I didn't answer my own thread. For me the biggie is Star Wars. I didn't "grow up" with Star Wars, I wasn't there at the beginning, it isn't a cherished part of my childhood or identity. But it was a setting I liked, largely because it wasn't hard sci-fi (which does nothing for me), but had spaceships and the Force and such.

However, it is an inconsistent, incoherent clusterfuck plagued by weak editorial policy and too many sources. Not only that, but the supposed primary sources, the two trilogies are full of problems. And they contradict each other in places. Plus the Force basically makes no fucking sense whatsoever, in terms of the morality attached to it.

For a long time my interest waxed and waned, I'd go through phases of being really into it, then losing interest again. I still think the KotOR comics and video games are brilliant. But I just found the incoherence too much to bear in an RPG.

Fortunately, I discovered Mass Effect, which does space opera in a much more coherent fashion (barring ME3's "space magic" endings).

I think Star Wars suffers from the same problem as Lord of the Rings. It's very black and white. You have the good guys and the bad guys. The main difference is the stereotypes. In one it's the ranger, the fighter, the mage and the thief in the other it's the jedi, the scoundrel, the wookie and the soldier. It's for little children. It doesn't have any depth whatsoever. That's why I always preffered Star Gate or Star Trek over Star Wars and Song of Ice and Fire over Lord of the Rings. Even though those franchises aren't perfect.

This will probably ignite a flame war. Bring it!

Quote from: jan paparazzi;805199I think Star Wars suffers from the same problem as Lord of the Rings. It's very black and white. You have the good guys and the bad guys. The main difference is the stereotypes. In one it's the ranger, the fighter, the mage and the thief in the other it's the jedi, the scoundrel, the wookie and the soldier. It's for little children. It doesn't have any depth whatsoever. That's why I always preffered Star Gate or Star Trek over Star Wars and Song of Ice and Fire over Lord of the Rings. Even though those franchises aren't perfect.

This will probably ignite a flame war. Bring it!

I've never found Lord of the Rings to be completely black and white. Denethor was a tragic character and deserved a better treatment in the movies. Good or evil did not drive him to madness, but the loss of everything he held dear. Even Sauron was not evil, but a force of nature, which deserved pity. He never had the choice to be the terrible, he was formed into the world with no capacity of choice.

What makes the worlds less playable is the setting designed to tell a single story, but was branched out to encompass a larger franchise over time.

Quote from: Crabbyapples;805201Even Sauron was not evil, but a force of nature, which deserved pity. He never had the choice to be the terrible, he was formed into the world with no capacity of choice.

  No, Sauron had a choice. He chose to follow Melkor in his opposition to the Music and Plan of Eru Iluvatar, and thus followed in Melkor's downfall.

  Some entities in Tolkien are debatable when it comes to free will--orcs, dragons, Ungoliant and her brood--but Melkor, Sauron and the Balrogs are not among them.

Your not the only one that question the morality of the force bit.  I guess in any Star Wars RPG game I play I always go force user instead of jedi because frankly I don't care much about the morality of the force.  Also if the force came from microscopic bacteria, then why is there morality at all.  Your simply using their excess power to pull of capabilities.  A force lightning is more likely to do good (recharge a battery for a dying droid) as well as evil (torture a innocent person).

Edit:  My apologies for not sticking with the topic.  The setting that soured on me is nWoD.  Talk about having your cake and trying to eat it too.  You go for sand box game, but then you try to shove down some canon for each splat.  No wonder people get into a pissy fit in online chats because they are too busy trying to stick to canon when no one knows what is canon.

People got angry at me because I had other shape shifters for a werewolf game.  Funny thing is they were in the War Against the Pure supplement for Werewolf: The Forsaken.  They all had excellent histories their own and how they came to be.  Still it didn't sit well with other people because it didn't fit in "canon" even though it is written into the very books they own.

Just either go full out sandbox, or just stick with a defined setting white wolf writers.  You could save everyone from a life time of arguments if you just pick which one you wanted.  I am not even joking about that.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;805094Ravenloft is more an urban fantasy setting than a horror one. Yes it has all the horror trappings, vampires and so on. But the supernatural mystery investigation element and the idea of a hidden world in plain sight aren't the focus of that setting.

Well, it was clearly set out to be a gothic horror setting by TSR...and the extra rules and information they gave were certainly helpful in that regard. But when the first modules came out, it was more of a slice & dice thing I guess (ie. modern horror as it's called in the Boxed Set).
I expected something like Cthulhu, but in the end I got fantasy adventures with a veneer of gothic horror.
I still have a soft spot for the setting and it certainly has potential, but the adventures were a disappointment (at least the ones I played or took a look at).
Maybe urban fantasy would be a better definition of the setting, I don't know. I'm not that knowledgeable about all the sorts of (literary) genres and what they mean...

Quote from: Snowman0147;805208Your not the only one that question the morality of the force bit.  

I think Star Wars and LotR are really good for action focused games. But they are a bit one-dimensional. I am more than happy to play a game like that, no problem.

Quote from: Snowman0147;805208Just either go full out sandbox, or just stick with a defined setting white wolf writers.  You could save everyone from a life time of arguments if you just pick which one you wanted.  I am not even joking about that.

My argument exactly. I said this for years. Usually got myself flamed for it. New WoD is nor flesh neither fish. It has not enough canon to be a really cool well established setting. And it isn't open enough for a sandbox. Try suggesting a setting to a vampire player with none of the covenants present and see what I mean. Even though it's supposed to be toolkit, everyone plays the same five covenant setup with some mild variation. Maybe an additional bloodline.

Legend of the Five Rings.

I still love the setting. But the card game driven metaplot, and the fact that its one of the hardest games to come up with a conceit for the players to group together (other than "all same clan" and "magistrates"), and it just is a pain pain to play.

When I do play it I usually set it in the perid that 1e presents, but there are still a huge pain in getting a party to be "together" in it.

Didn't 4th edition of the role playing books cut itself out from the card game?  As in role players do their own thing while card gamers do their own thing so the two don't share the canon.

Quote from: Snowman0147;805323Didn't 4th edition of the role playing books cut itself out from the card game?  As in role players do their own thing while card gamers do their own thing so the two don't share the canon.

They don't explicitly call out the metaplot as much anymore, but its still there in the background. I mean its hard to write the game without a bit of it considering that what schools would be available depends on which era you set it in.

I mean, I still have all the 4e books. I think there was a lot going right for the way they managed the RPG, I just think its one of the more difficult games to bring to a table because of the level of baggage and how to bring together a group without the magistrate conceit.

I still like the setting a lot, its just find it a a terrible setting to PLAY in.

Quote from: 3rik;805099Also, Unhallowed Metropolis. Weird-science Victoriana during an undead apocalypse sounded interesting but somehow the whole alternate future "Neo-Victorian" goth fetish angle turned me off of the setting even before I ever got to run or play the game.

Yeah, I agree with this. Its got lots of neat little bits, but the neo future thing ultimately kills it for me as well.

Quote from: CRKrueger;805126Exactly.  Google Glass and Twitter...who cares?  In Shadowrun my Street Samurai has a cellular phone/wireless connection in his head controlled by mental command or voice activation that can show anything on the Matrix in my cybereyes - audio, video, live news/cable shows, anything I want.  If I'm stuck in traffic on the I-5, I just have the autonav and GridGuide control the car while I hook up to a porn simsense feed and get a Full Sensory blowjob from my starlet of choice streamed directly into my nervous system.  BBS?  Shadowland looks more like a G+ hangout crossed with wikipedia then a BBS (minus the stupid picture icons which no real runner is going to post anyway).  If a couple gangs start a dustup on I-5, no worries, my internal combat system makes the one Arnie had in the Terminator look like cartoon  hour.  Neo?  Too slow.  Who needs a vehicle rig when you have a combat computer in your brain making the calculated angles and targets from Robocop look like an Atari 2600.

This is all with Shadowrun Second Edition technology.  The only thing evolved or modern about the later editions was the higher art budget.

Shadowrun being "quaint 80's futuretech" is one of those "common wisdom facts" that's really unanalyzed bullshit put forward by the colored hair transhumanist crowd.

Even then their consumer-oriented "advanced tech" world is just AR overlay bullshit.  Window Dressing.  You try and hack Mitsuhama with that crap, your brain is Ragu running out of your ears.  You're hacking it the way your grandpappy did, with a datajack and full Virtual Reality.

Im pretty sure that I want to play in your Shadow Run game:)

Quote from: Vonn;805210Well, it was clearly set out to be a gothic horror setting by TSR...and the extra rules and information they gave were certainly helpful in that regard. But when the first modules came out, it was more of a slice & dice thing I guess (ie. modern horror as it's called in the Boxed Set).
I expected something like Cthulhu, but in the end I got fantasy adventures with a veneer of gothic horror.
I still have a soft spot for the setting and it certainly has potential, but the adventures were a disappointment (at least the ones I played or took a look at).
Maybe urban fantasy would be a better definition of the setting, I don't know. I'm not that knowledgeable about all the sorts of (literary) genres and what they mean...

The genre/time/era how ever you want to put it is what kills it for me. I much prefer Masque of the Red Death for Ravenloft. The Victorian era just clicks with me. Personal preference I suppose.