Wednesday, October 05, 2011

A with X, B with Y

Sometimes I really dig on an RPG setting but don't want necessarily want to run it using the attached system.  Here are a couple of examples. 


I love the original BattleTech material but the attached MechWarrior RPG doesn't do much for me.  Sometimes I think about adopting a bunch of material into Mekton Zeta, using the Japanese B-tech artwork and running a game about the brave large-eyed heroes of House Kurita fighting evil across the Inner Sphere.  One of the background themes of the campaign would be the way American and Japanese culture appropriate each other.  The foreground of the campaign would be about giant robots exploding.



Andy Hopp's Low Life is one of the few gamebooks out there perfectly blends good writing and great art.  Also, it is one of the stupidest settings you'll ever find.  It's a Savage Worlds book.  There's nothing wrong with Savage Worlds that punching Smilin' Jack in the face won't fix.  In fact I once used some old Gangbusters material to run a pretty dang fun Savage Worlds-powered gangster game.  But I don't want to teach it to my current crop of players and I'd just as soon use Mutant Future for most post-apocalyptic shenanigans.


S. John Ross's nifty Uresia: Grave of Heaven was originally written for Big Eyes, Small Mouth and later adapted to BESM d20.  However, if I were to ever run D&D 3.x again I would seriously consider Uresia for my setting.  Here's how it would work: The campaign would start in Rinden, the land of fairy tale style knights and princesses and dragons.  As far as the players are concerned, it would be "the Rinden campaign" at first and all they know about the world beyond the borders is those places are weird.  Initial PC choice would be limited to a handful of classes and races, fewer even than in the 3.x Players Handbooks.  Then we'd slowly introduce new classes and races that align with the other regions of Uresia, until you can send the party out into the world with some rough idea of what some of the other places on the big map are like.

Incidentally, S. John has been working on a systemless 3rd edition to Uresia for a while now.  In the meantime there are some goodies for the setting over at his Cumberland Games & Diversions website.



I've long been surprised that I've never encountered anyone who ever ran ICE's Space Master in the 3rd Imperium setting of Traveller.  Seems like a perfect combo to get a rich setting and lotsa wicked critical hits.  Maybe I'm the only person who wants both in a game.

Anyone else have any settings they'd prefer to yank from one game and import into another?


41 comments:

  1. I'd be tempted to fit some other rules system with the Star Wars setting, but not quite sure what.

    There's a setting for RQ, Clockwork & Chivalry, that I'd like to use with D&D rules; but other than that, I haven't mixed-up anything... although I probably should...

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  2. The basic background and monsters of Earthdawn with Swords and Wizardry.

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  3. Loved the setting of SJG's In Nomine, hated the GURPS-lite mechanics. Ported the game over to White Wolf's Storyteller system, which allowed me to include Vampires, Werewolves, and everything else for the Angels to fight. Worked quite well and I ran it for over 5 years.

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  4. I tend to go the other way: find a game with a system I love, but a setting I'm meh about, then go looking for, or build, a setting I like around the game system.

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  5. This is why I'm a fan of GURPS

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  6. Love Hârn, but ran it with B/X D&D. Your low fantasy is in my high. No, your high fantasy is in my low. Really turned out to be a well balanced mix.

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  7. I played in a great game once with Seventh Sea system and Arabian Nights setting.

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  8. Rifts/Robotech with BESM D20 - I have a nice little list of templates for already and a simple conversion for MDC

    I'm still very interested running Star Wars under EC like my hero, Jeff.

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  9. I'm running an Eberron game under Savage Worlds, and that seems to be working quite well.

    I love Feng Shui's setting, but I've never really got on with the rules. I'm not sure which ruleset I'd use; Savage Worlds (again) would be a top choice, but it lacks decent martial arts rules, and that's a rather important facet of Feng Shui.

    I'd like to play Rifts one day, but I'm not going anywhere near that system.

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  10. Anonymous12:04 PM

    Since Palladium is a D&D adaptation, I figured turnabout was fair play; I adapted Rifts to d20, and it worked really well. I made up a bunch of feats and designed the RPA pilot based on the Fighter class, and it worked really well.

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  11. I've never seen the Third Imperium under Space Master rules, but I have seen SM adventures run using Traveller rules.

    Traveller is the simpler of the two systems...

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  12. Rifts with just about any other rules set is probably the most common thing to do. :)

    I have toyed with the idea of using the D6 system for a long time, but haven't gotten around to testing it.

    Way back when there was no wh40k rpg, everyone was talking about how well Savage Worlds would work for that. I agree. We got so far as to generate some of the characters before that floundered.

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  14. Nephilim Occult Roleplaying with 2nd edition D&D rules back in the mid 90s. Had alot of fun with that actually.

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  15. I am currently preparing to run a Hienz 57 of a game ... taking elements of Oriental Adventures (mixing heaping portions of NOD for the sandbox), and large swatches of RIFTS and running it under the twin banners of OD&D and Mutant Future (where applicable for bots, D-Bees/mutants and mechs). This has been simmering for a few months now, congieling and jelling into a usable and complimentary system and it's almost ready to serve unto my players.

    Mutant ninjas on mechanized dinosaurs doing battle with a temple of undead sohei turned river pirates sounds tasty to me, even if only as a one off game.

    JM.

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  16. John - Has the undead shoei temple been converted to a river-going pirate fortress? If not, why not?

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  17. I like the concepts behind Traveller, but I don't really want to learn the system, so I thought it would be easier to port it into Stars Without Number, which is basically B/X D&D.

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  18. I have had the mythical systemless 3rd edition to Uresia on my wishlist for a while, now

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  20. A friend of mine (http://wombatwarlord.blogspot.com/) is running Birthright using Song of Ice and Fire Roleplay rules. It's apparently working out quite well.

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  21. I'd agree with you that Low Life could do with a different rule set, but I'd go with D&D or a variant of such, the setting is pretty much swords and sorcery with added added snot, dandruff and buboes.

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  22. Actually, now that I think of it, I'm running Solar System (and indie game) using the Wilderlands of High Fantasy (the d20 boxed set).

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  23. There's nothing wrong with Savage Worlds that punching Smilin' Jack in the face won't fix.

    AY-fucking-MEN, brutha.

    I've been wanting for some reason to run Space Master with the Stars Without Number system. I always thought the background of SM was cool, but it could really use a simpler system to go along with it.

    Of course, you're talking to someone who has urges to convert the Arduin trilogy over to Microlite74, so there's that to consider.

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  24. Earthdawn setting and well, any other ruleset in the universe.

    Just about anything except a martial arts heavy setting into your much maligned Savage Worlds.

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  25. JAGS Wonderland is, perhaps, the best campaign setting I've ever read.

    It's a mostly-internally-consistent reworking of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland, into a bizarre present-day Weird Nightmare game.

    I don't know whether the author spent some time in the clutches of the mental health system, or whether he's just been close to people who have, but it has a terrifying portrait of paranoid delusions as a contagious illness (of course, in the game, they're not false), which hits particular fears of mine.

    Add to that the whole reality-as-narrative-structure conceit of the game, and the high-level Chessboards in which, for instance, marketing slogans Say What They mean, and you have a game that I'd really, really love to run or play in. (Playing with my current gaming group is a nonstarter, for various reasons.)

    But JAGS...geez. It's like a game system designed by someone who thought what GURPS 3d-ed-with-all-the-supplements needed was More Crunch.

    I'm not sure what I'd run Wonderland in but it would be something narrativist and rules-very-light. If I were going with Traditionalist, maybe something like my own 3-point Fudge (a very minimal Fudge implementation). If I were going a little Indie-r, Spirit of the Century, maybe. Or In A Wicked Age.

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  27. Jeff Rients said...

    John - Has the undead shoei temple been converted to a river-going pirate fortress? If not, why not?

    Originally, I'd planned on Kappa/Wu Jen (Kappa Magi?) type villain masterminding it all from a land based temple overrun with swampy extra-dimensional/terrestrial weeds similar to the Creepshow segment "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill," but your suggestion for a floating river-temple bears much rockitude!

    Clearly, I must cast all doubts to the henchmen of the four winds, for merging these eccentric ideas shall bring about epictacular WTFisms of Phasic proportions ...

    My Tin-Foil Derby is off to you sir!

    JM

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  28. I've run the Perilous Lands campaign setting from Powers & Perils using the Dangerous Journeys: Mythus RPG.

    I've also run Epic of Aerth, the Mythus RPG campaign setting, using 3E D&D and 1e AD&D.

    I've run a Star Trek campaign using the old WEG d6 Star Wars system.

    Those are the major ones that come to mind...

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  29. A few that I have thought about in the past:

    Dark Sun with Mutant Future
    40k with 3:16
    James Bond with Dogs of War

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  30. Stormbringer (for setting and lots of cool tables & ideas) run with Tunnels and Trolls under the hood.

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  31. I do it with Supers all the time.

    DC using M&M (only now that's official!), DC using ICONS, Marvel and DC using Champions, etc.

    Space Master's system prevented me from going to deeply into it to really get immersed in it's setting. That and I usually homebrew Sci-Fi settings when not playing Star Trek.

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  32. I've seriously considered how I could run 7th Sea with the Castle Falkenstein system. Love the world of 7th Sea but after two short campaigns, the rules didn't live up.

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  33. I was also considering running GURPS Steel and Infinite Worlds with another system, probably BESM D20.

    It's funny that I could handle GURPS 3ed with supplements but now I can't wrap my mind around GURPS 4th edition. Maybe it's just my age because I can't figure out Savage World or Mutants and Masterminds either.

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  34. I'd love to play in a freshly hacked Battletech campaign. If you ever plan on doing one ping me - "murdockpeter" through the gmail thingy. It, along with Robotech, have been some of the more difficult settings to GM in (for me at least). You have to properly balance mecha action with small arms level, and then attempt (key word) at anime style plots ; which can be difficult at best to pull off at the table. With your experience and style I think you could pull it off, and very well at that : so I vote for you to do a Battletech offering at some point.

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  35. For years I've been tinkering with the Skyrealms of Jorune setting for some iteration of BRP (originally using Stormbringer as a template, then the Big Gold Book, and now leaning towards OpenQuest).

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  36. Battletech and Robotech under the Silhouette rules - any other mecha-themed setting for that matter.

    Conan played with Barbarians of Lemuria (that system is just right for Sword & Sorsery).

    Necromunda (a skirmish-level wargame from WH40K) played as a RPG - any system. This setting kicks ass!

    Lords of Creation played with... eh..? I cant think of a system that can handle that level of meta-genre awesome!

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  37. I've a hankering to do a post-apocalyptic Pendragon with mutants.

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  38. I'm running Buffy (or, really, the feel is closer to Angel) in GURPS 4th. I'd probably be fine with Unisystem if someone else was running it, but using a system I already know frees up my time for planning horrible fates for the PCs.

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  39. Cadillacs & Dinosaurs is too pulpish for its military action-tuned system. I have always wanted to port this setting to BRP, Unisystem of Fudge.

    Also, I'd like to run a Call of Cthulhu game using Fudge, just because.

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  40. My old gaming group used to do this all the time. Some of our most memorable ones were:

    Using various mid-90's White Wolf rules with 2e Darksun. We gave Fighters Rage and weapon specialties, Wizards got Mage rules, Clerics used True Faith, and Rogues got a hodgepodge of stuff and a surprise strike. Most fun I ever had playing a D&D setting.

    We also imported In Nomine angels & demons into our Vampire: the Masquerade game. Unfortunately, it didn't last very long.

    Combined the Battletech setting & combat rules with Mekton mech-building rules.

    Used Cyberpunk rules in some generic D&D games.

    Ever since I first played it, I've dropped a little bit of Earthdawn's setting into every game I've run (including the current one).

    And I'm currently running a Star Wars game (with an idea stolen from this very website: Using only the original movie, novelization, and first 35 Marvel comics as background) using rules from my new love, QUERPS.

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  41. Once, I did run a generic space adventure using Gamma World rules (2nd edition I think). Seemed to work well.

    All the mutants became various aliens. And you had all of the various tech stuff already.

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