As usual, I am most inspired by Thundarr and Vance and Leiber.

Quote from: Hzilong on January 07, 2023, 01:46:46 AM

Quote from: Persimmon on January 06, 2023, 11:12:40 PM

Quote from: Hzilong on January 06, 2023, 05:36:05 PM
My own research.

Since I've finally nailed down what I think I want to do for writing my own system/setting, I've been doing more research into East Asian philosophies, myths and cultures from the time of antiquity up to about the time of the Ming Dynasty.

Since my current home game is set within this world, it's giving me hooks to use with my players.

Any particular historical setting or dynasty?  Or are you going to mash things up?  I'm a historian of Asia myself so I've got quite a bit of Asian stuff in my homebrew setting, but it's just AD&D/Castles & Crusades.  Just can't find an Asian game I like enough to switch over.

Aesthetically, I'm aiming for early Ming Dynasty, since that was one of the cultural high points of Chinese history, with Han dynasty stuff thrown in as well. Also, cuz I'm dumb like that, I'm using references from Journey to the West, Outlaws of the Marsh, and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Screw The Dream of Red mansions. I know it's one of the four classics but I hate that book). That's the core adventuring location of the setting, though, of course, there are other cultural influences especially outside the main Empire. I should note that my goal is not a straight up historic or fantasy version of history. I'm aiming at a setting that blends Asian, predominantly Chinese, philosophy and aesthetics with the high-ish fantasy of a setting like Greyhawk or Mystara.

I'll probably ask people here to roast some of my thoughts later on since ya'll seem to more or else's recognize if what I have is objectively stupid.

Nice; my specialty is actually late Ming-early Qing military history, though I've done a bit of research on the early Ming as well.  For me the Ming is definitely the most interesting era of Chinese history as you have the culmination of traditional culture alongside growing outside connections & influences.  I've cribbed a bit from Journey to the West in my games and yes, I agree that Dream of the Red Chamber simply isn't as engaging as the Ming novels.  And of course, Water Margin could be a perfect set-up for an adventuring party.

For my own system; Thundarr the Barbarian, He-Man (original and 2002), Thundercats, Blackstar, the old D&D cartoon, Kevin Sorbo Hercules, REvolution (the sapient nano-cloud specifically), Avatar the Last Airbender, The Dragon Prince, the How to Train Your Dragon series (Hiccup would be a Mechanist in my system), Jurassic Park (mostly for the music) and a bit of Rifts (usually thinking about the setting while listening to the Jurassic Park soundtrack... it makes sense if you could see inside my head).

For the SWTOR game I'm playing in; my Sith Inquisitor from the MMO and what my character actually would have done if they hadn't been confined to a plot rail ("oh, you gave me a starship? Hey Khem, you psychopathic murderous monster you, can you check the airlock for a second (Phwoosh!). Okay, Empire that enslaved my family and tried to break me to the Dark Side, see you NEVER! BYE!!!").

Most of my gaming related free time is creating extensive house rules, and nice custom accessories (tokens, sheets, handouts, soundtracks) for in-person games, despite not having an in-person group in 3 years. Hope springs eternal.

Recently I've spent a lot of time researching Pulp heroes, for a Savage Worlds game.

Just my passion for the hobby.

I am currently running a weekly D&D 5e game (looking for a system to switch to due to my disgust with Wizards) and I am playing in a Bi Weekly Star Trek Adventure game.

Plus I am thinking about running another game bi-weekly.  Its just a good time to be a gamer

Quote from: GhostNinja on January 07, 2023, 12:05:18 PM
Just my passion for the hobby.

I am currently running a weekly D&D 5e game (looking for a system to switch to due to my disgust with Wizards) and I am playing in a Bi Weekly Star Trek Adventure game.

Plus I am thinking about running another game bi-weekly.  Its just a good time to be a gamer

I know in the other thread, you talked about making your own game, but if you're looking for a good OSR game to switch 5e players over to, I made a thread asking roughly that question a while back.

https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/3-x-style-osr-games/30/

Lots of recommendations there. The community consensus seemed to be on Castles and Crusades. Personally I don't care for the task resolution system in that game. My leading candidates were Blood and Treasure and Fantastic Heroes & Witchery. Blood and treasure has my preferred task resolution system, and has a bestiary for it, but seems to be out of print these days. Fantastic Heroes & Witchery has no bestiary, but it has massively more race/class options and spells, and so might be an easier sell to 5e players.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 07, 2023, 02:29:31 PM

I know in the other thread, you talked about making your own game, but if you're looking for a good OSR game to switch 5e players over to, I made a thread asking roughly that question a while back.

https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/3-x-style-osr-games/30/

Lots of recommendations there. The community consensus seemed to be on Castles and Crusades. Personally I don't care for the task resolution system in that game. My leading candidates were Blood and Treasure and Fantastic Heroes & Witchery. Blood and treasure has my preferred task resolution system, and has a bestiary for it, but seems to be out of print these days. Fantastic Heroes & Witchery has no bestiary, but it has massively more race/class options and spells, and so might be an easier sell to 5e players.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I will read the thread.

I stepped back from D&D when 5e came out.  I've played a little bit here and there but was more focused towards PF 1e.  Since 5e went super-woke, I've mostly been highly interested in Twilight:2013 and have slowly editing a personal copy of the core rules and all of the supplements into a single document with all of the errata rolled in.

I've been side-tracked by the desire to think about what would happen to the US force structure if the TW bombs dropped in 2021 and have been building an ORBAT, but between finishing this and my rules edit, my intent is to basically revamp all the old 2e and 1e modules to modern times.

So - not really playing, but just exercising my creative juices.  As an aside, there is nothing that really gets you intimately familiar with a rules set like actually cutting, pasting, and cleaning up the layout into a new document.

Saga games- especially Saga Frontier. I realize if you're gonna run a campaign, run it like a Saga game and not Final Fantasy.

For me it is Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and Planescape novels from the 80s and 90s. Going on nostalgia trip now, reading through all the books I own from that era (around 70-80 of them in my library). Also playing old AD&D cRPG classics like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment.

There are many reasons I dislike 5e, but the main one is that it's missing that classic heroic fantasy feel of AD&D I always loved.

My fantasy gaming recently has mostly been inspired by classic D&D modules, along with some post-apocalyptic stuff (I saw Thundarr mentioned upthread, which is near and dear to my heart).

Right now, however, I'm writing my own system (a dice-pool success-based resolution) based on modern air combat.  I've gone down the DCS rabbit-hole (Full HOTAS sim-pit with working MFDs and button-boxes I built myself), and I'd like to see mechanics that actually reflect the choices you have to make (and tactics of) during aerial combat.  So, ironically, a study-level video game has had the biggest influence over my gaming recently, but it's not an RPG-based video game...

Quote from: MeganovaStella on January 07, 2023, 05:52:17 PM
Saga games- especially Saga Frontier. I realize if you're gonna run a campaign, run it like a Saga game and not Final Fantasy.

What are the elements that distinguish them to you?

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 07, 2023, 09:22:09 AM
For my own system; Thundarr the Barbarian, He-Man (original and 2002), Thundercats, Blackstar, the old D&D cartoon, Kevin Sorbo Hercules, REvolution (the sapient nano-cloud specifically), Avatar the Last Airbender, The Dragon Prince, the How to Train Your Dragon series (Hiccup would be a Mechanist in my system), Jurassic Park (mostly for the music) and a bit of Rifts (usually thinking about the setting while listening to the Jurassic Park soundtrack... it makes sense if you could see inside my head).

For the SWTOR game I'm playing in; my Sith Inquisitor from the MMO and what my character actually would have done if they hadn't been confined to a plot rail ("oh, you gave me a starship? Hey Khem, you psychopathic murderous monster you, can you check the airlock for a second (Phwoosh!). Okay, Empire that enslaved my family and tried to break me to the Dark Side, see you NEVER! BYE!!!").

HAH! Man I loved the storylines in SWTOR. My faves being the same as everyone else: Agent and Sith Warrior. I warmed up to the Sith Sorcerer... and he was my main when I raided. I agree with you on "what if I wasn't stuck to the rail" - so many things I would have done different. SWTOR is the primary influence for all my Star Wars gaming. It's just such a great sandbox conceptually for TTRPG play.

I'm prepping for a Worlds Without Number game that I hope to start sometime in the Spring and pulling ideas from lots of old sourcebooks for other RPGs I've never gotten to run.

Also I've been getting a lot of location ideas from the ABANDONED PLACES Twitter account.  Lots of great pics of... well.. abandoned places.  Houses, castles, trains, hospitals, ships and all sorts of places being reclaimed by nature.  Twitter has also been pretty good for random fantasy/sci-fi art that's made me think about various encounters and locations.

Finally, I have been on a small kick of converting various musical artists (or their personas) into NPCs for the world.  I have a skinshifter and blood priest duo based off of Ninja and Yolandi from Die Antwoord, a necromancer based on Nova Rockafeller and I'm working on a Thin White Duke NPC atm.

Quote from: tenbones on January 09, 2023, 01:44:52 AM

Quote from: MeganovaStella on January 07, 2023, 05:52:17 PM
Saga games- especially Saga Frontier. I realize if you're gonna run a campaign, run it like a Saga game and not Final Fantasy.

What are the elements that distinguish them to you?

Their open world nature. Most JRPGs have a linear plot with minimal branches (if that)- which doesn't fit in a table roleplaying game. Saga games (Frontier 2 is the exception) plop you into a massive world with many secrets to find, members to recruit, skills to discover with a goal. 'Learn all the magic, then kill your brother.' 'Kill Black X, who killed your dad.' And so on. It has a set destination, but the journey can be anything that the player wants. To me, this is the ideal way of running a game.