TheRPGSite

I am trying to put this into words for a video I am making, in which I am trying to differentiate the elements of the world presented in a story that allows it to be good for and RPG to be set in there.

I have a good idea when I compare some of the most interesting fantasy/sci-fi story that makes me think "Yes, outside of the protagonists, I could have a random joe story somewhere else and have a cool campaign", compared to those.

But what are those aspects? Expansiveness I think is important, after all I know that one of the best settings is Star Wars, where despite the important characters that change the setting, you know there is an whole galaxy of lore, characters and location where to put your random joes. In contrast, I don't think most single player Final Fantasy games (like 6 or 7) allow you to have those stories, as in many instances the locations serve the story told by the characters rather than places lived in first. But that goes for most stories, so what makes Star Wars a more interesting setting RPG wise than Final Fantasy 6 or 7, is expansiveness all there is? What other factors play? I'd like some insight if possible.

It all depends on the imagination and dedication of the group. Like, there are tons of rpgs, both official and unofficial, licensed from/based on stories that simply don't lend themselves to ttrpg style adventures. But people make/play them anyway, force the issue, even though in my opinion they suck.

For example, Starcraft. The setting is tiny af. When TSR made the official licensed rpg back in 1998, everything they wrote was written around a random space cowboy because he was the main character of the original video game. The setting supposedly had many billions of inhabitant and hundreds to thousands of light years of space available, but everything revolved around that one space cowboy. This is obviously a poorly constructed setting that doesn't lend itself to satisfying ttrpg stories.

There are also ttrpg original settings that don't lend themselves to satisfying ttrpg adventures, like World of Darkness. It's about some dude's comic book story and characters, who appear in the game as GMNPCs that solve the various "metaplot" events. It's not really about playing games so much as using fake gamebooks as vehicles for its story. The rules aren't even playable and everybody ignores them. It is infamous in more respectable ttrpg circles as that game that you buy to read rather than play. The most recent 5th edition killed off the ancient GMNPCs, because apparently the latest publisher finally realized it was a stupid idea, but fans absolutely hated it and think the changes ruined everything.

The reason Star Wars has accumulated so much cruft is because writers forced it to. If you spend decades writing expanded universe material, then yeah it's gonna feel way larger than it actually is in the movies. Especially when you use an entire galaxy as your canvas and don't have a rigorous canon policy. It still feels like an aimless mess because it is an aimless mess. It's not as bad as starcraft because it has way more writers and some of them are actually competent, but it's still a mess that people only care about because of nostalgia for Luke Skywalker.

You can do this setting expansion with pretty much any story. But should you? I prefer the opposite: design a setting that meant to be played in, then write stories as examples of what can happen.

I see, I thought most of the expanded universe for Star Wars was because of the West End RPG that served as the one and only setting's sourcebook after the movies came out. So the galaxy became and RPG world and the Expanded Universe came after.

To your last point I can't help but think of Dark Sun's Metaplot and how it destroyed the setting by solving the world's problems.

Personally, I don't think Star Wars is particularly good as an RPG campaign setting as evidenced by how much companies like WEG had to change the setting for it to work. It is better, however, if you only consider the original trilogy.

For me, the list of things that make a good RPG setting includes:

1) Multiple factions at odds with each other that are roughly comparable in size and power.
2) There are reasons why a good (or at least neutral) player character would join most of the factions. IOW, few are so cartoonishly evil that PCs can't join them.
3) The setting needs to be of such a size and scale where a victory of one faction over another in one area won't automatically change the entire setting.
4) Finally, the setting should flexible enough to still be interesting even if specific, powerful NPCs are killed or otherwise disposed of.

While it has issues, I think Fallout 4 is a good example of what I'm talking about. Each faction in the game has it's own ideals and while a player might agree with one over another, none are so one-dimensional that they hold no appeal

The Brotherhood of Steel values humans over mutants and robots.
The Railroad considers bio-robots and humans to be of equal value.
The Institute is only concerned about the long term survival of humanity and cares very little about the current inhabitants
The Minutemen care primarily about their members, regardless of who those members are (except if they are synths).

This not only creates an interesting choice for the players but could lead to disagreement between the various players as well.

As for expansiveness, this one is relative. Star Wars, for example, is huge but a player can fly from any point in the galaxy to any other point in a matter of hours while there are still reasons for some areas to be more "remote" than others. But expansiveness isn't really only about size. A large cyberpunk city, for example, can be of similar scope with travel times between one part of the city to another being relatively short (short enough to hand wave away in a game session), but there would still be a variety of different areas with some areas being more populated than others.

However, expansiveness like this comes at a price in that it's harder for the DM to run if players can move about so quickly. Which is why most RPG settings, even those like Star Trek, have slower movement from place to place. Limiting the player's options of movement to make it easier to prep for the next adventure.

Quote from: Lixuniverse on December 12, 2024, 03:15:50 PMI see, I thought most of the expanded universe for Star Wars was because of the West End RPG that served as the one and only setting's sourcebook after the movies came out. So the galaxy became and RPG world and the Expanded Universe came after.

There's a huge multimedia expanded universe for Star Wars. Two, actually. Canon, and Star Wars Legends (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Legends). They're not remotely self-consistent.

Quote from: Lixuniverse on December 12, 2024, 03:15:50 PMTo your last point I can't help but think of Dark Sun's Metaplot and how it destroyed the setting by solving the world's problems.

In general, metaplots never seem to be done well.

The short of it is: these are fictional settings. They're not real. They're not subject to time. So why give them advancing timelines? What purpose does this serve?

As a simple advancing of the timeline, as seen in games like Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, Traveller, or Battletech, their existence is quite frankly completely pointless and is just a gimmick to try forcing groups to keep buying new books (which doesn't work btw, you know the edition treadmill). Traveller and Battletech actually have separate setting books for different points on the timeline, so you can play in those. The downside is that this assumes that the PCs cannot actually effect on the timeline, even through the butterfly effect. In that case, it's just a cheap way to sell multiple settings under the same brand, similar to how Blackmoor and Mystara were at once point considered different points on the same timeline.

These advancing timelines don't even upset the status quo. Cyberpunk 2077 is functionally identical to Cyberpunk 2020. Traveller and Battletech have completely illusory timelines because different setting books take place at different points, so there's no actual advancement.

When you start upsetting the established, then you risk either upsetting fans who take "the lore" really seriously (again, this is fiction some dude made up, not a religious text, but some people take it that seriously) or you end up removing the setting's established sources of conflict, such as with the Dark Sun metaplot. In a number of cases, later editions would end up resetting these metaplot developments. For example, the latest edition of Planescape undid most the of the consequences of the Faction War aside from merging some of the redundant factions. In fact, you could treat this as a retcon rather than an advancing metaplot and it wouldn't make a difference in play.

The only time I've seen a metaplot that I found remotely interesting was the "evil alien invasion on the frontier" metaplot/subplot in TSR's Star*Drive setting. The game was canceled before they managed to get more than one or two years into it, so I can only judge based on that. The reason I found it interesting is because, while other metaplots are either irrelevant or remove sources of conflict, it generated adventure hooks because it's an evil alien invasion. Think the plot of Halo stapled onto Babylon 5. The setting was large enough that you could just ignore it too. Maybe WotC would've screwed it up if they published more books about it, but we'll never know now.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on December 12, 2024, 03:28:59 PMFor me, the list of things that make a good RPG setting includes:

1) Multiple factions at odds with each other that are roughly comparable in size and power.
2) There are reasons why a good (or at least neutral) player character would join most of the factions. IOW, few are so cartoonishly evil that PCs can't join them.
3) The setting needs to be of such a size and scale where a victory of one faction over another in one area won't automatically change the entire setting.
4) Finally, the setting should flexible enough to still be interesting even if specific, powerful NPCs are killed or otherwise disposed of.

All of this is true for Star*Drive, which isn't surprisingly because it was created specifically to be an rpg setting.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on December 12, 2024, 03:28:59 PMHowever, expansiveness like this comes at a price in that it's harder for the DM to run if players can move about so quickly. Which is why most RPG settings, even those like Star Trek, have slower movement from place to place. Limiting the player's options of movement to make it easier to prep for the next adventure.

Star*Drive also does that. The starships available for purchase by typical PCs only allow ftl jumps of at most 5-10 ly per trip, the trips last 121 hours every time, and you need several days to recharge after each jump.

If it sounds like I'm shilling, I am. Sorry about that. It's not a great setting to shill for because none of the pdfs are legally available.

Expansiveness is a good way to put it. It's the world and the worldbuilding that makes something a good setting for a game. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to focus on characters, when of course you're supposed to be making your own.

I think it's a symptom of the times really — all the reboots and remakes of IPs don't seem to have the guts to drop the original characters even as they get old and their reasons for going on adventures become more and more odd (Star Wars and Indiana Jones, I'm looking at you).

Quote from: Bubu on December 12, 2024, 11:28:18 PMExpansiveness is a good way to put it. It's the world and the worldbuilding that makes something a good setting for a game.

It's important to note that worldbuilding can be done very badly. Expansiveness shouldn't be taken to mean packed with irrelevant detail.

Some settings, like World of Darkness, are vanity projects that write themselves into corners because they're about wanking their exposition dumps rather than making something playable. The amount of freedom you had was basically nil unless you ignored the books, defeating the point of buying them. You wouldn't believe all the anecdotes I've heard where everyone consistently agreed they ignored the rules and setting.

The spin-off Chronicles of Darkness (the 2004 edition) left the setting more open-ended so that GMs could mess around without worrying about too much cascade effects. There were various toolkit books like Mirrors, Blasphemies, Mythologies, Chronicler's Guides, etc that provided lots of options. Judging by its consistently high position on the ICv2 from 2004 to 2009, this really paid off. Groups love toolkits and modularity.

When writing a setting, you need to always think "will this information ever be relevant to the PCs?" If it's not, if you can remove it without affecting gameplay, then you should probably cut it. I can't remember how many times I've seen books and adventures provide lore dumps that only the GM would ever be able to know.

I think a great way to put this into practice is to write exposition from an in-character perspective that the PCs can reasonably be expected to learn. Adventure handouts, encounters, etc. If you can't write in that format, then you should rethink whatever you're trying to write.

Quote from: Bubu on December 12, 2024, 11:28:18 PMUnfortunately a lot of people seem to focus on characters, when of course you're supposed to be making your own.

To be fair, audiences of passive media invest in characters over everything else. We need characters to make stories enjoyable. No media franchise has ever gotten and remained popular on the basis of lore alone. Yes, refusal to let characters move on is bad writing, but it's not an entirely baseless decision.

The concept of fantasy races and character classes owes more to specific fantasy characters than actual professions. They want to play Aragorn, Conan, Legolas or Gimli. Fantasy races and classes are a proxy for this, until they develop the creativity to make original characters.

There ARE worlds that are varied in how much details they got that compel many types of audiences. Perhaps a balance of each is the best, like in Traveller where you have hundreds of planets detailed in the wiki from decades... All that when the main books are filled with tables for how to generate planets and sectors.

Is perhaps a balanced of detailed lore and tools for fans to fill the gaps on their own what's required?

I think the core requirement for a story setting to make a good game setting is less about overall details of the setting being expansive enough, but rather that its core conflict (whatever that might be) must be big enough to support stories outside of the original protagonists and villains.

Ex. Ghostbusters and the Star Wars OT work really well for a rpg premise despite actually being pretty thin in terms of setting details, but the core conflict of each (making a living hunting the paranormal and rebelling against a tyrannical space empire) is expansive enough to build practically endless stories that don't have to center around the original protagonists.

Indeed, I'd argue that Star Wars Rebels and the Afterlife/Frozen Empire serieses can almost serve as real life examples of how an RPG spin-off should be structured. A small band of original rebels fighting to save their homeworld and occasionally crossing paths with a few of the series' main characters as "special guests." A next generation trying to keep the family business going with some cameos from the older generation.

But the critical element in both of those is that there are enough variations within the conflict that it starts feeling repetitive. The paranormal has countless variations including motives of the living and the dead to keep it fresh. The unifying elements for the RPG are the Ghostbusters as a business (or franchise in the actual rpg) and specific ghostbusting equipment that keep it from being a generic monster/ghosthunting setting.

Likewise, even just within the three original films it is established that there are smugglers, crime bosses, bounty hunters, colonies, and spy rings in addition to just space battles and shootouts with faceless stormtroopers. Heck, the original protagonists included farm boys, reforming criminals, ousted politicians/royalty, warrior monks, and droids.

Sure WEG went and expanded on it, but the existing elements for myriad conflicts were all right there in the original films.

Star Trek similarly has a broad concept that is easy to extrapolate to other ships of exploration.

By contrast, for all its conflicts and varied locations, the Battlestar Galactica reboot would be a fairly abysmal RPG because it's core conflicts boil down to a single group of some 50k people struggling to find Earth facing the same opponent again and again and without the show's particular interpersonal conflicts, there's not nearly enough there to expand it to where the PCs could have a meaningful role in the recognized conflict.

Similarly, outside of its very specific to specific houses/characters, there is little of A Song of Ice and Fire to recommend it as a game setting. You're there for the story of the Starks and Targaryians. If you're not interacting with them in the game you may as well just use a generic low-magic/no-magic fantasy setting. If winter/the Others aren't coming and dragons aren't on the wing there's nothing worth having a license for outside of a marketing name to put on the cover.

There were Battlestar Galactica and Game of Thrones official licensed rpgs btw.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 15, 2024, 06:05:40 PMThere were Battlestar Galactica and Game of Thrones official licensed rpgs btw.

I'm aware, I even own the latter because I was exploring different systems' domain rules at the time.

The thing is, if it didn't have "A Song of Ice and Fire" on the cover and mention the Starks and Lannisters in some of the examples you'd never be able to tell it was the licensed RPG for the setting.

There were no Others/White Walkers or dragons or even the magic of the Faceless Men or the Red Witch.

All it really covered was playing as a lesser noble house trying to improve its standing among its peers and liege at some non-critical point in the setting's history.

It may as well have just been set somewhere in Europe in the High Medieval period for all the importance GoT/ASoIaF lore had to the system.

And that's the fundamental problem with those settings as RPGs. The conflicts are too specific to specific people and places and events for a group of PCs to have any adventures that feel remotely connected to the universe unless you're either letting them play the protagonists (and are willing to let them go off script) or forcing them to play second fiddle to the story protagonists.

You'd be better served just ripping off plot points from GoT and applying them to a game of your choice. You'd get a ton of the feel and not have to worry about "contradicting canon."

Expansive settings are fantastic, if there's interesting things going on in them apart from the official stories.

The Star Wars OT has the prospect of "a thousand thousand worlds" a pervasive evil empire, rebels, scoundrels and criminals and bounty hunters, and enough of a tech base and a magic system to extrapolate all manner of adventures having nothing to do with the main story but which still feel like they could be happening in the same universe.

Star Trek is similar as it's easy to envision another crew of another ship exploring in a different direction and having adventures and the episodes providing examples of the sorts of things you might run into out there.

Both also have specific identifiable technologies and organizations that are more expansive than what we see in their media.

Other stories lack either the expansive concept or an element unique to its setting to make it worth an actual IP-based RPG.

For example, Westerns as a whole are worth an RPG because its an expansive concept with lots of potential conflicts, but without something more it's not going to be worth making "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly the RPG."

Campy James Bond is probably right on the edge of what qualifies as a good setting; there are other 00- agents, there are Q's distinctive gadgets, there are some recurring villainous organizations.

You'd still be better off grabbing and generic-ing its stuff and throwing in Mission Impossible's bits and any of a dozen other spy shows/films because what there is is fairly thin and widely aped elsewhere.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 16, 2024, 04:48:28 PMAll it really covered was playing as a lesser noble house trying to improve its standing among its peers and liege at some non-critical point in the setting's history.

So...it's very much like the Dune RPG.

One "hack" that helps immensely in making a playable setting is to simply set the game in "the real world, but with X."

For instance, Buffy the Vampire Slayer worked well as a game, because you know the basic setting, reality, and are intended to learn about where and how the setting deviates from reality as the game goes along.

This is also how Ghostbusters and Call of Cthulhu works.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 17, 2024, 01:51:22 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 16, 2024, 04:48:28 PMAll it really covered was playing as a lesser noble house trying to improve its standing among its peers and liege at some non-critical point in the setting's history.

So...it's very much like the Dune RPG.

The Dune RPG ironically ignores the entirety of the books beyond the appendix. The plots deal with the feudal status quo being upended by the actions of the Atreides and their descendants millennia into the future. The RPG is just a generic scifi feudal game. You could invent your own setting from scratch and it wouldn't make a difference. All aesthetics, no substance or themes or anything challenging.

Frank Herbert must be spinning in his grave. His stated intention for the end of the series was for humanity to form a democracy.

Quote from: Lurkndog on December 17, 2024, 10:43:52 AMOne "hack" that helps immensely in making a playable setting is to simply set the game in "the real world, but with X."

Otherwise known as contemporary fantasy. Ironically, it's a very underserved genre.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 16, 2024, 04:48:28 PMThe Star Wars OT has the prospect of "a thousand thousand worlds" a pervasive evil empire, rebels, scoundrels and criminals and bounty hunters, and enough of a tech base and a magic system to extrapolate all manner of adventures having nothing to do with the main story but which still feel like they could be happening in the same universe.

Star Trek is similar as it's easy to envision another crew of another ship exploring in a different direction and having adventures and the episodes providing examples of the sorts of things you might run into out there.

Both also have specific identifiable technologies and organizations that are more expansive than what we see in their media.

Other stories lack either the expansive concept or an element unique to its setting to make it worth an actual IP-based RPG.

For example, Westerns as a whole are worth an RPG because its an expansive concept with lots of potential conflicts, but without something more it's not going to be worth making "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly the RPG."

Campy James Bond is probably right on the edge of what qualifies as a good setting; there are other 00- agents, there are Q's distinctive gadgets, there are some recurring villainous organizations.

You'd still be better off grabbing and generic-ing its stuff and throwing in Mission Impossible's bits and any of a dozen other spy shows/films because what there is is fairly thin and widely aped elsewhere.

So, aside from a setting that feels expansive enough to easily imagine more stories going on separate from the main one, there has to be identifying elements within the setting to tie it specifically with the universe, rather than genre like western, whose rules are tied to a specific place and time.

I wonder if diversity of themes is also important. One of Star Wars main axioms is the presence of the force, where some people have it and the powers that come with it. Psionic powers are present in many other settings, but only Star Wars "has" the force in that way that it's unique to Star Wars instead of any other franchise.

I'd not call The Force a theme so much as a distict magic system for the setting.

Calling it technology isn't the right word, but The Force and the lightsabers practically synonymous with it sits right next to Star Destroyers, TIE Fighters, X-Wings, the Falcon, as distinct "things" that are recognizable and therefore have value as an IP as opposed to just making a generic science fantasy game without the costs of the Star Wars IP.

Similarly, it's the particular look of Star Trek ships and uniforms along with the other things so distinctive to it (ex. using transporters instead of landing craft or just landing the whole ships in other sci-fi settings.

In both cases there's a lot more to the actual films/shows that are thematic (like Trek's utopian vision for mankind's future) that fluff and art can incorporate to add appeal to fans, but without the specific "things" there's not really enough to really sell an IP as an RPG.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 17, 2024, 01:20:04 PM

Quote from: Lurkndog on December 17, 2024, 10:43:52 AMOne "hack" that helps immensely in making a playable setting is to simply set the game in "the real world, but with X."

Otherwise known as contemporary fantasy. Ironically, it's a very underserved genre.

I don't think it's a matter of being underserved. I think those genres got their defining games almost immediately, and everyone who wants to play Lovecraftian Horror simply plays Call of Cthulhu.

Quote from: Lurkndog on December 18, 2024, 08:39:03 AMI think those genres got their defining games almost immediately,

What defining games? At present, the contemporary fantasy genre is on life support at best. Every notable game even adjacent to the genre has been cancelled. Nephilim, Nightlife, WitchCraft, Everlasting, Fireborn, Dark•Matter, Chronicles of Darkness, etc. Last decade we got a crappy reboot of a crappy 90s game as a tie-in to a crappy video game adaptation. The publisher of Urban Shadows would rather focus all their efforts on their licensed Avatar: The Last Airbender game.

If you want to do basic stuff like playing an angel who fight demons, or a slayer who fights demons, or a werewolf who was infected by a bite, or paranormal investigators that investigate conspiracies and cryptids, then you'll have to resort to either making it yourself or hoping one of the dead games or one-off indie titles of the last 20-30 years supports what you're looking for.

But I digress

To be fair, all of those would be pretty easy to just plug into a system like Mutants & Masterminds or Savage Worlds unless you're wanting a bespoke fictional setting like "Twilight the RPG" or something.

One advantage of going with semi-tailored system like M&M (it's already got a lot of powers prebuilt and a magic and horror supplement with specific elements you could use) is that because you're not using something like WoD, the players won't know which facts about vampires/werewolves/witches/ghosts/fae/angels/demons/etc. are true or not and point-buy allows for the creation of specific packages players must take to represent a specific supernatural critter type.

I think the biggest reason so many dedicated urban fantasy games are on life support or defunct is largely just a function of there not being enough unique to individual settings that a superhero or pulp adventure couldn't cover it with a generic supplement (M&M Book of Magic or Nocturnals, SWADE has a Monster Hunter International and other Urban Fantasy settings) and not even miss a beat.

Hell, I could probably recreate both the classic and new WoD settings entirely in M&M with virtually no difficulty beyond needing to figure out the base PL for a given campaign.

2e would probably be better as it had more specific rules for physiological drawbacks like vampire sun alergies whereas 3e relegates those to complications. That said, you can finesse 3e to account for nonlethal weaknesses (buy down certain traits then buy them back with a conditional drawback).

The market for modern fantasy and urban fantasy has shifted a lot since the 90s.  It's smutty romance for middle-aged women now.  Middle-aged women who buy romance books are a very lucrative market for novels.  Authors like Kim Harrison and Patricia Briggs sell a lot of books.  I don't think that market buys many ttrpgs though.

Quote from: Lixuniverse on December 12, 2024, 12:20:19 PMI am trying to put this into words for a video I am making, in which I am trying to differentiate the elements of the world presented in a story that allows it to be good for and RPG to be set in there.

I have a good idea when I compare some of the most interesting fantasy/sci-fi story that makes me think "Yes, outside of the protagonists, I could have a random joe story somewhere else and have a cool campaign", compared to those.

But what are those aspects? Expansiveness I think is important, after all I know that one of the best settings is Star Wars, where despite the important characters that change the setting, you know there is an whole galaxy of lore, characters and location where to put your random joes. In contrast, I don't think most single player Final Fantasy games (like 6 or 7) allow you to have those stories, as in many instances the locations serve the story told by the characters rather than places lived in first. But that goes for most stories, so what makes Star Wars a more interesting setting RPG wise than Final Fantasy 6 or 7, is expansiveness all there is? What other factors play? I'd like some insight if possible.

I disagree with everything you just wrote. But that's okay, because I think you've mistaken the differences between stories and RPGs, because you keep mentioning Star Wars and FF. You could set a story within one single room and make it engaging and interesting - but not an RPG. But that doesn't mean an expansive world is better. It can still be a boring RPG, otherwise games like TORG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torg) would've been more popular. What truly makes a story's setting appropriate for an RPG is how INTERESTING the setting is. Take the film, Dark City. That would make a good RPG setting even though it only takes place in a single location.(What would make it a poor RPG is lack of agency within that setting, unless it is set AFTER the events of the film, in which case it would be a boring setting!) Star Wars, when it was a popular RPG, was notable for getting easy to get into. But I have yet to hear the kind of interesting adventures people had in it, when compared to RPGs like Traveller, which is smaller in comparison. I think what is really needed for setting is a highly interesting idea combined with novelty. That's why CYBERSPACE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberspace_(role-playing_game)), which could be set anywhere within the solar system, was never as successfully compelling as Cyberpunk 2020 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_(role-playing_game)) - taking place in a single city. This is in my experience, so take it as you will.

Here's a quality which is absolutely critical, and which almost no one talks about. You could call it "accessibility", but I think a better term is "recognizability":

The biggest worldbuilding limitations tabletop RPGs face, relative to other mediums, are limited time and limited visual elements. Every object, character and location has to be described to the players, and ought to be described in as few words as possible. And unlike a novel, players have to understand what their characters are seeing, because they have to interact with it. This biases the hobby towards settings with familiar and/or recognizable elements.

In simple terms: It's better for the GM to say "a band of orcs break from the trees and charge you", then it is to say "a band of Bogogloks break from the trees. Ok a bogoglok is..." and then launch into a 5 minute explanation before continuing the scene.

As far as I can tell, this is the reason why the most successful settings are either huge media properties that most people are familiar with (LOTR, Star Wars), or are composed of a combination of recognizable real world elements and common genre tropes (Warhammer, Forgotten Realms). It's also why when people do step out of standard tropes, they usually compose the new elements out of old parts (i.e., why most "original races" are either re-colored elves or people with animal heads).

Truly innovative or imaginative TRPG settings generally struggle to pick up traction. You can put all the innovative stuff you want in the book, but players are lazy and they're not going to do research. If there's too many unfamiliar elements they're going to be confused, and if you stop the game to explain to them, they're going to get bored.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 18, 2024, 09:20:31 AMIf you want to do basic stuff like playing an angel who fight demons, or a slayer who fights demons, or a werewolf who was infected by a bite, or paranormal investigators that investigate conspiracies and cryptids, then you'll have to resort to either making it yourself or hoping one of the dead games or one-off indie titles of the last 20-30 years supports what you're looking for.

I sorta answered this previously, but on further reflection on your many complaints about why no one ever built something to take on the World of Darkness in all the years since I've had something of a revelation.

The OGL made it unnecessary.

Specifically, about 95% of the actual setting of Urban Fantasy is "The Modern World" with a "But X is true" and there are a ton of extant and supported modern world rpgs.

In short, its easier to just write a setting book/supplement for PBtA, FATE, SWADE or, say, M&M 3e (depending on your preferred level of rules complexity) where most of the modern world elements are already designed and all you have to focus on are the few rules chunks dealing with your version of the supernatural (possibly just builds within the existing system) and then the setting fluff because there's rarely a set of dice mechanics special enough to really warrant an entirely bespoke system for a "Modern-ish World + X" setting.

The OGL dropped in 2000 and the original WoD ended in 2003 so I think one of the real reasons you just don't see a new bespoke competitor to the World of Darkness is because I could build an Urban Fantasy campaign for Savage Worlds FATE or Mutants & Masterminds with almost no effort beyond defining what [insert Urban Fantasy element here] looks like in that system.

This realization smacked me across the face so hard I'm even rethinking my idea for building a bespoke system for Hunters of the Damned and instead probably building just my power/morality system as an add-on for the M&M3 SRD (because I like things a bit crunchier than SWADE).

Then where's the not!WoD that was created using OGL?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 22, 2024, 10:53:40 AMThen where's the not!WoD that was created using OGL?

There are several published Urban Fantasy settings for SWADE.

M&M's Book of Magic goes over setting up an Urban Fantasy-based setting.

FATE has The Dresden Files RPG.

I don't care enough about PbtA to look, but I'm sure there's urban fantasy settings aplenty.

* * * *

What I'm saying and will try to express slightly differently to make it clear is...

There's not enough about the Urban Fantasy genre as distinct from other modern settings to make an entire line out of it something worth doing.

SWADE Core has magic and superpowers and race/species rules that include classic urban fantasy types as examples. Other than fluff from your favorite urban fantasy series (which doesn't require a dedicated rpg, just a GM who's read those books/watched that show), what more do you need?

Your complaint is no one has tried to make a WoD-killer, and I'm saying there isn't a market for one because it's already so easy to just grab your modern setting system of choice (which all have some sort power system for emulating comics and urban fantasy and cyberpunk, etc.).

FATE and SWADE and M&M ARE the NotWoDs you've been asking for.

They just don't market themselves as exclusively urban fantasy because the same framework can also be adapted to superspies, Kung Fu action, cyberpunk, and supers of various tiers with almost no effort.

To put my money where my mouth is on this (and repeating myself); once I made the association, I decided to just make "Hunters of the Damned" a third-party setting book for (probably) Mutants & Masterminds 3e (I prefer it's complexity relative to FATE or SWADE).

M&M already has all the modern world and near future gadgets and rules designed and a fully implemented power system that I could build all my PC and villain types with.

Why break my back reinventing the mechanics when I could devote all my efforts to building an engaging setting to inspire GMs and players with and the few unique mechanical bits the setting would need?

Do you have any specific reviews? I tried googling those but all the results are random garbage data.

Alrighty, Dresden Files is your basic FATE rules with the proper plug-ins for fantasy elements (it is written as a standalone so the core rules are included). It covers most of the supernaturals from the books (it's got red, black and white court vampires for example) and how to create them as PCs or NPCs.

The main draw is of course the Dresden setting and the book is written from the perspective of one of Dresden's associates having written an RPG and seeking feedback from Harry, with sidebars presented as Harry's post-it note commentary on the subject.

Fate overall is fairly narrative/metacurrency heavy where you're seeking to leverage Aspects of your character, items, NPCs, and the environment to your advantage. It's pretty rules lite and depends a lot on the GM to interpret things.

Savage Worlds is essentially a tuned-up generic version of the Deadlands system; which already had a number of urban fantasy elements woven into it. The core book includes rules for magic and includes examples of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, etc.; the elements of which could be easily applied to PCs.

If you're not familiar with Savage Worlds it's got a game engine that delivers a very Pulp feel to its games, even with some of the grittier "setting rules" (i.e. optional rules intended for genre emulation) engaged.

It also requires the GM to hand out large amounts of the game's metacurrency throughout each session to keep the system running (without it the odds of failure on even simple checks can exceed 25%).

Lastly, we've got M&M3e. While you could do it all just with the core book and inspiration, M&M has a 150 page supplement called the Supernatural Handbook that covers campaign styles (touch of horror, monster of the week, post-apocalyptic, post-humanity, the ancient ones, children of myth, science amok, altered history, and enslaved), how different periods in history play into the supernatural (Muslim conquest, crusades, inquisition, weird west, steampunk, new science, roaring twenties, dirty thirties, Nazis, Cold War, near past, present day, immediate future, near future, and far future).

It then goes on to discuss character considerations with guidance based on the desired power level of the campaign, ranging from normals to pulp heroes, to superheroes, to legendary beings. It discusses archetypes and provides monster templates for building characters with, then moves on to elements of crime scene investigations and information gathering which often play roles in urban fantasy (how many of the popular urban fantasies have supernatural investigators/private investigators as their protagonists? Lots).

The GM section discusses types of horror (sociological, psychological, allegorical, scientific, supernatural and natural), horror and corruption mechanics, and the difference between disquiet and discomfort, before moving on to discuss Intermediate and Advanced concepts (Maslow's hierarchy of needs, mirror neurons, and degrees of separation are in that section) and advice on creating organizations/cults and fictional mythologies/gods and finally some sample adventures.

Mechanically, M&M is the most detailed and least reliant on metacurrency to operate (it can in fact function entirely without it, whereas I feel SWADE and FATE break down without theirs) and has an advantage for new players of being an offshoot of the d20 system; though only the core task resolution of d20+mods vs. DF truly remains (ex. the attributes are Strength, Stamjna, Agility, Dexterity, Fighting, Intellect, Awareness, and Presence that are on a 0 average value where you use the actual value of attribute for check modifers and uses a toughness save instead of hit points).

Of the three, M&M definitely aligns most strongly with my own taste in systems to the point of being my favorite overall outside of my bespoke systems.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 18, 2024, 09:20:31 AM

Quote from: Lurkndog on December 18, 2024, 08:39:03 AMI think those genres got their defining games almost immediately,

What defining games?

I was thinking specifically of World of Darkness covering the Anne Rice type contemporary fantasy, and to a lesser extent, the Buffy games from Eden Studios covering the lighter Buffy-type genre.

I'm not sure if Eden is even in business any more, but when Buffy was hot, they had it covered.

Quote from: Lurkndog on December 26, 2024, 01:53:51 PMI'm not sure if Eden is even in business any more,

The owner got health problems. Unisystem is dead at this point because the rights are a mess and they can't agree what to do with it.

Quote from: Lurkndog on December 26, 2024, 01:53:51 PMI was thinking specifically of World of Darkness covering the Anne Rice type contemporary fantasy,

Not really. It's firmly its own thing and has unique rules not found elsewhere. Vampires are capped at what "generation" they're part of, you're only allowed to follow the arbitrary stereotypes of your "clan" or you're playing it wrong, the werewolves are all psychotic ecoterrorists who practice bestiality, incest and date rape, all the good monster hunters are independent freelancers, all the monster hunting organizations are automatically evil for some reason, etc.

It's definitely not to my taste but unfortunately we're stuck with it because the market is dominated by first mover advantage dating back to the 1980s.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 02:25:03 PMthe werewolves are all psychotic ecoterrorists who practice bestiality, incest and date rape,

You have a point with the ecoterrorism/ecoctivism, but the rest is total bullshit, at least in the newest (5e) version.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 02:25:03 PMall the good monster hunters are independent freelancers, all the monster hunting organizations are automatically evil for some reason

Not automatically evil, but more complicated and prone to institutional corruption. Basically the more people involved the more difficult it is to keep to a clear purpose. That's not terribly hard to see IRL.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 26, 2024, 03:11:23 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 02:25:03 PMthe werewolves are all psychotic ecoterrorists who practice bestiality, incest and date rape,

You have a point with the ecoterrorism/ecoctivism, but the rest is total bullshit, at least in the newest (5e) version.

To be fair, I have yet to actually meet anyone who actually plays the 5th editions (the fact they just came out and said there's never going to be a Mage 5th edition was actually a relief to those fans) and nearly every former Vampire and Werewolf player I know considers V5/W5 to be complete garbage tier (and its mechanics are basically a downgrade in every possible way... including badly repurposed NWoD elements; ex. mandatory mortal touchstones for vamps) and so they refuse to accept them as editions.

5e of WoD is basically the 4E of D&D.

You are free to disagree (I mean, I liked 4E of D&D better than pretty much every edition of D&D, but I acknowledge I am outlier), but using 5e to present an argument is going to be largely discounted as on the tier of bad fanfiction for authenticity.

I did not like WoD before and nothing 5e does changes my feelings. I'm just waiting for Paradox to finally axe the IP once and for all, because I am well and truly sick of it poisoning the well.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 26, 2024, 03:29:40 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 26, 2024, 03:11:23 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 02:25:03 PMthe werewolves are all psychotic ecoterrorists who practice bestiality, incest and date rape,

You have a point with the ecoterrorism/ecoctivism, but the rest is total bullshit, at least in the newest (5e) version.

To be fair, I have yet to actually meet anyone who actually plays the 5th editions (the fact they just came out and said there's never going to be a Mage 5th edition was actually a relief to those fans) and nearly every former Vampire and Werewolf player I know considers V5/W5 to be complete garbage tier (and its mechanics are basically a downgrade in every possible way... including badly repurposed NWoD elements; ex. mandatory mortal touchstones for vamps) and so they refuse to accept them as editions.

5e of WoD is basically the 4E of D&D.

You are free to disagree (I mean, I liked 4E of D&D better than pretty much every edition of D&D, but I acknowledge I am outlier), but using 5e to present an argument is going to be largely discounted as on the tier of bad fanfiction for authenticity.

Fair enough. I purchased the 5e Werewolf and Hunter books (skipped Vampire because it just doesn't interest me), and I actually like a lot of what Werewolf does (Hunter less so). I have former WoD players in my group, and although we have not played it yet, most of them are willing to give it a shot.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 03:51:42 PMI did not like WoD before and nothing 5e does changes my feelings. I'm just waiting for Paradox to finally axe the IP once and for all, because I am well and truly sick of it poisoning the well.

Again, you seem to like nothing, so the problem is likely you.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 03:51:42 PMI did not like WoD before and nothing 5e does changes my feelings. I'm just waiting for Paradox to finally axe the IP once and for all, because I am well and truly sick of it poisoning the well.

So were my reviews of the FATE, SWADE and M&M entries that essentially provide all the sorts of options you'd need for an Urban Fantasy game without providing a default setting or limiting themselves to just urban fantasy of any help?

Personally, I'm going to build Hunters of the Damned off the d20Hero SRD (Mutants & Masterminds OGL material) because I really have less interest in reinventing the wheel on mechanics because even if I do find Silhouette's dice mechanics interesting, they're not interesting enough to replace the fact that M&M already has fully fleshed out mechanics for all things modern and near future in its SRD and very clean way of building all the supernatural options I desire; even how to make my concept for a morality-meter affecting the powers of the Damned in a clean way.

I've got a few "house rules" I'd apply because I do find a few of the mechanics to be not 100% what I'd like, but its going to be probably 90% less work than doing everything from scratch.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 26, 2024, 06:27:54 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 03:51:42 PMI did not like WoD before and nothing 5e does changes my feelings. I'm just waiting for Paradox to finally axe the IP once and for all, because I am well and truly sick of it poisoning the well.

So were my reviews of the FATE, SWADE and M&M entries that essentially provide all the sorts of options you'd need for an Urban Fantasy game without providing a default setting or limiting themselves to just urban fantasy of any help?

They should be helpful for that, yes.

I wish you luck in your endeavors. I do appreciate having settings as a way to save time or for a chance of pace. We need lots more settings that aren't WoD.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 26, 2024, 04:18:05 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 03:51:42 PMI did not like WoD before and nothing 5e does changes my feelings. I'm just waiting for Paradox to finally axe the IP once and for all, because I am well and truly sick of it poisoning the well.

Again, you seem to like nothing, so the problem is likely you.

Let's not engage in personal attacks, please. I don't like WoD in particular. There are basically no other urban fantasy settings because it killed them all, including several I liked a lot. How many other urban fantasy ttrpg communities can you name?

WoD fans cyberbullied me and others mercilessly for years for liking CoD back in the 2000s. They sent death threats to the company writers, among other things. To this day they still cannot move on, even tho it has been cancelled for years and White Wolf hasn't existed as a company since 2010. They're so full of hate and spite. 5e has only made it worse.

Holding a grudge like they do is just drinking poison and expecting Paradox to suffer. Their video game revenue is bigger than the whole ttrpg industry. They're not gonna reverse their decisions.

I've moved on. I'm writing my own stuff now, inspired by the games of my youth, and enjoying it. It's sad not to have any touchstone to find likeminded folks anymore, but most people seem to be uncreative zombies anyway so I'm probably not missing much. Like, one of the reasons people hate giving feedback on r/worldbuilding is because it's 99% uncreative derivative medieval fantasy slop.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 26, 2024, 04:17:16 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 26, 2024, 03:29:40 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 26, 2024, 03:11:23 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 02:25:03 PMthe werewolves are all psychotic ecoterrorists who practice bestiality, incest and date rape,

You have a point with the ecoterrorism/ecoctivism, but the rest is total bullshit, at least in the newest (5e) version.

To be fair, I have yet to actually meet anyone who actually plays the 5th editions (the fact they just came out and said there's never going to be a Mage 5th edition was actually a relief to those fans) and nearly every former Vampire and Werewolf player I know considers V5/W5 to be complete garbage tier (and its mechanics are basically a downgrade in every possible way... including badly repurposed NWoD elements; ex. mandatory mortal touchstones for vamps) and so they refuse to accept them as editions.

5e of WoD is basically the 4E of D&D.

You are free to disagree (I mean, I liked 4E of D&D better than pretty much every edition of D&D, but I acknowledge I am outlier), but using 5e to present an argument is going to be largely discounted as on the tier of bad fanfiction for authenticity.

Fair enough. I purchased the 5e Werewolf and Hunter books (skipped Vampire because it just doesn't interest me), and I actually like a lot of what Werewolf does (Hunter less so). I have former WoD players in my group, and although we have not played it yet, most of them are willing to give it a shot.

You probably would've been quite impressed by the Chronicles of Darkness books from 20 years ago. The werewolves are fallen Sumerian god-kings who maintain the balance between worlds. The hunters have loads of cool organizations and powers and stuff, including antichrist candidates working for the Vatican and pharma companies that cut up unicorns for research.

We don't see that kind of creativity anymore. It's sad.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 10:20:02 PMLet's not engage in personal attacks, please.

It wasn't meant as a personal attack. You have yourself mentioned that you were jade or burnt out (not sure which wording you used) and that "everything is crap now" (again, paraphrasing). Unless you change the way you look at things, you'll never find something that makes you happy.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 27, 2024, 01:00:34 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 10:20:02 PMLet's not engage in personal attacks, please.

It wasn't meant as a personal attack. You have yourself mentioned that you were jade or burnt out (not sure which wording you used) and that "everything is crap now" (again, paraphrasing). Unless you change the way you look at things, you'll never find something that makes you happy.

Oh. Yes, you're right, I have said that. Yes, am I working on it as you suggest. I'm making my own stuff inspired by the dead stuff I liked in the past. Since copyright isn't reforming any time soon, then that's the best anyone can do. If you're upset about Disney, Warner Bros, etc. then make your own thing. You're not alone. You show people something they didn't know they wanted and they'll come.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 27, 2024, 09:26:57 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 27, 2024, 01:00:34 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 10:20:02 PMLet's not engage in personal attacks, please.

It wasn't meant as a personal attack. You have yourself mentioned that you were jade or burnt out (not sure which wording you used) and that "everything is crap now" (again, paraphrasing). Unless you change the way you look at things, you'll never find something that makes you happy.

Oh. Yes, you're right, I have said that. Yes, am I working on it as you suggest. I'm making my own stuff inspired by the dead stuff I liked in the past. Since copyright isn't reforming any time soon, then that's the best anyone can do. If you're upset about Disney, Warner Bros, etc. then make your own thing. You're not alone. You show people something they didn't know they wanted and they'll come.

I'm sincerely interested to see what you come up with. I don't have a problem with some the current stuff (including a few of Renegade's WoD 5e products), but I'm always up for a new take too.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 27, 2024, 12:48:27 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 27, 2024, 09:26:57 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 27, 2024, 01:00:34 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2024, 10:20:02 PMLet's not engage in personal attacks, please.

It wasn't meant as a personal attack. You have yourself mentioned that you were jade or burnt out (not sure which wording you used) and that "everything is crap now" (again, paraphrasing). Unless you change the way you look at things, you'll never find something that makes you happy.

Oh. Yes, you're right, I have said that. Yes, am I working on it as you suggest. I'm making my own stuff inspired by the dead stuff I liked in the past. Since copyright isn't reforming any time soon, then that's the best anyone can do. If you're upset about Disney, Warner Bros, etc. then make your own thing. You're not alone. You show people something they didn't know they wanted and they'll come.

I'm sincerely interested to see what you come up with. I don't have a problem with some the current stuff (including a few of Renegade's WoD 5e products), but I'm always up for a new take too.

I don't pride myself on originality. The thing I want is kitchen sinks. Most ttrpgs are one person's highly specific setting with rules glued on. I like genre emulators like All Flesh Must Be Eaten. Something that provides lot of tools and lots of campaign settings.

That's not to say I don't like campaign settings. I just don't like ones that gimp their potential by limiting themselves to highly specific premises, like freelance only monster hunters. That might work for a booklet, but not a whole series of books. It gets torturous and hackneyed, like a stick of butter smeared over a mountain of bread.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 27, 2024, 01:47:22 PMI just don't like ones that gimp their potential by limiting themselves to highly specific premises, like freelance only monster hunters.

If we're still talking about Hunter 5e, then it should probably said that there is nothing stopping you from working with or for a larger organization (org), but that doing so is not the basic campaign assumption because it gives up a great deal of player autonomy. However, give Renegade enough time and I'm sure they'll drop a book all about PCs joining or founding orgs...along with some angsty subsystem that measures how much corruption of purpose the org suffers as it grows.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 27, 2024, 02:29:36 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 27, 2024, 01:47:22 PMI just don't like ones that gimp their potential by limiting themselves to highly specific premises, like freelance only monster hunters.

If we're still talking about Hunter 5e, then it should probably said that there is nothing stopping you from working with or for a larger organization (org), but that doing so is not the basic campaign assumption because it gives up a great deal of player autonomy. However, give Renegade enough time and I'm sure they'll drop a book all about PCs joining or founding orgs...along with some angsty subsystem that measures how much corruption of purpose the org suffers as it grows.

Hunter: The Vigil, Chill, Dark•Matter, Delta Green, Monster of the Week, and other conspiracy thriller games too numerous to list already did organizations, did it better, and did it without a chip on their shoulder. Nobody thought it was a problem back then, and it's not a problem now.

But we're getting off topic.