I've recently started a campaign with my son based on Rick Scott's series of books called Path of the Beserker.

Essentially, Earth is conquered by Space Chinese who use kung-fu magic, kick our butts in a couple days, kill all the adults, and raise the kids as 2nd rate citizens in ghettos.  Fast forward 20 years, humans have difficulty learning space kung-fu, the only thing that counts if you want respect/status, until the main character meets a weirdo woman who starts him out on how to use an illegal version not powered by inner Chi energy, but powered by your anger and the respect coming from others.

Now, how to adapt this to play as an RPG, and accessible to my 6 year old son.

Well, it turned out to be easier than I thought. 

Tiny-D6 Supers. 

I'm fast falling in love with this series of games.  It's like the rules lite Megaversal system of the Palladium Books series of games.  There is a setting for most genres.

Super Powers work surprisingly well as renamed king-fu abilities.  Want to punch thru a wall?  Super Strength.  Just now you need to be angry, and yell out a suitable move name as you do it (it's part of the books).  "Three log chop!", and you break thru the wooden door. 

Want to have a stupidly heavy axe made of Star Steel?  Well, the expansion Gallantverse Campaign Guide has a super power called Signature Weapon.  Just give it indestructible as a trait. 

I'm now thinking of other books to adapt into RPG's.  However, I'm thinking Tiny D6 will be my go-to rules to adapt it since it's so easy, and already covers a lot of genres.

Chronicles of Narnia would be a big one for me. Kind of amazing it doesn't have an official RPG adaptation. The potential is huge. Multiple eras to play in, tons of playable races, and very little of the map is filled in by the books, so you can add in pretty much any adventure you can think of. I've thought of doing it a few times, but never settled on what system I'd use.

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, too. Treating the Dreamlands as a bolt on for Call of Cthulhu isn't doing them justice, when they could easily support a fantasy campaign all to themselves.

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 15, 2024, 08:43:10 PMChronicles of Narnia would be a big one for me. Kind of amazing it doesn't have an official RPG adaptation. The potential is huge. Multiple eras to play in, tons of playable races, and very little of the map is filled in by the books, so you can add in pretty much any adventure you can think of. I've thought of doing it a few times, but never settled on what system I'd use.

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, too. Treating the Dreamlands as a bolt on for Call of Cthulhu isn't doing them justice, when they could easily support a fantasy campaign all to themselves.

The thing with The Chronicles of Narnia is that C.S. Lewis was a Christian and his novels were meant to be allegories to teach doctrine.  As such, the Lewis family protects them from being used in any way that is contrary to that purpose in their view.  Kind of makes you think about the Disney movies a bit...

Quote from: BadApple on August 15, 2024, 09:16:38 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 15, 2024, 08:43:10 PMChronicles of Narnia would be a big one for me. Kind of amazing it doesn't have an official RPG adaptation. The potential is huge. Multiple eras to play in, tons of playable races, and very little of the map is filled in by the books, so you can add in pretty much any adventure you can think of. I've thought of doing it a few times, but never settled on what system I'd use.

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, too. Treating the Dreamlands as a bolt on for Call of Cthulhu isn't doing them justice, when they could easily support a fantasy campaign all to themselves.

The thing with The Chronicles of Narnia is that C.S. Lewis was a Christian and his novels were meant to be allegories to teach doctrine.  As such, the Lewis family protects them from being used in any way that is contrary to that purpose in their view.  Kind of makes you think about the Disney movies a bit...

I suppose you have to respect that, though like you say the film and tv rights have been farmed out multiple times. The last run of Narnia movies were made before Disney went totally off the rails. They're pretty accurate to the messaging of the books, and the first two are decent enough movies. Now, selling the rights off to Netflix so they can hire the woman who made the Barbie movie to direct it...that seems like a bad idea. 

We're converting our Nano-Sapiens stories (dog and cats become sapient via nanotech shots, in outer space) to an RPG setting.

We also want to do several American Indian tribes that we've found some really good research on - one of our author friends is the researcher's son and my wife is friends with Jim, Jane Linskolds' husband, who also researches that area.

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 15, 2024, 09:57:42 PM

Quote from: BadApple on August 15, 2024, 09:16:38 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 15, 2024, 08:43:10 PMChronicles of Narnia would be a big one for me. Kind of amazing it doesn't have an official RPG adaptation. The potential is huge. Multiple eras to play in, tons of playable races, and very little of the map is filled in by the books, so you can add in pretty much any adventure you can think of. I've thought of doing it a few times, but never settled on what system I'd use.

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, too. Treating the Dreamlands as a bolt on for Call of Cthulhu isn't doing them justice, when they could easily support a fantasy campaign all to themselves.

The thing with The Chronicles of Narnia is that C.S. Lewis was a Christian and his novels were meant to be allegories to teach doctrine.  As such, the Lewis family protects them from being used in any way that is contrary to that purpose in their view.  Kind of makes you think about the Disney movies a bit...

I suppose you have to respect that, though like you say the film and tv rights have been farmed out multiple times. The last run of Narnia movies were made before Disney went totally off the rails. They're pretty accurate to the messaging of the books, and the first two are decent enough movies. Now, selling the rights off to Netflix so they can hire the woman who made the Barbie movie to direct it...that seems like a bad idea. 

Margo Robbie.

Now theres an interesting story.  So some chick who stars in 1 or 2 movies, then suddenly founds an entire production studio and starts making top tier movies, Suicide Squad, etc.  Brings Harley Quinn and the Birds to the screen.

How did that happen exactly?  Like Oprah Winfrey getting the lead news desk job right out of college.   None of that ever happened to anyone i Know.

I'm lucky that Decision at Thunder Rift/Mechwarrior (and later iterations) and Amber Chronicles/Amber Diceless are a thing.  :-)

If I were to create one, I kind of like the lore of the Murderbot Diaries and can see that easily being done with Cepheus Engine (2d6 sci-fi.)

Narnia almost got an RPG adaptation--Iron Crown Enterprises did 4 solo gamebooks in Narnia (or 5, depending on how you count--the fifth, "Return of the White Witch", was recalled and is now extremely rare) and had an ad in DRAGON looking for a designer for a full-fledged RPG, but it turned out they'd sublicensed it from a licensee who didn't have those rights to give, and so the Lewis Estate forced the cancellation of the line.

In contrast to the point about messaging mentioned above, I remember seeing several critiques of the Narnia gamebooks as too overt and heavy-handed in their moralizing--and my memories of the first, Return to Deathwater, match that. It's a tough balance to strike.

I'm sort of surprised that David Gemmell's Drenai books never got a game, or at least a setting.  I suppose the world is too humanocentric and magic-poor to interest most players, but his books were certainly popular enough.

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 15, 2024, 08:43:10 PMChronicles of Narnia would be a big one for me. Kind of amazing it doesn't have an official RPG adaptation. The potential is huge. Multiple eras to play in, tons of playable races, and very little of the map is filled in by the books, so you can add in pretty much any adventure you can think of. I've thought of doing it a few times, but never settled on what system I'd use.

Dragonraid seems the obvious choice

Quote from: orbitalair on August 16, 2024, 09:48:24 AMMargo Robbie.

Now theres an interesting story.  So some chick who stars in 1 or 2 movies, then suddenly founds an entire production studio and starts making top tier movies, Suicide Squad, etc.  Brings Harley Quinn and the Birds to the screen.

How did that happen exactly?  Like Oprah Winfrey getting the lead news desk job right out of college.   None of that ever happened to anyone i Know.

It happens because they find out her name sells tickets so she gets higher profile jobs and instant star. This sort of thing can reverse as suddenly as it happens. Jennifer Lawrence going political is an example. Flavor of the week sort of thing.

Quote from: Ruprecht on August 17, 2024, 11:35:11 AM

Quote from: orbitalair on August 16, 2024, 09:48:24 AMMargo Robbie.

Now theres an interesting story.  So some chick who stars in 1 or 2 movies, then suddenly founds an entire production studio and starts making top tier movies, Suicide Squad, etc.  Brings Harley Quinn and the Birds to the screen.

How did that happen exactly?  Like Oprah Winfrey getting the lead news desk job right out of college.   None of that ever happened to anyone i Know.

It happens because they find out her name sells tickets so she gets higher profile jobs and instant star. This sort of thing can reverse as suddenly as it happens. Jennifer Lawrence going political is an example. Flavor of the week sort of thing.

Sometimes it looks like they try this before they find out if they sell tickets or not. They are just the darlings of the industry

Quote from: I on August 16, 2024, 01:31:44 PMI'm sort of surprised that David Gemmell's Drenai books never got a game, or at least a setting.  I suppose the world is too humanocentric and magic-poor to interest most players, but his books were certainly popular enough.

They got a race article by a fan for D&D in Dragon long ago.

Raymond Feist's "Midkemia" from the Magicians series. Years ago when I was working at Microsoft, (3e era) I had opened up some discussions with Steve Abrahms (the co-creator of the Midkemia world via the old Basic third-party works from Midkemia Press), but they went nowhere since Steve told me that he and Ray had an agreement that Steve would handle any gaming-content while Ray did all the fiction, but they both had to agree on products using Midkemia material. Steve also told me that they had planned to do it themselves at some point. But I don't think it ever materialized.

I also think there might be a problem with the whole Magician series in that the other side of the Rift is a highly-influenced (i.e. ripped off) Tekumel analog. But that's just my thoughts. I'd like to do it in Savage Worlds Fantasy rules, and leverage the Savage Rifts Mega-Magic rules for Greater Path magic.

I'd always assumed the Midkemia setting came from a Rolemaster campaign. The way they describe different kinds of magic, etc, is straight out of RM.