furries does need going through with a big red pen before you start playing, and the implied objective to become a citizen needs re-thinking, but there's a lot of good there too.  Quivering trid-nodes!

2300 AD has been mentioned a lot in this thread so I'll just say I think it's got some excellent aliens and some interesting sci-fi concepts but I wouldn't use it as-written nowadays.

But my call for the winning backstory is Glorantha, because it's got about 400 mutually contradictory backstories all of which are true and it also has several ways in for people who haven't read the backstory.  That makes it the gold standard of backstories as far as I'm concerned.

I want to like Greyhawk more but, and I know I commit sacrilege here, its always seemed a bit slapdash to me.  I'm not saying that a lot of it isn't great, but its also never struck me as a case of "excellent backstory".

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