One big problem most fantasy and scifi settings derived from other media have is the setting was really only created to tell one specific story and is largely unusable outside of it. Mistborne might have a really interesting magic system, but the actual world-building only really supports the events of the novels so there's just not anything to do except some AU of the original story (before the story you can't do anything, after the story there's no need to do anything).

Star Wars as a setting was practically empty until WEG had to necessarily flesh it out to make an RPG out of it (which Timothy Zahn picked up and ran with as the foundation of the EU... which is why the EU has always been a good RPG setting; it started as one).

Basically, unless it's a setting with a LOT of books to it, ideally with different protagonists for different books (ex. Discworld) odds are it's just not going to be an easy port into an RPG setting (Star Wars proves it can be done, but also that it typically takes way more material than most series will offer up on their own).

This why something like Lovecraft, superhero comics and generic fantasy/scifi (i.e. pulling ideas from multiple series into a sort of gestalt) tend to be stronger entries for RPG settings than specific properties are (Star Wars EU, Star Trek and certain long running pulps notwithstanding).

I don't know that I'd go as far as saying "incompatible", but there comes a point with any setting where too much material makes the setting worse.  Could be the sheer amount.  Could be that with enough material, eventually you have some terrible screw ups.  Could be that internal consistency gets shredded.  Or something else.

1st ed. Forgotten Realms is more compatible with playing an RPG than late editions.  There's pros/cons to the early unearthed arcana and 2nd ed. stuff, which even its fans will readily admit.  Still some good additions in there if one is selective.  Glorantha as it is portrayed in 1st and 2nd ed. Runequest is better than the later books.  Once you open up to movies/novels/etc. the margins become tighter.  Doesn't mean there can't be good gaming in that setting, but there are a lot more ways to screw it up.

Now, I'm not one for playing in novel/movie settings at all.  I like the mystery of the setting itself to enjoy that very much.  But I will say that a mashup is a better choice than a straight lift from one setting.  Your unholy mix of Star Wars, LotR, Conan, and Arabian Knights may be incoherent and completely off the wall. One thing you can bet, is that none of the players will complain about lack of fidelity to canon. 

Echoing what everyone else said. Prose stories are designed to tell those stories. They aren't designed as sandboxes for players to adventure in. The intent behind the two is completely different.

Some publishers have tried to marry the two, such as the infamous metaplots. The less said about those, the better.

Also, licensed RPGs have to work around the official "canon", whatever it currently is. E.g. I really hate the official Aliens RPG because it has to work around all the stupid stuff from the post-Aliens movies like the Engineers and is going to have to retcon itself again after the new Disney movies and shows make their own mark on the IP.

I am quite frankly very critical of the entire concept of Intellectual Property (IP) now. It's been proven time and time again that the best works are produced by single creators or small design teams with coherent creative visions, and not a small amount of luck. All these corpos that acquire or inherit IPs inevitably squander those IPs without that coherent creative vision. Even single creators can go senile without oversight (e.g. George Lucas' prequels, Ridley Scott's prequels).

What we should do is reduce copyright terms to manageable numbers (the current century-ish term is absurd on its face) and let the fans compete to produce the best stories. As has been the case for human history before copyright was legislated.

I pretty much agree with everyone else. If I could summarize for myself, a lack of restraint makes a world difficult to play. The setting author should not try to solve all the problems with world building. Rather, he should leave much of it open, incomplete, and unsolved.

A poorly written setting, whether a setting book or a mini one-off setting in a module, will answer all my questions and leave me with nothing more to do than be a tour guide.

A well written setting will evoke my own ideas. it does not try to answer all possible question, rather it provides just enough to stimulate the imagination.

Good book settings are overbuilt, while good RPG settings should aim to be underbuilt.

Fundamentally, books and book series are complete entities, which means that every facet of the worldbuilding which you want to explore in the story must be as fully fleshed out as it will ever get when you finish the book. A great example of this is the Wheel of Time, where Aes Sedai, the various Aes Sedai sub-factions Ajah, and the other groups of channeling women like the Wise Ones are all predesigned so they can interface a specific part of the story to do specific things.

RPGs don't work like that because players tend to bulldoze complex worldbuilding. RPGs are kinda imaginary sandboxes for the players' imaginations--the GM included. Your default worldbuilding is something like an intricate sand castle already built into the sandbox, ready for the players to park their minis on the battlements. But at the same time, a sandbox is a sandbox. Some players will take one look at the cistern, knock it over and replace it with a tavern, and never be the wiser that there was a poop-golem in the bottom studying maggot-mancy. RPG worldbuilding often does not understand who actually has creative control at an emotional level; players can Rule Zero essentially everything in your book, and worldbuilding is far more likely to change than mechanics. As a GM you can worldbuild freely, but as a worldbuilder for the whole system, there isn't much point in building complex structures.

However, there is significant value in understanding the things your players likely can worldbuild on their own and can't worldbuild on their own. Good RPG worldbuilding focuses on worldbuilding which players can't do in some way. If the players can do the worldbuilding on their own, they probably should because that gives them a sense of personal ownership of the campaign. This isn't to say that you can't do additional worldbuilding, but your core purpose when designing the RPG worldbuilding is to know what needs to be done, but which the players also cant or won't do willingly.

A great example of this comes from my own game, Selection.

Selection is built off an alien invasion of sorts. Right off the bat, you're probably assuming that there are dozens of alien enemy races, maybe a couple are playable, that the aliens want something like our water or our women or world domination....and there are UFOs. Because everyone's imagination defaults to XCOM and B-grade classics when talking alien invasions.

None of that's the case in Selection. There aren't any UFOs, and by the time the campaign starts and you meet one, Protomir characters will have human bodies, so the difference between a human and a Protomir is a philosophical question more than a visible reality in the fiction of the game. And Nexill-alligned Protomir couldn't care less about Earth and its resources, but are quite keen on fulfilling personal vendettas and killing Arsill-alligned Protomir by any means necessary.

These decisions are not things players probably would voluntarily make. But when you realize this is a game where the antagonist is actively hunting the Arsill (who should usually be a PC) the decision to ditch the UFO trope and go much deeper into cloak and dagger makes sense. Without that, players would default to using a UFO as a means of transportation only differing from a car in flavor.

Coming at the question from the opposite direction, I'd ask: What qualities about a game are likely to make it difficult to integrate a fictional world from another medium?

The things that make for a good RPG session are, I would suggest, the elements of (a) teamwork; (b) knowledge of, and skill in using, the rules as a mechanical system; (c) the overcoming of obstacles for a meaningful reward; and (d) the imagined dramatization of the first three elements in a way that entertains everyone. As such, an RPG-appropriate setting has to have the following qualities:

- It can't be dependent on a single character or small set of characters, or a single overarching conflict involving those characters, for its dramatic impact. (It's not impossible to have a meaningful Star Wars adventure without involving the Skywalker family, but some do find it difficult; it's harder to tell a good Wheel of Time story when your heroes know they're always a second fiddle to the Dragon Reborn.)

- The majority of its in-setting conflicts have to involve practical action, tactics or strategy of the sort that can be easily represented by a mechanical rules system. (One of the reasons I've always believed that the Chronicles of Narnia can't make for a good RPG is that all its really meaningful conflicts are about whether the protagonists make the right moral choices or not, rather than whether they're strong, skilled or clever enough to win a fight. I have also written before that this is why I think most romantic fantasy, like Mercedes Lackey's stuff, isn't as good as an RPG setting as might be expected, because romantic fantasy stories tend to get their drama out of inner emotional journeys and relationships, rather than action, war or adventure.)

- It can't be dependent on a particular style or atmosphere that is very difficult for anybody but the original creator to establish or portray. (This is a nod both to Pratchett's Discworld and to the stories of Thomas Ligotti, which are even more dependent on a particular mode of cosmic eeriness than Lovecraft's stuff is.)

- It has to allow for the actions of player characters / protagonists to make a meaningful difference, while neither imparting a sense of doom or futility nor being dependent on a perfect or all-encompassing success to be worthwhile. (Settings where your PCs replace the literary heroes as the protagonists can be vulnerable to this; unless you're prepared to game through a world where the stand-in for Frodo fails to drop the Ring in Mount Doom, it can be very disappointing to be a new Fellowship if you screw it up, and even more annoying to feel like the GM is making sure you can't screw it up.)

Quote from: Fheredin on December 12, 2023, 06:17:45 PM
Good book settings are overbuilt, while good RPG settings should aim to be underbuilt.

While you make an excellent point (no plan survives contact with the enemy,) the place I thought you were going is a good point, too:

Leave yourself room to answer 'yes' to a good player question. "Hmm , I wonder if this ratman is actually from a secret race of shapeshifters." He is now, because that sounds awesome.

Kind of but not quite the same idea as the Quantum Ogre.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 12, 2023, 06:38:14 PM
Coming at the question from the opposite direction, I'd ask: What qualities about a game are likely to make it difficult to integrate a fictional world from another medium?

The things that make for a good RPG session are, I would suggest, the elements of (a) teamwork; (b) knowledge of, and skill in using, the rules as a mechanical system; (c) the overcoming of obstacles for a meaningful reward; and (d) the imagined dramatization of the first three elements in a way that entertains everyone. As such, an RPG-appropriate setting has to have the following qualities:

- It can't be dependent on a single character or small set of characters, or a single overarching conflict involving those characters, for its dramatic impact. (It's not impossible to have a meaningful Star Wars adventure without involving the Skywalker family, but some do find it difficult; it's harder to tell a good Wheel of Time story when your heroes know they're always a second fiddle to the Dragon Reborn.)

- The majority of its in-setting conflicts have to involve practical action, tactics or strategy of the sort that can be easily represented by a mechanical rules system. (One of the reasons I've always believed that the Chronicles of Narnia can't make for a good RPG is that all its really meaningful conflicts are about whether the protagonists make the right moral choices or not, rather than whether they're strong, skilled or clever enough to win a fight. I have also written before that this is why I think most romantic fantasy, like Mercedes Lackey's stuff, isn't as good as an RPG setting as might be expected, because romantic fantasy stories tend to get their drama out of inner emotional journeys and relationships, rather than action, war or adventure.)

- It can't be dependent on a particular style or atmosphere that is very difficult for anybody but the original creator to establish or portray. (This is a nod both to Pratchett's Discworld and to the stories of Thomas Ligotti, which are even more dependent on a particular mode of cosmic eeriness than Lovecraft's stuff is.)

- It has to allow for the actions of player characters / protagonists to make a meaningful difference, while neither imparting a sense of doom or futility nor being dependent on a perfect or all-encompassing success to be worthwhile. (Settings where your PCs replace the literary heroes as the protagonists can be vulnerable to this; unless you're prepared to game through a world where the stand-in for Frodo fails to drop the Ring in Mount Doom, it can be very disappointing to be a new Fellowship if you screw it up, and even more annoying to feel like the GM is making sure you can't screw it up.)

In practice, I've played and run lots of games set in Middle Earth, the Star Wars universe, Lovecraft, Marvel, Pratchett, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, James Bond 007, and many other fictional universes. So experimentally, I find these don't have a lot of force. For example, I alternately played and GMed in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG for three years in the early aughts. BtVS is bad according to most of your points, but we had a ton of fun in playing.

I see these at most as pitfalls to avoid in one's approach to the game, but not not as reasons to not play BtVS or Star Wars.

Specifically... how the story relates to the canonical characters should be addressed in the premise, but it's always possible. You can choose a time and/or place in the setting that isn't part of the canon plot. Or you can set up a secret plot that coincides with the main story, or set it in a deliberate alternate plotline.

Also, action is a function of the scenario, not the setting. I could have a political intrigue scenario in Hyperborea, or a military campaign set in Middle Earth. The Mercedes Lackey novels that I read had plenty of action. They were less violent than Conan stories, but on par with Tolkien or Le Guin.

Quote from: jhkim on December 12, 2023, 09:41:11 PMIn practice, I've played and run lots of games set in Middle Earth, the Star Wars universe, Lovecraft, Marvel, Pratchett, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, James Bond 007, and many other fictional universes. So experimentally, I find these don't have a lot of force.

Did your players find the experience of playing these games to be similar to the experience of reading or watching the source properties? To pick an example people other than me have mentioned, did people get the same amount and type of laughs out of the Pratchett game you ran as they would have out of a Pratchett novel?

You will note that Buffy, Marvel, and James Bond are not among the examples I suggested of what makes a fictional universe unsuitable for gaming, especially since the Buffyverse explicitly opened up their universe to multiple stories at the end of the series by activating multiple Slayers and getting rid of the "Chosen One" trope.

Quote from: jhkim on December 12, 2023, 09:41:11 PMOr you can set up a secret plot that coincides with the main story, or set it in a deliberate alternate plotline.

Personally I feel the further you move away from a setting's material, the less of a reason you have to use it.

Buffy strikes me as a setting that's pretty thin if you remove the fish-out-of-water valley girl and her quirky friends.  How did you pull that off?

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 12, 2023, 10:12:25 PM

Quote from: jhkim on December 12, 2023, 09:41:11 PMIn practice, I've played and run lots of games set in Middle Earth, the Star Wars universe, Lovecraft, Marvel, Pratchett, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, James Bond 007, and many other fictional universes. So experimentally, I find these don't have a lot of force.

Did your players find the experience of playing these games to be similar to the experience of reading or watching the source properties? To pick an example people other than me have mentioned, did people get the same amount and type of laughs out of the Pratchett game you ran as they would have out of a Pratchett novel?

Obviously, playing a game is different than reading a book. But yes, we generally found our games to be just as fun as watching the source material. I'm not saying that our games were objectively as good as the writing, but when you're playing a game, you don't have to be as amazing a writer to laugh at stuff.

I realize that there are people who wouldn't want to play in a Lovecraft-based game unless the writing was objectively up to the quality of Lovecraft's writing, but that's a personal preference. If someone doesn't want to play in a Lovecraft game without Lovecraft, that's a valid preference, but it's not objective truth.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 12, 2023, 10:12:25 PM
You will note that Buffy, Marvel, and James Bond are not among the examples I suggested of what makes a fictional universe unsuitable for gaming, especially since the Buffyverse explicitly opened up their universe to multiple stories at the end of the series by activating multiple Slayers and getting rid of the "Chosen One" trope.

Actually, I started my campaign before Season Seven aired, so it wasn't built on that premise. But it wasn't hard to come up with something. From Season Two they established there could be multiple Slayers, so the premise was inserting another Slayer who died and was revived. There are other possible premises, though - since like with Angel, a series doesn't have to have a genuine Slayer.

I think the appeal of many games is being able to do things differently than in the static fiction. In a game, you can play out what it would be like if things were different.

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 12, 2023, 10:22:16 PM

Quote from: jhkim on December 12, 2023, 09:41:11 PMOr you can set up a secret plot that coincides with the main story, or set it in a deliberate alternate plotline.

Personally I feel the further you move away from a setting's material, the less of a reason you have to use it.

Buffy strikes me as a setting that's pretty thin if you remove the fish-out-of-water valley girl and her quirky friends.  How did you pull that off?

My main campaign was called "Silicon Valley Slayage". We started a little after the release of the RPG by C.J. Carella, which was before the series ended. The setting was Silicon Valley startup culture -- but the idea was a sendup of that culture just as the BtVS series sent up high school. The PCs set up a goth dating app that was intentionally perfect for vampires to find victims, encouraging vampires to use it so they could find and stop them. The Slayer was a 19-year-old web designer, who came in the line between Kenda and Faith, and was electrocuted and revived. I have a bunch of notes on it here:

https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/buffy/siliconvalley/

I also had a series of one-shot adventures that were set in Santa Cruz that were themed more after sci-fi B-movies rather than vampire/werewolf/mummy horror. The protagonist there was a robotic body inhabited by the spirit of a Slayer who died in 1950s New Jersey. There was a lot of fish-out-of-water of a 1950s Jersey girl who finds herself in a robot body in a town of tatooed, vegetarian weirdos - with a boy genius inventor who is confused what happened to his android. The enemies were more centered on things like the blob, mad scientists, etc.

For a setting to be really useful for an rpg, there has to be some reason for groups of adventurers to exist and something for them to do.  If the authorities are benevolent and on top of everything, there is no reason for adventurers to exist and no reason why they would even be tolerated.  If everything is settled and at peace, then, again, there's no reason for adventurers to exist and no reason for society to even tolerate them.  There has to be some place, even if it's only at the edges, where normal law and order can't cope and there are threats to fight.  There are games that don't have this but a large majority of the ones I have seen either don't work very well as games or are things like Wander Home that I would say are not games at all.   

Quote from: MeganovaStella on December 11, 2023, 08:11:14 PM
What makes a world good to explore in traditional stories (novels, games, movies, etc) but not as fun to explore in a tabletop game?

I do not believe any setting short of a completely dead or lacking any intelligent ir even semi-intelligent life is incompatible with gaming. Or maybe a setting with only non-sentient inamimate objects?

Someone somewhere will probably dig it. They might not find many others that will. But someone will find "Botanist: The Flower Arranging" to be fun.

I mean theres an RPG about playing living puppets rebelling against a dictatorship. Theres an RPG about playing woodland animals. Theres an RPG about playing a music band solving crimes and so on. Ghosts? Least three for that.

Quote from: Omega on December 13, 2023, 07:30:38 AMI mean there's an RPG about playing living puppets rebelling against a dictatorship. There's an RPG about playing woodland animals. There's an RPG about playing a music band solving crimes and so on. Ghosts? Least three for that.

If these settings can create the in-play structures needed to make a good RPG work -- i.e. teamwork, tactics, meaningful accomplishment, and potential for dramatic depiction -- then sure, I'd buy that. It's not about the trappings or genre of the original property, it's about whether the things that make the property entertaining translate well to the RPG medium.

I'll pick another example of what I'm thinking of by citing the works of a fantasy author I personally love, but for which I can understand the lack of RPG interest:  Guy Gavriel Kay. Kay has written both an epic high fantasy trilogy -- The Fionavar Tapestry -- and multiple novels which have been called "history with a quarter-turn to the fantastic", stories set in settings based on the unification of Italy (Tigana), the Albigensian Crusade (A Song for Arbonne), Reconquista Spain (The Lions of Al-Rassan), Viking-era England (The Last Light of the Sun), Justinian-era Byzantium (Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors), Tang dynasty China (Under Heaven), and several others.

I love all these works, but I can see why they have never caught gamers' attention, and it ultimately boils down to the same reasons noted above: The original stories are so dependent for their resolution on the decisions of the specific, unique protagonists, and the settings are constructed first and foremost to be dramatic frameworks for those decisions rather than plausibly independent secondary worlds of their own, that trying to peel the settings away to make them work for other characters -- to make them able to work for any character or group of characters -- simply doesn't create an experience similar enough to reading the novels to be worth the effort. (The flip-side of this reasoning is why, apparently, J.K. Rowling has never licensed a roleplaying game based on the "Harry Potter" novels; she has, if I recall, explicitly stated that she "doesn't want other people putting words in (her) characters' mouths".)