Someone was discussing discontinued settings over at Animal Ball and it got me to thinking about new twists on old settings.
For instance I liked Recon and Twilight 2000 a lot. They were fun Cold War style settings, and I'd love to see them redone with a Red Dawn twist, or maybe a USSA twist. (If any one besides me remembers those books.)
So what sort of settings would you like to see revised with what sort of revisions?
Old settings don't twist well. Old things get brittle, as I well know.
-clash
Quote from: Serious PaulSo what sort of settings would you like to see revised with what sort of revisions?
So have we hit the end of creativity so all that's left are remakes? Based on what I see in the movie theaters, on TV, and on the radio, it's sure starting to see that way. And, no, being "edgy" doesn't automatically make the new versoin cool.
The problem with these "twists" is balancing out providing something new and relevant with staying true to the spirit of the original setting/Game.
Paranoia XP did a really good job of this, for example (probably could have even gone a bit further); whereas obviously Gamma World D20 was an unmitigated disaster as far as this was concerned.
The dividing line in this is usually found in whether the person in charge of "redoing" the setting is actually a fan of the original, or someone out to wipe out what came before and punish those who liked it.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Serious PaulSo what sort of settings would you like to see revised with what sort of revisions?
I'd love to see
Traveller's mercantile/mercenary model get cross-pollinated with
Firefly's very differen mercantile/mercenary model.
I'd love to see
Toon revamped to more easily support raunchy/obscene cartoons like
South Park.
I'd love to see an alternate
Castle Falkenstein influenced by some of the more recent writings on steam-punk ... maybe made a little less magical-faerie-land and a little more gaslight.
Quote from: John MorrowSo have we hit the end of creativity so all that's left are remakes?
It beats hashing out high school memoirs, or bitching about group X, and it's actually about RPG's which is more than half the recent topics in this forum contain.
I'd like to see a revision, not necessarily a twist, to the Dark Sun setting. Trim it down to it's essential conflicts, add some magic mechanics that make Defiling and Preserving more than just hand-waving... and a way to become a Sorcerer King or a Dragon. :)
For me, Dark Sun was all about magic literally destroying the planet and the cost of remaining human in a very harsh world.
For a twist, Twilight 2000 redone as a game after peak oil, rather than nuclear war.
Quote from: TonyLBI'd love to see Traveller's mercantile/mercenary model get cross-pollinated with Firefly's very differen mercantile/mercenary model.
:confused:
What are you talking about? From where I'm sitting,
Firefly is Traveller.
!i!
Quote from: Serious PaulFor instance I liked Recon and Twilight 2000 a lot. They were fun Cold War style settings, and I'd love to see them redone with a Red Dawn twist, or maybe a USSA twist. (If any one besides me remembers those books.)
Dude when I was in my teens and playing T2000, you could have called our game the Rambo: First Blood Part II Simulator. God that was fun. An excuse to blow shit up!
Oh yeah, and, er, trying to get back to America...or something...
I could totally see Red Dawn.....
I'd love to see 'Transhuman Space' writ large Traveller style. Maybe with the Zhodani being an empire of people with zero desire to stay biologically human.
I'd love to see a fantasy world done Traveller style. An ocean that stretches on forever and worlds are Islands/Continents sprinkled throughout the blue (like worlds in the black of traveler). It's fantasy, the 'world' doesn't have to be a planet.
Quote from: John MorrowSo have we hit the end of creativity so all that's left are remakes? Based on what I see in the movie theaters, on TV, and on the radio, it's sure starting to see that way. And, no, being "edgy" doesn't automatically make the new versoin cool.
as opposed to what?
Any published setting can be improved with the inclusion of ravenous man-apes.
"Any published setting can be improved with the inclusion of ravenous man-apes."
Nay, my friend.
Zombies, ninjas, or pirates or any combination thereof will make the mundane perfect.
Except when it comes to cooking. It just gets really messy once any of these three ingredients are introduced.
Seriously; don't do it.
Your all wrong. wrong! WRONG!
Winged monkeys!
Because "It's all just fun and games until the winged monkeys attack".
Quote from: Ian Absentia:confused:
What are you talking about? From where I'm sitting, Firefly is Traveller.
!i!
From where I'm sitting, it isn't. I won't dispute that Traveller's rules could be used for Firefly, but I never saw anything about Firefly that screamed "Traveller!" to me. I never saw much similarity between the settings, either. Just about any bog-standard scifi game could be used for Firefly. Star Frontiers is an example that leaps to mind.
Quote from: darI'd love to see a fantasy world done Traveller style. An ocean that stretches on forever and worlds are Islands/Continents sprinkled throughout the blue (like worlds in the black of traveler).
Wow, like "Gulliver's Traveller". That's really a neat idea.
Personally, I don't have a problem with updated spins on old settings. Sometimes, an old setting had a great concept, but the actual execution may seem quaint by standards a quarter-century on. A really good setting doesn't need to be completely re-imagined, but spinning familiar concepts to appeal to contemporary sensibilities can be fun.
!i!
I'd like to see a version of Planescape divorced from the old, slightly-too-nailed down model of the planes inherited from the Manual of the Planes - preferably junking most of the defined planes for a setup where there's a nigh-infinite number of wildly different planes. This'd be a setting where Sigil is the one immutable constant in the ocean of chaos which is the multiverse.
Quote from: WarthurI'd like to see a version of Planescape divorced from the old, slightly-too-nailed down model of the planes inherited from the Manual of the Planes - preferably junking most of the defined planes for a setup where there's a nigh-infinite number of wildly different planes. This'd be a setting where Sigil is the one immutable constant in the ocean of chaos which is the multiverse.
I'm drifting into OT here, but speaking as a Planescape fan, I agree with this completely. In my sporadic campaign I use a "soap bubble" model for planes, inspired by
Beyond Countless Doorways -- a d20 planar book developed by a few Planescape alums.
Basically I combine the Astral and Etherial planes into one, calling it the Ether. Any and all planes are essentially demi-planes floating in this soup. So you'll have things like several fire-based planes but there's no "Plane of Fire" that represents some platonic ideal of fire for the multiverse. Nailing down a bunch of planes on a Great Wheel always seemed odd to me.
No, there are still plenty of good ideas. They're just not as easy to sell a corporation, because you have to do all the homework before you put it out (and, then, it's still iffy). Nah, these guys (corporations) want to make sure that they'll make money on it, so they use something that has already proven itself. It is a shoddy way of doing things, unless you're an owner of stock. Never mind that there's the possibility that they might make more on something new. Corporations are VERY short-sighted, for the most part. :(
'corporation'?
Okay, I'm thinking that the same thing applies to rpg companies on a smaller scale. I just said 'corporations.' I'm sure some gaming companies are incorporated...:o
Quote from: John MorrowSo have we hit the end of creativity so all that's left are remakes? Based on what I see in the movie theaters, on TV, and on the radio, it's sure starting to see that way. And, no, being "edgy" doesn't automatically make the new versoin cool.
This harummph is a remake of older more original harummphs dating back to the time of
A. Africanus. The fact that it uses written symbols forming words as opposed to grunts and gestures does not automatically make it more evolved.