Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 12, 2024, 10:19:18 PM

Quote from: Omega on January 12, 2024, 09:41:09 PM
So the argument is that because someone went out and slew a dragon that no one else can ever slay a dragon and be a hero too?

That is patently stupid.

Yes, because, as we all know, Star Wars is filled to the brim with Emperors and Darth Vaders... 

This is why I run Star Wars games set in the Great Cold War era of the Old Republic. Tons of Sith and Jedi. Vast consortiums of crime Syndicates. Ancient precursor races that are far more dangerous than the Empire. Cthulhu! (yes! if you squint). Droid Apocalypse scenarios. Rakghoul outbreaks. Hutt civil wars. The Chiss Ascendency! Oh yeah, and the Sith Empire is ruled by a council of badass banthafuckers that individually could crush Palpatine like a fucking grape. Then there is the True Emperor....

Yeah it's pretty refreshing. Its limitless sandbox possibility without ever touching the OT or anything concerning the movieverse.

Quote from: tenbones on January 17, 2024, 03:35:07 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 12, 2024, 10:19:18 PM

Quote from: Omega on January 12, 2024, 09:41:09 PM
So the argument is that because someone went out and slew a dragon that no one else can ever slay a dragon and be a hero too?

That is patently stupid.

Yes, because, as we all know, Star Wars is filled to the brim with Emperors and Darth Vaders... 

This is why I run Star Wars games set in the Great Cold War era of the Old Republic. Tons of Sith and Jedi. Vast consortiums of crime Syndicates. Ancient precursor races that are far more dangerous than the Empire. Cthulhu! (yes! if you squint). Droid Apocalypse scenarios. Rakghoul outbreaks. Hutt civil wars. The Chiss Ascendency! Oh yeah, and the Sith Empire is ruled by a council of badass banthafuckers that individually could crush Palpatine like a fucking grape. Then there is the True Emperor....

Yeah it's pretty refreshing. Its limitless sandbox possibility without ever touching the OT or anything concerning the movieverse.

Did you read the thread starter?

I've run a lot and I mean, a lot of Superhero games over the years, and while I've often found some of the individual RPG settings interesting (Freedom City and Champions Universe 4th ed in particular) sometimes playing in the actual Marvel or DC Universe is just a helluva lot more fun. Particularly for a bunch of comic book dorks.

I ran a years long "Young Justice" game where we scraped most of the original sidekick characters and my players created their own (An original Superboy who was a clone of Hel, A brand new GL, a different Kid Flash, a Green Arrow Daughter, Swamp Thing's protege who was the nephew of Anton Arcane) The players stopped Lex Luthor from becoming President, prevented the Joker from becoming a Lord of Chaos, went to the future of the Original Watchman Idea that Alan Moore had, Fought the Sinestro Corp, and eventually took on Darkseid.

That game sticks more in my player's memories than most of our original Superhero games... Because there's a big difference between foiling the Plans of the actual Joker, rather than Joker with the serial numbers filed off.

YMMV

Quote from: Orphan81 on January 17, 2024, 07:08:28 PM
I've run a lot and I mean, a lot of Superhero games over the years, and while I've often found some of the individual RPG settings interesting (Freedom City and Champions Universe 4th ed in particular) sometimes playing in the actual Marvel or DC Universe is just a helluva lot more fun. Particularly for a bunch of comic book dorks.

I ran a years long "Young Justice" game where we scraped most of the original sidekick characters and my players created their own (An original Superboy who was a clone of Hel, A brand new GL, a different Kid Flash, a Green Arrow Daughter, Swamp Thing's protege who was the nephew of Anton Arcane) The players stopped Lex Luthor from becoming President, prevented the Joker from becoming a Lord of Chaos, went to the future of the Original Watchman Idea that Alan Moore had, Fought the Sinestro Corp, and eventually took on Darkseid.

That game sticks more in my player's memories than most of our original Superhero games... Because there's a big difference between foiling the Plans of the actual Joker, rather than Joker with the serial numbers filed off.

YMMV

Where you're playing as The Hero, not some rando on the shadow of Luke.

Don't know why would anyone think this in any way negates my points.

It matters a lot how much you jump genres and sub genres.  The more you jump around, the more important it is to get the players to latch onto the tone/feel of the campaign, and the easier it is with some players to telegraph that through existing properties.  Plus, you aren't going to stay with it long enough for the warts to show.

Whereas when you take a more original, or at least "local" idea, and give it time to breathe, it doesn't matter if everyone gets the tone exactly right out of the gate.  Plus, they are more likely to read whatever modest guide you give them.

It comes down to being in the canon of the source material, versus playing something like the stories in the original. Sometimes one is preferable to the other. Sometimes you can do a little of both. Star Wars is so big, I don't think it's hard to find big stories to tell. The PCs could still save entire planets, or meet key members of the rebellion, or face a secret Sith apprentice. OTOH, sometimes you want to run a game where the PCs get to be their own heroic farmboys, their own smugglers, their own aged space wizards. In that case, you can do an alternate universe thing; sometimes I like to frame it in my mind as a series reboot with a new cast. Or sometimes you change a few things, just enough, that you can do what you want with it.

One of my RPG books started, essentially, as an outgrowth of my tendency to convert Star Wars to absolutely every game system in the universe. Obviously, though, there's limits to what you can do with an established IP. Fan materials still exist somewhat in the shadow of the thing itself. And for me, I got to thinking about what I could do commercially, since my chances of getting to work on a licensed Star Wars RPG are close to zero. So it turned into an exercise of, what if I just made this my own? The initial premise wasn't to change things just to change them, apart, from, you know, trademarked names. I started to just think about what would be something that comes from me, not just trying to recreate the feeling I got from watching Lucas's films. So first you change one thing, then another. You don't have to actually recreate the scope of an IP's canon, just to run a game. Just letting something be itself can fill a lot of pages. Enough to make it come to life.

I think that's how you get something like Harn. You set out to imitate, but not to just clone something or generify it. If you just say, okay, nothing is sacred, you can draw on your experiences with one setting to make another. Star Wars, after all, started when George Lucas, while trying to overcome the challenges of getting a Flash Gordon license, decided to start thinking about what his own Flash Gordon would be like. Star Wars isn't Flash Gordon, but you can definitely see where it comes from. Blond farmboy goes into outer space, meets space princesses, challenges an evil space emperor, uses swords, uses rayguns.

It's not the only way to deal with IPs. But making your own setting, with blackjack and hookers, is a viable way to draw on something you love without getting stuck in it. It doesn't have to be bland or generic, it can get weird. It can be personal.

The biggest problem I find with licensed IP settings is the players.   In my experience, players desperately want to trash licensed settings. I call it the Meet,Fuck,Kill problem.  Because that's what they all want.  To meet the key characters and either fuck or kill them.

If I were to run a LOTR game I would set it in the 4th age, after the death of King Aragorn,  during the tyrannical reign of the dark Queen Arwen.

I just ignore the canon when it suits me.  One of the first things I did in my DCU game was have the Teen Titans and the Justice League either get killed off or go missing.  Superman was straight killed.  That made the characters, who were part of the JSA, more important.

I can go either way.

Personally, I don't mind playing a more localized and smaller story within a larger story.

If I want to play Star Wars, its usually either Jedi, which means it can be done in any period with more than a handful of Jedi running around or smuggles/mercs in the fringes, which means it can be basically in any period.

Same with a superhero game, the Marvel and DC verses are so big and have so many layers that one can still save the world even while the big names where engaged doing something else.


However, I mostly run games in homebrew worlds. Although I can also see an argument for alternate versions of existing IPs with changes made to suit the story that group wants to create.

The movie Rogue One ruined my go-to Star Wars campaign...

i'll say it: dragonlance.

dragonlance! (said it again! ha suck it!)

fans of the setting are the worst players to have when you try to play in it. you either replace the novel heroes, become novel hero adjacent doing equally important thing that didn't get a novel, or you play dnd against the backdrop of krynn.

no solution i am aware of.