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 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, which could be set anywhere within the solar system, was never as successfully compelling as Cyberpunk 2020 - 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).