Quote from: jhkim on March 03, 2023, 02:09:52 AM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 02, 2023, 06:51:44 PM
Characters that seem fated reach back into the older parts of the setting, and change it's feel.  Not just anyone can simply walk into Mordor carrying the ring.  Not just anyone can defeat/redeem Vader.  Whereas, there really isn't any fate or even very much before/after with the Bond stories.  There's a nod to the progression of the character with his marriage and how that works out, which carries through at least in the Fleming books and the later Connery films.  By the time Roger Moore comes along, there's been a reset in the franchise.

Another way to say it is that if you want to do Star Wars where Luke Skywalker doesn't kill Vader, then what you are really doing is "Alternate History" Star Wars where Luke isn't fated, maybe not Vader's son, possible a nobody that dies early, or maybe doesn't even exist.  It's now a completely different story set in the Star Wars universe.  That's possible, but a very different prospect from playing 006.

I'm trying to follow along, but I'm not sure what the core is for you. I agree that it's an "Alternate History" Star Wars if Luke isn't around. But I don't understand why it is not an "Alternate History" if James Bond isn't around. As I see it, any major change to the canon of the universe would mean that we're in an alternate history.

You imply that having mystic fate involved is a key to this. Luke is fated to defeat the Emperor, and Frodo is fated to defeat Sauron. So is this only an issue in universes with mystic fate? It seems to me a bigger feature is that while James Bond canon has a dozen or more mostly-unrelated storylines, Middle Earth is dominated by one storyline (Lord of the Rings) and Star Wars is arguably dominated by one storyline (the original trilogy).

What I'm not sure is how does this apply to other licenses? Playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG if the canonical turtles didn't exist? Playing the Elric RPG without Elric or the Conan RPG without Conan? Dresden Files RPG without Harry Dresden?

Quote from: Venka on March 03, 2023, 01:34:18 AM
Bugle's understanding of what is the "real" universe is closer to my own.  If you are adding in a non-contradictory way to the canon events, then you are in the "real" fictional universe.  If you are changing them (for instance, if you assassinate Boba Fett as he emerges from the Sarlacc), then your universe isn't compatible with the "real" one in the fiction.

Basically if you say "my universe here is just like Frank Herbert's Dune, except we are having adventures on Caladan after the Atreides leave", then that's pretty much in the "real" Dune universe, because nothing you are doing contradicts with what goes on in the books, and your characters might even get a chance to react to the events in the greater world as they unfold.

I get that you can say that everything that adds or subtracts isn't the "real" universe, but honestly, I just don't believe it.  If everything in the source documents is true for your game world, then you are 100% in their universe.  And if you tell a story in a given Star Wars canon, then yours is just as official as Disney's, and it cost you a billion dollars less for that legitimacy.

This seems like a spectrum to me. Changing things is more likely to shift away from canon, but consider two hypotheticals:

1) A game set after the Emperor's death fighting the remnants of the Empire, where the *only* change is that Boba Fett dies in the Sarlacc.

2) A military action game set purely on a particular water world in the Old Republic era. Neither the world nor the inhabitants are in the canon, but there are thousands of worlds in canon, and nothing about this one contradicts the canon.

If most of the RPG campaign is all about source material that isn't in the canon, then how much does it really matter that the world is in the same universe as Star Wars? If there's no starships, no fight against the Empire and no Jedi, it isn't going to feel like Star Wars even if it technically fits into the universe.

James Bond: How many times must I explain to you that we know of at least 6 other 00 agents? I can play as one of those, Bond is doing his thing, we don't interact. I'm not creating an alternate Universe, I'm creating different adventures with different characters in the same universe.

"What I'm not sure is how does this apply to other licenses? Playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG if the canonical turtles didn't exist? Playing the Elric RPG without Elric or the Conan RPG without Conan? Dresden Files RPG without Harry Dresden? "

LOL WUT? I've said I don't want to play in the Hyborian Age, same goes for Elric, I would play in a setting like theirs but not theirs.

Haven't read the Dresden Files but given the name of the main character the same applies to this as to Conan.

Why would I need to remove the Turtles? I could play as them, or better yet not play it since it doesn't talk to me with or without the original turtles.

You CAN'T be this dense.

Bond is one agent out of who knows how many working for an agency, I can play as one of those other agents, I don't need to kill or retire Bond to do so, I just switch focus from him to other characters within the universe.

So, if MY PC dies the 007 canon isn't affected.

Nothing my character does needs impact Bond in any way shape or form in the hands of a semi competent GM. Me and my team are working different cases than his.

Say instead of trying to switch Bond for the black chick in the last movie they just presented the black chick as 006, she goes and does her thing. A year or two down the line they release a new Bond movie, now we have twice the 00Agent goodnes (if you consider the last movies good which I don't).

The one talking about killing or retiring Bond is YOU, I've told you there's no need for that, you're just filming a different movie centered around OTHER 00Agent's adventures.

Quote from: Bruwulf on March 02, 2023, 11:47:26 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 02, 2023, 11:03:02 PM
The Heroes are the protagonists, the main characters. meanwhile some heroes are secondary or tertiary characters, not the main protagonists, which makes it totally different.

Only if they're in the same story. Not the same universe, the same story. Odysseus is not somehow not the protagonist of The Odyssey, just because Achilles was the protagonist of The Iliad, set in the same basic "universe". And I could run a game set in mythological ancient Greece, a setting where both characters existed, and have my characters tell their own stories of which they are the protagonist.

If I run a game in the Star Wars universe, I'm not going to be telling Luke's story. That story has been told. My players would be the protagonist of the story they and I are telling, not somehow philosophically relegated to being Luke's Short Round or something.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 02, 2023, 11:03:02 PMYou seem to not have read or misunderstood where I say that you could play (in star wars case) AFTER the death of the Emperor, that's not re-telling the same story, is it?

Literally what is there to comment on that statement? It's self-evidently true. Although maybe not these days... whether you take into account the original EU or the new Disneyslop EU, unless you just freeze your Star Wars as being wholly contained in the first three movies, you can't really say that - there's still going to be other protagonists telling other stories at the same time that you're apparently "competing" with or something.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 02, 2023, 11:03:02 PMDoing that means you're not worried about what The Main Protagonists are doing and if your actions will affect them.

Never have been.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 02, 2023, 11:03:02 PMOf course if you just declare that this is a different universe then you can do whatever (something I already said too), b ut that's not the same universe, it's an alternate one.

I suppose, in a sense. I would argue that "an alternative universe" would be literally any game played in an RPG of a licensed setting, and that's what most players want and expect. Regardless of if you go so far as to massively rewrite canon or not.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 02, 2023, 11:03:02 PMLike I already said, you can't declare the Confederates didn't loose the Secession war and pretend it's the same universe, it's not.

You can't have ghostrock and pretend is the same universe where that doesn't exist.

You can't kill of Luke and pretend it's the same universe.

I think what we're running into here is two similar, but not exactly parallel, definitions of "universe".

To use Star Trek as an example, Star Trek has had several stories with either alternate timelines or alternate universes. And I'm not even talking things like the so-called Abrams-verse or whatever, I mean even within one single series... You have the Mirror universe, time travel shenanigans, Q screwing around with things, and what have you.

Lets say I wanted to run a game set entirely in a Mirror Universe Star Trek setting. Am I still running it in the "Star Trek Universe"? By one definition, no, clearly not. By another definition, I would argue, yes.

No, if you want slavish devotion to exactly the story as written with no deviation, it won't suit you. But I don't think that's why most people buy or play licensed settings. As I aid, it's not "I want to be an actor in an amateur theater production of A New Hope", it's "I want to take a big ol' box of Star Wars toys and run around waving a lightsaber and going pew pew at evil bounty hunters with my friendly droid sidekick!".

For those purposes, it doesn't *matter* what Luke is doing, or if he's alive at all. His story is not your story. *He* doesn't *matter*. 

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 02, 2023, 11:03:02 PM
If that's what floats your boat have at it, I'll go play in the real Star Wars Universe AFTER the Emperor was defeated and be the main character and not a third row extra.

You aren't playing in the "real" Star Wars setting unless you're getting paid by the mouse. And if you aren't the protagonist of your own stories, you need a new GM.

Yes, Trek was always a silly show, I love it but it was a mess since the OS and became worst which each new show and movie and I'm not even counting the Abrahams abominations.

Which is why I said several posts ago that there you can just have your own starship, exploring a different space sector and there's exactly zero conflict.

Star wars: No, anything disney isn't canon to me. The original EU... Well some I do respect because it makes sense, some I disregard because it doesn't, some I fucking hate because it's shit.

Bond is the same as Trek, since there's other 00Agents around, you just shift focus to them instead of Bond who is out there doing his thing.

Yes, I'm playing in "The Real Star Wars Universe" TM because anything Disney doesn't exist, it's not Star Wars, never was and never will.

I think you're having too much fun being a contrarian, we basically agree that you can go out of the beaten path and be the protagonist of your history and not affect the canon with a semi competent GM at the helm. You're just enjoying to much arguing.

well, we are playing d6 fantasy, drawing from osric for advantages/disadvantages/special abilities, on Krynn, pre-cataclysm Taladas...for which I will be using the birthright map and birthright domain managment rules. So I reckon I might need a couple

This is why The Old Republic is the best time period for an actual Star Wars campaign. Big things happening and lots of Jedi, Sith, Mandalorians, smugglers and crime lords, super weapons, etc... but 3700 years before the films and with multiple choice on who's even in charge of the Republic/Empire after the "Commander" (who could be a Jedi, Sith, Republic trooper, smuggler, imperial agent, bounty hunter or Sith) kills the Sith Emperor.

So as long as you don't utterly destroy Coruscant, Naboo, Kamino, Geonosis, Mustafar, Tatooine, Alderaan, Yavin, Hoth, Bespin, Dagobah or Endor you're pretty much NOT violating any canon (3700 years is a LONG time for the setting to pick up any mess you leave behind... murder House Organa down to the last man and some distant relative will claim the lands/titles and change their name to Organa purely for the prestige and 150 generations later who is even going to remember?).

Bonus points for it still being attached to the old EU timeline/canon that it's incorporated everywhere it can and it's a huge sandbox of a galaxy to explore.

Quote from: jhkim on March 03, 2023, 02:09:52 AM

I'm trying to follow along, but I'm not sure what the core is for you. I agree that it's an "Alternate History" Star Wars if Luke isn't around. But I don't understand why it is not an "Alternate History" if James Bond isn't around. As I see it, any major change to the canon of the universe would mean that we're in an alternate history.

You imply that having mystic fate involved is a key to this. Luke is fated to defeat the Emperor, and Frodo is fated to defeat Sauron. So is this only an issue in universes with mystic fate? It seems to me a bigger feature is that while James Bond canon has a dozen or more mostly-unrelated storylines, Middle Earth is dominated by one storyline (Lord of the Rings) and Star Wars is arguably dominated by one storyline (the original trilogy).

Don't get hung up on fate.  That's just an example, though I do think that fate is part of what ties those two example in.  Yes, storyline is probably closer to what I mean.  Basically, the storyline takes overs the setting, which is a kind of domination, but a bit more than that. 

It's ironic for Middle Earth, since the languages came first, and then the setting as a place for the languages to live, and then the stories only after.  Which of all things should theoretically be a place where you could run a variety of stories with no issue.  Maybe I'm blind on that one, because I like the ME storyline too much to detach it.  I could run a ME game set after Aragon dies, but then I'm back to Geeky's point.  The Heroes have diminished and gone into the West at that point.  So the game I can find a way to run I don't want to, and the game that I'd want to run, is hampered by the weight of the existing story line.

Once you decide that the weight of the story line is too much, then you are moving firmly into "alternate history".  Once you go there, there's really nothing holding you back from changing more.  The prior setting becomes less useful.  In fact, it pretty rapidly can become just another source to mine for ideas.  Pretty soon, you are pulling from multiple settings, and synthesizing the different ideas, and coming up with your own things.  Somewhere along the way, you weren't running a licensed setting anymore. 

For me, once I cross the line into alternate history territory, all bets are off.   I've run Forgotten Realms exactly as S'mon said--cut off with no Time of Troubles.  Only, I think that really isn't a FR campaign in some ways--ways that I consider a feature, not a bug.  That campaign started out as FR, because it was 95% out of the books.  It didn't stay FR, because it was allowed to evolve and pull in inspiration from other sources.

I could also be biased because I think fidelity to the setting of a film or novel make for lousy campaigns, in general.  The GM and players may make it good despite the handicap, but sticking to that kind of canon is a big, needless deadweight on the campaign.  Tell me your going to run ME or Star Wars or Lyonesse or James Bond or anything like that straight, and I'm out.  Tell me you are running a mashup of ME, Lankhmar, Grimm's fairy tales, and Kingdom of Ys, then I'm interested.

Quote from: Bruwulf on March 02, 2023, 10:11:41 PMHow many people seriously buy a licensed setting to just retell the same story as in the movie they watched, or read in the book? I'm sure some, perhaps, but I seriously question if that's the majority.

You've just described why a lot of people don't bother to buy licensed RPGs. There's little point replaying the previous stories and there's little need for a licensed RPG if you are just going to do an alternate history version.

Anyone else remember this series of ads for the WotC Star Wars RPG?



Nobody wants to be Stormtrooper number 14.

Does James Bond the movie series have a single recognisable canon? I got the impression it reset with each new actor. If you're GMing James Bond 007 as a solo RPG, just have the player play a new James Bond. Only reason not to use Bond is in a group game, so one PC does not overshadow the others.

I ran WEG D6 Star Wars, the PCs never felt overshadowed by Luke Skywalker. I think though these days I do prefer non-licensed settings.

Quote from: APN on March 02, 2023, 03:12:41 PM
TSR Marvel Superheroes was a great game back in the day (and the revised edition tweaks a few of the niggles). Well supported with stacks of supplements and adventures.

These days a licensed TTRPG is lucky to get half a dozen books/adventures because the suits that are in charge of handing the license out have unrealistic expectations. They see D&D numbers and expect millions to flow in.

When you look at the hugely successful licenced RPGs of the past, not only where they great games that you'd want to play even if not using the licensed setting, but, for the most part, they were the first big games in their genre. Call of Cthulhu was the first big horror game. Top Secret predated James Bond 007 but it was clunky. The sci-fi games before WEG's Star Wars were stodgy and overly complicated. The Marvel RPG had to supplant Champion but I'm no sure how popular Champions was back then (ant it was complicated as well. )

That's one reason why licensed games aren't as big a deal today as they used to be and end up fizzling out. There aren't many genres left that don't already have a decent RPG to cover them so the need for a new game is significantly less than in the 1980s.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 03, 2023, 08:39:55 AMOnce you decide that the weight of the story line is too much, then you are moving firmly into "alternate history".  Once you go there, there's really nothing holding you back from changing more.  The prior setting becomes less useful.  In fact, it pretty rapidly can become just another source to mine for ideas.  Pretty soon, you are pulling from multiple settings, and synthesizing the different ideas, and coming up with your own things.  Somewhere along the way, you weren't running a licensed setting anymore. 

Sure, but this is completely a valid way to use licensed settings.

As far as "nothing holding me back from changing more"... Yeah, but there's also nothing saying I have to. Maybe I just want to run Grey Box 'Realms.

That's where there seems to be a breakdown in understanding between two sides. "Once you have changed something, you might as well throw it all out and start from scratch" seems to be one side of the argument, and it just doesn't connect with me. That's almost literally "throwing the baby out with the bath water"... If RPGs were small humans and our bookcases were a bath tub, or something.

Okay, so not "almost literally", but you get the point.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on March 03, 2023, 08:41:11 AM
You've just described why a lot of people don't bother to buy licensed RPGs. There's little point replaying the previous stories and there's little need for a licensed RPG if you are just going to do an alternate history version.

Plenty of people clearly feel the need. At least, to the extent we *need* any of this hobby. Rather, say, they are strongly desired to the point where there is a market for them.

Again: Box of toys verses community theater. Licensed RPGs are boxes of toys. I can run them as close to the original story as I like, or just mine them for ideas, or any point in between.

Quote from: Bruwulf on March 03, 2023, 10:49:06 AMPlenty of people clearly feel the need. At least, to the extent we *need* any of this hobby. Rather, say, they are strongly desired to the point where there is a market for them.

There has to be some way to reconcile the fact that licensed games of today don't have the same impact that licensed games had in the 1980s and 1990s. Even mediocre licensed games of that era, like the first Star Trek and Dr. Who games, still had a huge amount of adventures and supplements published for them. Yet Fantasy Flight Game's recent Star Wars game got off to a great start but fizzled out to the point where the Asmodee just stopped publishing it.

If these types of games are strongly desired, why don't we see any of them sticking around like those old ones did?

I've already listed my reasons as:

1) There's no longer a need to buy an RPG supplement to use as a sourcebook
2) The RPG hobby has matured such that most genres already have multiple games to simulate them
3) Most movie and tv franchises are limited such that there is little room for a variety of adventures or are not open to adding in extra "heroes" to the story.

I will say that a licensed RPG is still a good way to introduce new players to the hobby but the product needs to be designed with this in mind. A starter set is good for this, a 300 page rulebook is not.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on March 03, 2023, 08:58:39 AM

When you look at the hugely successful licenced RPGs of the past, not only where they great games that you'd want to play even if not using the licensed setting, but, for the most part, they were the first big games in their genre. Call of Cthulhu was the first big horror game. Top Secret predated James Bond 007 but it was clunky. The sci-fi games before WEG's Star Wars were stodgy and overly complicated. The Marvel RPG had to supplant Champion but I'm no sure how popular Champions was back then (ant it was complicated as well. )

That's one reason why licensed games aren't as big a deal today as they used to be and end up fizzling out. There aren't many genres left that don't already have a decent RPG to cover them so the need for a new game is significantly less than in the 1980s.

There's a bit to unpack here.

I'll certainly agree, it's unlikely you're ever going to see a licensed RPG quite as monumental as D6 Star Wars or Call of Cthulhu. That's fair enough. And yes, I think the fact that they both got in pretty close to "on the ground floor" probably has a lot to do with it, but as you say, they were good games in their own right.

But I think we have to define "successful", here. As well to say the same thing about fantasy RPGs as long as Dungeons and Dragons is around... No game is ever going to have the success D&D does in the English speaking market. Even the long-running contenders - Rolemaster, Runequest, Harn, WFRP, etc - are basically just "also-rans" compared to the Mighty Dragon that is D&D.

But while there are plenty of licensed RPGs that are basically one-and-dones... Well, so too are there lots of *non* licensed RPGs that fare no better. And there are licensed RPGs that achieve a modicum of success, at least for a while. The Laundry Files had a decent run until Cubicle 7 lost the license for the system from Chaosium. Middle Earth has had a couple of reasonably successful RPGs - MERP, then The One Ring. I don't know if the 5E take has had any success, I don't partake of the fifth edition. My impression was that the WotC D20 Star Wars game was moderately successful. Conan has had at least two pretty successful RPGs.

But I think there's a more a couple other things.

One is a more unifying issue here than licensed verses original properties, and you kind of hit on it. It's very hard for a new game to break into the ranks of "successful RPG", rather than "flash-in-the-pan".

And unfortunately, a lot of licensed RPGs - because big name IP holders aren't likely to license properties to random yahoos these days - are basically done as cash grabs by bigger companies who don't ultimately care if they make a game that succeeds long term, so long as they get a good RoI for a while. So quite a lot of the time they get bolted to some existing system - D20, AGE, FATE, Cypher, etc. Sometimes those systems are a good fit, other times it's like trying to do a heart transplant when all you have is a lung. From a chicken.

Then other times, you get games where they try to stand out by being *too* unique, *too* different, and in the end chase away potential audience because they fail as even being a box of toys - it's not a box of toys, it's a big fancy playset, but you can't really do much with it other than poke at it and run your action figures around it. If I might be allowed to keep inventing and torturing metaphors. Mouseguard, as I mentioned earlier, kind of falls into this trap, but there have been others.

I dunno. I'll shut up for a bit, I'm rambling. Just got thoughts in my brainbox and I'm trying to get them out in some sort of semi-coherent fashion.

*edit*

Quote from: hedgehobbit on March 03, 2023, 11:14:05 AM
If these types of games are strongly desired, why don't we see any of them sticking around like those old ones did?

You posted while I was writing my last reply, but I sort of addressed this, or at least I threw some disjointed thoughts about the subject out.

Bruwulf,

That's all fair, as far as it goes.  I just go another step.  The odds against any new game being the best game it can be and breaking through the noise are astronomical.  A license, for multiple reasons, stacks the odds even more.  In return, the license maybe generates some interest, which the authors must find a way to leverage, to make up for the giant thumb on the scale.

For me, history shows that it is usually a net negative.  The exceptions for when it wasn't stick out as exceptions.  I'd feel the same way about any number of tacks that can be taken in a game, having nothing to do with licenses, too.  So I'm not saying that today a licensed game cannot both succeed and be a quality product.  If one did, I've be surprised but not shocked.  I'm just not holding my breathe.

Quote from: S'mon on March 03, 2023, 08:44:57 AM
Does James Bond the movie series have a single recognisable canon? I got the impression it reset with each new actor. If you're GMing James Bond 007 as a solo RPG, just have the player play a new James Bond. Only reason not to use Bond is in a group game, so one PC does not overshadow the others.

The Daniel Craig films were a reboot (despite keeping the same actress for M). The other Bonds form a continuity from Connery to Brosnan. Quite how he was so young in the 21st century when he was solving missions in the early '60s isn't explained.

At the time that RPG came out, there was only one film Bond, and most of the published missions were based on the films, so it was definitely playing loose with the canon, especially since the adventures intentionally deviate from the movies. As I recall, the game suggests having Bond pop-up if the players do badly in the mission, so that he can save the day and prevent doomsday. So the game itself certainly appears to be suggesting a break from the single film canon that existed at the time.

Quote from: Krazz on March 03, 2023, 01:10:31 PM

Quote from: S'mon on March 03, 2023, 08:44:57 AM
Does James Bond the movie series have a single recognisable canon? I got the impression it reset with each new actor. If you're GMing James Bond 007 as a solo RPG, just have the player play a new James Bond. Only reason not to use Bond is in a group game, so one PC does not overshadow the others.

The Daniel Craig films were a reboot (despite keeping the same actress for M). The other Bonds form a continuity from Connery to Brosnan. Quite how he was so young in the 21st century when he was solving missions in the early '60s isn't explained.

At the time that RPG came out, there was only one film Bond, and most of the published missions were based on the films, so it was definitely playing loose with the canon, especially since the adventures intentionally deviate from the movies. As I recall, the game suggests having Bond pop-up if the players do badly in the mission, so that he can save the day and prevent doomsday. So the game itself certainly appears to be suggesting a break from the single film canon that existed at the time.

Thanks, Krazz. I agree. In my last JB007 campaign, I thought the idea of "Bond saves the day" was a terrible suggestion in the game that makes the PCs seem very much lesser and Bond omnipotent. It very much exemplifies the complaint that makes the PCs into lesser heroes rather than THE HERO.

GeekyBugle suggested that Bond should just be working other cases -- but as you note, the Bond adventures often involve world-shaking catastrophe, like destroying Fort Knox with a nuclear bomb. If the world is at stake and Bond was active, one would expect that Bond would be involved - at least overlapping with the PCs.

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Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 03, 2023, 08:39:55 AM

Quote from: jhkim on March 03, 2023, 02:09:52 AM
It seems to me a bigger feature is that while James Bond canon has a dozen or more mostly-unrelated storylines, Middle Earth is dominated by one storyline (Lord of the Rings) and Star Wars is arguably dominated by one storyline (the original trilogy).

Basically, the storyline takes overs the setting, which is a kind of domination, but a bit more than that. 

It's ironic for Middle Earth, since the languages came first, and then the setting as a place for the languages to live, and then the stories only after.  Which of all things should theoretically be a place where you could run a variety of stories with no issue.  Maybe I'm blind on that one, because I like the ME storyline too much to detach it.  I could run a ME game set after Aragon dies, but then I'm back to Geeky's point.  The Heroes have diminished and gone into the West at that point.  So the game I can find a way to run I don't want to, and the game that I'd want to run, is hampered by the weight of the existing story line.

That's my bolding above which seems to me to be the key. I can in principle understand that having emotional attachment to the existing storyline could mean that one can't enjoy an alternate history where the storyline is different. So it's about attachment to the original storyline. My fiancee has a similar problem with covers and mashups of songs she likes. For her, she's often very attached to the song the way she learned it, and can't enjoy a cover or alternate version even if she admits that the cover is skillfully done by a band she likes.

I often love alternate versions, maybe because I detach a little more and can enjoy multiple versions of the same song -- and similarly alternate histories of fiction. I'm trying to think of storylines where I'm so attached that I couldn't enjoy an alternate history of it, but I can't think of an example. Still, I can at least in theory understand that principle in others.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 03, 2023, 08:39:55 AM
I could also be biased because I think fidelity to the setting of a film or novel make for lousy campaigns, in general.  The GM and players may make it good despite the handicap, but sticking to that kind of canon is a big, needless deadweight on the campaign.  Tell me your going to run ME or Star Wars or Lyonesse or James Bond or anything like that straight, and I'm out.  Tell me you are running a mashup of ME, Lankhmar, Grimm's fairy tales, and Kingdom of Ys, then I'm interested.

I don't find that canon is a deadweight as long as the GM and players are on board with it being an alternate history. Just like historical gaming would be crippled if the players couldn't do anything to change history.

For me, the top thing that I like about using an adapted setting is that the players can instantly know what the world is like and what their characters would know. To get that same background knowledge of an original world, the GM has to give hours-long narration or multi-page writeups. Mashups aren't much better, since there are a thousand questions about how those different pieces fit together. What's the geography like? If I'm a Newhon ghoul, what are relations like with the sylvan elves? etc.

Being able to jump over the background means that we can get right into what I usually find is the more interesting stuff -- the PCs and their adventures.

Quote from: jhkim on March 05, 2023, 12:00:50 AM
For me, the top thing that I like about using an adapted setting is that the players can instantly know what the world is like and what their characters would know. To get that same background knowledge of an original world, the GM has to give hours-long narration or multi-page writeups. Mashups aren't much better, since there are a thousand questions about how those different pieces fit together. What's the geography like? If I'm a Newhon ghoul, what are relations like with the sylvan elves? etc.

Being able to jump over the background means that we can get right into what I usually find is the more interesting stuff -- the PCs and their adventures.

That's a place where your feature is my bug.  Because I'm focused on develop in play.  I don't want huge backgrounds from the players.  I don't want to give them all that narration or written background (though I do provide a little).  Background assumptions brought in from the license are just as bad or worse, because now I need to work to get those assumptions out.  Plus, almost everyone I run games for appreciates uncovering mysteries and secrets of the game world, with several different reasons why. 

The players learn what the world is like by playing in it, which is by far my preferred style.

Though the conversation has been helpful, because it has resolved something that I knew by experience and intuition but hadn't fully thought to its logical conclusion:  I don't like licensed material because it is (too long) background information written by someone not even in the campaign.